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Chapter 41 - The Dead End

WARNING: Violent scenes ahead, until the end of the story.

Seven months back - March

Philadephia QZ

Heero POV

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He cautiously descended down the steep stairs, then walked into a narrow underground corridor lit by fluorescent lamps. The floor under his boots was flooded with urine and vomit, the air thick and stinking. Just around the corner, holding onto the wall, he took a long step, passing over the body of some jerk who suffered the comedown.

Heero cursed under his breath; he hated this shithole.

Reaching the end of the corridor, he nodded knowingly to the two masked cusses, then pushed the heavy cast-iron door open. He found himself in a big, damp room that had been serving as a sewage pumping station for the city of Philadephia before the outbreak. Now, when it wasn't flooded with rain, it served as a secret meeting spot for smugglers and their clients. One could buy anything here; some said that even the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima - provided that you had plenty of the only currency in force here and in the whole QZ, that is: ration cards.

Heero rubbed his nose with his sleeve, then stepped between the people, carefully looking around. He crossed an unfriendly glance with some of the rival smugglers, shook hands of those who were neutral to him. He had no friends here; only business mattered. As he noticed the building-up ill will in the eyes of some rivals, he decided to return home by a different route today.

"There you are, my boy. You made me wait for ages."

The boisterous old man chuckled, waving his wrinkled hand at him. Heero gritted his teeth; the old man was giving him the creeps. He would rather die before his time (he actually got used to this thought) than make it to the old man's age and be in his state - with two metal prostheses for legs, a hook for a torn hand, and almost mole-blindness. The man claimed that he had been a scientist once. Now he was still alive due in no small part to his unusual ability to endear people and associate smugglers with their clients.

Heero came up to the old man. "Have you got something for me?"

Dr. J., because that was what the old man had ordered to be called, took a puff of a roll-up and gestured knowingly to Heero to come closer. When Heero approached, the man grabbed his arm and brought his face close to his ear. "See that tall, fair-haired man in the corner?"

Feeling the smoke of the cigarette pouring out of the old man's mouth bite his eyes, Heero looked around imperceptibly and noticed his client immediately. The man Dr. J. was talking about distinguished himself in this place. He had an unfriendly aura around him.

"What does he want?" Heero asked.

"He wouldn't say. He asked for the best smuggler in the QZ, so I said I know the one," the old man smirked, showing two rows of uneven, yellow teeth. Heero was about to step away from him, but Dr. J. clamped the thin fingers of his dry hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. "It's a Firefly. A big fish. Zechs Merquise."

Heero raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise. So this was this legendary leader of the Fireflies. Though the man covered his eyes with black glasses, Heero felt a strange tingling in the back of his neck - he knew he was watching him too. He tapped the old man on the shoulder. "Your cut-rate as usual?"

"Aye, my lad," the old man grinned. "Good luck."

Heero made his way across the hall, past the other smugglers and their clients discussing and taking orders and payments and exchanging goods. It looked like a rather bustling marketplace. As he approached the tall man, he stopped in front of him, sending him an indifferent look.

"You're looking for me."

The man didn't move, eyeing him through his dark glasses. "You're so young. I was expecting someone more experienced."

Heero scowled at the man. "I don't have time to talk about birth certificates. Say what you want, or don't waste my time."

The man snorted. "They praised you. They just didn't mention that you were so ill-mannered."

Heero clenched his teeth and continued to scowl at the man. "Male prostitutes occupy the sewers on the other side of the financial district," he growled, turning on his heel, intending to stop wasting his time on this suspicious type.

"Wait."

Heero stopped halfway, then looked over his shoulder, expectantly. The man put out the butt of his cigarette with his shoe, then nodded towards the dark corner behind his back. "Let's talk over there."

Heero followed the mysterious man to a lonely place. They faced each other in a narrow section of the sewers, lit only by pale rays of light streaming through the gutters above their heads.

"You probably know who I am," the man began.

Heero folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the man. "You risk a lot wandering around the zone. Repression has intensified recently. FEDRA executes every captured Firefly. After hours of torture."

"I don't need your false compassion, smuggler. We know exactly what the QZ residents think about us. But you're right, I won't waste my time on smugglers who screw up their job," the man said, then fell silent for a moment. "I ordered the batch of guns and ammo into the QZ. I found the man, I paid, I waited two weeks - and nothing."

Heero lifted his eyebrow. He knew the story - for several days, people had been whispering that this had happened. News traveled swiftly in an environment as airtight as the smugglers in the Philadelphia QZ. "I don't recover debts."

"I don't mean debt, I mean goods," the Fireflies' leader growled. "I'm not an idiot, smuggler. My contractor is most likely dead, torn apart somewhere in your goddamn smuggling tunnels under the zone. And besides his rotting body, which interests me as much as last year's snow, lies the merchandise that I paid for and that my organization desperately needs."

Heero scowled at the man again, letting him talk; further talking would only jack up the price.

"I can't go by myself because I don't know your fuckin' routes. I've asked a few smugglers, but nobody's willing to go looking following this poor sod's path. People are scared," the man continued, eyeing Heero from head to toe. "I heard rumors about you. They say that where others retreat, you keep pushing forward… that's some kind of a deathwish, smuggler?"

Heero didn't let any of the muscles on his face even twitch at the words. "I have a habit of not asking clients about anything unrelated to business. I require the same of them… It's about being well-mannered."

Zechs Merquise curved his lips into a wicked smile. "Mouthy son of a bitch. Will you take the job, then?"

Heero didn't even blink. "Make an advance payment of 50 food ration cards and 20 retail cards, and I set out at once. The rest, 100 food ration cards, and 15 retail cards are due when I return with the merch."

The man pulled an enormously thick pile of cards from the pocket of his coat, counted it out, and taciturnly handed it to Heero. As Heero grabbed the payment, the man didn't let go of them. He removed his black glasses and eyed Heero with a scowl. He had bright blue, cold eyes. "Cards aren't a problem, as you can see. You will get an extra 50 if you don't say a word to anyone and come back with the merchandise until tomorrow night."

Heero narrowed his eyes at the man. "Deal."

"I mean it, smuggler," Zechs Merquise growled, still eying Heero with a hostile look. "If you screw up, and I don't mean you being torn apart by infected or shot by guards... I'll find you. Even at the end of the world."

Saying this, the man turned on his heel and briskly left the sewers. Watching the leader of the Fireflies, Heero walked over to his broker, counting out 10 cards.

"This is another unfortunate man, like many in our time..." Dr. J. sighed to Heero, taking his share and pointing the long-haired Fireflies' leader vanishing in the sewers. "Apparently, on the first day of the epidemic, he lost his entire family - his mother, father, and baby sister. He's still looking for her until this day."

Heero shrugged indifferently, and then the old man stopped him. "When do you leave?"

"Right away," Heero grasped his backpack. "It's going to rain."

"Godspeed, my lad."

Heero huffed significantly at the word 'God,' then walked briskly in the opposite direction, toward the back sewer exit. He knew exactly where to go, and he had a plan to get through the lucrative assignment before dark. Black clouds were rising over the city - he preferred to leave the underworld before it started to rain.

x

Seven months later - September

Houston

Heero POV

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"So, we meet again, smuggler."

Hanging on the boat nails, Heero stared at the silhouette of the proud, tall man standing above him, measuring him with a malevolent, cold stare. "A smuggler… or rather, I should say: a thief."

Zechs Merquise grabbed one of the old chairs standing nearby and sat down directly opposite Heero. He crossed his legs and looked at him with a penetrating gaze from behind the almost white bangs.

"I told you I'd find you if you screwed up. I always deliver," Zechs ground out. "You have lost not only my trust but also the trust of dozens of Fireflies who waited vainly for this weapon to be delivered. The day after you disappeared, FEDRA smashed the Fireflies' network operating in the Philadephia QZ. Twelve Fireflies were accused of blowing up a bridge over the Schuylkill River and executed… Anything of this sounds familiar to you, smuggler?"

Duo…

Keeping his poker face on, Heero looked back at the Fireflies' leader with an equally dark look. "You've traveled the whole continent to get me for a botched job…? You're much sicker in the head than I originally thought."

"Shut your trap, bastard," Dorothy cut in, but Zechs raised his hand, and she immediately fell silent.

"Don't get me wrong. If it was only this merch that you stole from me, you would only be chased by one of the many Fireflies groups, even on the moon. You would always have a shadow that would follow you around this earth," the man said, then paused for a moment, "but that'd be all. I called you a thief for a reason. You possessed one more thing... or I'd rather say two more things, that are mine. You got it?"

Heero felt that this conversation headed in a direction he didn't understand and which he definitely didn't like. He shifted his body, clumsily propping his weight on one leg, feeling the nails pierce through his skin.

"You're mumbling, I can't understand a word you say," he growled, glowering defiantly at the man. "Get to the point because what I do get right now… is that you're a fucking lunatic over-obsessed with me for some sick reason-"

He didn't finish the sentence when the Fireflies' leader, without getting up from the chair, gave him a painful kick to his good leg. Losing his sole support, again, for a brief but definitely too long moment, Heero's body hung on the nails. He couldn't help but groan out in pain at the feeling of his body being torn apart under his own weight.

"I'm sorry, you were saying…?" Zechs muttered, crossing his legs again.

"Heero!" Relena's cry reverberated through Heero's clouded with pain mind. "You fucker! So brave you are, kicking him when he's pinned down? He would have killed you with his own hands if he was free!"

Heero's ears buzzed with the pressure with which his heart was pumping blood to his veins. His mouth went dry; in his mind, he screamed too, begging Relena to stop interfering... Eventually, he retrieved support for his leg again and pressed himself against the wall, but his head felt still too heavy to look up.

"You're sure tough. You didn't utter a cry," he heard Zechs' voice. "I've underestimated you. But finally, the tables are turned. Now is the time to settle the score."

Heero spat with blood and breathed heavily, then slowly lifted his head to look at the Firefly. "What do you want…?" he murmured with a hoarse voice.

The man leaned over to him, looking him deep in the eyes. "You still haven't figured out who I really am?"

Heero said nothing, staring into those bright, ocean eyes with undisguised hatred. It made utterly no odds to him who this man was... Instead, he imagined how to kill him - in a thousand different ways - as soon as he freed himself.

As if he could read Heero's mind, Zechs Merquise's face distorted with a sly smile, and he stood up, but instead of serving another punch to Heero, he turned with his back to him and walked towards Relena, who flinched with fear at the mere sight of him.

"Leave her..." Heero growled after the man. "It's between you and me... She has nothing to do with it…!"

The Fireflies' leader didn't react at Heero's words as he approached Relena, who stood still, held by Dorothy, with her hands tied behind the back. He brushed a lock of blond hair from her cheek - the girl twitched at his touch as if he were burning her with a red-hot iron.

"You've grown up, Relena. You're a beautiful young woman now," Zechs muttered, touching her shoulder in such a gentle way that the very sight of it made Heero clench his fists in anger. "You only developed a terrible taste when it comes to men... little sister."

Heero froze, Relena's eyes widened as if she saw a ghost. For a moment she was silent, staring back at the man, then whispered, as if in disbelief, but loud enough for Heero to hear it:

"Milliardo...!"

x

Relena POV

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The illumination hit her so abruptly as if she was given a single, accurate blow on the head.

With every passing second, Relena recognized that eye color, that hair, that old scar on his wrist that he had got from falling off a bicycle in their childhood... Soon more and more details made her realize that a man that stood in front of her was her only brother, who had been lost for twenty years.

Her only family.

"Hello, little sister," Milliardo Peacecraft greeted her with a gentle smile on his lips, then leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the right cheek.

Relena stiffened, completely bewildered by this gesture, that would have been so natural in ordinary circumstances but, at this particular moment, felt sick and inhuman, almost bestial. She felt the ground slipping away from under her feet when a second later, two storm fronts collided inside her heart: feelings of relieved joy and almost murderous hatred for this man.

"Brother…" she whispered, dazed, her gaze glued to the silver firefly pendant dangling around his neck. "All these years… Where have you been? Father was looking for you and mom... He looked for you everywhere…"

Milliardo Peacecraft looked down at her. He seemed to rear above her, his tall, masculine demeanor obscuring her any view of Heero. "Our mother was a courageous woman, Relena. If it weren't for her, I would have died on the first day of the pandemic. We managed to escape Washington and made it to Baltimore QZ. However, we weren't safe there either... a year after that, our mother was attacked by FEDRA soldiers."

He hung his voice, and Relena felt her chest tighten at the sight of the darkness that clouded his pale eyes.

"If it was just about the ration cards, maybe I would understand it, Relena. Maybe I wouldn't have felt... such hatred. Survive the fittest... But what they did to her..."

Milliardo stopped short, and Relena didn't even think of interrupting this ominous silence. When he continued, every muscle in his neck could be seen trembling dangerously. "There were five of them. They passed her from one to another like a rag doll. It lasted for hours..."

Realizing the extent of the suffering of the woman, which brought her to life, and the tragedy of her brother who had witnessed it, Relena's heart filled with helplessness. She had always hoped that Milliardo and mother had managed to survive somehow... now that illusion weighed on her with a pang of acute guilt. After all, she lived in a safe QZ for twenty years, hidden and protected by her father...

"I swore over her dead body," Milliardo continued, clenching his fist, "that I would make them pay for it... That I would sweep them off the face of the earth, and that I would restore a world in which humans of their kind wouldn't have the right to live. That's how Fireflies were born, gathering all those who continued to look for the light in this darkness... And now, with the Peacecraft's vaccine in our hands, this new world order can be introduced."

The vaccine.

The hairs on the back of Relena's neck prickled at those words; their sinister nature, the hatred behind them, almost soaked Relena's heart as well. But when her hands met the barrier of a cord wrapped tightly around her wrists, it brought her down to earth... she was still bound, Heero was nailed to the wall… and the cause of it all was the man in front of her.

She suddenly remembered a conversation with Heero in the morning after their first night... And Heero's words:

Finding a vaccine would bring Fireflies political influence. They would get enormous power as they would be able to decide about people's lives.

Now the puzzle seemed completed. In the perfect world of the Fireflies, the vaccine for Cordyceps wasn't meant for everyone.

Relena shot a bold glance at the man that claimed to be her brother but was so different from her…

"And who's going to decide whether someone has a right to live?" she asked, her gaze never leaving his. "You?"

"Each man decides for himself about his fate," Dorothy's sudden whisper brushed the back of Relena's ear. "One can either cling to the dark… or follow the light. Like we do…"

Relena gazed around at the Fireflies ringing them, then at her brother, realizing that the feeling of hatred quickly began to prevail in her heart. She could feel the hot wave rising in her chest, almost taking her breath away.

"If this is the world you believe in, you have no right to be called Peacecraft anymore."

"I gave it up long ago. When I took the name of Zechs Merquise," her brother declared. "Let's face it, little sister. In our veins flows the same blood, but Milliardo Peacecraft you knew no longer exists."

Something about the look in his eyes was disturbing and mad; it was the gaze of a man who is capable of doing anything. A man who has been wronged, suffered by a terrible loss and was now consumed by fanaticism. And what was the most terrifying, this man was right - her brother didn't exist anymore.

Relena realized that further philosophical disputes were of no avail... Her and Heero's lives were on the line. "Milliardo, we're no threat to you," she declared. "We don't need to fight each other. Please…"

She noticed Zechs cast over her shoulder a short, knowing look at Dorothy. Her jaw clenched; there was nothing good about that look.

"Milliardo," she stopped short when Dorothy cut her backpack from her shoulders with a knife. "Milliardo, listen to me," she pleaded, feeling desperation reach her voice, "Heero didn't break the contract. He didn't run away with your merchandise! That day… I ran into him while my sneak off from the QZ... he barely escaped with his life from the infected! And then agreed to guide me to Houston, saving my life a hundred times…!"

Zechs Merquise didn't seem to be paying attention to any word she said, then he grabbed her backpack and looked at her meaningfully. "Where you're keeping it?"

She gazed back at him. "What are you-"

"Playtime is over, little sister," Zechs growled. Giggling devilishly, Dorothy approached him and began throwing all Relena's items out of the torn backpack, while Zechs continued. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. The reason why you're here. That's what our father wanted, and that's what the world needs right now…"

"Got it…!" Dorothy gasped, as she held a glassy vial in her hand.

The vaccine.

Relena watched helplessly as Zechs took the vial from Dorothy, gently and carefully, as if it was made of powder, and lifted it up to eye level. His gray-blue eyes focused on the object with almost predatory desire as if he was an exhausted animal that finally found water in the sun-scorched desert.

All the Fireflies fell silent, looking at their leader with delight and joy.

"That's it…" Zechs gasped, "we are close to the restoration of order and justice like ever before..."

"If that's all that you want, then take it," Relena begged, crossing glances with Heero. "Let us go, Milliardo. Please…"

The Fireflies' leader took his sharp eyes off the precious vial for a short moment. His eyes grew cold as if his soul overgrew with permafrost. There was no more human tenderness in those eyes... just fanaticism and the blind determination of a man who wouldn't hesitate to put everything on one card - for the sake of The Cause.

"Almost forgot…" he muttered.

Without taking his acute eyes off her, Zechs Merquise approached Relena and grasped her jaw in a decidedly unsubtle way as if she were a horse, jerking her head up and to the side. Relena gritted her teeth, feeling her brother's fingers painfully dig into her skin.

"Hands off her...!" she heard Heero's hoarse voice from behind her brother's back.

His grip didn't loosen a bit. Discovering the delicately outlines red line of the tooth mark on the side of Relena's neck, Zechs frowned at her with an unreadable, but ominous and cold look.

"So that's true. You survived an infected's bite."

Dorothy chuckled triumphantly. Then Zechs' grip loosened, and Relena gasped, scowling at her brother.

"You can't remember that, but, as your older brother, I do. When you turned one, our parents made fortune-telling for you. They put a book, a pen, a glass, a rosary, money, and a very tiny globe in front of you."

Relena blinked in surprise, not entirely understanding what he was talking about. Zechs apparently noticed her confusion as he smirked, turned away from her, and continued to tell the story.

"This was an ancient European fortune telling thing. The item the child chooses to touch symbolizes the child's destiny. If the child grasps the book - the child is likely to become a professor; if a pen - a writer or a journalist; a glass - a drunkard and a troublemaker; a rosary - a priest or a nun; money - a mean and rich man, and if a little globe - he or she is likely to become an ever-traveling citizen of the world," the man hung his voice for a significant moment. "You chose a globe, Relena."

Relena remained silent; she still wasn't sure what he was getting at.

"Our parents swelled with pride, everyone was convinced that you're gonna travel to the ends of the world. But now I realize... that this fortune-telling meant something entirely different. Your destiny isn't to travel the world... but save the world. Lay down your life to save our miserable and only home, called Earth."

That moment her heart started pounding like crazy; she felt an almost animal fear. Looking into his penetrating, cold eyes, she suddenly realized what this man meant.

"No…!" Relena gasped in terror, stepping away from him.

Zechs Merquise approached her and grasped her painfully by her shoulders.

"I don't entirely trust in our poor father's abilities in creating this so-called vaccine. He wasn't a scientist, after all… This vaccine may not be enough. But having you, we can certainly create a cure," he continued, as he leaned into her. "Will you fulfill your destiny, little sister? The world won't forget your sacrifice, I will make sure of that-"

"Leave her, you sick fanatic!"

This scream came from Heero. Zechs pressed his lips together, releasing Relena from his grasp and turning abruptly to Heero.

"Milliardo, stop!" she begged, trying to follow him, but she felt Dorothy's iron grasp on her shoulders, holding her in place, while Zechs started nearing the prisoner again. "Please, leave him alone! Heero!"

Though he was severely wounded and still immobilized by nails keeping him pinned to the wall, Heero continued to glower fearlessly at Zechs. "What the hell you're planning to do to her?!" he growled. "She's your sister!"

Relena futilely struggled to break free from Dorothy's grip when Zechs Merquise stood in front of Heero, looking at him with contempt in his eyes.

"I'm proud of my sister," he declared in an icy voice. "I will make sure her sacrifice won't be forgotten. And you? Look at yourself, smuggler. Who will remember you?"

Heero shot Zechs his icy, hateful gaze, catching his breath.

"You lay a finger on her, I'll fucking kill you."

If looks could kill, the leader of the Fireflies would have fallen dead already. Unfortunately, even those terrifying, war-colored eyes couldn't slay humans alone.

Without a word and without taking his eyes off Heero, Zechs Merquise pulled a gun from behind his belt and cocked it.

Relena felt her heart stop.

"No…," she cried, once again trying to break free from Dorothy's grip, but it was in vain. "God, NO! Heero!"

It took a fraction of a second as the hateful and belligerent gleam in Heero's eyes faded as if he had fully realized the hopelessness of the situation and his fate. He took no action to fight back or run while Zechs swayed a gun up over his head.

And then Heero shifted his gaze… he simply looked at her.

Relena's heart lurched at the realization of how exceptionally heartbroken and emotional his last look at her was… filled with shame, regret… and an understanding that they had too little time.

Heero, I…

"Please… Don't! NOOOO!"

Her scream was insufficient to drown out the force of the blow as the butt of Zechs Merquise's gun struck Heero's skull. Heero's eyes disappeared behind the curtain of his dark bangs, he dropped his head, from which a tiny trickle of blood began to dribble out.

No…

Relena couldn't stop screaming.

Grief and fury against the world were pouring out of her body along with her voice. She cried like never before in her life, like a slaughtered animal; she screamed not only with her throat, every part of her body, every cell screamed with her... She could only hear herself scream. She couldn't listen to voices or commands exchanged by the Fireflies around her. She no longer felt the pain from Dorothy's fingers that dug into her skin, as the pain in her squeezed heart took her senses away.

She could only cry, sob in pain as one of the Fireflies walked over to Heero and with one sharp tug tore him off the nails. His inert body crashed to the ground, his clothes soaked with blood from his open wounds that left long tracks leading to the iron tacks still sticking out of the wall. He didn't move anymore.

Though Relena already stopped struggling to break free, the Fireflies held her tight, dragging her outside the building.

She lost any sight of Heero very soon.

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TBC

This time, there will be no author's note. Sorry.

Please don't hate me.

Five chapters left till the end.