Oh man, do you guys still love me: I know I'm horrible and haven't updated in forever and leaving it off at evil cliffie, but I've been out of the country and I was stuck in one part of the damn chapter and after several drafts I've finally come to something I'm satisfied with, so I hope it pleases you. Finally, we come to the climax and let's see where it takes us, shall we?
One thing, I did a tiny bit of research on the whole science bit, but I could hardly understand most of the research itself, so if anything seems like made-up science it most likely is.
Standard disclaimer applies. :) Hope you all like it. I'm sorry it's so long, but I couldn't cut it down for the life of me.
Breaking Point
---9---
"Tox screen is clean. White blood cell count a little above normal, but nothing to worry about." Celia muttered as she flustered over an unconscious Faye lying in the white bed inside a room in a small clinic. Spike had called Celia soon after he regained his senses. She was the first person he could think of and the one who had miraculously nursed him back to health. She had told him to meet him at the back of East Hill Clinic, a place where they attended the homeless and poor, meaning the criminals and loners who couldn't check in a hospital, for free or a price depending on who you were. Jet and Spike simply stared from a corner of the room, by the door. Machines, bottles, and other contraptions surrounded them and the room had an intimidating air. Spike started becoming more anxious by the minute and by every movement that Celia made.
"Pulse is a little erratic," she said as she detached a pad with a wire attached to it from Faye's chest. "I'm going to do an echo to see if we can find if there is something wrong with her heart. You say these needle marks on her neck were caused by darts?" She asked examining Faye's neck closely.
"Yeah," Spike replied while glaring at Faye intently, frightened by her limpness andher slight breathing.
"Well, she wasn't poisoned. It would have come up on the tox screen. They were probably tranquilizers. There's a lot of them nowadays that won't show up on a tox." She turned on a screen and grabbed several patches with cables attached to them connecting back to the small screen. Celia pasted three on Faye's back and three on her chest. The screen began showing a grid and then mapping out a live color picture of a heart. Celia observed the screen closely then tapped at it and the picture zoomed in. Spike couldn't quite understand what he was seeing, but he could have sworn that a light had flashed momentarily before Celia had zoomed in closer. He figured it could be something the machine would do, and it's not like he had seen a live beating heart in a screen before. The light flashed again and Celia's brow furrowed. She tapped the screen and it zoomed in again. A small dot flashed at a steady pace, slower than the heart, one flash each second.
"What the hell is that?" Jet uttered, before Spike could. Celia didn't respond, but instead focused closely on the screen. She pressed two buttons by the screen of the machine and the chamber walls became transparent allowing a patch of some kind of mechanical device to be visible.
"Oh my god." Celia's eyes widened. She turned to the two anxious men watching with perplexed expressions.
"What… is that?" Spike asked pointing at the screen. Celia rubbed her eyes and then glared somberly at both men.
"I—this," She stopped, her violet eyes momentarily rolling down to the right and then to the left, then focusing back at them. "I don't know what that is. It seems like a nanomachine hybrid of some sort, but I've never seen anything like it. It seems to have merged with her heart." She took in a deep breath and then stared Spike intensely in the eyes. He held his breath "Her pale complexion and the higher than normal white blood cell count might mean her body doesn't know what to think of this thing. So it's acting like it has an infection. It will probably clear up fast, but her body's reaction isn't what worries me. I said it might be a nanomachine, because this thing is attached to the chamber wall, as if it had always been there. It has integrated itself into the flesh."
"You're saying that this thing is actually part of her heart?" Spike asked not exactly comprehending what she was trying to tell them.
"This thing has merged with her heart tissue. But that's not the worse part, it seems like it's ticking. It's been my experience that something that ticks usually explodes." Celia muttered in a somewhat cynical tone.
"Are you saying there's a bomb inside her?" Jet gasped out.
"I'm saying I don't know." Celia glared at the screen again and fumbled with the image. "Could be wrong. I really don't know," she muttered low and to herself.
Spike's thoughts, expectations, worries, anything going through his mind collapsed. All it left him with was an empty cold feeling, an emotion that he had not felt since he first met Julia. Spike Spiegel was terrified.
"Spike?" Jet called his name, but all Spike could think was that he wanted to get out of there, for moment, just to breathe. He immediately walked off and went to a small door in a corner, which he found out led into a small storage area and a bathroom. He slipped a cigarette into his mouth and was about to light it when the door opened.
"If I were you I wouldn't smoke in here, you're surrounded by a lot of vicious chemicals," Celia stated as she entered the small room. It wasn't too small for comfort, it was probably the size of an economy flat bedroom, but nevertheless, the air still felt scant. "You want a shot to calm you down? It'll take effect in seconds," she said and he glared at her confused. She pointed at his hands and as he glanced down at them he noticed he was shaking.
"Nothing nicotine or alcohol won't solve," he replied placing his hands in his pockets.
"So that's the woman you were looking for." Her violet eyes observed him closely.
"Yeah."
"I'm not going to ask how this happened. That's not how I work. The less I know, the better I can sleep at night," she said looking away from him.
"She's in that bed because of me," he uttered because it was the one of the two coherent thoughts left in his mind.
"Now see, I don't think you heard me right."
"If I weren't alive none of this would have happened." That was the second one. Celia narrowed her eyes and shot a sharp irritated look at him. Spike talked as if only a conscienceless wall had been listening and Celia took a disagreeable notice of this.
"Light your cigarette," she uttered.
"What?" He glanced at her and realized his wall could talk back.
"Blow yourself up, if that's what you really want. Just 'cause I saved your life Spike, doesn't mean I'm your mother who will put up with your pussy ass whining."
Spike sighed, "And you seemed like a kind proper old lady."
"Oh Spike, Spike. When I found you lying like a corpse on the steps of that building, you were swallowed by more bruises and contusions than I could count and all bathed in your own blood and sweat. Your heart beat furiously to save you. At that moment, I didn't think about who you were and what you did, I just got to work. But in seven months, you hear a lot of things and have time for a lot of thinking. You see when I first saw you, I only thought one thing before I detached myself to keep you alive, you either wanted to die real badly—or you were a real stupidly brave man. Now, people talk and I've heard the sad tale of Spike Spiegel of love, friendship, betrayal, and revenge. And watching your numb body in that bed for seven months, I took pity on you. Because I knew you did it to die." Spike watched her as she paused to rub her neck as her eyes shifted down to the left reaching into buried memories in her mind. By now, he would have fallen asleep if anyone else had been telling his story. Instead, he listened attentively waiting for her to tell him what he had missed along the way, the true meaning of his life right then, right there.
"I knew I saved a man who wanted to die. But you see, there's a girl in there." She pointed towards Faye as if the wall separating the two rooms were invisible. "And she doesn't want the same things as you, no one I know does. So you have to put your obsession with death, your past, and yourself aside for once, so you can think about her life first. Then you can go back to dying."
"So in other words, get over it Spiegel?" She only patted him and shook her head. Spike glared at the woman, observed her gentle wrinkles and her sad smile. Pulling his weight off the wall, he took a step towards the door. Celia immediately grabbed his arm with a somber face.
"Call it a woman's intuition if you will, but she's in more trouble than you and I can imagine. I don't know what that thing is, but it's bad news." The worry lines contorted on her face. It didn't sound like paranoia or fear, but a wise fortune-teller showing him a glimpse of the near future.
"We better get going then."
Spike entered the round hallway of the Bebop. Jet followed close behind holding Faye in his arms. Spike had asked Celia for a gentle sedative for Faye so it would give them time to figure out what to do. As soon as they reached the lounge area, Jet headed straight for Faye's room. Spike stopped in the middle of the room and closed his eyes.
Who? Who? Dozen of faces ran through his mind. Who do I go to? What can I do? Who do I ask? The same faces cycled through his mind several times until they meshed into a blur and he couldn't think anymore.
A bomb? A trick? A practical joke? No, Alyssa was being serious. The taste of revenge and spite lingered in the back of his throat.
Who do I ask?
He sighed and his body jerked to stop as he felt something tugging at the seams of his pants. His eyes flew open as he glanced down. A bush of red hair scurried around his left foot and on his right the familiar critter with the golden mane.
"Ed?" Jet's voice echoed as he walked back down the stairs. Ed's head propped up and her eyes glanced up at Jet. The lanky girl quickly dove towards Jet's direction and tackled the large man.
"Ed missed Jet-person a lot, and so did Ein." Ein hurried behind her and barked at Jet. Jet patted her red messy tresses and Ed let go allowing Jet to crouch down and pet the welsch corgi. Ed sprinted back to Spike hugging him at the hips.
"Poofy hair-person!" She shouted eagerly followed by another bark from Ein. Spike smiled, Ed had always annoyed him, but the hacker would be of good help now. If anyone could track down someone, it had to be Ed. He patted the hyperactive 10-year-old grateful for her sudden appearance. Ed immediately let go taken aback by Spike's friendly reaction.
"How come you're back Ed?" Jet asked as he walked towards the two tall and short lanky figures.
"Ed was more hungry and bored with Father-person than on the Bebop. Ed thinks father-person would like Ed more if Ed was a moon rock." She scowled like a cat and then continued. "Ed wasn't sure at first, but when Faye-Faye got in trouble, Ed knew."
Spike and Jet raised an eyebrow.
"Knew what?" Jet inquired curious at how the girl would respond. Ed smiled showing a wide set of bright white teeth.
"That Ed and Ein belong on the Bebop, because Bebop needs Ed."
"How did you know about Faye?"
"Ed is Ed, you know. Ed knows many things." She sing-sang happily.
This kid can be so freaky, Spike thought to himself. "So the kid and critter are good for something," he added.
Jet placed his hands on the girl's shoulders and bent down to stare Ed at an even eye-level. "Ed, something very bad may have happened to Faye? Do you understand very bad?" Jet overt fatherly tone surprised Spike. His eyes focused gently on the girl as if trying to figure out her thoughts. Ed's eyes remained wide and her face almost drunkenly stoic. She nodded and her eyes widened as if suddenly realizing something.
"Ed almost forgot!" Her arms flailed in the air and she raced around Jet and dove behind the yellow couch. She jumped back up and expanded her arms on each side. Making playful airplane noises she raced back to Spike with a small box on her left hand. It was addressed to him.
"A lady-lady gave this to Ed to give to Spike."
"What lady, Ed? Where?" Spike glared at the child with somber eyes. She placed her index finger on her mouth as her irises rolled pensively to the side.
"With pretty curls, she came as Ed went into the Bebop," Ed added. Spike immediately focused on the small box with his name scribbled in the same handwriting as the note. He breathed in deeply and ripped the package open. After digging through some packaging popcorn he found a fortune cookie. The goddamn bitch is playing with me. Spike eyed the cookie as if it was a damned curse. He placed both hands at each tip about to pry it open, when Jet stopped him.
"Don't. Let's be sure first." He told him and grabbed the fortune cookie gently from him as if it were the bomb itself. He placed it in the amplifier, the small oven-like apparatus hooked to his computer which they used to analyze any small objects. Jet began typing on the computer as the oven scanned the small object. His eyes immediately widened. The welsch corgi eagerly barked at the screen. Spike glared at the screen seeing nothing in particular.
"I don't see anything." Spike muttered not understanding Jet's outlandish reaction.
"Noooo, look closer." Ed said pointing at the screen. Jet zoomed in and Spike's eyes narrowed. A blinking light emerged entrapped in small patch of silver roads and small mechanisms that seemed part of the cookie itself.
"The same kind of thing inside Faye." Jet uttered and then turned to Ed. "Ed, I need you to find who made this."
"Yessir, right away." She gave a salute and brought her computer, dubbed tomato, to hook up to Jet's machine. Her hands worked quickly and she placed her goggles on while waving her arms in her odd manner.
"Do you think it is the trigger or another bomb?" Jet asked Spike.
"I say we shoot it." Spike simply suggested with his gun already out and aimed at the small object inside the oven. Jet's eyes widened immediately taken aback by the black weapon and Spike's impulsive need to put a bullet through it.
"Don't be crazy! It could make the bomb inside Faye go off!" Jet pushed Spike's hand towards the floor, his right eye furiously twitching. Spike resigned himself to Jet's decision and put his weapon away.
"What bomb?" Faye asked standing at the top of the stairs. Spike glared at her worn face, apparently the sedative had been a little too gentle for Faye. He thought it would buy them more time than it had. She walked down, her emerald eyes fixated on the two men. Ed suddenly propped up and ran to the pale woman almost tackling her. Faye grimaced and resumed her questioning. "I said, what bomb?" Ed shrunk back and placed her goggles on and waved her arms in the air as she surfed through the Solar System network.
"We don't know what it is. It could be anything, it's just that..." Jet started but Faye immediately stopped him.
"There's something inside me?" Her eyes narrowed. "What? I want to know. What!" She had walked up to Jet and then glared at the screen. "Is that what it looks like?"
Spike couldn't find his or even a thought to answer her. She glanced at both men perplexedly.
"Why aren't you two answering me? That bitch put something inside me, didn't she? Why the fuck me? I'm too fricken young to die. I'm going to find her and slam her down. Goddamn it, that stupid…" She would have probably kept on going if Spike hadn't suddenly placed his hands on her shoulders. He glared into her emerald eyes intensely. He wanted her to calm down and to understand that he never meant for this to happen. "What are you doing Spike?" She asked half-frightened.
"Stop, just sit down. Ed's back. She'll help us find out what it is. Nothing is going to happen to you." He spoke softer than he had meant to. Now, self-conscious of his actions, he let go of Faye immediately. Her expression had now evolved beyond anger, but a state of utter befuddlement. She sat down, her eyes frozen and numb. "What do you remember?"
She gazed at him with a curious and distrustful expression, but she finally decided to speak.
"I was in the bar, she came up to me with a ridiculous offer, and I knew she was bluffing. So I followed her outside, just to see what she was up to and the damn bitch had two men waiting for me." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Then everything's blank." Her voice quivered. Spike recalled that look in her eyes, the same one she sported that day they found that video of her childhood. It was a black hole that swallowed her entire memory and made everything so incomprehensible. "I woke up in an alley way. What else was I going to do, but search for my ship and get the hell out of there?"
Nothing she said helped him figure out where to find the French woman. He turned to Jet. "Where did you say Henri Reve was buried?"
"I didn't." Jet typed into his computer. "I'll be damned. He was buried at the cemetery behind the old Cathedral."
Spike nodded heading for the workshop. He grabbed two more guns and couple of grenades. He didn't think he would be using them, but you could never be too cautious. He felt certain she wanted him alive and with every minute that passed, the ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach grew even more.
"Where are you going?" Faye asked him as he headed towards the hangar.
"To meet an old acquaintance," he murmured avoiding looking at Faye directly.
"Spike," Faye paused, "Why are you so interested? What the hell does she want with me?"
He had a few options. He could give her the note and let her come to her own conclusion. He could tell her about Alyssa and her personal vendetta against him, but he hadn't the time to explain to her anything.
"That's what I'm going to find out." Spike Spiegel walked away and he anticipated her screaming demands for answer. None came.
The Swordfish sifted through the red fog and dove into the mass of clouds that caped the crater which cradled the city of Tharsis. Piercing through the mist, the dark city lay there untouched and unchanged since he had last been there. The monoracer zoomed above the building tops and finally came to a steady landing in an old lot by the cathedral. He strolled down the street and turned down the hill just behind the old church. His hand reached for the iron gate and felt crumbs of rust in his hand. He passed through the same paved walkway he had when he had met Julia. A shiver ran through him, almost sensing the presence of the past still suspended in the air of the gravesite.
"Is this a dream?" Her blue eyes stared with desperate blankness in them.
"Yes, it's all just a bad dream."
He scanned each gravestone until he came across a white sisol straw hat with a black dramatic bow on one side huddling a mass of black curls. Alyssa sat calmly on a bench in front of her father's grave with her hand—shielded by a short white glove—holding her merry widow hat from the soft wind. On her left hand, she held a single white rose rested on her tight-fitted white dress. A chalky taste of irony and disturbance lingered on his tongue. At only twenty years of age, Alyssa was a beautiful woman, someone Spike would have probably approached. Her aura wasn't that of a crazy and emotionally broken girl, but of an extravagant yet delicate person, an ordinary woman just like anyone else.
His lanky body fell lazily by her side and he immediately spotted the side of her lips curling into a smile.
"This place is deeply connected to both of us. Ironic, isn't it?" Her voice had a hint of amusement. Spike responded with a hard and serious glare her way. He deliberately shut off his emotions. The situation left him with no choice but to play it hard. The cold calculated look of this young girl frightened him.
"What did you do to her?" His voice rang monotonously.
"Ah yes." She paused letting her right hand fall to her hair to pull a few tresses behind one ear. "We'll talk about that soon enough."
Spike pulled out his gun and placed it on his lap aimed at Alyssa. She smirked and glanced around her.
"Now-now darling, put that away. We both know you won't kill me."
"Yet."
"Touché." She cocked her head to the side while staring at him with a deviant smile. "But until then, you need me don't you?"
"I don't care." His voice remained calm and his demeanor locked in a composed mode.
"Oh, but I think you do." She tilted her head to the other side and narrowed her stare. Her dark eyes had only more void behind them. "Let me tell you a story Spike. There was once a man who had daughter. He was all she had in this world. But you see, this man was a little too smart, so smart that evil people wanted his knowledge for their advantage. The man heard of this and tried to send his daughter away, but she wanted to protect him so badly that she stayed behind. One night, dark men invaded the house." She paused as her eyes grew opaque and resentful. Spike scoffed internally. The way she spoke made her sound like a little girl, a goddamn vengeful brat.
"The little girl hid behind the closet door and watched as this man threatened to hurt her father. She was so scared. She wanted to scream, but had no voice to do so. So he pointed the gun…" The man paused and then glanced up at Spike, his radiant dark eyes staring ferociously at him. Spike cocked the gun and pulled the trigger. "And shot her father who had been praying on his knees." Her eyes watered slightly, but she held the emotions back. She was a vengeful brat all right, who was probably a good student and a good daughter, until Spike killed her father.
"That was long and boring." He kept himself detached. "What the fuck do you want with me?" She smiled gallantly, the tears ebbing back to the back of her mind.
"Oh Spike, I'm hurt. It's not about wants. It's about vengeance, it always is. Julia—lovely woman—I'm sure at some point you thought you deserved to be happy with her, but then she died because revenge came first in your mind." Spike's hand formed into a fist at the sound of her name being spoken. "You simply had to go and kill off your best friend. She died because of your lust for revenge. All that drama and death, that sure as hell sounds like karma to me. But then I found out you were going to die, so I went looking for you. And there you were lying like a pathetic loveless man, and right then I decided to pump a little something to keep your heart going and tipped off good ol' Samaritan Celia." She said this last sentence with quick head dip to the side and a squint in her eyes. "But you wouldn't give up with your obsession with death. I thought you had given up, and I couldn't have that. I needed you to want to live in order for you to suffer."
"You saved me." Spike churned internally with disgust. "You paid off that man to threaten Faye."
"It's all coming together now, isn't it? The best part was watching you both dancing. I knew then she had sparked something in you and so soon too! I was willing to wait as long as it was needed. I really thought it would be harder than this." She laughed a soft and pretentious kind of laugh, childishly tilting her head back a bit. She was mocking him with her stupid white hat and snobby demeanor. In her mind, she was god and he was a pawn in her world to which punishment was duly deserved.
Her uppity chuckle struck his last nerve and the composure locked inside him undulated and burst. "You had no right…"
"To save you? Why? Cause you've suffered enough?" Her smile shifted to a fierce glare. "No Spike, that was all divine retribution ordained by God. This is my own and hell, it's not my fault that you facilitated it so nicely." She stood up and looked to the grayish sky.
"Is it a bomb?"
"Faye tells it when to go off. She's the spark, which is fitting don't you think?" She turned to him with that mischievous smirk again, as if she couldn't comprehend that this wasn't just some prank, she was toying with someone's life.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"You have to choose between thenine million people residing in Alba or her." He scoffed. The city? She wants to blow up the city?
"You're a sick fuck, you know that?"
"I'm sick? You killed, murdered, so many people, a lot of them innocent people and called it 'making a living!' You're the sick one!" Her cheeks were flustered with anger, but she breathed in composing herself back to her cool demeanor and adjusting her hat. She dropped the rose by the gravestone and began to walk away. Spike propelled his body up pointing the gun behind her head.
"Wait. I don't get any of the damn crap you just spouted." Spike menaced.
"I'm not bluffing Spike. Time's ticking. I will contact you again." She responded in a robotic tone without turning around.
"Like hell you will." She stopped, still not glancing back at him.
"What are you going to do? Shoot me? We're playing by my rules Spike. So typical of you, always acting before you think."
"You don't know shit about me." He still menaced with the gun.
"See you later, Space Cowboy." Her heels began clicking against the cement once again.
He watched her small figure sink into the distance. His finger was at the trigger ready to shoot, but he couldn't. She was right. The woman could be crazy enough to pull this off and if he killed her now, he might kill Faye or the whole city for all he knew.
But what had she really meant when she said he had to choose betweennine million people and Faye?
Exasperated, he shook his head at the situation and in the corner of his eyes he caught a glimpse of a small black object lying on the bench. His hand hesitantly reached for it. His heart started pounding. He glanced towards where Alyssa's figure had gone. Spike Spiegel swallowed hard.
Maybehe should have takenhis chances and shot her after all.
His eyes fell ruefully on the small object in his hand, a small digital watch. The time on it counted down by seconds.
59:58:16
59:58:15…