Disclaimer: I own nothing.


"Evil deeds do not prosper; the slow man catches up to the swift."-Homer, Odyssey


Chapter Six
The Girl in Room Epsilon

Several hours after his capture, Shindou Ryuichi groggily returned to the waking world shackled to a chair by his arms and legs and being held in an almost pitch dark room. His panicked eyes filtered from one corner of the immense space to another, just making out blurry shapes merely feet away from him, and he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"I don't know what you're playing at," he screamed as he regained his nerve. "But you had better stop it this instant! You will not get away with this!"

He did not receive a verbal response, instead the terrorist turned on the lights. With a gasp he covered his stinging eyes from the overwhelming light, and after a minute of adjusting to the setting change, he lowered them. Just as quickly he wanted to shield his face with them again.

He was not wearing his clothes from the day before but dark blue military fatigues. A few medals had been pinned to his shirt, signifying the rank of Commander, and black leather boots reached up to his knees; the shoes had been shined to the exact military standard and his hair had been changed into a buzz cut. His glasses had been removed as well and he was surprised to find contacts in their place.

Still the most horrifying thing in the room was not his change in appearance but the structure only feet away from him…

A large barbed wire fence surrounded a rectangular perimeter, taking up most of the space in the room. Inside the area of the fence were five different military and prison style compounds set up at strategic points. In the left corner was a tall wooden watchtower complete with searchlight and a good portion of the perimeter was empty space serving as a courtyard. At the top of the fence, right above the entrance, was a metal sign stating in fading letters, 'Kyoto Resettlement Camp'.

His blood turned cold in his veins and suddenly a task as simple as breathing seemed to be the most taxing job in the world. "Real trip down memory lane isn't it, Commander Shindou?"

He strained his neck to watch as Mimi strode confidently up to him, her emotions hidden by the mask she always wore. She stopped when she stood next to him on the left side, her body positioned to observe the camp and not him.

"It's been awhile since the government closed down the concentration, opps, I mean resettlement camps…do you think you can still remember your way around?"

Ryuichi found his voice. "I don't know how you got this idea into your head, woman, but I have never now or in the past been involved with the resettlement camps! You've got the wrong-,"

"Kyoto, 2019. I was there Commander…I remember you."

"Bullshit," he claimed, clinging to his last bit of safety net. "If you were there as you claim prove it!"

Wordlessly she rolled the sleeve of her leather coat up to her elbow on her left arm and extended her slender forearm for him to examine. In the center of her soft, pale flesh the number 101 had been branded and in stunned disbelief he ran his eyes along it. The number had faded slightly in fifteen years but was still legible.

"Oh God….you were there…you were there…"

She smirked, giving him an "I told you so" look, before rolling her sleeve back down and stating, "C'mon. Let's start that tour of the old camp."

Not able to speak, he simply stared ahead as she wheeled the chair towards the entrance and gently pushed the gates open. She pushed him over to the largest and most accommodating looking building and titled him towards the courtyard.

"Every morning you'd leave your quarters and inspect the camp. You'd start by walking over to the courtyard where the prisoners were once lined up." She continued the narrative as she brought him towards the area, "Most of them were half-dead from disease or dehydration or dysentery. Some of them were beaten so bad they couldn't stand at all…"

She continued to pull him along, mentioning little things about the soliders' barracks and the state of the prisoners' quarters, when he plucked up his courage. "Listen I know we did some things that could be considered unethical but we did what we had to do! The country was being overrun by homosexuals, immigrants, degenerates…it was us or them! Us or them! Please understand!"

"Oh, I understand. I understand perfectly well." She halted their progress and nodded at a row of five rooms, each labeled with a different Greek numeral. "And here we have the medical ward…"

He paled considerably as she walked them past the doors. "No…"

"You used to call us the lab rats…had your doctors pump us full of your new experimental drugs! One by one…alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon."

She halted in front of the door marked "epsilon" and his breath hitched in his breath in sudden realization. His eyes bulged and he gripped the arms of the chair tightly; if this woman was truly who he believed her to be, he was in deep trouble.

"You-you-you're the little girl from epsilon aren't you!"

She smiled bitterly down at him. "In the flesh." She gripped his face with her left hand so violently she left nail marks on his skin. "I'm flattered you remember me. I'll never forget any of you either, but that's expected. I thought I was just another prisoner to you…"

"Mercy…please…have mercy…"

"And how many people have thrown themselves at your feet, begging for the same thing?" He flinched at her tone and she pulled back from him, rifling through her pockets for something. "But to be fair you've never seen any of your accomplishments first hand...don't worry I'll fix that. Now where did I put…ah!"

She held a roll of silver duct tape a few inches away from her face, examining it carefully. "Here it is…"


He was not getting paid enough to do this. Thirty year old Kanbara Takyua glared at the softly raining world through his pair of Spartan visors. He was thirty years old for shit's sake; he should've gotten a promotion by now!

But no, he had to stand outside in the rain, guarding Aetna from the terrorist. He frowned; if the terrorist did show up she'd probably drop him where he stood if her reputation with Spartans held even the slightest truth.

He cursed as a drop of rain landed square in his eye and turned around to light a cigarette when…

…he came face to face with the terrorist. He was just about to yell for back up when she clamped a hand over his mouth and made a quiet shushing noise. She titled her head towards the adjacent alley, indicating with her eyes there was something there for him to see, before disappearing into thin air.

He blinked, unsure of what had just happened was virtual or real…deciding he had nothing better to do, he crept towards the alley and peered into it.

Than he abruptly called for back up…


"Epsilon…epsilon…epsilon…epsilon…"

Shindou Ryuichi leaned back in the straight-backed witness chair a broken man. His upper body had been locked inside a grey straight jacket and his black hair was wild and tangled. Sweat condensed on his forehead and his eyes stared holes through people and objects without really seeing them; there were large red marks below and above each of his eyes, as though someone had used duct tape to hold them open. The only time he spoke now was when he whispered that mantra under his breath.

"Is that all he says?" asked Sora from behind the one-way glass of the integration room.

Dr. Izumi Koushirou, resident psychologist for Minerva, sighed gravely and ran a hand through his short red hair. His obsidian eyes gazed inside at Ryuichi and he stuffed his hands in his black suit jacket pockets.

"Now that's all he'll say. Before it was 'Kyoto' 'Resettlement Camp' and 'girl from room epsilon'. What do you think it means?"

"Nothing good."


Footnotes:
The number 101- I used that as another reference to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Room 101 contained the "most terrible thing on earth" and was how the thought police would finally break "criminals".

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon- Those are numbers one through five in the Greek alphabet.

Ryuichi's state- Ryuichi's state at the end of the chapter is a nod towards Jonathon Crane's (Scarecrow's) mental state at the end of Batman Begins. This is also how one of the characters in V for Vendetta was dealt with in the graphic novel version; though I have put a bit of my own spin on his descent to madness.


Author's Notes: I hope this chapter explained a little of why Mimi is doing the things she's doing. Though it's not the whole story…Please read and review.