Juno's Identity
Disclaimers: Cowboy Bebop belongs to Sunrise and Bandai.
Warnings/Rants: This is an fanfic experiment. =_= It's very strange. The views jump from doctor's report to prisoner interview to 'present day' Callisto and then to flashback-Titan-War. =_= I can't write straight (lol, what a pun). And yes, this is a Vicious/Gren fic…
Radishface
* * *
[ Subject: Grencias Mars Elijah Guo Eckener
Doctor: Wessyn, A. Jericho, M.D.
Summarization File: Metis 1 ]
Subject was arrested yesterday morning at the White Base camp along with five others suspected to be spies for the EUROPA Alliance. They were stripped of their belongings. Belongings consisted of METIS Alliance fatigues, photographs, saxophone case ( kept in METIS storage ), food items, and a music box. Photographs hold no information-- believed to be entirely personal. Scan of the music box has revealed nothing. Subject is set in cell block 12C, RD division. Subject is incoherent. The interrogation has been postponed for a week until in a suitable condition.
* * *
"Who are you?"
"I'm Gren. Grencias Mars Elijah Guo Eckener."
"Where did you come from?"
"Saturn. I lived on one of the moons there. Neired. The establishment I lived on was built in 2042."
"What did you do before you fought in the war?"
"I played the saxophone. In a band. With a couple of friends from high school. The band split up though, after our lead married. Eventually, the rest followed his example. I wandered around quite a bit. Never really had a stable job. I heard about the war and I enlisted."
"How did you wind up becoming a spy?"
"I was accused. It wasn't me."
"Why do you think you are you here?"
"Because somebody wanted to get rid of me."
"Who?"
"A friend of mine. Back in the war."
"Where was he when you were arrested?"
"I don't know. He wasn't there when they came in. I think he was out in the front lines at the time."
"What did you do to make him frame you?"
"I honestly didn't do anything."
"How do you know it was him?"
"I didn't know anybody else. Then again, everybody knew me. So it could have been anybody. I wasn't very well liked in the camp."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I never did anything to them, either. These things just happen."
* * *
The ground rose up to meet him.
Words flew past him like birds, like hail, falling at a tremendous speed, and he couldn't catch any of the words that were being said as he was picked up by the collar-- where anybody could reach, and thrown back down again, the hard soles of those boots connecting with him, painting his body with spots of blue and black. The pain blossomed instantly, they needed no rain to make them flower, and his nerves were wracked with the sensation of being hit over, and over, and over again. He felt somebody pull his hair, tilting his head back, somebody smash their fist into his face, and then he was dropped again, reduced to being a rag doll, kicked around on the ground. The dust filled his mouth and biting his lip, he refused to cry out, refused to acknowledge that they were beating him, laughing at him. He tried to turn the pain from being scarlet to a different color-- and he could see, behind his shut eyes, the silver, slipping through his palms like sand did on the shore, and he filtered it through his fingers, trying to pick out the best grains, even though he knew that was impossible.
They were tearing into him, ripping his skin, exposing the self that he didn't even know-- that he couldn't know. He ran, in his mind, the silver pain washing away revealing a darker red than there had been before, trying to gather himself in, trying not to fall and spill himself, but they ran after him, gnashing at his skin, tearing open new wounds. And they would never leave him dead-- they would never give him that satisfaction. They'd leave him lying there, sometimes face up, other times face down. He'd breathe the dust they'd left, remember that they had almost killed him, so many countless times, and he'd stand up, and try to walk, back to his tent, and fall asleep, knowing that this was only today, that tomorrow, they'd find him again, they'd do that to him again, and it would be the same.
He could feel the blows weaken-- no, not weaken-- merely grow less-- and then there was more laughter, as they faded away, they left him to be. His eyes were still shut tightly, refusing to open. He curled up in a fetal position, almost trying to break into himself, trying to disappear into himself. Colored dots danced before his vision and finally, he wearily opened his eyes, to the slight glow of the camp far away, to the ground. Dust touched his bleeding lips, the dirt was caked in his hair. Struggling, he pulled himself up, hands shaking, not because of the cold, but because of the ache. And he half-crawled, half-walked, carrying himself, to a distance, where they couldn't get him. In his mind, he was back in the silver. His cracked lips formed a grotesque smile, lopsided, and he basked in the joy that they could never get him, in this place. In this grey.
The silver was losing shine, the pain was blossoming red again. He felt his sight swim before his eyes, and he could make out a cliff, one that stretched to where eternity lay, where the jagged peaks of rocks were below, and he thought to himself, crying out, maybe I can jump off. Maybe I can stop it.
But he felt himself fall before he could do so, felt his grip on himself crumbling, felt his foundations crash to the ground. And the silver lengthened, turned into a light grey that blended with the crimson surrounding it.
* * *
I walk into the bar, late by maybe five minutes, and set my case down on the small stage floor, taking off my coat. The band members haven't started warming up yet-- they're just sitting around. I guess it was always that way with them. They're very laid back. Perhaps being a musician does that to you. Or maybe not. I suppose it all depends on your personality.
"Where's the lady, Gren?" Jake, the pianist, drawls, as he kicks his feet up on the piano, not caring if the keys are hit.
"She's out for a walk." I reply, as I hang up my coat on the rack near the stage. I can see everybody's eyes widen through the corner of my eyes. "Just for a little while."
"Hell, that's one brave lady." Neil whistled, thrumming a drumstick lightly against the cymbal. "Walkin' the streets at a time like this."
"She can take care of herself." Jake gestured at me. "You ought to know, you've been around her the longest."
"I wouldn't have let her out of my sight if I didn't know she weren't capable of managing." I manage a smile, and take out my saxophone.
Jake plays a chord on the piano, and I adjust the reed to my saxophone accordingly and Neil taps his drums as well, listening for the vibrations. Syd, late yet again, walks in without a word and hums a note to himself as he tunes the bass up.
"Caught up in unfinished business?" Jake elbows Syd in the ribs, and Syd raises an eyebrow.
"Wouldn't you know it."
Jake just laughs to himself, and as if on cue, we all start.
The music drifts through the bar although no one seems to hear it. We're not playing at a formal concert-- we're merely here for the entertainment of the people. And sometimes I feel we're only that. Nobody quiets down to listen, they maintain the same volume of their drones, of their buzzing. And who knows what they're talking about. They all sound loud, and they all sound soft, the whispers and the voices mingling together to shape something into a blurry mezzo forte.
I heard Julia outside before I saw her walk in. Her presence radiates off of her to me-- I can identify if it's her from a mile away. One facet of it maybe just be because she's the only woman in this place-- but there's something so unique about Julia, perhaps only to me. Maybe I'm the only one who think she's a remarkable woman. Half of the men turn to notice her, the other half display indifference. She walks past them all, and takes the corner barstool, sitting down, and signals the bar waiter for a drink. Just water, she says-- I watch her lips. No, I don't want the ice. It's too cold outside.
I turn away from her and concentrate on the melody, the lilting notes produced by my saxophone as Syd thrums in the background. We're now all completely oblivious to the world around us, so absorbed in the music. Just this morning, before our afternoon break, I had handed out the music to them and they'd eyed it with interest. I had been composing it and I wanted them to play it-- they agreed. The melody wasn't hard to remember-- parts of it sounded the same, even though it was all very different. It had the same feeling running through it-- perhaps that's what it was trying to convey. They had all wondered how I'd thought up of it. I didn't think of it, I'd said. It was just a variation of something I'd heard.
We usually improvise various songs, pieces we hear. Jake is usually the one doing the composing, since he knows the musical chords so well.
My eyes are closed, and I open them, the world a bleary thing slowly coming into focus. Out of the corner of my eye, Julia watches me intently, because she knows what I'm playing.
She had told me the name of the song once she saw the music box, even though she hadn't revealed anything about the person behind it. I could wonder, I could guess, and yet I knew how the song had gotten it's name. This was the very same music that had sang me to sleep, sang the sun to sleep, as I had walked the dusty grounds with no purpose, with some purpose, back such a long time ago.
Goodnight, Julia.
* * *
[ Subject: Grencias Mars Elijah Guo Eckener
Doctor: Wessyn, A. Jericho, M.D.
Summarization File: Metis 2 ]
Subject in decent condition. Ready for examination. Asked for his personal belongings two days ago. They were refused to him; no reaction.
* * *
"Who started the war?"
"There wasn't really anybody who started the war. It was a territorial dispute. The Jovian Alliance claimed they had the rights to that moon. Of course, since it was a totally different government, a totally different planet, there would be a conflict. There had been valuable resources found there. Of course everybody wanted a piece."
"Where was the war located?"
"On Titan. One of the seventeen moons of Saturn."
"What was it like?"
"The war? I can't say I remember anything important. But the recruits were hastily called in from everywhere-- the propaganda, the hype... I don't think anyone could have refused to go. Nothing had been happening much-- so everybody left to join the war. And once they were there-- it wasn't any different, really. The conditions were horrible the first few days you went, but it was endurable. They were in a rush to get people together-- they only taught us the basics of firing a gun and strategy, threw us a uniform and then left our lives up to us. We could do whatever we pleased when we weren't on the battleground. We weren't trained or disciplined. It was like rounding up a herd of wild animals to work on a settlement."
"How did you assimilate?"
"The first day I arrived at the headquarters for inspection and medical approval-- I passed, but they weren't looking. They really didn't care. And after the first day, we were sent to different divisions and left to fend for ourselves. I don't think any of us knew what we were doing, although many of us pretended we did. The commanders came to pick us up and take us to the camps-- and life was a blur after that. We got up, we ate, we wandered out, we shot at the enemy, and retreated. Then it was the same thing again."
"Why did you join?"
"I joined for the same reason everybody else did. I didn't want to do anything else. I had no ambition. My mother and father were against my leaving-- of course they would be. They didn't want me to become a mercenary, fighting for some cause I didn't even believe in. It was an empty movement. When you first join a war, you think there are so many benefits for you. You think there's so much you can gain from it-- experience being a high point. But there really is no experience if you cower behind the front lines. You think you've seen something, but it's all an illusion. The war was fought for something, nothing was achieved. Many people walk away feeling that they've contributed to something.
"You do it to feel something for yourself. I joined the war, perhaps, because I didn't know what else to do with myself. I wanted to feel something, familiarize myself with something other than what I already knew. And maybe I did acquire something. But I can't place it now. The feeling is something I remember.
"But there was nothing in that war I could live for. I think of it now, and I think that I could have died, and my life wouldn't have made a difference."
"Ah, but do you believe that?"
* * *
I could hear movement coming back from the camp, I could feel the rumble beneath me, as the men moved about, their boots hitting the ground heavily, they didn't bother to step lightly.
At least it wasn't me they were stepping on.
My eyes cracked open to the faint light of the sun, the dust still caked in my hair, my face stiffened with dried blood. I tried to move my mouth and I felt myself shake loose an old wound and the blood came spilling down my lower lip. I didn't bother with it-- merely swiped it away with my tongue, feeling the slightly salty, metallic taste before standing up and straightening myself. Miraculously, somehow, I managed to walk on my two legs for ten paces before dropping to my knees again. My breath came in short puffs, my hands clenched the ground, grinding the dirt below me and I struggled to stand up again, hearing the sounds of the people from camp growing louder and louder. If I didn't get back soon they'd come get me.
It wasn't very hard to sneak into my barrack. It was mostly deserted, since most of the people in my barrack had volunteered to be the first to head out away from the headquarters. My barrack was also one of the more that were located on the edge of the camp-- I didn't have to walk very far. The beds-- or cots, rather, were all lined up beside the wall, and each one of them looked the same. I remembered that I was the far one off in the right corner, the second one over by the door. It hadn't been slept in, as usual. I never slept in my bed. After the day was over, I couldn't get to it fast enough before I was dragged away. It wasn't as if it mattered, though. Somehow, I made it back today. Let them come get me. I don't care.
I landed face first on my the small bed, feeling the coarse cloth rub against my raw nose, and I felt myself recoil. The sheets smelled clean, although I knew they were not, The pain started to come back again, and I tried to push it out-- no, I didn't want it, I wanted oblivion, let me sleep in eternity, leave me alone. But the red demons laughed at me, made me feel the pain. And I felt the entire world around me laughing, for their own absurd reasons, at me, and not at me, and they were all immersed in their own worlds. I could not be a part of it, because I didn't know it-- didn't understand it. Who were these people, what were these things, that plagued me mercilessly? Why couldn't I be strong, stand up to them?
It was crazy of me to think that I had ran away from my life to join this for my own benefit. What could I gain? What had I gained so far?
I cried because of this frustration. Tears stupidly rolled down my cheeks but I didn't make a sound, I kept the animal noises to myself, and watched, as the droplets fell onto the pillow, and the cloth absorbed it greedily, like a desert wanderer thirsting after water.
I lay there, wallowing, indulging in the self-pity, knowing there was no way out of it but yet there could be.
I made the world spin for me so I could fall asleep again, and I pretended to not want to fall asleep, pretended to fight the fatigue. The very image of me, lying there on the bed, head turned sideways with a blank marble look on my face, would have been disgusting to those who would see it. But nobody was within my range of sight, nobody was there, in my world. So nobody could have known. I laughed to myself. If I could hide all day, just like this, that would be fine. I couldn't do anything, I wouldn't be hurt, and the consequence for the world wasn't going to change. So why was I even here?
Something jolted through me, something unfamiliar. I thought I saw something flash before my eyes, but there was nothing in front of me. My senses were in a blur, and I strained to feel it.
There it was again.
Unsteadily, not because of my weakness, I raised myself up on my elbow, lifting my head, the imaginary tears gone from my face and from my mind. At the far corner on the other side of the barracks, a man sat with his back turned towards me, his hand supporting the weight of a small music box, and even at my distance I thought I could see the gears spinning, the handle unwinding, and I heard the lilting melody as the sound pieced the air, through the fog of hoarse voices, mocking shouts. It was like something I could touch-- almost tangible, and I felt myself reach out, into the air, as if to grasp the sound. The music flowed through my hands like water, and the corners of my mouth lifted slightly, because this was new, this wasn't usual, this wasn't what the war was.
And then the melody halted, the notes fading away, the water turning into dust in my hand, like the dust on the ground outside, as it was lifted away and spread out to disappear like the wind had taken it.
The man turned slightly, almost facing me, almost not, and then he stood up, depositing the music box in his pocket. His hair was a light grey, bordering on white, yet physically, he was not old. His eyes seemed to have been locked onto mine, sharp, unrelenting, and it was almost like he was issuing me a challenge as we stared at each other, from opposite ends of the barrack.
Silver. My mind whispered to me. Silver.
The distance between us seemed impossibly long, and then he turned around, and I watched him move out the door, feeling his footsteps on the ground, feeling how light they were, how he treaded like a cat, even though something in his eyes, within himself, looked out at me, violent, desperate.
Stop.
My hands clenched at the sheets urgently, I felt myself lurch forward.
Come back, wind the handle.
I was thrown back against my bed again, by some invisible force-- maybe I had fallen back myself. My hands clasped nothing, reached for nothing, as they hung by my sides uselessly, wanting to feel that tangible, concrete music that had, for such a short time, anchored me to the ground, made me real.
The ceiling seemed to stretch on forever, endless, the pain from yesterday throbbed as a memory, and I held onto it because I didn't know what else I could hang onto. I held onto everything nobody believed in like a dead man who hangs onto the illusion of life because he doesn't know what death is.
* * *
