A lot of things get brought to light in this chapter. Actually, only three things get revealed but that's enough. Find out what they are! Oh, I just realized something. In the last chapter Duo made a comment about Wufei not being stupid…uh, just ignore that. I meant to change it but I forgot. Gomen nasai.
Virus
Continued
8. Truth
At long last, Quatre, Duo and Dr. J had gotten around Wufei's tampering and manipulated the lights into barriers. Now with only two hours left before Wufei's transformation would be complete, they had to work quickly to create a cure. Dr. J was leading Quatre and Duo to a nearby chemical lab. He could access the information they had already gathered from testing on just about any computer so they could start on the vaccine there. Duo noticed the floor getting sticky. No, perhaps sticky wasn't the correct word. It was more like…grabby. The floor seemed to be holding his feet down.
"Uh…look Dr. J…I know you're a busy man and all…" he grunted as he yanked his foot up. "But would it kill ya to mop the floors once in a while?" Dr. J ignored Duo's comment and stopped to examine something on the wall. It was a handprint. He ran the fingers of his good hand over it. It was like water but when he tried to push a finger into it, it hardened. Thinking about it a moment, he decided not to push his finger in but rather let it settle in. This worked.
"Incredible…" he gasped. The substance hardened again as he tried to remove the finger. So once more he had to relax and let his finger slide out. It was then that he realized that this substance could prove useful in climbing walls – which is what it had been used for. The two young pilots fought their way over to where Dr. J stood.
"Do you notice how your feet sink in?" he asked them. They gave him cynical looks. "Now just stay still. Your feet don't sink anymore!" The boys glanced down at their feet. They were planted firmly on top of the goop.
"Hey! How did that happen?" Duo asked in amazement.
"It would appear that the molecules of this substance are not completely bonded. They resist separation but they also resist being pushed together. They must be both positive and negatively magnetically charged."
"Would you run that by me again?" Dr. J let out an exasperated sigh at Duo's lack of comprehension. Quatre decided to explain.
"It means that if you push your feet down on the stuff they won't go in and if you try to pull them out, they won't come out."
"So then how have we been able to walk?" Dr. J took over the explanation this time.
"When you walk, you put weight on one foot at a time. The foot without weight on it sinks into the liquid. Once the weight is transferred and the foot relaxes, the liquid releases it somewhat, allowing you to pull it out."
"Okay…I understand how it works…but what's the point?"
"If a person was able to produce this substance they could walk straight up walls."
"I still don't see the point." Dr. J was going to give Duo a piece of his mind when Quatre spoke up suddenly.
"Look! There's an open vent!" He pointed his flashlight above Dr. J's head. There was indeed an uncovered ventilation shaft in the wall and it was overflowing with the thick fluid. The three of them already knew what it meant. Wufei had gone down that shaft. And who only knew what he had taken down there with him…
"Heero and Trowa probably came this way…" Quatre mumbled.
"And if they did come this way they would have seen this…" Duo added.
"I ordered Heero to find Wufei so he would definitely have gone in there…" They all exchanged glances. There was almost no stopping Quatre and Duo as they scrambled to get into the shaft.
"I'll be in the lab around the corner when you get back!" Dr. J called after them. He was answered by a resounding 'okay' from the vent. He stared after them until he couldn't hear them at all. Finally he was left alone in the darkness. Turning his flashlight on his new path he started out for the chemical lab to get working. Shuck, shuck… Dr. J wheeled around, aiming his flashlight like a laser. Nothing…there was nothing behind him. So he continued on, trying to push his paranoia to the back of his mind. Shuck, shuck… There wasn't anything behind him, he told himself. He was alone – alone in the dark. His feet moved faster without command – they were aware of the danger and weren't about to stick around for it to come. Shuck, shuck, shuck… The sound was getting faster. He scolded himself for being so afraid. Shuck-shuck-shuck… Dr. J wondered if the creature could hear his heart beating. He could – it was in his ears. Just as he thought he would break out into a run he caught sight of his feet. Shuck… He burst into relieved laughter. It had been his feet the whole time.
"Oh J, you really are a senile old fool." he chuckled to himself. His laughter was silenced without warning. Another flashlight hit the floor.
***
It wasn't long before Quatre and Duo found Trowa and Heero. Most of the slime had been moved and the resulting trail had led them straight there. When they emerged into the huge slime filled room the first thing they saw of course was the huge nest Wufei had built. They scanned its surface from top to bottom, taking in every visible detail and when they got to the bottom they spotted the two other pilots suspended about three feet off the floor. Fearing the worst, they ran to the unmoving boys hanging near the nest. Duo stopped in front of Heero and gazed into his face. The area around his mouth was covered in slime. Trowa's face was also lightly covered with the sticky liquid. Quatre wiped a bit of the stuff from Trowa's face and examined it. He noted that it gave off a sweet scent. Then he found himself in Duo's arms.
"What…what happened?" he mumbled.
"I dunno. You were starin' at that stuff then you fell over." Duo told him.
"It's….it's sleeping gas…get it off…" Duo nodded and laid Quatre down. He wiped the slime off of Heero's face with the hem of his tanktop. Almost immediately Heero began to stir. Heero's eyes blinked open slowly. He was met with a grinning boy. He tried to say Duo's name but he couldn't move his mouth.
"Don't worry, Hee-chan! I'll get you outta that!" Remembering what Dr. J had told him, Duo held Heero so that he was neither pulling on the vines nor pushing against them. Heero's limbs slid free and Duo laid him next to Quatre. He repeated this process for Trowa.
"Whew…" he panted, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. "You guys should really lighten up on those meals." Laughing lightly at his joke he moved toward Heero. Quatre got up and glanced over Duo's shoulder down at the motionless pilot. Then he looked over at Trowa who was also not moving. The only movement coming from either of them was the steady rising and falling of their chests and the blinking of their eyes.
"Why aren't they moving?" Quatre wondered aloud.
"I don't know…" Duo scratched his head.
"I guess that slime has some kind of paralyzing effect." Duo knelt by Heero.
"Blink once if you feel this. Don't blink if you don't feel anything." he told him. He pinched Heero's arm. Heero didn't blink. He gently slapped Heero's cheek. Again, Heero didn't blink.
"I think they might just be numb." Duo stated. Quatre nodded.
"Yeah, that stuff was pretty cold."
"So what do we do?"
"Well, we have to try to get them out of here…"
"We can't drag them through the shaft with us, there's not enough room for that."
"You're right. We have to get the feeling back in them somehow…"
"We have to make them warm. The best way to do that is to get their hearts going."
"Well we can't have them get up and run around."
"Well we can't just leave them laying there, either!" An idea struck Quatre.
"And we're not going to leave them laying there!" He picked up Trowa's arms and began moving them around. Duo raised an eyebrow.
"You okay, Quatre?" he asked.
"If we move them, their blood will start moving again. That will put the feeling back in their bodies!" Quatre was right. Already Trowa could feel life and strength returning to his limbs. Duo turned to Heero. The Prussian blue eyes narrowed threateningly. A last look at Trowa was enough to convince him; he saw Trowa's fingers move.
"Sorry, Hee-chan, it's for your own good." Unable to stop Duo, Heero watched as the loud-mouthed American played with his limp appendages. He decided that as soon as he could move again he would beat Duo up as a way of thanking him. A smirk would have crossed his face just then if he could've managed it.
***
At 8:30 p.m. all the pilots but Wufei crawled wet, sticky and some a little bruised from a ventilation shaft. Duo mumbled something about ungratefulness as he gingerly caressed his bruised arm.
"Let's go this way!" Quatre exclaimed, pointing his flashlight. They unknowingly retraced Dr. J's footsteps and found themselves in the chemical lab he was supposed to be waiting in. There was a small puddle of slime on the floor. Quatre moved toward it cautiously.
"I wonder where this came from." A thick drop of the dark green liquid narrowly missed hitting his arm, sending him stumbling back a few steps with a start. He followed its trail up to the ceiling.
"Oh my God…" Adhered to the ceiling with an incredible amount of the sticky stuff was Dr. J, unconscious due to the slime on his face.
"You're lucky that he's only asleep." All four boys' attention shifted to the source of the words. Wufei sat calmly on a desk, leaning on one bent leg and letting the other hang over the edge. Quatre filtered his light and shined it on Wufei. With the light on him, they could see that he had gone back to speaking telepathically.
"Wufei, what are you doing? Look at yourself! You need help, Wufei. Let us help you!" he pleaded. Wufei acted as though he hadn't heard this.
"He's been lying to you, you know." he said. Quatre blinked.
"Who's been lying to me?"
"Him…" Wufei lifted a clawed hand lazily, indicating Dr. J. "He's been lying to all of you. You think he's been working on a way to remove this organism from my body but in truth, he has been looking for a way to control me and leave the organism right where it is."
"Why would he do that?"
"Don't be so naïve, Quatre. He would do it because there's something in it for him. What does he want? He wants another, more perfect soldier, of course. He wants a soldier that's faster, stronger; better than any human could ever be. Do you think he cares about my weakness against light? Undoubtedly he thinks he can train me out of it. All he would need to do is find a way to tame me, to brainwash me like he did Heero and he would have the ultimate weapon.
"But…"
"But what? But at least he cares about humanity's future? I care about humanity's future too. I care to see that humanity has no future. You humans are so selfish. You do nothing for others, you care only for yourselves. Even you, Quatre. Why do you help people? You do it because it makes you feel good, because it makes you happy. You get something from being nice and so you keep doing it. All humans share this trait. This is the very same trait that destroyed my people."
"What are you talking about? Your people are humans!" The lab swirled and melted into a different setting. They were standing on the bare, rock hard surface of what seemed to be a planet. The sound of explosions reached their ears. Cargo shuttles and construction workers swarmed around them.
"This is my home before it was destroyed." Wufei narrated. "The humans you see there were building the drifting synthetic planets you call colonies. They were blasting debris that was too large to move. My home was one of the objects targeted for destruction. " Slowly, oddly shaped creatures began to appear. They slithered up from below the surface of what was actually a large rock.
"My people could not defend themselves against such powerful weapons. We were still very primitive in the field of technology. The humans never even knew of our existence but they destroyed our entire civilization. They wiped out in seconds what took millennia to build." The other pilots watched as a seemingly giant man planted some explosives right near them. He pushed off and drifted away. Without warning, the explosives went off. A long, thin arm stretched towards one of the creatures. It was then that they realized they were seeing this from the organism's perspective. It had been reaching for its mate. Then suddenly there was darkness.
"I don't know how long I drifted out there in space. Well, I didn't until I inhabited this body." The darkness blurred then cleared. A battle scene filled their vision. They saw Wufei's gundam firing at a mobile suit. Then an asteroid sliced through its thrusters.
"Do you see those asteroids? They are the only remainders of my home." They drifted closer to Wufei's gundam. None of them realized that they were on the same asteroid that had damaged the gundam so badly on their last mission. Finally the rock crashed into the cockpit and they could see Wufei. His voice bounced vaguely against their ears drums. They seemed to be sliding towards him and he didn't realize it. The sequence skipped ahead to when the organism had actually entered Wufei's body. There was an expression of absolute horror on his face just before they disappeared down his throat. Then just as quickly as the vision had begun it ended and they found themselves in Dr. J' laboratory once again.
"So now you know why I want to destroy all humans. I am here to avenge the death of my civilization and to create a new one."
"You…you're not Wufei…" Quatre said, pointing an accusing finger.
"That is correct. I am neither the human called Wufei nor the creature whose home you destroyed. Their minds have blended together to create me. The alien part of me will purge the universe of humans and the human part of me will replace those killed."
"How do you plan on making a new civilization without another… person to have children?"
"I have noticed that your species is viviparous. However, my species has the option of being either viviparous or asexual. I have already modified this body to these specifications."
"What exactly does that mean?" Duo asked. Wufei turned an annoyed gaze toward the American.
"It means I can reproduce without sexual intercourse if I choose to do so."
"Oh…okay, I get it." Duo said, nodding. Wufei rolled his yellow eyes.
"You can't do this! You can't just destroy the whole human race!" Quatre argued, nearly yelling.
"And why not, since humans just destroyed my race?"
"That was…an accident." Wufei broke into wild laughter.
"An accident! An accident, he says! Do you see that woman over there?" Wufei pointed to a corner. There was indeed a dead woman lying there that they hadn't noticed before. "I didn't mean to kill her, it was an accident. Now you tell me, does the fact that it was an accident make it better?" Quatre was silent. "I didn't think so." Wufei settled back on the desk. After a moment of deep thought, Quatre spoke again.
"You said that Wufei's mind and that thing's mind blended together. I don't believe you." Wufei's eyes widened slightly. "Wufei would never agree to your plan. You have to be controlling him somehow."
"Even so, it doesn't matter. If he still had a separate consciousness there wouldn't be anything he could do to stop me." Quatre thought another moment. Then out of the blue he screamed,
"I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE WUFEI!!!!!!!!!" Everyone stared at him in shock. He ignored their surprise and called out 'Wufei' again and again, as loudly as he could. Wufei's eye twitched. He growled. Quatre didn't stop. He was determined to reach the real Wufei.
"Stop this immediately!" Wufei snapped. Duo joined in.
"HEY WUFFERS! COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE!" he yelled.
"Stop! His mind has reverted to its most primitive instincts! You have no idea what you'll be unleashing!!" Quatre ceased his yelling momentarily.
"So you admit that you are controlling him?" he demanded. Wufei growled throatily.
"Nobody controls ME!" Quatre didn't have time to realize that his plan had worked. Wufei lunged. His fangs buried themselves in the arm Quatre raised in defense. His poisonous fangs…
*What's going to happen to Quatre and Dr. J? Find out in the next chapter!*