Sorry this took so long, school's been a pain. I may repost this chapter; one scene just doesn't seem good enough to me. Oh well, enjoy this one.
Absolute Zero
Continued
3. Mind Games
While Heero slept, doctors and nurses were constantly going in and out of his room. After they were sure his condition was stable, they began to go back and explore things they had noted beforehand, such as his strength. He was not inhumanly strong but he was much stronger than an average teen. Inferences of precise physical training rose from this observation. They made numerous notes about him: of Japanese descent, male, approximately 16 years of age… It came as a complete surprise to them to discover that, despite his near perfect physical condition, his mental condition was very abnormal. Long into the early morning hours doctors were still checking up on his mental stability. The dim gray sunlight of the dawn slipped through the blinds of Heero's room and shone on the backs of two men examining a few computer monitors.
"His brainwaves are unusually strong and they emanate from places that are normally dormant." One of them murmured, stroking his beard.
"Yes…" the other responded. "By all reason, he should be a vegetable."
"And yet he moves, speaks…" The man shook his head. "It defies all laws of science."
"I quite agree. His brain seems to be taking in extra sensory data. His mind should not be able to process it but…somehow it is."
"Perhaps there is something special about his mind that allows him to process the extra information." Heero twitched in his sleep. He could hear a small voice calling out to him.
"Heero…" it was saying. "Come play with me…" Frowning, the Japanese boy turned his head toward the brightening light coming through the window. "You know you want to…you know you want to…" Heero pulled against the restraints on his arms, wanting to cover his ears.
"What special properties do you suppose his mind has? I can't think of anything that would allow a person, especially one so young, to deal with that much excess data."
"Maybe it has a funnel-like quality. The extra information is somehow focused into a compact stream that his mind can handle."
"It sounds a little far-fetched…"
"I know, but
think about it. The extra brainwave output could be what focuses the extra
sensory data. His brain is taking in more so it keeps balance by putting out
more."
"Yes, that would explain the
extra brain activity. But doctor, don't you think these brainwaves could be
dangerous?" The bearded gentleman
pondered this question.
"So far they
don't seem to be harmful to him…but…"
"Yes? What are you thinking?"
"Do you suppose he could use
those same focusing areas of his brain to create a wave of brainwaves?"
"Did you say…a wave of brainwaves, sir?"
"Yes, a strong output of electromagnetic waves."
"Sir, what you're suggesting…is…impossible! Don't you know what that would be?"
"Yes, yes, I'm aware of what it implies. But still…since it is so close…" The younger man shook his head.
"I think you're reaching, sir. There is no way the boy could make a wave of energy like that. If he didn't crush his skull, surely his brain would die from overexertion."
"No, the waves are small enough to permeate the skull without damaging it, you know that. That's how we know where waves are coming from in his brain. The focusing mechanism would make it so even more could get out at a time. And when they were released, it would be an explosion of energy! The waves would expand quickly and there would be so many –!"
"It would be like a moving wall of magnetic and electrical energy. But it's just impossible for a human brain to do that. It would drain itself."
"Unless it had some help…"
"What kind of help, sir?"
"If there were some other factor helping to focus all the energy, something that didn't come from the brain itself but was there…" The younger man shook his head again, trying to convince himself it was all impossible.
"Even if there was something helping to focus the waves, the extra electricity –!" he cried.
"It would simply flow into the rest of the body as usual, which would also explain that shock we always get when we touch him…"
"But the build up of magnetic energy –!"
"Any extra magnetic waves could just drift off harmlessly. Who knows, that may be why his hair tends to stick up that way; it could be attracted to metallic items around it."
"This is ridiculous, sir! You were reaching far before but now, you've just gone insane!"
"Why don't you want to believe it? You can see it right here in front of you, why won't you accept it?" As the young doctor opened his mouth to reply, he saw the glare that the sunlight had made on the computer screen disappear. They both looked up to see what had moved between them and the light…
Duo stared down at swirls made in his coffee as he stirred it. What was taking so long? Was Heero alright? He had so many unanswered questions.
"I think it works better if you drink it." Quatre smiled as he spoke the words. Duo gave a small, short laugh.
"I know, I'm gonna drink it…I just don't feel too well, that's all…" Quatre's nod showed his understanding of Duo's feelings.
"I know you're worried Duo. We're all worried. But I'm sure Heero will be fine."
"Thanks, Quatre." Duo lifted the cup and took a sip of the warm, cream colored liquid it contained. The blonde smiled then turned his head to gaze down the hallway Heero had gone through the previous night. His smile faded, replaced by a look of shock. The said boy was walking towards them, into the brightly lit, lavender and baby blue room, looking around as if trying to discern his location. Duo noticed Quatre's absence of motion.
"Somethin' wrong, Quatre?" he asked. His eyes caught Heero's moving form and a smile spread across his face. He and the other pilots got up and walked over to the seemingly lost boy, relieved that they could get out of there before someone found out too much about them.
"You had us a little worried there, Heero." Duo joked. The receptionist looked up at them quickly, making her glasses slip a bit.
"May I have your name, young man?" she demanded, her tone suspicious. Heero stared down at the floor. Quatre stepped forward.
"He should be listed as Heero Yuy. Can he leave now, miss?" he asked. "Has he been cleared?"
"I'll have to check…" she murmured, continuing her examination of Heero. Slowly he lifted his head. She watched his navy blue irises appear intently, almost entranced by the small movement. The deep, black holes that were his pupils slid into view. The boys watched her jump as if someone had snuck up behind her and pinched her.
"So, can he leave?" Quatre ventured. She blinked a number of times and stammered,
"Y-yes, he can leave, t…take him."
"You didn't look -."
"No, I did, it's right here, see? He's free to go, so go on!" She made shooing motions with her hands and gave them an exaggerated grin. After exchanging glances, Duo and Quatre led Heero away from the desk. Trowa started after them reluctantly but Wufei stepped in front of him slightly, making him stop.
"What is it?" Trowa asked.
"Didn't that seem suspicious to you?" Wufei said in a low tone.
"Yes; it was too easy."
"Did you see how she jumped?" Trowa nodded at the question.
"Like she saw the same thing we saw…" He raised his head to see Wufei giving him a meaningful stare.
"We don't know it was Heero." he whispered. Wufei looked as though he might argue but remained silent and followed the others out of the hospital.
***
Later on, Quatre showed the other pilots some new information he had gathered.
"The OZ soldiers managed to calculate almost exactly where we landed on our last mission." he was saying. "They've been making methodic sweeps of the area, looking for us. We're fairly well hidden here but Wing Zero is still out in the forest, right in plain sight."
"Well, someone's gotta go move it, right?" Duo asked. Quatre nodded.
"Now we need to decide who. We should take into consideration that whoever moves it will have to deal with the Zero system."
"No problem, I'll move it!"
"Are you sure you can handle it? This system can really warp your perception of things – you know that."
"Don't worry about it, I'll be fine." Duo grinned and put his thumb up.
"Duo, I'm serious. Just one stray thought can take you way off course and you were affected most by Heero's…accident."
"I'll move it." Trowa volunteered.
"Think you can do it, man?" Duo asked as Trowa stood. He received no response as the soldier boy walked out the door.
After about an hour of quiet walking, Trowa reached the gundam. It was still laying face up on the ground as it had been the day of the incident. Without hesitation, he jumped up to the cockpit, using various parts of the gundam for footholds. He wasn't at all surprised to see that the cockpit was still open. Calmly, he climbed in and strapped the restraints on. His fingers moved deftly across the control panel, closing the cockpit and starting the gundam up. Patiently he waited as the engines roared to life. The customary start up codes flashed across the screen as the machine's programs began to open. All seemed to be going well – then the Zero system froze in the middle of starting. 'Error', the screen read. Trowa frowned in confusion.
Back at Quatre's mansion, the other pilots were eating. By some miracle, Duo had gotten Heero to feed himself. As the Wing pilot was lifting the fork to his mouth his arm twitched suddenly, tossing the food back onto his plate. Slowly he looked down at where the food had dropped and stared at it blankly.
Lacking a possible reason for the error, Trowa typed in a few more commands to try to reveal what had caused it. A few windows popped up but the last one froze before it had completely appeared. 'Error' flashed in front of him once more. An alarm began to sound in the cockpit. Red lights blinked on and off. 'Error', the screen repeated. 'Error'… Trowa shook his head slightly, not understanding why this was happening.
Heero's head jerked up suddenly, his fingers twitching so violently they could no longer grasp the fork. It fell to the floor with a clatter. His eyes wide, he murmured,
"Error: Proximity breach…" The other boys sitting at the table looked up at him, shocked expressions on all of their faces.
"Uh…did you say somethin', Heero?" Duo asked. The boy in question lowered his eyes to stare down at his plate, seemingly calm once more. After a moment, Quatre broke the silence.
"Trowa's been gone a long time." he said. Duo nodded, not taking his eyes off of Heero.
"I'll go check on him." With that he stood and headed out the door. Heero turned slightly as Duo left, somehow sensing where he was headed. 'Don't go out there…' his mind pleaded, but his mouth couldn't find the words.
Trowa decided to turn the gundam off then back on again, in hopes that the system would have fixed itself. He began to punch in the command but new words appeared on the screen before he had even finished. 'Self destruct sequence initiated' he read. His eyes widened in disbelief. 'Self destruction will commence in 1:00… 0:59… 0:58…' As the computer counted down he brought to his mind the override code Heero had given the rest of the pilots the day of the Incident. Swiftly his fingers moved across the control panel, following the numbers in the exact order. Still the countdown continued. A loud, obnoxious beep filled his ears as he completed the code. 'Code not recognized' appeared just below the timer.
"What…?" That was impossible. Heero couldn't have changed the codes after the Incident. Maybe he had given them all a false code. But that didn't make much sense; if any of them had had to stop the gundam from self destructing after retrieving it from OZ they wouldn't have been able to. He started to type in the command to open the cockpit with sweating hands, his last idea. 'Command not recognized' the computer told him. He shook his head. This couldn't be happening. Heero had too many security traps for anyone to have tampered with the gundam. 'Trowa…' Trowa jumped back as his name appeared on the screen. The restraints tightened, squeezing his chest and cutting off his air. 'Do you like to play?' Lights flashed all around him as the siren grew louder, pounding mercilessly against his eardrums. The timer began to count down faster. 5…This couldn't be happening. It was improbable, impossible, highly unlikely – he knew Heero hadn't changed the codes already! 4… He couldn't breath; the restraints were too tight. His chest jumped violently, trying to draw air into his emptying lungs. Small gasping sounds escaped his throat as he clawed at the restraints, trying to breathe, trying to get free… 3…Why couldn't he get out? Why didn't the gundam respond to the commands? What had happened? When had it happened?! 2… Beads of sweat rolled down his face as he struggled against the seatbelt that was strangling him. The flashing red lights reflected in his widened eyes. Sirens and alarms consumed all his hearing and echoed in his head, trumpeting his own death to him. 1…This was it; he was going to die. Already he could see the explosion, hear the metal rip apart. He could already feel his body being shredded, pain surging through his entire being. A loud wail filled his ears as the last number changed to zero. His pupils shrank to pinpoints as a bright white light consumed his vision –
And he found himself staring up at blue sky. Trembling, he pulled himself from the cockpit and scrambled away from it. His legs could barely support him as he stood and backed away from the torture chamber. Before he knew it he had run out of room; his foot slipped on the edge of the metal and he plummeted to the earth. Though he landed in thick moss he was winded and his body began to go numb. With the last of his strength he rolled over and vomited before passing out.
Such was how Duo found Trowa when he reached the clearing that the gundam itself had created. Upon spotting the ex-mercenary Duo ran to his side and tried to wake him.
"Trowa, can you hear me?" he called softly while shaking the boy. Much to his relief, the brilliant green eyes opened and looked into his.
"Duo…?" The American beamed his famous grin down at Trowa.
"Of course it's me! You were expecting some one else?" He helped the other boy sit up to articulate his thoughts.
"What happened to ya, buddy?" Trowa shook his head slightly in partial response.
"I don't know….the gundam…it went crazy…"
"What do ya mean it went crazy?"
"It…it wouldn't respond to commands…" Duo gave Trowa a puzzled look.
"Maybe you were typing em in wrong. I'll go check it out."
"NO!" Trowa yelled, grabbing Duo's wrist as he stood. Duo's eyes widened slightly as he raised an eyebrow.
"…you okay, Trowa?" he asked.
"Don't go in there." Duo pushed Trowa's hand away, smiling.
"Don't worry; I know how to deal with crazy gundams." He moved toward the gundam but was again held back.
"I mean it, Duo. Don't go in there."
"Geez, you're really serious about this, aren't you?" Trowa stared at Duo sternly as he held onto his arm. Finally Duo conceded with a sigh.
"Alright, I won't go in the gundam, okay?" Trowa nodded approval and stood. He made for the safehouse with Duo in tow, already sorting out what he would tell the other pilots.
***
Much later in the day, the pilots were still trying to figure out what had happened to Trowa. There were great debates and arguments, there were beliefs and disbeliefs and there were agreements and disagreements; there were more of the latter than anything. Tired and frustrated, Quatre excused himself from the current argument and sought refuge in one of the many, spacious bathrooms the mansion had to offer. After closing the door behind himself, he strode to the large sink and turned the water on calmly. His mind was still fixed on what had happened the previous day, the day when he had seen all those ones and zeros all over the walls. That mysterious flash of light, that haunting voice…what had that been? Where had it come from and why had he seen it? All that he could think of was Heero. Hadn't he been walking toward Heero when he saw it? Weren't those eyes Heero's eyes? Those deep blue eyes…well weren't those Heero's eyes he had looked into? Yes, it seemed that those eyes, big and blue and shining with false innocence, that those eyes had been Heero's eyes… Such a strange blue, those eyes were. Such a deep blue they were. Deep, deep like the ocean, like the pits of imagination… Those eyes were so deep you could fall into them if you stared long enough…
Quatre found himself torn from his thoughts quite suddenly; his stomach had lurched violently. He could feel sickness rising within him quickly and didn't know how to stop the impending explosion. Slowly he tried to pull his hand from his mouth to take some deep breaths. But with a loud, horrid retching sound he doubled over and spilled the contents of his stomach over his hand and into the sink, his eyes squeezing shut as a few small tears welled up in them. After a moment his eyelids parted slightly.
"What…how did that…where….?" He couldn't find the words to express his confusion and horror. In the sink, where half digested food should have been, were thousands of tiny yellow bodies, wriggling wildly as one under the running water and yet independently, making Quatre even sicker than he had been. A small gurgling sound rose from his throat, bringing more of the tiny squirming insects up with it, the force of his muscles contracting tossing them into the sink with the others. The shocked blonde boy shrank away in disgust, cringing as more maggots slithered up his throat and fell out of his mouth onto the floor. His mind spinning, he backed away from the sink, forgetting that his path was not clear. For a brief moment he could see himself in the mirror above the sink. The image that met his eyes was horrifying. Hundreds of tiny, moving lumps were on his skin where the creatures were trying to get out. He could feel them moving around under his skin, inside of him, crawling over him, making him tremble and shiver. They squeezed in and out of his muscles, making him twitch uncontrollably. They oozed out of his ears, nose, and mouth, stimulating every nerve in his body, it seemed.
"OH GOD!!" he screamed, as he tripped over a waste bucket and fell to the floor. He writhed and jerked on the tile, his skin tingling with pain as the tiny things gnawed their way out from under it.
"GET THEM OUT!!" he cried. Frantically he scratched at himself, digging the mini worms out, wincing as they smashed into tiny drops of dirty yellow and red ooze under his fingernails. "GET THEM OUT OF ME!!!!" His panicked screaming led the other pilots, who were nearest, and a few stray servants right to him. When they reached him he was still screaming hysterically, trying to dig the small beings from his body. It was not until Trowa picked him up and shook him that he quieted down.
"Get them out of me, Trowa…" he pleaded, his voice trembling with anxiety. "Please, they're inside of me, in my body…you have to get them out of me oh God please get them out…get them out…" Trowa caught Quatre's hand as it moved to scratch at his skin.
"There is nothing inside of you, Quatre." he told him. The blonde boy shook his head and insisted that they were still chewing at him. Trowa looked but try as he might, he couldn't see anything or signs of anything on the shaking boy. The only damage he could detect had clearly been done by Quatre's own fingernails. Wufei and Duo checked the rest of the room. They found nothing, save a bit of regurgitated food in the sink. Quatre absolutely refused to believe that it had been a hallucination; he yelled at them when they told him it wasn't real and continued to dig into his own skin, trying to pull out imaginary worms. When after an hour he still hadn't stopped, it was decided that he needed to be taken to the hospital. Quatre was seated in the back in between Duo and Heero and Wufei sat in the passenger seat dictating directions as Trowa drove.
"If this keeps up, we'll all be professional hospital hoppers." Duo mumbled on the way.
"Then let's hope this doesn't keep up." Trowa responded, keeping his eyes on the road.
"I'll try…" the American boy sighed. "But my hope jar's been runnin' a little low, lately." A slightly deep yet slightly nasal voice spoke, very close to Duo's ear.
"You talk too much." it stated flatly. Duo's head jerked up and his eyes instinctively went to Heero. Heero was staring down at his feet intently, that same empty-headed expression on his face. Opening his mouth to ask if Heero had said anything, the braided boy realized that it was a ridiculous question and asked instead,
"Wufei, did you say somethin'?"
"No." was the short reply.
"Be quiet, Duo." Again Duo looked to Heero. But the handicapped boy was still sitting in the same position, making no sign that he had spoken or was even capable of speech. With a small scratch of the head and bit of pondering, Duo decided that his mind had been playing tricks on him, shrugged, and stared out the window at blurred lights whizzing by. Next to him, deep, dark blue eyes stared without really seeing anything but seeing everything at the same time. Those profoundly blue eyes, so deep, deep like the pits of imagination…
*Lots of mind games in this chapter, yes? Yes? Come on now…*