Disclaimer: Usual applies.
*I'm moving to a different city so things are topsy-turvy here - updates will be slower, but I'll continue writing at ACD.
Enjoy. -Becca-W
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The quickest route to Earth resulted in three shuttle flights, one after another in such quick succession Relena had to catch her breath up when she was safely in the next shuttle. A small general transporter took her from the half-colony to a neighboring one, the next shuttle flew her into a Interspacial port and that shuttle - a public one with 200 people aboard - brought her to Earth. To add to the woozy state of her being she had to endure a three hour limousine ride. Home was a distance from the airport and the jet she remembered her family to have used earlier "..was not functioning properly anymore..", as told by her mother in a letter she received at approaching the chauffeur.
When she finally stood on the grounds of her childhood Relena felt all her strength leave her. She gloried in her mother's babying, in not having to carry any of her luggage, not even her carry-on case, and in being led gently up the steps to where a large tea service waited in the family parlor. Relena had been returned to the big house lifestyle she was brought up in; the atmosphere was surprising - so roomy, friendly, grande - but catching; she picked up on old ways almost immediately, beginning with sitting straight throughout tea with her mother and forgetting her exhaustion - such a trifle to begin with, really! - for the time being.
"The flight sounds grisly, Relena. No wonder you look worn."
"You don't fly anymore, mother?" (Good Heavens, crumpets, bagels, fresh croissants, coffee cake, raspberry-lemon tea, very goopy, recent marmalade...nothing green in sight, other than some wrapping).
"No.." Mrs. Dorlian said, a bit sadly. "I prefer to stay here." She took up her teacup again, adding slyly, "Not to worry, I'm kept busy. By the way, there are many who would like to welcome you home. You don't feel up to a party, though, do you? I didn't think so - don't look so wary, Relena! - but the Harletons, Schwannsons, Zthyrs, Lieks - they'll all want to see you at some point. I told them evenings or lunch would be alright for get-togethers. They'll be very disappointed if either of us keep shut up here, and I couldn't turn them away, we've known them for so long....more tea? Aren't you hungry?"
"Not at the moment, thank you. I don't mind, really. I haven't seen them since the funeral."
"They're very proud of you - though, in retrospect, I was to let them tell you so in person rather than blurt out such a weighty secret during something so light as afternoon tea." Her mother smiled to herself. "I do forget sometimes."
Relena glanced into her tea silently, stirring it with a small silver spoon.
"By the way," Mrs. Dorlian handed Relena another slice of poundcake as she talked, "How long is your stay, Relena?"
"Originally, four days...but I think I might stay longer."
"That'd be wonderful." Pause; Clink went the spoons being bumped against the sides of teacups; soft chewing ensued. "This brings me to something else, though - how is your work?"
Relena grinned before she could help herself, softly startling Mrs. Dorlian, though the latter didn't remark on her daughter's expression.
"It's difficult. I had to face up to rejection; the plans that I came up with for colonial reconstruction were not put into action. Oh, you'll hear of it in less than two weeks - whole colonies need to be made, but the people involved voted for reconstructing most of them rather than rebuilding. It's cheaper, of course..." Mother used to ask father that, when he was home. The exact wording, however simple, had been used at the beginning of each such conversations - without noticing it Mrs. Dorlian had addressed, even looked at Relena as she had once at her father! The feeling it gave Relena was astonishingly exhilirating.
"How is it you're involved in this, Relena? Isn't this outside your scope of obligation?"
"Usually, it would be, I think, but in this case the colony government officials are borrowing money from the ESUN, this translating into difficulties between offices. The politics in space are slightly different, but under no circumstance are we to endanger our yet weak relationship with their citizens. Even so, I doubt I would have been called in anyway, had this not meant alot to the President of Earth Sphere United Nations. Until this project gets underway, and, indeed, is finished with success, it will be my main source of occupation."
"You'll be spending much time in space, then?"
"I think so."
Mrs. Dorlian nodded, the teacup perched on her knee untouched for the last three minutes. Relena stared at it for a moment, turned away, focused on the food. They hadn't eaten much but she barely felt hungry. The ghost of hunger, if anything, yet plagued her stomach.
"I forgot to mention, both the Huggles are coming tomorrow, at half past eleven, for an early lunch. Do you mind?" Relena shook her head; no, she didn't mind. "They're looking forward to it so: Mr. Huggle has to attend a seminar at one, so they can't stay long." Mrs. Dorlian peered closely into her daughter's face; setting her tea aside she rose, gesturing for Relena to follow. "Let's get you upstairs, you look tired."
"I don't feel it..."
"You will, in a moment. We - I kept your room much the same." They climbed a wide set of stairs to the next floor, Relena watching sunlight shatter along the length of the banister as she trudged up each step. She felt grimy, probably from the shuttle flights. Her room had a private bath, though - she remembered the open window overlooking the eastern edge of the garden, the floor - part tiles, part floorboards - and the tub, set into the floor like a hot tub, with a ledge to rest one's shoulders on as the sun came up. Her mother opened the door to her room and Relena stepped in without a change of pace, not realizing where she was until she felt her mother's arms around her.
"I need to see to a few things, Relena; dinner is at seven, if you feel at all up to it. Don't feel obligated, though; that starts tomorrow. You'd better sleep, I'm used to eating early in the morning. Perhaps we could go for a ride?" Relena smiled her appreciation, nodding at the suggestion. Sounds wonderful. Her mother, with one last hug, departed, feeling the triumph of motherly contentment.
Relena glanced around, reuniting herself with the bed - a four-poster creation in a soft gray; unlined, unadorned - and the bookshelves lining the walls. Her desk, a matching piece to the bed, sat in a different corner now - or not? She found she couldn't remember the details. No rug - just a wood floor. A large window interrupted the simplicity of the room, bringing in all the colors of the late day, splotching the otherwise light blue-gray of the walls and staining the hands Relena lifted to her face. Turning them palms up Relena stared at the blue-red spreading across her skin...
"I am tired." She said blandly, her eyes losing some of their former vacancy. Her hands dropped to her sides; closing the door behind her she crossed the floor to the window and let the blinds down, shutting herself up in the small domain. What little she had brought along in the first place stood by her bed. Stepping out of her shoes, she padded to the bathroom, the tiles cold and hard. The tiled floor carried a simple design in blue tones checkered with white and shell pink, edged by wooden panels. There stood the tub. There stood the shower. She chose the shower.
It was relaxing. She scrubbed at her skin to relieve herself of the grime collected of her travels. She used a scented shampoo that had her dreaming of raspberries, strawberries, sweet dust.....
Relena went to bed immediately after, not because of physical exhaustion - oh, there was enough of that, to be sure, but the mental strain of the past two weeks fell heavily on that evening more than it had on the past ones. She felt so strained.
So she slept.
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Heero woke to the dragged-out screech of moving wheels; grabbing for the duffel bag in which he had managed to stow away the Zero he crawled from out of the shaft, sprawled out briefly on the pavement of the landing strip. Dragging the bag along after him he crawled in as hunched a form he could manage to the nearest luggage vehicle; there was space yet. He brought himself to his feet, shrugging the duffel bag up with him, and climbed in. Heero pushed himself to the back of the cart, his weight held up by a sturdy suitcase; with his chin on his knees he positioned the duffel bag to sit directly in front of him, effectively shutting out all light. Back pressed against the wall of the vehicle, the corners of the suitcase digging into his skin and the smell of forlorn luggage thickening subtly around him - sweat, dirt, new-bought cloth, moth balls, lavender, spilled wine and fresh mud, all in as understated a form as could be - the sounds of human activity outside muted. The vehicle shuddered than began to move, evenly, in the direction of a shuttle.
The vehicle was brought into the planes' belly, unloaded, luggage careening over the area, and lowered. Heero tumbled headfirst into an empty cello case, still tightly gripping the handles on his duffel bag. While there was still light in the area he struggled to find himself a safe hold, as otherwise he'd be bouncing with every turn the spacecraft made. The dark was not a haven to the unsupervised passenger and as the trapdoor closed he unknowingly squeezed the material of the duffel bag, the hard roundness of the helmet under his fingertips.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Heero's wrists felt the ache acutely after the flight as he had been grappling for appropriate holds during its entirety. The Zero was a tangible presence, a constant companion. Despite his former dependency on it Heero felt the need to protect it, earning himself a number of bruises in his effort to keep luggage from rolling atop the instrument in the duffel bag. Amazingly, the Zero system's nearness failed to usurp him of his mental control - he found himself expecting the machine to have a lasting hold on him whether he was or was not hooked up to it.
He wasn't at all sure - in fact, he disliked - the varying tones of gray he used to judge by rather than the bleak black and white, no inbetween ruling of the Zero. There had always been a level of confusion present even when his mind was being consumed by the Zero; a static murmur in the far reaches of his mentality telling him hurriedly to react differently. Having been one of the few people in the world to ever see the world in the refined, black-and-white view proffered by the machine he knew the difference. He had paid for that knowing. The Zero handed him clear, precise visuals as to who to destroy and who to leave alone - it had been pure mercy not to have to do the judging on his own.
In retrospect, it had been a weakness in and of itself to let himself be pulled in by something so unbelievable. Heero sneered to himself, one hand cupping the full roundness of the helmet through the duffel bag. In his defense, nothing in his life had let him think otherwise. Dr. J as well as the Zero tapped into that - he remembered the feeling of being used. It was probably the one feeling he hated most.
Heero thought further. The people he gravitated to - or had, as these were all characters from past years of confrontation - were extreme characters in a black and white world as well. They knew as little, and as much, as he. But that entire point of view was all too clear - if every obstacle in every person's way was destroyed, the human race would have made itself extinct. The Third World War, or Fourth, depending. (Heero was off the landing lanes and into the airport's underground facilities, avoiding any well-lit or well-guarded area, slipping by security as best he knew how).
He could not deny the triumphs, the eagerness, the happiness he sometimes felt from his servitude with Dr. J: when he had finished a mission, there was success. It was his success. No matter how grueling or cold the doctor had always acted towards him there was the need to please. Heero couldn't remember being reduced to a sniveling secondhand-man, but...Dr. J, slowly clicking the pincers of his false hand, nodding at Heero's account of a completed mission, the sagging bags of flesh under his eyes creasing as the corners of his mouth turned up without mirth or cheer, had been enough to let the young boy know, oh, he had done well.....
(He was now past most security and deemed it well to advance to the first floor, to meet and disappear with the jabbering flood with as little evidence of his appearance on private cameras as possible. He had little doubt as to his success).
Again, he returned to a question he was finding less and less amusing with passing time. What were Dr. J's intentions concerning the Zero? Why did he feel so strongly about this - he was well out of the doctor's reach of control, nothing could persuade him of returning. He was out of danger and yet, had delivered himself to it without quite thinking.
No. He had been thinking. Dr. J couldn't use him. For that matter, Dr. J wouldn't try the machine on himself - his mind, while more cunning and angled than even some of his colleagues, was entirely unprepared for the onslaught. He would use something else. (His conscience could survive another tear in its flimsy expanse, it had taken more of a beating than most - Dr. J barely felt the pang of regret now unless his actions affected him and a host of mostly innocent people). Heero was aware of the past failures - people Dr. J had coerced into attempting to net the Zero's abilities, into accessing and managing what the system could hurl at them. They had all failed in the attempt. The number of failures, always mounting, had begun to daunt even the doctor when he finally came across Heero.
As far as Heero knew, this failure to harness the Zero system resulted in almost immediate death. But only those past failures could tell him something he did not know, but suspected, of the Zero - that the machine could draw out the last breath of a body to a most painful point, extending death until the machine was through with the ragdoll in its clutch and willing to let it go.
(Heero aquired a taxi, directed it the nearest motel).
He wondered whether Dr. J had once tried the Zero on himself - a disservice he thought the rather egotistical gentleman was inclined to. Probably had. Idiot. Dr. J's systematic, private mind would have been scattered at the expansion of mentality the Zero would have brought him to. Seeing the world at that flat, two-dimensional level was freeing and binding, the combination of which would have driven the doctor further into a suspected madness. Heero's base survival skills had enabled him to operate on that level only with the loss of his personal sense of reason - really not that expensive a price at the time - wherease Dr. J would have had to hold onto something akin to such simply to distinguish up from down.
The Zero tended to use and abuse its occupants as well, adding insult to injury in a literal sense, something Heero doubted the doctor could admit to himself. The vanity come of having designed the system gave him the right to think that way, as far as Heero saw it. But what it must feel like to be incapable of controlling a creation so immense that only a savage, hormonal adolescent could reign it in enough to serve a rough purpose....the doctor's pride and self-absorbed character must have taken quite a blow even while he was in an ecstatic frenzy over the Zero's success.
(Heero drummed his fingers on the helmet of the Zero system yet in the duffel bag. He now sat on his bed, alone, the radio set at a low hum set with a static background and the lights on low. His stare becoming increasingly vacant, the drumming of his fingertips a constant beat in the still air, Heero digressed into a state of mummy-like silence, so absorbed in his thoughts that when he finally nodded off in a sleepless doze, his eyes remained open, dilated - and utterly void).
________________________
"Howard, get off that and help me with this."
"With what, man?" Dr. J sneered at the man whose aid he needed, leaving his reply at that. Howard settled his weight on one leg, jutted a hip out so one could see the bone peeking through, and gave the other a level stare. He was browned and shirtless; having always been one to tan easily Howard had settled himself in for a long, permanent retirement on the coast of the Pacific, his most recent residence. The interruption provided by the doctors was a bit of an annoyance - they had the tendency to get on his nerves, regardless of shared history - but he hadn't expected anything more intrusive than that to occur.
Dr. J had gotten nasty over the night. He became upset quickly and raged constantly. This change of mood was unlike him; the doctor had always had a certain grip on himself as he knew of the full impact of his rage where others were innocently unaware. Howard growled under his breath. He'd woken this morning to find several suitcases packed and the doctor on his couch, watching the interspacial news channel Howard had aquired (illegally, for the fun of it). The man's face was as drawn and lined as it was that morning and it was now the afternoon.
The doctor turned from him.
"I can't get that toolbox in the basement. Can't reach."
"Oh. Alright." Howard left for the basement, leaving the sullen doctor to stare at his luggage. When he came back upstairs, he ventured into a conversation he wasn't sure he should have started in the first place. "Leaving?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Trouble abroad? Anything you want to share?" He handed the doctor the toolbox.
"Yes. Difficulties concerning a former - employee of mine. Nothing you would like to know."
"Listen..if there's anything I -"
"Take my messages, and if some kid calls, don't tell him anything." Howard raised his eyebrows at his colleague's back as the doctor busied himself with some wrenches.
"A kid? What kind of a kid?"
"A weasel with hair, that kind of kid." Turning around, Dr. J left out the backdoor and retreated to the veranda, where he set himself on the easy chair Dr. O so liked to use in the evening. Once he was in a comfortable position - a tray of wrenches and the like at his elbow - he quieted, his eyes fixed on the clawed device replacing what used to be his hand. He clicked it, at first unwillingly, then in the spirit of experimentation. Howard watched from the screened door, his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his shorts.
The doctor had not come up with the design of this bulky replacement. He hadn't even been involved in setting it. At the time, he had been unconscious for what turned out to be two weeks. The accident resulting in the loss of hand and wrist was a very unpleasant, grisly memory dating far back. Considering his position in the last decade as a rebel, a doctor of unethical methods, a pawn of Oz and an abusive foster parent the claw had been a risky choice when it came to an operation as it relieved him of secrecy and, resultingly, safety. He believed in his career, though, and for the career he needed two working, capable devices, preferrably two hands, or something like them. Therefore, the claw had been joined up to the rest of him in what was a groundbreaking surgical procedure of which all records had been destroyed (the operating surgeons included, though old age, not him, had been the reason for that). That it still worked so fluidly, and would for years to come, was a miracle. Dr. J hoped in the deeply private well of his thoughts that he had studied the claw enough to go through with his plans. He considered himself every bit as capable as that surgeon from long ago, but he had only been able to research and dig into it a little.....whether he could dismantle and put it together again, though....the thought made him too uneasy and he canceled all such thoughts from his mind thereafter.
He started with the screws bolting the outer metal sheeting to his arm. The recent injections of numbing medicine kept much of the pain from disturbing his concentration - the hypodermic needle he'd used lay close by, with two, unused ones beside it.
The procedure started off quickly - the risk he was putting himself at made the doctor a wee bit jittery and eager to finish - but lessened to a more gradual pace as his mind set to dismantle the instrument mentally before he took a wrench or screwdriver to it. Soon enough, he was too involved to notice the jerking and small bites of pain the operation caused - he found he was excited. It was amazing, so exact - he loved precision, he loved calculated risks and genius machinery of which he considered the claw to be a smallscale example.
Once the outer layers had been removed and the blades set aside - so lightweight, the material was exemplary!, most likely some combination of gundanium alloy - he examined each 'tendon', every 'bone'. Magnificent. He was proud to have the odd affliction, the honour of this invention be such an integral part of his mobile person. Dr. J set every piece of the claw in a clear plastic dish unto itself, labeled and sorted with painstaking care (it had taken him a week to get it together). Each dish, container and drawer was set into a toolbox-like carrier, fitted together as the claw had been originally, on his arm.
Once he was past the third stage of dismantling the operation became tricky. Dr. J's back and neck hurt, his shoulders ached, he discovered advanced arthritis in joints yet uninvestigated. Whoever said growing old was bullshitting gold. He. Ooh....that hurt... He intensified his efforts as the operation probed deeper, deeper and farther into the instrument he had come to regard with such respect.
Finally, the stump of his arm lay bare. It didn't look the least bit heroic - or grand - or healed. No one had told him of the scarring, the blackened remains edging a curling path around the forearm, the mangled wrist and smashed bone he could yet see - the ragged, raw flesh, a pasty, old color, like faded silk kept in a moist cell, wrinkled and unnatural. Dr. J was amazed. He had never seen his arm this way. He had somehow always imagined, even felt his old hand to be there, underneath the binding of the claw.
He felt somewhat disgusted at himself for letting himself believe that crap. Old fool. Wiley old fool.
It had been four hours since Howard had watched Dr. J's careful removal of the infamous claw. Now, the retiree came back; he blanched at the sight of the butchered forearm, the disassembled claw in its neat pockets in the carrier. Dr. J seemed at peace, staring calmly at what was now a useless stump. Havind had little forwarning of the act all Howard did was give a low whistle before stuffing his hands into his pockets. In the cooling breeze wafting in from the ocean he now wore a shirt, thin, graying chest hair peeking from the loosened flap of cloth where he left the top four buttons undone.
Dr. J remained unmoving on the balcony for a while longer before moving in.
He had a shuttle to catch and a beard to trim.
*I'm moving to a different city so things are topsy-turvy here - updates will be slower, but I'll continue writing at ACD.
Enjoy. -Becca-W
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The quickest route to Earth resulted in three shuttle flights, one after another in such quick succession Relena had to catch her breath up when she was safely in the next shuttle. A small general transporter took her from the half-colony to a neighboring one, the next shuttle flew her into a Interspacial port and that shuttle - a public one with 200 people aboard - brought her to Earth. To add to the woozy state of her being she had to endure a three hour limousine ride. Home was a distance from the airport and the jet she remembered her family to have used earlier "..was not functioning properly anymore..", as told by her mother in a letter she received at approaching the chauffeur.
When she finally stood on the grounds of her childhood Relena felt all her strength leave her. She gloried in her mother's babying, in not having to carry any of her luggage, not even her carry-on case, and in being led gently up the steps to where a large tea service waited in the family parlor. Relena had been returned to the big house lifestyle she was brought up in; the atmosphere was surprising - so roomy, friendly, grande - but catching; she picked up on old ways almost immediately, beginning with sitting straight throughout tea with her mother and forgetting her exhaustion - such a trifle to begin with, really! - for the time being.
"The flight sounds grisly, Relena. No wonder you look worn."
"You don't fly anymore, mother?" (Good Heavens, crumpets, bagels, fresh croissants, coffee cake, raspberry-lemon tea, very goopy, recent marmalade...nothing green in sight, other than some wrapping).
"No.." Mrs. Dorlian said, a bit sadly. "I prefer to stay here." She took up her teacup again, adding slyly, "Not to worry, I'm kept busy. By the way, there are many who would like to welcome you home. You don't feel up to a party, though, do you? I didn't think so - don't look so wary, Relena! - but the Harletons, Schwannsons, Zthyrs, Lieks - they'll all want to see you at some point. I told them evenings or lunch would be alright for get-togethers. They'll be very disappointed if either of us keep shut up here, and I couldn't turn them away, we've known them for so long....more tea? Aren't you hungry?"
"Not at the moment, thank you. I don't mind, really. I haven't seen them since the funeral."
"They're very proud of you - though, in retrospect, I was to let them tell you so in person rather than blurt out such a weighty secret during something so light as afternoon tea." Her mother smiled to herself. "I do forget sometimes."
Relena glanced into her tea silently, stirring it with a small silver spoon.
"By the way," Mrs. Dorlian handed Relena another slice of poundcake as she talked, "How long is your stay, Relena?"
"Originally, four days...but I think I might stay longer."
"That'd be wonderful." Pause; Clink went the spoons being bumped against the sides of teacups; soft chewing ensued. "This brings me to something else, though - how is your work?"
Relena grinned before she could help herself, softly startling Mrs. Dorlian, though the latter didn't remark on her daughter's expression.
"It's difficult. I had to face up to rejection; the plans that I came up with for colonial reconstruction were not put into action. Oh, you'll hear of it in less than two weeks - whole colonies need to be made, but the people involved voted for reconstructing most of them rather than rebuilding. It's cheaper, of course..." Mother used to ask father that, when he was home. The exact wording, however simple, had been used at the beginning of each such conversations - without noticing it Mrs. Dorlian had addressed, even looked at Relena as she had once at her father! The feeling it gave Relena was astonishingly exhilirating.
"How is it you're involved in this, Relena? Isn't this outside your scope of obligation?"
"Usually, it would be, I think, but in this case the colony government officials are borrowing money from the ESUN, this translating into difficulties between offices. The politics in space are slightly different, but under no circumstance are we to endanger our yet weak relationship with their citizens. Even so, I doubt I would have been called in anyway, had this not meant alot to the President of Earth Sphere United Nations. Until this project gets underway, and, indeed, is finished with success, it will be my main source of occupation."
"You'll be spending much time in space, then?"
"I think so."
Mrs. Dorlian nodded, the teacup perched on her knee untouched for the last three minutes. Relena stared at it for a moment, turned away, focused on the food. They hadn't eaten much but she barely felt hungry. The ghost of hunger, if anything, yet plagued her stomach.
"I forgot to mention, both the Huggles are coming tomorrow, at half past eleven, for an early lunch. Do you mind?" Relena shook her head; no, she didn't mind. "They're looking forward to it so: Mr. Huggle has to attend a seminar at one, so they can't stay long." Mrs. Dorlian peered closely into her daughter's face; setting her tea aside she rose, gesturing for Relena to follow. "Let's get you upstairs, you look tired."
"I don't feel it..."
"You will, in a moment. We - I kept your room much the same." They climbed a wide set of stairs to the next floor, Relena watching sunlight shatter along the length of the banister as she trudged up each step. She felt grimy, probably from the shuttle flights. Her room had a private bath, though - she remembered the open window overlooking the eastern edge of the garden, the floor - part tiles, part floorboards - and the tub, set into the floor like a hot tub, with a ledge to rest one's shoulders on as the sun came up. Her mother opened the door to her room and Relena stepped in without a change of pace, not realizing where she was until she felt her mother's arms around her.
"I need to see to a few things, Relena; dinner is at seven, if you feel at all up to it. Don't feel obligated, though; that starts tomorrow. You'd better sleep, I'm used to eating early in the morning. Perhaps we could go for a ride?" Relena smiled her appreciation, nodding at the suggestion. Sounds wonderful. Her mother, with one last hug, departed, feeling the triumph of motherly contentment.
Relena glanced around, reuniting herself with the bed - a four-poster creation in a soft gray; unlined, unadorned - and the bookshelves lining the walls. Her desk, a matching piece to the bed, sat in a different corner now - or not? She found she couldn't remember the details. No rug - just a wood floor. A large window interrupted the simplicity of the room, bringing in all the colors of the late day, splotching the otherwise light blue-gray of the walls and staining the hands Relena lifted to her face. Turning them palms up Relena stared at the blue-red spreading across her skin...
"I am tired." She said blandly, her eyes losing some of their former vacancy. Her hands dropped to her sides; closing the door behind her she crossed the floor to the window and let the blinds down, shutting herself up in the small domain. What little she had brought along in the first place stood by her bed. Stepping out of her shoes, she padded to the bathroom, the tiles cold and hard. The tiled floor carried a simple design in blue tones checkered with white and shell pink, edged by wooden panels. There stood the tub. There stood the shower. She chose the shower.
It was relaxing. She scrubbed at her skin to relieve herself of the grime collected of her travels. She used a scented shampoo that had her dreaming of raspberries, strawberries, sweet dust.....
Relena went to bed immediately after, not because of physical exhaustion - oh, there was enough of that, to be sure, but the mental strain of the past two weeks fell heavily on that evening more than it had on the past ones. She felt so strained.
So she slept.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Heero woke to the dragged-out screech of moving wheels; grabbing for the duffel bag in which he had managed to stow away the Zero he crawled from out of the shaft, sprawled out briefly on the pavement of the landing strip. Dragging the bag along after him he crawled in as hunched a form he could manage to the nearest luggage vehicle; there was space yet. He brought himself to his feet, shrugging the duffel bag up with him, and climbed in. Heero pushed himself to the back of the cart, his weight held up by a sturdy suitcase; with his chin on his knees he positioned the duffel bag to sit directly in front of him, effectively shutting out all light. Back pressed against the wall of the vehicle, the corners of the suitcase digging into his skin and the smell of forlorn luggage thickening subtly around him - sweat, dirt, new-bought cloth, moth balls, lavender, spilled wine and fresh mud, all in as understated a form as could be - the sounds of human activity outside muted. The vehicle shuddered than began to move, evenly, in the direction of a shuttle.
The vehicle was brought into the planes' belly, unloaded, luggage careening over the area, and lowered. Heero tumbled headfirst into an empty cello case, still tightly gripping the handles on his duffel bag. While there was still light in the area he struggled to find himself a safe hold, as otherwise he'd be bouncing with every turn the spacecraft made. The dark was not a haven to the unsupervised passenger and as the trapdoor closed he unknowingly squeezed the material of the duffel bag, the hard roundness of the helmet under his fingertips.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Heero's wrists felt the ache acutely after the flight as he had been grappling for appropriate holds during its entirety. The Zero was a tangible presence, a constant companion. Despite his former dependency on it Heero felt the need to protect it, earning himself a number of bruises in his effort to keep luggage from rolling atop the instrument in the duffel bag. Amazingly, the Zero system's nearness failed to usurp him of his mental control - he found himself expecting the machine to have a lasting hold on him whether he was or was not hooked up to it.
He wasn't at all sure - in fact, he disliked - the varying tones of gray he used to judge by rather than the bleak black and white, no inbetween ruling of the Zero. There had always been a level of confusion present even when his mind was being consumed by the Zero; a static murmur in the far reaches of his mentality telling him hurriedly to react differently. Having been one of the few people in the world to ever see the world in the refined, black-and-white view proffered by the machine he knew the difference. He had paid for that knowing. The Zero handed him clear, precise visuals as to who to destroy and who to leave alone - it had been pure mercy not to have to do the judging on his own.
In retrospect, it had been a weakness in and of itself to let himself be pulled in by something so unbelievable. Heero sneered to himself, one hand cupping the full roundness of the helmet through the duffel bag. In his defense, nothing in his life had let him think otherwise. Dr. J as well as the Zero tapped into that - he remembered the feeling of being used. It was probably the one feeling he hated most.
Heero thought further. The people he gravitated to - or had, as these were all characters from past years of confrontation - were extreme characters in a black and white world as well. They knew as little, and as much, as he. But that entire point of view was all too clear - if every obstacle in every person's way was destroyed, the human race would have made itself extinct. The Third World War, or Fourth, depending. (Heero was off the landing lanes and into the airport's underground facilities, avoiding any well-lit or well-guarded area, slipping by security as best he knew how).
He could not deny the triumphs, the eagerness, the happiness he sometimes felt from his servitude with Dr. J: when he had finished a mission, there was success. It was his success. No matter how grueling or cold the doctor had always acted towards him there was the need to please. Heero couldn't remember being reduced to a sniveling secondhand-man, but...Dr. J, slowly clicking the pincers of his false hand, nodding at Heero's account of a completed mission, the sagging bags of flesh under his eyes creasing as the corners of his mouth turned up without mirth or cheer, had been enough to let the young boy know, oh, he had done well.....
(He was now past most security and deemed it well to advance to the first floor, to meet and disappear with the jabbering flood with as little evidence of his appearance on private cameras as possible. He had little doubt as to his success).
Again, he returned to a question he was finding less and less amusing with passing time. What were Dr. J's intentions concerning the Zero? Why did he feel so strongly about this - he was well out of the doctor's reach of control, nothing could persuade him of returning. He was out of danger and yet, had delivered himself to it without quite thinking.
No. He had been thinking. Dr. J couldn't use him. For that matter, Dr. J wouldn't try the machine on himself - his mind, while more cunning and angled than even some of his colleagues, was entirely unprepared for the onslaught. He would use something else. (His conscience could survive another tear in its flimsy expanse, it had taken more of a beating than most - Dr. J barely felt the pang of regret now unless his actions affected him and a host of mostly innocent people). Heero was aware of the past failures - people Dr. J had coerced into attempting to net the Zero's abilities, into accessing and managing what the system could hurl at them. They had all failed in the attempt. The number of failures, always mounting, had begun to daunt even the doctor when he finally came across Heero.
As far as Heero knew, this failure to harness the Zero system resulted in almost immediate death. But only those past failures could tell him something he did not know, but suspected, of the Zero - that the machine could draw out the last breath of a body to a most painful point, extending death until the machine was through with the ragdoll in its clutch and willing to let it go.
(Heero aquired a taxi, directed it the nearest motel).
He wondered whether Dr. J had once tried the Zero on himself - a disservice he thought the rather egotistical gentleman was inclined to. Probably had. Idiot. Dr. J's systematic, private mind would have been scattered at the expansion of mentality the Zero would have brought him to. Seeing the world at that flat, two-dimensional level was freeing and binding, the combination of which would have driven the doctor further into a suspected madness. Heero's base survival skills had enabled him to operate on that level only with the loss of his personal sense of reason - really not that expensive a price at the time - wherease Dr. J would have had to hold onto something akin to such simply to distinguish up from down.
The Zero tended to use and abuse its occupants as well, adding insult to injury in a literal sense, something Heero doubted the doctor could admit to himself. The vanity come of having designed the system gave him the right to think that way, as far as Heero saw it. But what it must feel like to be incapable of controlling a creation so immense that only a savage, hormonal adolescent could reign it in enough to serve a rough purpose....the doctor's pride and self-absorbed character must have taken quite a blow even while he was in an ecstatic frenzy over the Zero's success.
(Heero drummed his fingers on the helmet of the Zero system yet in the duffel bag. He now sat on his bed, alone, the radio set at a low hum set with a static background and the lights on low. His stare becoming increasingly vacant, the drumming of his fingertips a constant beat in the still air, Heero digressed into a state of mummy-like silence, so absorbed in his thoughts that when he finally nodded off in a sleepless doze, his eyes remained open, dilated - and utterly void).
________________________
"Howard, get off that and help me with this."
"With what, man?" Dr. J sneered at the man whose aid he needed, leaving his reply at that. Howard settled his weight on one leg, jutted a hip out so one could see the bone peeking through, and gave the other a level stare. He was browned and shirtless; having always been one to tan easily Howard had settled himself in for a long, permanent retirement on the coast of the Pacific, his most recent residence. The interruption provided by the doctors was a bit of an annoyance - they had the tendency to get on his nerves, regardless of shared history - but he hadn't expected anything more intrusive than that to occur.
Dr. J had gotten nasty over the night. He became upset quickly and raged constantly. This change of mood was unlike him; the doctor had always had a certain grip on himself as he knew of the full impact of his rage where others were innocently unaware. Howard growled under his breath. He'd woken this morning to find several suitcases packed and the doctor on his couch, watching the interspacial news channel Howard had aquired (illegally, for the fun of it). The man's face was as drawn and lined as it was that morning and it was now the afternoon.
The doctor turned from him.
"I can't get that toolbox in the basement. Can't reach."
"Oh. Alright." Howard left for the basement, leaving the sullen doctor to stare at his luggage. When he came back upstairs, he ventured into a conversation he wasn't sure he should have started in the first place. "Leaving?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Trouble abroad? Anything you want to share?" He handed the doctor the toolbox.
"Yes. Difficulties concerning a former - employee of mine. Nothing you would like to know."
"Listen..if there's anything I -"
"Take my messages, and if some kid calls, don't tell him anything." Howard raised his eyebrows at his colleague's back as the doctor busied himself with some wrenches.
"A kid? What kind of a kid?"
"A weasel with hair, that kind of kid." Turning around, Dr. J left out the backdoor and retreated to the veranda, where he set himself on the easy chair Dr. O so liked to use in the evening. Once he was in a comfortable position - a tray of wrenches and the like at his elbow - he quieted, his eyes fixed on the clawed device replacing what used to be his hand. He clicked it, at first unwillingly, then in the spirit of experimentation. Howard watched from the screened door, his thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his shorts.
The doctor had not come up with the design of this bulky replacement. He hadn't even been involved in setting it. At the time, he had been unconscious for what turned out to be two weeks. The accident resulting in the loss of hand and wrist was a very unpleasant, grisly memory dating far back. Considering his position in the last decade as a rebel, a doctor of unethical methods, a pawn of Oz and an abusive foster parent the claw had been a risky choice when it came to an operation as it relieved him of secrecy and, resultingly, safety. He believed in his career, though, and for the career he needed two working, capable devices, preferrably two hands, or something like them. Therefore, the claw had been joined up to the rest of him in what was a groundbreaking surgical procedure of which all records had been destroyed (the operating surgeons included, though old age, not him, had been the reason for that). That it still worked so fluidly, and would for years to come, was a miracle. Dr. J hoped in the deeply private well of his thoughts that he had studied the claw enough to go through with his plans. He considered himself every bit as capable as that surgeon from long ago, but he had only been able to research and dig into it a little.....whether he could dismantle and put it together again, though....the thought made him too uneasy and he canceled all such thoughts from his mind thereafter.
He started with the screws bolting the outer metal sheeting to his arm. The recent injections of numbing medicine kept much of the pain from disturbing his concentration - the hypodermic needle he'd used lay close by, with two, unused ones beside it.
The procedure started off quickly - the risk he was putting himself at made the doctor a wee bit jittery and eager to finish - but lessened to a more gradual pace as his mind set to dismantle the instrument mentally before he took a wrench or screwdriver to it. Soon enough, he was too involved to notice the jerking and small bites of pain the operation caused - he found he was excited. It was amazing, so exact - he loved precision, he loved calculated risks and genius machinery of which he considered the claw to be a smallscale example.
Once the outer layers had been removed and the blades set aside - so lightweight, the material was exemplary!, most likely some combination of gundanium alloy - he examined each 'tendon', every 'bone'. Magnificent. He was proud to have the odd affliction, the honour of this invention be such an integral part of his mobile person. Dr. J set every piece of the claw in a clear plastic dish unto itself, labeled and sorted with painstaking care (it had taken him a week to get it together). Each dish, container and drawer was set into a toolbox-like carrier, fitted together as the claw had been originally, on his arm.
Once he was past the third stage of dismantling the operation became tricky. Dr. J's back and neck hurt, his shoulders ached, he discovered advanced arthritis in joints yet uninvestigated. Whoever said growing old was bullshitting gold. He. Ooh....that hurt... He intensified his efforts as the operation probed deeper, deeper and farther into the instrument he had come to regard with such respect.
Finally, the stump of his arm lay bare. It didn't look the least bit heroic - or grand - or healed. No one had told him of the scarring, the blackened remains edging a curling path around the forearm, the mangled wrist and smashed bone he could yet see - the ragged, raw flesh, a pasty, old color, like faded silk kept in a moist cell, wrinkled and unnatural. Dr. J was amazed. He had never seen his arm this way. He had somehow always imagined, even felt his old hand to be there, underneath the binding of the claw.
He felt somewhat disgusted at himself for letting himself believe that crap. Old fool. Wiley old fool.
It had been four hours since Howard had watched Dr. J's careful removal of the infamous claw. Now, the retiree came back; he blanched at the sight of the butchered forearm, the disassembled claw in its neat pockets in the carrier. Dr. J seemed at peace, staring calmly at what was now a useless stump. Havind had little forwarning of the act all Howard did was give a low whistle before stuffing his hands into his pockets. In the cooling breeze wafting in from the ocean he now wore a shirt, thin, graying chest hair peeking from the loosened flap of cloth where he left the top four buttons undone.
Dr. J remained unmoving on the balcony for a while longer before moving in.
He had a shuttle to catch and a beard to trim.