Chapter Eighteen
Getting through the air duct was not too difficult, Heero and Milliardo were still in perfect shape. The map that Trowa had sent to them had been priceless for them to find their way.
They were unscrewing a cover that according to the map was placed right on the top of the room that contained the mainframe when they heard gunfire. Heero finished the job as quickly as possible and, after checking with Milliardo to see if the older man had understood his intentions, the Japanese man jumped from the duct to the floor, then rolled on himself to take cover behind a metallic closet.
Milliardo started firing as soon as he landed on the ground. Sally and Trowa were covering Quatre while he was trying to force a door placed on one of the room's walls. There were at least fifteen guards in the room and some more were now coming in. The situation was getting desperate.
Heero grabbed his rifle and started firing as well. The guards, besides outnumbering them, were firing with real ammunition and that gave them a huge advantage. Heero wished he could do the same but understood that, in this period of peace and him no longer being a soldier, he would be committing a crime.
Getting tired, he told Quatre to stop and to cover him while he placed explosives around the door's lock. Heero still believed that blowing things up was faster and much more practical.
Wufei, while running towards where his wife and the others were, grabbed his radio and said:
"Sally, do you copy?".
"Yes, I copy you, Wufei where are you?" asked Sally
"We've found Relena…she needs you Sally. She's having contractions and her waters have just broken…" informed Wufei.
"Oh my gosh…where is she now?" asked Sally alarmed.
"Duo's taken her back to the room where we've found her, I'm sending you the route you've got to follow…" replied Wufei, then he added "What the hell is this? Sally, I've just seen something, get to Relena, she needs you…".
Duo just did not know what else to say nor do. Relena seemed to be in an enormous amount of pain. He tried desperately to remember what he had learned from the course that he had followed with his wife to prepare her for the labour.
"Relena, I think you've got to slow down your breathing while you don't have the contractions and you've got to breath faster when you're in the middle of them…actually, I think we both need to breath…" said Duo feeling really impotent.
"I'm so sorry Duo…" started saying Relena only to be interrupted by yet another contraction.
"Don't worry about this now…you've got other problems now…" replied Duo trying to think of something supportive to say.
Relena was lying on the bed propped up with Duo's help that was supporting her with his arm. Her doctor had warned her about this pain telling her to imagine the worst period pain and multiply it by one hundred times, this was supposed to help her figure out the amount of pain involved. Now that she was feeling it first hand, she made a mental note to tell her doctor that the pain was a lot worse than that.
The contractions were getting longer and more frequent. Relena started now feeling the pressure from the baby's head. If everything else had not done it before, this entirely freaked her out. Completely beyond her control, she started crying.
"I don't want my baby to be born here…Duo…please…I want a hospital, I want drugs…I'm scared…".
Sally, with all the confusion had not been able to speak to anyone to tell them where she was going instead she had started running through the corridors following carefully the route her husband had sent to her. The last thing she needed now was getting lost. She was grabbing her rifle with her right hand and the medical bag with her left. She kind of hoped to find Wufei half way to where Relena was but that was not the case.
Instead, turning around a corner, found herself in front of a group of six guards. Sally turned around trying to get away from there but it was too late. One of the guards had seen her and soon she found herself running in the opposite direction from where Relena was.
She kept running till she crashed against someone. She was about to throw a punch when a voice stopped her:
"Hey…woman, it's me!".
"Wufei! Six of the guards are following me…" said Sally warning her husband, then remembering their last conversation, the American-Chinese asked Wufei, "What did you find?".
Wufei was about to tell her when the six men that were following Sally caught up with her.
"Sally, whenever I tell you run for all it's worth…you've got to go to Relena…I don't know for how long Duo is going to cope by himself…the girl needs a professional now…" said Wufei running towards the group of men while shouting "NOW, RUN!!".
Sally even though she was worried about Wufei, did what her husband had told her and started running towards where Relena was. Unfortunately, one of the guards spotted her trying to get away and charged against her. She had to let go of her bag so she would be able to fire her rifle.
A few instants later, Wufei had knocked out four of the six men and Sally had shot at the other two. Just when she was looking around herself to find her bag, they heard another group coming from another corridor.
"Sally, you've got to go…" said Wufei.
"I can't find my bag…" said Sally desperate.
"Forget about it…You need to get to Relena and take her to the shipper as soon as possible, trust me…" said Wufei pushing Sally in the direction where Relena was.
Sally, not having another option, started running again while Wufei ran in the opposite direction.
Duo was the happiest man on ESUN when he saw the American-Chinese woman entering the room. His smile faded when he saw Sally's expression.
"What's wrong?" asked Duo.
"Relena sweetie…I've lost my bag and I don't have anything to give you for the pain…You'll have to be very brave, alright?" said Sally ignoring Duo's question.
Not getting any reply from a very distressed Relena, the doctor asked Duo how far apart the contractions were.
"I think they're coming every minute or so…" replied Duo.
"Alright…Duo, you're going to have to help me…now, whenever we get a contraction, you'll have to hold Relena in a semi sitting position then whenever the contraction is over, let her lay down so she can rest…" said Sally trying to give Duo a crash course in midwifery.
"Sure…" replied Duo getting increasingly nervous, he could handle anything but these kind of things…and, after all, Relena was not even his wife…this was supposed to be Heero's job, not his…
"Sweetie…I'm going to take a look now, are you ok with that?" asked Sally quite superfluously since Relena didn't really have a choice in the matter.
"I don't want to give birth here…" replied Relena stubbornly while Sally placed herself at the bottom end of the bed to start examining the young politician.
"I know baby…I know…unfortunately we're not going to be able to make it to the shipper now…how long have you been having contractions?" asked Sally trying to distract Relena while getting the information she needed.
"I don't know… I think a few hours…I've been trying to open the door since no one seemed to hear my screams for help…" replied Relena tiredly.
Sally swore almost inaudibly, Relena had been through the entire pre-birth process all by herself, no wonder she was so upset.
"Relena, you're ready…from now on, you'll have to push every time you'll get a contraction…is that ok?" said Sally seeing that the dilatation was almost complete.
Duo wished he had Heero's ability to disconnect from the world. Hearing Sally talk about pushes, dilatation and things like that was making him sick.
Suddenly, a huge contraction hit Relena. Duo propped her up as Sally had instructed him to do.
"Now Relena, push now…" said Sally.
Relena pushed with all her might. Fortunately, she remembered how to regulate her breathing through the contraction, the small problem is that the theory sounded much easier than the practice.
Meanwhile, after what it had seemed an eternity, the guards had stopped coming in and there were many of them laying on the floor unconscious.
The door that Heero had blown up had shown another empty room. That room had no furniture and there were no more doors.
Then, a voice, clearly belonging to Dr van der Veert, said:
"So, you've made it here…congratulations…but, like I said, you'll never find your wife…not alive anyway…".
Heero felt like shooting at something. He was simply furious for not being able to do anything useful.
Trowa had hacked into the mainframe and had managed to disconnect the mobile doll control system.
Quatre and Milliardo were trying to get information from one of the guards that was now waking up. The Arabian knew that the effects from the sedative would prevent any of them from posing a serious threat but, just in case, Milliardo and Quatre had tied the guards by their wrists.
Their interrogation was not getting anywhere and Heero was getting increasingly nervous. Then, Wufei came into the room running.
"Guys I have some very good news and some very bad ones…" said stopping in the middle of the room.
"So, what are you waiting for?" said Heero almost shouting.
Ignoring Heero's threatening tone, Wufei said:
"Ok, the good ones is that we've found Relena and she's now with Sally and Duo. I've also found the entry of Dr van der Veert laboratory. The bad ones is that Relena's giving birth to your child as we speak…"
END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN