It was…a baby girl?
Meryl squinted through the fog, quickly forgetting about where she'd been and wondering about where she was. The small naked creature, red-skinned and writhing, mewled helplessly as white sparks of light hissed and spat about it in some vast, bulbous container. Meryl's confusion shifted to alarm. She had no idea what was going on, but it looked like… Oh…Oh my… Her heart lurched in her throat.
"Help!" she screamed. "Somebody! Help! That baby's caught in an electric current!" But her hysterical words fell silent, even on her own ears. In a blind panic, she tried to move forward, but it was as though she were encased in cold, damp clay.
A forced spectator. "Someone! PLEASE!"
A half-dozen beings crowded her vision. Dressed in odd, masked space suits. The kind that quarantined the individual inside, for fear of dangerous exposure. Contamination.
The sight made Meryl's stomach turn. What…what's going on here?
A mechanical saw emerged. A sharp, loud whirring noise made her jump. The destructive instrument was thrust against the baby's unusual container, and her small noises jumped up in decibel, and turned to wails. She spasmed and twitched spastically as the walls around her were ruptured, and it was then that Meryl realized that this transparent, large bulb wasn't a prison.
It was a bulb.
A plant angel… Her throat constricted and she screamed again as thick-gloved hands invaded the space, gripping the infant's small foot, and yanking her screaming form out. It was horrible to watch, and Meryl knew, without knowing exactly how, that they weren't extracting the child to nurture it.
"Don't touch her!" Meryl choked, maternal instincts she didn't know she had surging through her veins like fire. "Don't you dare experiment on her like she's a guinea pig!!"
Nothing. She was ruthlessly shut out as her vision turned black. Her awareness faded. And when sight was once again returned, in all its nightmarish haze, she saw a child.
Toddler size. Short white hair cropped to her delicate little shoulders, and eyes so extraordinarily large, and crystal clear, that one would be hard pressed to think that they hadn't just plucked this angel child from the heavens. Again, the knowledge came to her without explanation or adornment. This was the baby girl. Older now.
Huddled in a corner, with teary, turquoise orbs, and a frown so deep that it elongated her cherubic face. With her heart aching in ways it never had, Meryl instinctively moved to go to her.
But she couldn't budge. Shackled in the surrealism of a bad dream, she was forced to watch as rough hands plucked the girl from her safety. The little angel's face reddened as she began to whimper, giant gumdrop tears pouring in a deluge down her soft cheeks. But no one came to her rescue. No parent was there to stop them.
She squirmed and kicked as they propped her down and latched a heavy mechanical visor to the top of her skull. Then they strapped her to a flat surface, and Meryl choked down a sob as the little thing convulsed with fear.
"She's just a child!" Meryl tried again, mentally banging against her restraints. "You inhumane bastards, she's just a BABY!!"
For all the shared anguish, for all the horror of the moment, nothing Meryl said or did stopped them from producing two nasty, blood-sucking needles and stabbing them, without warning or mercy into tiny, innocent arms…
Stop them!, Meryl plead emotionally with whatever God was listening. Please. Make them leave her alone…
In response, the image shattered…twisted…a kaleidoscope of blood and bandages, and machinery. No blackness this time. Just another significant lapse of time. Same cold room. More monitors. More needles, and…
No…
Motionless. Her body was older, but unconscious. And wrapped from head to toe in bandages. Her chest rose and fell with strained, raspy breathing, as limbs she'd tried so desperately to protect before were displayed openly for the dozen patches and needles imbedded in her skin. Hard, rubber hoses were somehow fastened to open wounds that they had created, and a spider-like clamp nestled over her heart… Thin, patchy hair, bleeding gums, missing teeth... All damning the scientists. Evidencing that they'd never stopped this evil work…
Four men walked in, with sterilized attire. Face masks, rubber gloves, even goggles. They didn't flinch, as the monitor showed her heart beat slowing. Just looked at their notes, as though the dying child before them were nothing more than an fascinating result.
In anguished shock, Meryl couldn't stop herself from screaming, clawing at the invisible wall between them in a crazed frenzy. They had to stop. Had...to...
Stop...
.
.
Tessla... Damn them. Damn them and their entire race for what they did to you...
It was too much for his tortured body to handle. Knives shuddered violently as the visions stopped, his own consciousness dropping back into his body like a steel anvil. He groaned with the impact, worse off now for the retelling of the most terrible moment of his life. He felt a weight on top of him, small and trembling, sobbing against his chest. His hands were still clamped on the woman's head from the transfer…the memory transfer that should have never occurred.
He hissed softly and raised a weary hand over his brow.
What have I done?
She sniffled, and slowly lifted wet, woeful eyes to lock stares with him. The emotion in her face was something he almost couldn't cope with. It suggested that she cared about what she'd seen. A good deal.
She asked something. Lips quivered, but the sound was lost as his drugged state mingled his past and present. It confused him, and he found himself measuring the angle of her tear-streaked visage, the length of her bangs, the sheen of her cheekbones. His open palm moved in wonderment to lightly touch her face.
Rem...Rem never looked this small...
"That girl... That plant angel..." a frown so deep, he could see her bottom row of teeth. She hiccupped and buried her face over his heart again, and thumped his ribs softly with her fists.
So upset... He watched her in growing distress...So wounded, like she didn't know. Like she wasn't the one who told Vash and I to begin with... Wait... He tried desperately to focus through the haze. The association between the two women blurred. The sharp scent of gunpowder wafted over him, and her face became her own. Regret returned, tenfold. It hit him in tangible waves, making him cringe inside. How could he show her so much? How could he let a human see…?
A familiar resentment nagged at him, and he became alarmed at her nearness. A dim remnant of his former self suggested that he push her off. That they disengage this human contact immediately, but his control over his own thoughts was eluding his grasp, and it was overwhelmed by something much more…primitive… This closeness, this warmth… Knives realized with a startling clarity that he hadn't felt either for almost a century and a half. And there was something about it.
Something…soothing…
His hand moved of its own accord from her hair to her shoulder…
And the woman changed demeanors. She snapped up, and pushed off him, her face a sudden cocktail of enraged anguish. Knives stared, dumbfounded, as she roughly wiped the wetness from her eyes with the back of her hand. She'd gone from whimpering to fierce in a half second. "We still might have time."
"…time?" he cracked.
"We can SAVE her, Knives!" she yelled, making a fist.
He blinked. Frowned. Did she think-- ?
The human was now up on her feet. She crossed her arms with practiced expertise, and extracted a small pistol from her cloak and a… He fought the urge to scoot back. Where has she been hiding that thing!?
A shotgun. A pump, no less. She cocked it with one jerk of her hand, the 'ka-ching' making him jump. How could she switch gears so fast!? "What're you—!?"
"Alright." She looked at him, abruptly terrifying. "Let's go. Those sonsofbitches are going to kill her if we don't hurry."
"You don't under—"
"SHE'S JUST A CHILD!" she screamed, biting back another sob. He saw her teeth grit, the muscles in her jaw jump. Dusty, obsidian bangs shook about her brow. For all her earlier exhaustion, she was belligerent now. Her reaction wasn't right. Wasn't right at all. It was making him nervous for reasons he didn't care to identify. The woman looked like she was going to explode.
"Knives!"
He flinched.
"TELL me where she is, you gimped egocentric bastard, or so help me, I'll--"
!? Gimped…egocentric… He shot bolt upright, forgetting about his wounds. "She's DEAD! Your people…k-k-KILLED her…over130yearsago!" Too unfocused to discipline his thoughts, he hurled one last visual at her. Of Tessla's dissected, dismembered body, floating in all its mutilated detail in a giant vat of formaldehyde, her intestines and organs floating about her broken rib cage in some sick display of scientific curiosity.
His heartbeat was thrumming in his ears. His world spun. But he didn't miss her reaction. The visual hit her like an avalanche. Weapons fell disregarded to the floor as she clutched her head, and screamed.
He watched with speechless apprehension as the fight ebbed out of her body like a departing spirit. She collapsed with her face in her hands, rocking back and forth on her knees, weeping incoherencies he couldn't even begin to understand.
And all over someone she never knew. Over someone who died over a century ago. Over a plant angel… Knives shook himself, wracking his brain for a possible ulterior motive for her anguish.
Several moments passed, and he wondered if she was going to be any use at all, when soft, whispering words filtered between her fingers. "She…was…the first of your kind?" she spoke without looking up.
He damned his tongue yet again for letting so much slip out. And like before, he was utterly unable to stop from answering. He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes. "Mm."
"Tessla?"
Pause. "Yes."
She rubbed her eye sockets with the heel of her palms, her shuddering breaths slowing to a slight hiccup. Her next thoughts he heard as clearly as though she had said them outloud. And he hadn't even been trying.
No wonder he hates us so much...
He almost snorted. No wonder, indeed. But do you believe in my crusade? Do you see why humanity must die? She was beyond receiving however, and after a long moment of silence between them, he felt his energy draining. Fast. The old gun wounds were beginning to throb. He needed to heal. His drugged mind needed to recuperate, before anything else slipped out. Knives twisted, and started to crawl towards the brilliant bulb, feeling the human's small, but strong hands supporting him a moment later. He was too tired to even care anymore, and let her help situate him on the platform under the bulb.
Once positioned, Knives looked sidelong at the woman who had brought him home - whose cheeks were still streaked with tears, whose eyes were still puffy and swollen. He could still see the shadow of Tessla in her visage, but she attempted to move on to more practical matters.
"Where...where do you want me to--"
"Back th-through the corridor," he managed. "A chamber to your left. Running water, food storage, la…lavatory."
With half-lidded eyes, she looked behind her, and turned back. "How long...?" she asked with an exhausted rawness that made churning gravel sound melodious in comparison.
How long... Knives looked at her. She seemed as though she was two seconds away from passing out. Far from threatening. Too tired to be devious. His vision started to fog over, but Knives caught it this time. He cursed himself, and his skewed judgment. On command, the old doubts resurfaced.
She was human. She'd probably take off the second he went into his comatose state. Maybe even inform her people of this secret place. Or Vash. And he couldn't have that. On reflex, he reached out to her with his mind. Like he had with Legato and others. The brainwash would take just a few seconds. And he had enough mental capacity to do at least that…
She gasped.
Hn?
A shaky hand raised to her head. And to his utter surprise, angry, blood-shot eyes pegged him with a glare worth a thousand deaths. A half second later, his mental probes came slamming back into his own mind, causing an instant migraine. "Ngh…!"
"Don't you DARE use your mind tricks on me, Knives!" she screamed, causing him to cover his ears in residual pain as the piercing sound rattled his poor brain.
Screeching BANSHEE!!
Her jaw dropped, "I'll show you screeching banshee!" Her voice jumped up an octave, and cracked. "Try mind-raping me again, and I'll...I'll..." She huffed, and closed her eyes. He could see her lips moving as she counted backwards from ten. When she finished, she took three deep breaths, and tried again. Her voice a sliver more composed. "Look. If I say I 'll stay, then I'LL STAY. How the hell am I supposed to show you I can be trusted if you don't give me a damn chance!" She jabbed her finger in his side. "Give me a chance!"
He clutched at his head as his world spun again. She was so damn volatile! How did she know what he'd been doing? And more importantly, how did she stop it? And such a tone. The woman had no idea how lucky she was to still be alive. So he informed her.
"You're…lucky…to be ALIVE!"
"Feh!" She swiped at the air in an angry gesture. "You're one to talk, paraplegic."
Such insolence...!
"Alright, alright..." she batted at the air, and then rubbed her temples in aggravated exhaustion. A stray set of tears leaked out of her eyes, but Knives got the impression that she didn't even notice. Or care. "I'm tired. I haven't slept for almost 30 hours. Just answer my question so we can both get get some rest, already."
"Stay," he hissed, barely keeping keeping it a secret how he'd planned on using her to debilitate Vash. "Just stay. For now."
"You'll be healed when?"
"Couple…days…" He hated how the answer just came out. Damn, if this foreign element wasn't out of his system by the time he disengaged himself from the plant angel, then…
"Fine." She stepped back, and he gratefully turned away from her. Knives pressed the button on the underside of his flatbed. The mechanical hinges rose, and nestled him against the cell of his sibling and mercifully away from her.
Large, shaky hands palmed the glass, while his encased sister floated down, and placed her calming presence opposite him. Their energy began to fuse. Knives felt the human's physical presence eventually leave the chamber, but her aura... Her aura remained, plaguing his thoughts, and rallying unchecked in his head with all the directionless chaos of a ping-pong in a vacuum.
The woman might be more trouble than she was worth.
.
.
Vash's search came to an end, as he leaned against the doorframe of the control room.
Knives. Of course he was here.
His brother was sitting with his feet kicked up on the panel - staring in wide-eyed wonderment at the vast chamber through the panel. The million encapsulized people hadn't budged since the last time they were in this room, still frozen in the blissful state of cybersleep. Never moving. Never changing. Just there…
But it never kept Knives from daydreaming.
Vash shuffled in loudly, wearing Rem's too-big shoes and too-long clothes, and rested his hand on the back of his brother's chair. He was rewarded with no greeting. Too enamored with the view, Knives didn't even turn his head, his expression fixed in that same silly grin and dreamy visage. Vash chuckled internally. His brother's enthusiasm was always so contagious.
"You never get tired of this, do you," Vash said.
A small, breathy laugh, and Knives finally peeled his stare away to acknowledge him with sheepish eyes. "Neither do you."
"Hn." Vash joined him in companionable silence as they marveled at the view. So many lives. So many faces…
"I wonder what they're dreaming…" Knives whispered.
Vash frowned. "Aren't their brainwaves stopped?"
No answer, those curious blue orbs as fixated as ever on the endless possibilities. It was then that Vash noticed the open file on the monitor of one of the frozen individuals. He recognized it immediately. It was the same one Knives had been oogling at the last time they were in here. Of a young girl, a bit smaller than they, with long-lashed lilac eyes, and dark hair cropped to her shoulders. And that smile… A genuine smile. Like Rem's.
"Oh…" Vash uttered, but before he could ask, Knives looked back innocently and smiled.
"She's pretty," Knives said.
Vash considered it. He clapped his brother on the shoulder, knowing him well. "What cell number is—"
"B435,296."
Vash laughed. "You want to go see her, don't you."
That was all it took. With a hop and a giggle, Knives was trotting down the hall before Vash even had a chance to turn around. He shook his head and sighed good-naturedly as he headed after his eager brother to go and sneak a couple of Rem's warm coats.
Vash listened to Knives rattle off like he usually did about how great it would be to meet them. To get to know them. To hear about their lives back on earth. They finished dressing up, and headed towards the cyber sleep room.
"Sometimes I wish we could go to sleep, too," he said, opening the door to the massive container. They were assaulted by a freezing cold gust, and Knives turned to Vash with chill-reddened cheeks, his breath visible. "That way, we wouldn't have to wait. We could all wake up together in our new home."
"Yeah…"
They walked in like they had so many times before. And like usual, Vash found himself struggling with some elusive apprehension as he beheld the myriad of sleeping humans. A nagging unease that undermined Knives' enthused optimism.
He held it in, wishing he could be more like his brother as they took an elevator and ascended a few levels. A ten-yard walk around the perimeter later, and they were at the girl's capsule. Number B435,296. It was exciting, he admitted, looking at the living being beneath the glass. She looked just like the picture, Vash noted. Had even fallen into the deep cyber sleep with her lips curled up in a blissful smile.
Knives leaned down and touched the capsule, tracing her face with his hand. "I bet she's nice, too." He stared a moment longer, and then stood, tilting his head back to take in all of them. With a bounce in his step, he turned and looked at his brother over his shoulder.
"Hey Vash…" he began, tugging his bottom lip in between his teeth, his large, crystalline eyes looking so unbelievably hopeful, it made Vash's heart hurt. "Do you think we can become friends with them?"
So eager. So idealistic, as though the entire human race would embrace them, just like Rem had. Vash looked at the stern-looking man in the capsule next to the girl's, and the blank face of an older woman above them. Part of him was envious that his brother could be so positive. Doubts nagged him. His smile straightened as he recalled the history vids they'd seen, of war-like faces, angry faces, blood and death… He didn't want to disappoint his brother, so he phrased it as tactfully as he could.
"Vash?"
"Yeah," he said, swallowing down a lump in his throat. "But I think we're going to have to put in a lot of effort…"
.
.
The cruel morning sunlight yanked Vash out of the dream with all the tender delicacy of a trumpet in a graveyard. Blinding, deafening, and numbing all at once, the bright rays jarred to alertness senses that needed a couple more hours to recuperate. He groaned and turned away from the window, the onset of a slight hangover invading his consciousness.
He clenched his eyes shut, mentally groping after the memory that was quickly fading. Of that time, back then. When Knives still cared… Vash tried desperately to hold onto it. To retain the affection that had once been so easy to feel for his brother.
Because he was struggling.
The elusive assurance he'd felt when he brought his brother back had dissipated the moment Knives scared him into exiling Meryl. To mention her with those vindictive, calculating eyes…forcing Vash to turn her away, after he'd become so emotionally dependent on her presence, her support, her belief in him…
Agh, I need her.
The invalid in the room down the hall had nearly secured his own death by doing that. By holding on to his hatred and bitterness with maniacal glee. Perhaps he wasn't capable of changing at all.
In which case…
Vash dropped his head in his hands. But that time… That time when he loved humanity more than Rem and I combined… That time when he used to smile…
He forced himself to stand. He batted away the anxiety, and clung with desperate tenacity to the memory of an endearing, white-haired boy with soulful sapphire eyes. Then, marching one dutiful foot in front of the other, he padded over through the lonely apartment and routinely rapped on his brother's door
"Good morning, Knives!" he chimed in false cheer. He cracked open the door and stuck his head in. "Ready for some break…fast…" Vash stopped. Burst in. Looked around. And freaked.
The room was empty.
.
.
Milly dropped her luggage in the lobby of the small motel that Vash and Knives had been staying in. Her suitcases were so heavy, the floorboards creaked when they hit, startling the clerk. He looked up, saw it was her, and smiled warmly.
"Ah! Welcome back, young lady!!"
She waved. "Have you seen Mr. Vash, sir?"
The older man pulled on his long moustache, and nodded. "Been in a panic since he woke up this morning. His wounded pal seems to have flown the coop, and that gangly broom-headed friend of yours has been spazzing all over the place, trying to find him."
Milly blinked. Knives ran away? She recalled what Meryl had said about him singling her out, and Vash's adamant response. "In a panic, huh?"
"Schyeah. The way he's acting, you'd think he just unleashed a pit bull in a kindergarten."
"Uh-oh…" She pondered the situation, knowing there was more to Knives than either had let on. She looked around. No time to start work like the present. She certainly wasn't one to sit still and do nothing. "Maybe I can help him look. Do you know which direction he went?"
The man shrugged, and rolled his eyes in exasperation. "All of them! Better for you to stay until—"
Heavy stomping sounded on the steps outside. They both swung around as Vash burst through the swinging door. He was frantic. Eyes wild with worry, still dressed in his pajamas… He saw Milly, and his face opened in an honest plea. He trudged up and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her.
"Milly! What are you--?"
"I was reassigned to you, Mr. Vash," she rattled off quickly to try and console him. "But Meryl wasn't. She was sent on another job..." One bit of logic led to another, and the red flags started to wave in Milly's head.
"Another job? Milly?"
She nodded absently as the wheels turned, repeating Meryl's explanation with growing unease. "Another high end job. She wasn't able to tell me..." she stammered, suddenly realizing that Vash's missing patient, and Meryl's reassignment were too well-timed to be a coincidence. "Oh. Oh my. That's...not like her, to do something this reckless without backup."
Vash paled considerably. She reflexively reached out and steadied him, easing his trembling form into a chair. He was looking at her, but not seeing her. His mouth fumbled inarticulately, face twisting with terror.
"Is Knives that bad of a person--?"
"We…we have to find her, Milly." His voice cracked, and he hung his head and scrunched his eyes shut, letting loose a profanity that made even the hotel clerk blush.
"I...I should have killed him when I had the chance!"