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GW Fanfiction
-The Awakening-
Chapter 3-The House of His Fathers
"Kill me!"
A bead of sweat fell down Heero's twisted face.
"I can't control it anymore. I can't live like this." Dr. J already knew that this boy had some bond with the people who created him. They were trying to bring him back.
"The voices...They're too strong!" Heero screamed and began to pound his head against the grass. Dr. J could see two options to ensure his survival: He could kill this boy, but that would be an unfortunate waste and a personal failure, or he could take on the task of becoming the only authority this boy knew. He would become "the voices," and imitate their own commanding presence. The voices persuaded Heero with pain, so he would have to persuade Heero with that pain increased ten-fold. He would have to appeal to Heero's tightly programmed brain. This was a cruel fate for the boy, perhaps crueler than a quick death, but it was the fate they were both destined for, Dr. J was sure of that.
*****
Later that day, Heero was reading 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' on a couch in the study. He related to the man character, having a seemingly invincible existence cut down by a single flaw. Dr. J spoke to him that afternoon for the first time since Heero's breakdown.
The old man hobbled into the room and stood just inside the doorway, his bent, knobby silhouette traced by a glow of yellow candlelight in the main hall.
"I suppose this is about the mission you mentioned earlier," Heero said in almost whispering tones.
"Yes. This will be a dangerous task, and I am sure that the voices in your head will object terribly. You must ignore them."
"I can handle it."
"Very well then," Dr. J said with no sign of hesitation. "I hereby charge you with returning to the Alliance labs where you were experimented on and gathering as much information as possible. You are then to terminate all life within the labs and destroy them."
"I will need the Gundam," Heero said nonchalantly.
"If you are able to pilot it, it is a tool that you may utilize at any time."
Heero was just about to get off the couch when a hint of curiosity sprung into his mind. He blurted out the attached question without a single thought.
"Dr. J, why do you care?"
The scientist was struck dumb by Heero's question, but knew he had to attempt an answer. The boy deserved one, after all.
"I helped..." Dr. J sighed, hesitating. "I helped the Alliance scientists with the genetic coding for your precursors. I had no idea that they would use my work to alter a child."
"I am not a child," Heero said with an icy stare. No, you are ancient, Dr. J thought, even though he was unable to visualize Heero as anything but a troubled, fourteen year old boy.
"I understand you, though," Heero stated. "You feel guilty because you had a role in my genetic alteration. You shouldn't. I am trying to live in the present, and have decided to...feel glad...that I'm alive at all." Heero's voice was really straining on that last sentence.
"That required quite a bit of effort on your part, but you don't need to lie to me. You must be terribly angry," Dr. J said quietly, knowing he should be fearing for his life, but somehow in a perfect state of peace.
"I am not angry. I am nothing."
Dr. J smacked Heero's face with his metal claw-arm. Heero was surprised that it actually hurt. He looked up at the kindly old man's face, and saw that his wrinkled features had been drawn tight in anger. "You will not speak in such a manner! You are important to me and to the people that created you. And now, you have a chance for retribution against those who wronged you."
"Wrath. One of the seven deadly sins." Heero enjoyed scripture. He found it hilarious.
"Yes, and perhaps the deadliest one of all, for it seems so right and justified when committed. But, in this case, I believe that revenge really is justified for once. The people who made you into what you are the lowest form of life that can taint human existence. They are a blasphemous stain upon the face of god. You will erase that stain before it taints the memories of all people as well."
Heero's enraged expression melted, and, to Dr. J's amazement, Heero doubled over with laughter, falling onto the cashmere rug in hysterics.
"Did I say something quite that amusing?" Dr. J asked. He wasn't sure if seeing Heero laughing like this was giving him hope of emotional progress or horrifying him outright.
Heero stood up finally, wiped a tear from his eye, and regained composure.
"In the centuries that you have been alive, Dr. J," Heero began, a chuckle still caught in his throat, "You must have realized by now that there's no god. Just seeing you standing there, preaching about justice and evil forces tainting god's face like some demented, old reverend...well, it just looked ridiculous." He nearly began a reprise of his laughing fit when he saw Dr. J's face, raw with vehemence.
"You don't believe in god?" Dr. J asked, containing his anger.
"It's not a matter of belief," Heero answered confidently. "I know there's no god."
Dr. J had just raised his metal appendage to smack Heero once more when he decided against it. He lowered his metal arm, still fuming.
"You may believe what you wish, young one, but remember this lesson of mine above all your others: nothing in life is definite." That was Dr. J's second favorite phrase when it came to describing his life. "Anyway, we have strayed from the point of this discussion. I ask you now, as you are fully aware of the dangers and benefits of this mission, do you accept it?"
Heero was about to give his answer when an explosive blast went off inside his head, screaming in a voice that was both shrill and deafeningly loud, NO!
Heero's eyes began to water and he felt lightheaded. His brain had turned to mush. He dropped his copy of Macbeth and began to convulse.
"You must be stronger than this, Heero Yuy! Do not let it control you."
Heero eventually regained control of himself, still shuddering and soaked in sweat. His lips parted, and only a dry sound came out at first. After about a minute's worth of unintelligible wheezing, he began to form words. At last, he shook free the fading remnants of voices in his head and spoke.
"Mission Accepted," Heero said in his usual, monotonous voice. "Perhaps now I will be able to either prove my worth or put an end to my life." And then he added, regarding the leather bound copy of Macbeth that he had dropped, "It appears that Birnam Woods hath come to my Dunsinane."
*****
The massive Mobile Armor known as 'Gundam' soared down through a group of white, billowy clouds. The Gundam fell and jackknifed through a strong thermal current, turning to a barrel roll with one, artful spin.
A large keyboard wrapped around the inside of the Gundam's cockpit. There were large levers on each side of the pilot's chair that controlled the Gundam's movements and firing control. In the large, leather-padded, bucket seat was Heero Yuy, eyes closed with his arms crossed over his chest. He let the Gundam fall until the haze of the lowest clouds disappeared, then he grabbed the controls and thrust the Gundam up and away from the blurred river of grass and turf beneath him.
The Gundam was flying in its Mobile Suit form, for it was impractical to switch to bird mode at this low altitude. As he raced forward, low over the ground, Heero was impressed by how quiet the Gundam's engines were, and how smoothly it flew through the windy air and updrafts. If the monitor in front of him were not on, he would've barely known he was moving at all.
When the lab appeared on the horizon, Heero switched from the bulky levers to a maneuvering joystick. He guided it in nice and slow, setting it down in a kneeling position in a thicket of trees.
*****
Heero could've simply flown over the lab facility and vaporized it with a single shot from Gundam's beam gattling, but his first mission objective was to gather information. Also, he felt some unfinished portion of his simple destiny was hidden in those labs.
It was only about a mile's jog to the compound. Heero reached the outer gate and was greeted by a large, threatening, electronic eye. The center of the eye was filled with hellish red fire from a laser beam. The beam was targeted onto Heero's throat. He would be given three chances to give the authorized password. Heero had only been outside the compound once during his years of genetic alteration, it was a test of his sensory perception. The scientist had probably changed the password at the gate since then, and they had most definitely changed it since his escape.
Heero knew what would happen if he gave an incorrect password at the gate: A powerful taser would shoot out from the sensor eye and send a shock through his brain stem. Instant kill.
"What is the password?" Heero asked the empty air, hoping the voices in his head would somehow respond.
"IncorrectUnauthorizedPassword" The electronic eye barked in a dead, streamlined voice.
Heero thought he had spoken in a tone that would be inaudible to the gate sensor, but apparently, it was more sensitive than he had thought.
He decided to try an older password while waiting for the answer from the voices in his head.
"Arrakis."
"IncorrectTwoUnauthorizedPasswordResponsesTimeLimitSetTo
ThirtySeconds"
Heero cursed himself silently. He had forgotten the time limit on the third try. For once, he was eagerly awaiting the voices in his head to return. If they didn't give him the answer in the next few seconds, he would have no hope of dodging the deadly beam when it fired.
After what seemed like an eternity, the voices seeped into his head again.
You will be given the password only if you surrender yourself once you are inside the laboratory. Otherwise, you will die where you stand.
How can you trust me to do such a thing once I am past the security points? Heero asked, unsure about the veracity of these elusive voices. If they told him the wrong password, he wouldn't even have to wait for the electronic eye to finish its countdown.
"FifteenSecondsOnPasswordTimeLimit" the artificial voice warned.
Heero thought he heard a faint laughter in the voices before they responded to his question. Once you are inside the lab, we will persuade you to keep your end of the bargain. And you know that we are quite persuasive. Their mocking answer rung through Heero's head. Even as Heero was growing a fiery rage inside toward those evil, shapeless fiends in his mind, he realized that they sounded much more human now. At first, they were only rigid directives, and later the powerful commands that were mixed with horrible pain. But now the voices had an almost conversational tone, albeit filled with malice and amusement at his torture.
Heero surmised that someone inside the lab was projecting these voices into his skull. The intent of the voices had always been ordering him to eliminate all emotional and physical obstructions and return to the lab complex. The voices must be a part of some sort of an emergency recovery unit. Heero was now convinced that they would not let him die here if he pledged his allegiance to them.
"FiveSecondsOnPasswordTimeLimit"
I promise to surrender myself. I do not wish to die here. Please give me the password. Heero hoped that the voices wouldn't be able to tell that he was lying. Apparently, they could not, as they responded in a triumphant tone.
The password is Octavian.
"Octavian!" Heero screamed, feeling panicked and cornered for the first time in his life.
"CorrectResponseWelcomeBackProfessorEmulat" Emulat, Heero thought. Why would the terminal be accepting a dead man's password? Hero still vividly remembered cornering the small, weasel-like man and breaking his neck.
It doesn't matter now, Heero thought, ignoring such distracting questions. I have a mission to complete. He shook of the needle-like jabs of pain that struck his head with that thought. The voices would not stand in his way again, ever. He had promised himself this.
*****
Heero had learned much about the advantages of a stealthy entrance from Dr. J's training. He didn't kill a single guard in the entire complex, and soon reached his destination.
Heero had stopped in front of a large pair of titanium blast shielded doors. Behind them was the laboratory where Heero was reborn. He could find information for Dr. J later, but now he felt compelled to face his past demons. Heero could feel a horrible itching in the back of his mind; a lapse, a displacement, a reminder of things left undone. He had no idea what this feelings meant, but he was sure the answer lay behind these doors.
Heero rushed at the doors and hit them with tremendous force, using his right shoulder like a battering ram, but even with all his strength pressed against the door, it did not make one hint that it was going to budge.
Heero flung his body into the door repeatedly. Alas, it still held firm. Heero punched the door with his fist and cursed it angrily. True frustration. Another unforeseen side effect of Heero's emotional awakening. He did not like this emotion, however. It was pointless and distracted him from the mission.
Heero gave up, he had dislocated his shoulder again, and blood was running freely from between his knuckles.
An excellent display. You have grown up, child. The voices were quite amused. They had an arrogant and patronizing quality to them. And they sounded more human than ever. Closer, as well.
The monstrous doors opened on their own, and Heero was not the least bit surprised. He had expected this, somehow. Fear, another useless emotion, crept into him like a thief in the night, when he realized he was expecting something else. His life would surely end in the room before him.
Heero stepped in and saw that everything was as he had left it, for the most part. The tank that he had shattered in his escape was now covered with sheet metal. The seventeen other boys in green tanks still surrounded the room. As he looked at them, disturbed by their absurdly happy grins, he noticed a person standing by the central console. The man had on a strange suit and was wearing an oversized helmet that covered his entire face.
The man opened two locking mechanisms on the sides of the helmet and it split down the middle, falling away from his face. The helmet folded up neatly around his neck, forming an odd-looking sort of metal collar. That was when Heero noticed the neck brace that the man was wearing, and he did not even have to look at the man's face to know who he was.
"Emulat!" Heero cried. The man's face spread into a rat-like grin. Heero's jaw nearly dropped. He had killed this man, hadn't he?
"I guess you are wondering how I am still alive." The scientist gave a shrill chuckle. "I was injured to be sure, but you were too preoccupied with escape to confirm that you had killed me. You were a bit careless, Crying Boy."
"Do not call me that," Heero snapped.
"Oh, you'd rather prefer the name of the colonies martyred leader? Very well, Heero Yuy." Heero's eyes widened. How could this man know so much? He thought, feeling quite naked before the man's crooked stare.
"I am glad to see that my child had returned to me," Emulat continued. "You finally responded to my calls. I must admit, you resisted them longer than even I thought possible." Heero couldn't believe it. This man had been the source of the vexing calls and painful jabs in his mind. This...pathetic man that would've been out of his life forever if he had just twisted that scrawny neck a few centimeters further.
Heero reached for his gun to end this meaningless conversation, but instantly dropped to his knees and vomited blood. With such a short range to project the voices, Emulat didn't need to use Heero's skull cavity as an amplifier. He could now inject the pain into any part of Heero's body. Emulat aimed for the worst place possible, and forced an enormous amount of pain onto it.
Heero hacked dryly and grabbed his crotch. He was feeling a horrible, new kind of pain far worse than any other he had experienced. The world swam around him in a blurry haze.
Emulat finally let the pain drop away from Heero's testicles. The boy had collapsed, sprawled out on the ground in front of him. Emulat slowly drew a nearly antique revolver from under his lab coat and prepared to make the final shot. Emulat held the gun in a wavering hand; he had never fired one before. Heero was no threat, and he figured he might as well take his time aiming the weapon.
As Emulat at last prepared to fire, he grinned and spoke to Heero with a slurred and clumsy tongue, unlike his usually precise, clipped voice. This was a byproduct of the severe cleft palate he had as a baby. When he became excited and wrapped up in the adrenaline rush of the moment, he often forgot to correct his speech. It was a moldy ghost of his tortured childhood, and it curled out from his heart, up his throat, and brought a chain of thorns around his mouth to remind him of his early abandonment and torture at the hands of a cruel world.
"You...we'e afailu'e. I'm glad oo finiss wha I star-ed. Soon, da wolld will know nu'ing of your kind-d-d."
Emulat pulled back the hammer on his gun, and a new round flipped up into the barrel, ready to fire.
Heero looked up, and almost felt remorse for this man. He drove that thought from his mind faster than a bullet leaving its chamber. Heero leapt to his feet, knocked the gun from Emulat's hand with a quick swipe, and grabbed the man's neck brace, forcing the scientist to his knees as he quaked with fear.
A switchblade sprung out from the right sleeve of Heero's flight jacket. He held the blade at the scientist's throat.
"Tell me now, Emulat, or you will never tell anyone anything again. Why did you make me?" Emulat was silent, but still shaking uncontrollably.
"Why did you make me!!?" Heero screamed, his eyes welling up with bitter tears. Still, the scientist would not answer. The truth was, he didn't know. Was Heero the product of ambition and the hope of scientific achievement, one of the necessary evils he was called upon to do by uncaring politicians, or simply the wish to create offspring, the wish to have a child of his own. Emulat knew that Heero would find satisfaction in none of these answers, but he didn't care. If he were to die in this room, right now, he would enjoy keeping one final secret from his tortured creation.
Heero threw the pathetic man onto the floor and sheathed his knife. Heero drew his gun instead, he would prefer not to be stained with this vile man's blood. Emulat gave one final, pathetic cry, not to Heero, but seemingly to the room around him, or perhaps some faded, long-dead voice that only rattled on in his head.
"Faa-err, Faa-err! Ow could oo leh iss appen?"
"You deserve worse than this," Heero said, his soul exploding into wild flames.
Heero fired, and Emulat's nose exploded into a fountaining stream of blood and gooey cartilage. Heero fired again into the man's face, causing sprays of blood and pieces of skull to fly up in Heero's face and hair. Heero fired again, fragmenting Emulat's jaw into bone splinters that tore through the chin and twisted the lips open in a curvy sneer. Heero fired again. Fired again. Fired again.
A golden, spent shell casing pirouetted up through the air and glimmered in Heero's intense sapphire eye. Then it flipped up and away from his face. He had fired the last round in the magazine. Emulat's face was unrecognizable. The man's chin and lower jaw spilled out onto his chest and the top of his head had been blown to pieces. There was a huge crimson pool around Emulat, and spattered drops of blood covered Heero's face, despite his wish to the contrary. Heero found Emulat's death to be meaningless and unsatisfying. He had silenced the painful voices in his head, but he felt empty, used up, and had learned nothing.
Heero brushed a tear from his eye and his face hardened, became dark and cold once more. He turned away from the mangled body and walked out of the lab with broad, fluid strides. His heart was made of stone once more; his soul was silenced.
GW Fanfiction
-The Awakening-
Chapter 3-The House of His Fathers
"Kill me!"
A bead of sweat fell down Heero's twisted face.
"I can't control it anymore. I can't live like this." Dr. J already knew that this boy had some bond with the people who created him. They were trying to bring him back.
"The voices...They're too strong!" Heero screamed and began to pound his head against the grass. Dr. J could see two options to ensure his survival: He could kill this boy, but that would be an unfortunate waste and a personal failure, or he could take on the task of becoming the only authority this boy knew. He would become "the voices," and imitate their own commanding presence. The voices persuaded Heero with pain, so he would have to persuade Heero with that pain increased ten-fold. He would have to appeal to Heero's tightly programmed brain. This was a cruel fate for the boy, perhaps crueler than a quick death, but it was the fate they were both destined for, Dr. J was sure of that.
*****
Later that day, Heero was reading 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' on a couch in the study. He related to the man character, having a seemingly invincible existence cut down by a single flaw. Dr. J spoke to him that afternoon for the first time since Heero's breakdown.
The old man hobbled into the room and stood just inside the doorway, his bent, knobby silhouette traced by a glow of yellow candlelight in the main hall.
"I suppose this is about the mission you mentioned earlier," Heero said in almost whispering tones.
"Yes. This will be a dangerous task, and I am sure that the voices in your head will object terribly. You must ignore them."
"I can handle it."
"Very well then," Dr. J said with no sign of hesitation. "I hereby charge you with returning to the Alliance labs where you were experimented on and gathering as much information as possible. You are then to terminate all life within the labs and destroy them."
"I will need the Gundam," Heero said nonchalantly.
"If you are able to pilot it, it is a tool that you may utilize at any time."
Heero was just about to get off the couch when a hint of curiosity sprung into his mind. He blurted out the attached question without a single thought.
"Dr. J, why do you care?"
The scientist was struck dumb by Heero's question, but knew he had to attempt an answer. The boy deserved one, after all.
"I helped..." Dr. J sighed, hesitating. "I helped the Alliance scientists with the genetic coding for your precursors. I had no idea that they would use my work to alter a child."
"I am not a child," Heero said with an icy stare. No, you are ancient, Dr. J thought, even though he was unable to visualize Heero as anything but a troubled, fourteen year old boy.
"I understand you, though," Heero stated. "You feel guilty because you had a role in my genetic alteration. You shouldn't. I am trying to live in the present, and have decided to...feel glad...that I'm alive at all." Heero's voice was really straining on that last sentence.
"That required quite a bit of effort on your part, but you don't need to lie to me. You must be terribly angry," Dr. J said quietly, knowing he should be fearing for his life, but somehow in a perfect state of peace.
"I am not angry. I am nothing."
Dr. J smacked Heero's face with his metal claw-arm. Heero was surprised that it actually hurt. He looked up at the kindly old man's face, and saw that his wrinkled features had been drawn tight in anger. "You will not speak in such a manner! You are important to me and to the people that created you. And now, you have a chance for retribution against those who wronged you."
"Wrath. One of the seven deadly sins." Heero enjoyed scripture. He found it hilarious.
"Yes, and perhaps the deadliest one of all, for it seems so right and justified when committed. But, in this case, I believe that revenge really is justified for once. The people who made you into what you are the lowest form of life that can taint human existence. They are a blasphemous stain upon the face of god. You will erase that stain before it taints the memories of all people as well."
Heero's enraged expression melted, and, to Dr. J's amazement, Heero doubled over with laughter, falling onto the cashmere rug in hysterics.
"Did I say something quite that amusing?" Dr. J asked. He wasn't sure if seeing Heero laughing like this was giving him hope of emotional progress or horrifying him outright.
Heero stood up finally, wiped a tear from his eye, and regained composure.
"In the centuries that you have been alive, Dr. J," Heero began, a chuckle still caught in his throat, "You must have realized by now that there's no god. Just seeing you standing there, preaching about justice and evil forces tainting god's face like some demented, old reverend...well, it just looked ridiculous." He nearly began a reprise of his laughing fit when he saw Dr. J's face, raw with vehemence.
"You don't believe in god?" Dr. J asked, containing his anger.
"It's not a matter of belief," Heero answered confidently. "I know there's no god."
Dr. J had just raised his metal appendage to smack Heero once more when he decided against it. He lowered his metal arm, still fuming.
"You may believe what you wish, young one, but remember this lesson of mine above all your others: nothing in life is definite." That was Dr. J's second favorite phrase when it came to describing his life. "Anyway, we have strayed from the point of this discussion. I ask you now, as you are fully aware of the dangers and benefits of this mission, do you accept it?"
Heero was about to give his answer when an explosive blast went off inside his head, screaming in a voice that was both shrill and deafeningly loud, NO!
Heero's eyes began to water and he felt lightheaded. His brain had turned to mush. He dropped his copy of Macbeth and began to convulse.
"You must be stronger than this, Heero Yuy! Do not let it control you."
Heero eventually regained control of himself, still shuddering and soaked in sweat. His lips parted, and only a dry sound came out at first. After about a minute's worth of unintelligible wheezing, he began to form words. At last, he shook free the fading remnants of voices in his head and spoke.
"Mission Accepted," Heero said in his usual, monotonous voice. "Perhaps now I will be able to either prove my worth or put an end to my life." And then he added, regarding the leather bound copy of Macbeth that he had dropped, "It appears that Birnam Woods hath come to my Dunsinane."
*****
The massive Mobile Armor known as 'Gundam' soared down through a group of white, billowy clouds. The Gundam fell and jackknifed through a strong thermal current, turning to a barrel roll with one, artful spin.
A large keyboard wrapped around the inside of the Gundam's cockpit. There were large levers on each side of the pilot's chair that controlled the Gundam's movements and firing control. In the large, leather-padded, bucket seat was Heero Yuy, eyes closed with his arms crossed over his chest. He let the Gundam fall until the haze of the lowest clouds disappeared, then he grabbed the controls and thrust the Gundam up and away from the blurred river of grass and turf beneath him.
The Gundam was flying in its Mobile Suit form, for it was impractical to switch to bird mode at this low altitude. As he raced forward, low over the ground, Heero was impressed by how quiet the Gundam's engines were, and how smoothly it flew through the windy air and updrafts. If the monitor in front of him were not on, he would've barely known he was moving at all.
When the lab appeared on the horizon, Heero switched from the bulky levers to a maneuvering joystick. He guided it in nice and slow, setting it down in a kneeling position in a thicket of trees.
*****
Heero could've simply flown over the lab facility and vaporized it with a single shot from Gundam's beam gattling, but his first mission objective was to gather information. Also, he felt some unfinished portion of his simple destiny was hidden in those labs.
It was only about a mile's jog to the compound. Heero reached the outer gate and was greeted by a large, threatening, electronic eye. The center of the eye was filled with hellish red fire from a laser beam. The beam was targeted onto Heero's throat. He would be given three chances to give the authorized password. Heero had only been outside the compound once during his years of genetic alteration, it was a test of his sensory perception. The scientist had probably changed the password at the gate since then, and they had most definitely changed it since his escape.
Heero knew what would happen if he gave an incorrect password at the gate: A powerful taser would shoot out from the sensor eye and send a shock through his brain stem. Instant kill.
"What is the password?" Heero asked the empty air, hoping the voices in his head would somehow respond.
"IncorrectUnauthorizedPassword" The electronic eye barked in a dead, streamlined voice.
Heero thought he had spoken in a tone that would be inaudible to the gate sensor, but apparently, it was more sensitive than he had thought.
He decided to try an older password while waiting for the answer from the voices in his head.
"Arrakis."
"IncorrectTwoUnauthorizedPasswordResponsesTimeLimitSetTo
ThirtySeconds"
Heero cursed himself silently. He had forgotten the time limit on the third try. For once, he was eagerly awaiting the voices in his head to return. If they didn't give him the answer in the next few seconds, he would have no hope of dodging the deadly beam when it fired.
After what seemed like an eternity, the voices seeped into his head again.
You will be given the password only if you surrender yourself once you are inside the laboratory. Otherwise, you will die where you stand.
How can you trust me to do such a thing once I am past the security points? Heero asked, unsure about the veracity of these elusive voices. If they told him the wrong password, he wouldn't even have to wait for the electronic eye to finish its countdown.
"FifteenSecondsOnPasswordTimeLimit" the artificial voice warned.
Heero thought he heard a faint laughter in the voices before they responded to his question. Once you are inside the lab, we will persuade you to keep your end of the bargain. And you know that we are quite persuasive. Their mocking answer rung through Heero's head. Even as Heero was growing a fiery rage inside toward those evil, shapeless fiends in his mind, he realized that they sounded much more human now. At first, they were only rigid directives, and later the powerful commands that were mixed with horrible pain. But now the voices had an almost conversational tone, albeit filled with malice and amusement at his torture.
Heero surmised that someone inside the lab was projecting these voices into his skull. The intent of the voices had always been ordering him to eliminate all emotional and physical obstructions and return to the lab complex. The voices must be a part of some sort of an emergency recovery unit. Heero was now convinced that they would not let him die here if he pledged his allegiance to them.
"FiveSecondsOnPasswordTimeLimit"
I promise to surrender myself. I do not wish to die here. Please give me the password. Heero hoped that the voices wouldn't be able to tell that he was lying. Apparently, they could not, as they responded in a triumphant tone.
The password is Octavian.
"Octavian!" Heero screamed, feeling panicked and cornered for the first time in his life.
"CorrectResponseWelcomeBackProfessorEmulat" Emulat, Heero thought. Why would the terminal be accepting a dead man's password? Hero still vividly remembered cornering the small, weasel-like man and breaking his neck.
It doesn't matter now, Heero thought, ignoring such distracting questions. I have a mission to complete. He shook of the needle-like jabs of pain that struck his head with that thought. The voices would not stand in his way again, ever. He had promised himself this.
*****
Heero had learned much about the advantages of a stealthy entrance from Dr. J's training. He didn't kill a single guard in the entire complex, and soon reached his destination.
Heero had stopped in front of a large pair of titanium blast shielded doors. Behind them was the laboratory where Heero was reborn. He could find information for Dr. J later, but now he felt compelled to face his past demons. Heero could feel a horrible itching in the back of his mind; a lapse, a displacement, a reminder of things left undone. He had no idea what this feelings meant, but he was sure the answer lay behind these doors.
Heero rushed at the doors and hit them with tremendous force, using his right shoulder like a battering ram, but even with all his strength pressed against the door, it did not make one hint that it was going to budge.
Heero flung his body into the door repeatedly. Alas, it still held firm. Heero punched the door with his fist and cursed it angrily. True frustration. Another unforeseen side effect of Heero's emotional awakening. He did not like this emotion, however. It was pointless and distracted him from the mission.
Heero gave up, he had dislocated his shoulder again, and blood was running freely from between his knuckles.
An excellent display. You have grown up, child. The voices were quite amused. They had an arrogant and patronizing quality to them. And they sounded more human than ever. Closer, as well.
The monstrous doors opened on their own, and Heero was not the least bit surprised. He had expected this, somehow. Fear, another useless emotion, crept into him like a thief in the night, when he realized he was expecting something else. His life would surely end in the room before him.
Heero stepped in and saw that everything was as he had left it, for the most part. The tank that he had shattered in his escape was now covered with sheet metal. The seventeen other boys in green tanks still surrounded the room. As he looked at them, disturbed by their absurdly happy grins, he noticed a person standing by the central console. The man had on a strange suit and was wearing an oversized helmet that covered his entire face.
The man opened two locking mechanisms on the sides of the helmet and it split down the middle, falling away from his face. The helmet folded up neatly around his neck, forming an odd-looking sort of metal collar. That was when Heero noticed the neck brace that the man was wearing, and he did not even have to look at the man's face to know who he was.
"Emulat!" Heero cried. The man's face spread into a rat-like grin. Heero's jaw nearly dropped. He had killed this man, hadn't he?
"I guess you are wondering how I am still alive." The scientist gave a shrill chuckle. "I was injured to be sure, but you were too preoccupied with escape to confirm that you had killed me. You were a bit careless, Crying Boy."
"Do not call me that," Heero snapped.
"Oh, you'd rather prefer the name of the colonies martyred leader? Very well, Heero Yuy." Heero's eyes widened. How could this man know so much? He thought, feeling quite naked before the man's crooked stare.
"I am glad to see that my child had returned to me," Emulat continued. "You finally responded to my calls. I must admit, you resisted them longer than even I thought possible." Heero couldn't believe it. This man had been the source of the vexing calls and painful jabs in his mind. This...pathetic man that would've been out of his life forever if he had just twisted that scrawny neck a few centimeters further.
Heero reached for his gun to end this meaningless conversation, but instantly dropped to his knees and vomited blood. With such a short range to project the voices, Emulat didn't need to use Heero's skull cavity as an amplifier. He could now inject the pain into any part of Heero's body. Emulat aimed for the worst place possible, and forced an enormous amount of pain onto it.
Heero hacked dryly and grabbed his crotch. He was feeling a horrible, new kind of pain far worse than any other he had experienced. The world swam around him in a blurry haze.
Emulat finally let the pain drop away from Heero's testicles. The boy had collapsed, sprawled out on the ground in front of him. Emulat slowly drew a nearly antique revolver from under his lab coat and prepared to make the final shot. Emulat held the gun in a wavering hand; he had never fired one before. Heero was no threat, and he figured he might as well take his time aiming the weapon.
As Emulat at last prepared to fire, he grinned and spoke to Heero with a slurred and clumsy tongue, unlike his usually precise, clipped voice. This was a byproduct of the severe cleft palate he had as a baby. When he became excited and wrapped up in the adrenaline rush of the moment, he often forgot to correct his speech. It was a moldy ghost of his tortured childhood, and it curled out from his heart, up his throat, and brought a chain of thorns around his mouth to remind him of his early abandonment and torture at the hands of a cruel world.
"You...we'e afailu'e. I'm glad oo finiss wha I star-ed. Soon, da wolld will know nu'ing of your kind-d-d."
Emulat pulled back the hammer on his gun, and a new round flipped up into the barrel, ready to fire.
Heero looked up, and almost felt remorse for this man. He drove that thought from his mind faster than a bullet leaving its chamber. Heero leapt to his feet, knocked the gun from Emulat's hand with a quick swipe, and grabbed the man's neck brace, forcing the scientist to his knees as he quaked with fear.
A switchblade sprung out from the right sleeve of Heero's flight jacket. He held the blade at the scientist's throat.
"Tell me now, Emulat, or you will never tell anyone anything again. Why did you make me?" Emulat was silent, but still shaking uncontrollably.
"Why did you make me!!?" Heero screamed, his eyes welling up with bitter tears. Still, the scientist would not answer. The truth was, he didn't know. Was Heero the product of ambition and the hope of scientific achievement, one of the necessary evils he was called upon to do by uncaring politicians, or simply the wish to create offspring, the wish to have a child of his own. Emulat knew that Heero would find satisfaction in none of these answers, but he didn't care. If he were to die in this room, right now, he would enjoy keeping one final secret from his tortured creation.
Heero threw the pathetic man onto the floor and sheathed his knife. Heero drew his gun instead, he would prefer not to be stained with this vile man's blood. Emulat gave one final, pathetic cry, not to Heero, but seemingly to the room around him, or perhaps some faded, long-dead voice that only rattled on in his head.
"Faa-err, Faa-err! Ow could oo leh iss appen?"
"You deserve worse than this," Heero said, his soul exploding into wild flames.
Heero fired, and Emulat's nose exploded into a fountaining stream of blood and gooey cartilage. Heero fired again into the man's face, causing sprays of blood and pieces of skull to fly up in Heero's face and hair. Heero fired again, fragmenting Emulat's jaw into bone splinters that tore through the chin and twisted the lips open in a curvy sneer. Heero fired again. Fired again. Fired again.
A golden, spent shell casing pirouetted up through the air and glimmered in Heero's intense sapphire eye. Then it flipped up and away from his face. He had fired the last round in the magazine. Emulat's face was unrecognizable. The man's chin and lower jaw spilled out onto his chest and the top of his head had been blown to pieces. There was a huge crimson pool around Emulat, and spattered drops of blood covered Heero's face, despite his wish to the contrary. Heero found Emulat's death to be meaningless and unsatisfying. He had silenced the painful voices in his head, but he felt empty, used up, and had learned nothing.
Heero brushed a tear from his eye and his face hardened, became dark and cold once more. He turned away from the mangled body and walked out of the lab with broad, fluid strides. His heart was made of stone once more; his soul was silenced.