Heero Yuy must be part German Shepherd. That's the only way I can explain his mile-wide protective streak. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but it can get pretty damn annoying sometimes.
By the time I convinced him that it was highly unlikely that any bad guys were going to break into the Preventers infirmary and kidnap Quatre, it was 0130 and my eyes felt like they had been sandblasted. The only thing keeping me on my feet was pure adrenaline. It was in that state that I frog marched Heero back to Sally's office and insisted that she give him a sleeping pill.
Twenty minutes later, he was out like a light on the extra bed in Quatre's room.
Quatre himself was wide awake. He was sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed with a pile of folders in his lap, and he was going through each one in methodical silence. I grabbed a chair and sat down in front of him, snapping my fingers under his nose to get his attention.
"The silent treatment is getting pretty old, Winner. Why don't you spare me the suspense and tell me what's going on here?"
His eyes looked as tired as mine felt. His unusually-colored irises seemed to glow against the bloodshot whites. "Didn't Heero tell you?" He asked me.
I pointed to the bed where Heero was sprawled out under starched sheets. He was snoring softly. "He was too exhausted to make any sense. Besides, I want you to tell me."
He shuffled some papers around like a natural-born paper pusher. "Sally could probably give you better medical details, but the short version is that I've had an implant in my skull for about seven years that has more or less controlled my behavior, my thought processes, my moods…" he swallowed audibly. "Basically everything that makes me, well, me, has been controlled since I was thirteen years old."
Thirteen. Such a fragile age. I felt a strange, free-falling sensation in the pit of my stomach. "So you're saying that this implant basically controlled you?"
"Sort of, but that isn't the really disturbing thing. See, the chemical effects were deployed in stages that happened to coincide with key events in the war." He raised his head and looked me directly in the eye. "Do you understand what that means, Wufei?"
I thought I did. "It meant you were worked like a puppet all those years."
He shook his head. "That's not what I mean—well, not exactly. Wufei, the person who implanted this must have had a hand in controlling the war, somehow, or else how would he know when my behavior needed to change?"
"That's ridiculous!" I blurted.
He thrust a handful of papers at me. "Here, look this over. Sally drew it up today. It's a timeline that she and Heero put together showing the stages of decomposition of that thing in my head compared with the events that happened during the war. See how it's relatively benign for two years? Those two years were the ones I spent training with Instructor H. Then here," he tapped a date in early AC 195, "here is where Operation Meteor really began, when the scientists sent the five of us to Earth. Sally says that this particular chemical enhances aggression and physical reflexes…and here, about six months later, it changed again. That's about the time when I had to destroy Sandrock to help you and Duo escape from that base—"
"Yes, I remember that." I cut in. That was about the time things started going downhill for Quatre. It was a period that I'd rather not have discussed since it nearly resulted in the loss of Trowa.
"Well, it seems that that period of time was either anticipated or orchestrated by whoever did this to me." He tapped the small bandage over his right ear.
"I see," I said as the full implications became apparent to me. "Someone really knew what they were doing."
"Or they thought they did. Oh, Wufei," his voice developed a minor tremor, "you were right. They worked me like a puppet." And with that, he drew his knees up to his chest and curled up into a ball. I didn't blame him.
Not knowing what else to do, I just sat down on the bed next to him and put my arm around his shoulders.
December 27, AC 199I woke up feeling very groggy and disoriented and it took me several minutes to remember that that bastard traitor Wufei had let Sally drug me the night before. I sincerely hate being drugged. I wrestled my way out of the sheets, wondered briefly why Wufei and Quatre were sleeping on the same bed, and went to go find some coffee.
Sally had a coffee machine in her office. I let myself in and made use of it. Sally herself was asleep on a low cot in a little alcove, so I made a full pot in case she wanted some.
She made a noise. "Heero, has anyone told you that your social skills are somewhat lacking?" I guess the wheezing, gurgling noise of the coffee machine had woken her up.
"Yes," I answered. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Thanks, that's sweet of you, but it doesn't excuse you for barging in on my beauty sleep."
Duo also mentions 'beauty sleep' on occasion, but I guess I don't understand the concept. "You're pretty enough, Sally," I said, and it must have been an odd thing to say since she burst out laughing. I'm not very good with idioms.
The coffee was good, though, and it cleared away the fog in my brain. By the second cup, I could almost forgive Wufei. I know he only had my best interests in mind, but still…
Sally asked me if I would take Quatre his medication. I think she was politely trying to kick me out of her office, so I pocketed the pills and went back to his assigned room with two cups of coffee.
Wufei was awake. He was scowling and rubbing his shoulder, but he nodded his thanks when I gave him his coffee.
"Bad night?" I asked.
"You could say that." He lifted his arm experimentally and winced. "I fell asleep with my arm around Winner's shoulders and it sort of froze in that position." He took a drink of his coffee and his scowl faded a bit. "He told me what's been going on. It's…disturbing."
I agreed. "Yeah, it's disturbing, but it's over now."
The scowl came back. "What do you mean, it's over?" he demanded.
"It's over. The implant is out. Quatre's on the mend. It's over." I turned my back on him and went to Quatre's bed to wake him up.
"Heero, I can't believe you!" Wufei said in a voice loud enough to wake Quatre without my having to jostle him. "Don't you want to know who did this? Don't you need to know?"
I handed Quatre his coffee and took the pills out of my pocket. I blew the lint off of them before I gave them to him. "How are we supposed to find out, Wufei?"
"I don't know…there must be some sort of record—Quatre, you must have medical records somewhere, right?"
Quatre may have just woken up, but he somehow seemed to have been following the conversation. I suspected he had been awake for some time and had been listening in quietly while feigning sleep. "It's possible. Sally has copies of everything from my personal physician, and then there are Instructor H's records somewhere…probably on that old abandoned natural resource satellite he used as his lab and workshop."
"MO-III" I said, remembering.
"Yes, that's it. That's the last place I remember him contacting me from," Quatre said.
"Then that's where we go next," said Wufei, and I was familiar enough with that bedrock-solid, stubborn tone of voice that I knew arguing would be worthless. Wufei was going to go to MO-III whether any of us liked it or not, and may the gods have mercy on anyone who tried to get in his way. I felt my shoulders sag.
"All right. MO-III it is."
December 27, AC 199Left to my own devices, I am not a morning person. No matter where on Earth or the colonies I might be at any given moment, I am a night owl who does my best work during the night cycle and I prefer to sleep half the day away before crawling out of my warm bed in search of caffeine and nourishment. Sure, I can rise at the crack of dawn and be reasonably alert and functional, but on the whole, I am a nocturnal animal.
That's probably why I slept through the noise that morning, although the beers I had drunk with Duo the night before could have had something to do with it also—I don't really know. All I really remember is vaguely hearing a car horn beeping, then something that sounded like a fist pounding on the front door, but I chalked these up to early-morning dreams and thought nothing of them. It took Duo himself to shake me out of my slumber and make me face reality.
"Wake up, Bang Boy!" He said while jumping up and down on my bed. Wearing combat boots, I might add.
I think I told him to go stick his head in a pig or something like that, but he wouldn't leave me alone. Somehow it seemed imperative to him that I wake up. "All right, all right, get your elbow out of my ribs. What is it?"
"We got complications, man! Look!" He pointed to the bedroom window, which faced out over the back yard and the driveway. I looked. I saw a screamingly ugly metallic purple car with lots of horrible chrome accents parked in front of the house. Only one person in the world would own and love such a car.
"Oh crap," I moaned.
"Oh crap is right, dude! You gotta do something!" Duo seemed to be panicking.
All I really wanted to do was to crawl back into bed and sleep till a decent hour—say two or three o'clock in the afternoon—but it just wasn't going to happen.
"TROWA!" Screamed a voice that I normally would have been happy to hear. "GET YOUR SCRAWNY BUTT DOWN HERE AND GIVE YOUR SISTER A HUG!"
I sighed. The complication had arrived.