The morning of the second day of trial went much the same as the first, with the notable exception that Heero was softer spoken and he did very little to mask his exhaustion. The former gundam pilots was called forth to make a statement and answer questions about their relationship with the accused, and each of them worked diligently to avoid the defamation of Duo's character. Surprisingly, however, it wasn't until after eleven that Duo himself was called forth.
Corporal O'Keefe, who looked perhaps less suited to today's uniform than he had yesterday, addressed the stenographer as Duo found his chair. "Preliminary questioning has finished. We'll move on to accounts of reported captivity and imprisonment." And then he sat labouredly back between his two consorts, reclined in his chair, and eyed Duo greedily. "Please explain the events leading to your capture, Master Sergeant."
Duo retold things exactly as he recalled using the same clinical tone he'd used the day prior, and Heero fought to suppress his discomfort, particularly now that he was seated between an overly concerned Relena and Quatre, who already had an inhuman penchant for recognizing signs of distress in those he cared about. Duo told the story exactly as Heero had recalled it and with excruciating detail. Whenever Heero closed his eyes, he could see clearly the same things he'd seen on the day of the test flight, up until the point that Duo could remember no more and he deferred. "Heero was my remote copilot," Duo said, and then Heero felt eyes crawling all over him.
"Mr. Yuy, would you be so kind as to address the remainder of our questions?" O'Keefe asked sweetly, as if Heero actually had a choice.
One of the military attendants pulled a second chair into the center of the room and Heero sat beside Duo. They did not look at each other.
Heero cleared his throat and placed his hands flat on his knees. "The test went as expected until we moved into L4 airspace for terrestrial motion tests. A black spot appeared on the monitor and Duo…" he paused, uncertain whether it was appropriate to refer to Duo by first name in this situation. He reconsidered and corrected himself. "And Maxwell paused the test in order to privately conference with me, at which point we determined that the black spot was what we believed to be a shuttle of some kind with cloaking enabled."
"And why did you place the test on private call at that point, Master Sergeant?"
"I don't remember."
"We initially believed there wasn't a threat," Heero said at once. "We wanted to discuss the matter before we drew any conclusions."
"The question was not addressed to you," O'Keefe interrupted, and he looked briefly to the typist. "Please strike the response from the record. Master Sergeant, when was it that you determined that the unidentified craft was a threat?"
"I don't remember."
Heero wanted desperately to step in and offer some explanation, but it was no good. He knew that anything he said would not be admitted with thanks to that bastard, O'Keefe. So he sat quietly, waiting, and growing more and more impatient as Duo struggled to recall. And the more O'Keefe lambasted Duo with questions, the more Heero wanted to punch him.
"You seem not to remember very much," O'Keefe said dryly, and he sounded disinterested. "What exactly can you tell us about what happened?"
"Nothing," said Duo, resignedly. "I've got only partial memories of my captivity and absolutely nothing between engine stall and being put in the holding bay."
The Corporal grunted some affirmation and looked sternly at Heero. "And what details can you fill in, Mr. First Gentleman?" he said snidely.
Relieved, Heero explained, "Maxwell approached the shuttle to try to determine what it was, and then it opened fire. The craft fired indiscriminately, and its rounds pierced through the hull of the mobile suit. The bullets compromised the cockpit, Duo took a shot to the gut, and—"
"And how was it that he was captured?"
Heero reeled for a moment from the interruption, indignant. "We sent out a passenger shuttle immediately to recover him…"
"So you were not present for his capture."
"Of course not."
"And the video evidence you submitted last month does not show his capture."
"The A/V feed cut out just before we sent the shuttle. That was the reason why we sent the shuttle. We had no eyes on the situation so we needed to take precautionary meas—"
"That'll be all, sir. You're dismissed."
Heero stood and regarded the panel with dismay, and then Heero took his seat. As soon as he was in his chair, Relena took his hand again, though more tightly now than before, and Quatre appeared to be watching him out of the corner of his eye.
"I'm fine," Heero insisted beneath his breath, but he could tell that neither was buying it.
When Heero turned his attention back to the front of the room, O'Keefe had gotten to his feet and had begun pacing around before Maxwell with a pensive look on his face. He'd missed what had been said in the interim.
"What I don't understand about all of this," the Corporal said, "is the lack of oversight on the initial project." He stopped pacing immediately in front of Duo, not two steps away, and he cast down a gaze that was certainly supposed to be intimidating. "You didn't think to run a background check on the client, Master Sergeant? You didn't think to investigate where the money for such an enormous job was coming from? Certainly a simple precautionary check would have avoided all of this mess."
Duo cleared his throat. He was acting nervous, but his voice held firm. "With due respect, sir, it's not my duty to conduct those checks. Chain of command has always been in charge of negotiating the funding for jobs that I'm involved in, and they hand orders down the line to me after all of the paperwork has been filed. All of that is business for the ASF chain of command."
"Then why haven't I found paperwork on this file?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Very well," O'Keefe said. "But that only casts your story into more doubt. Ignoring the files, if you're the only witness to the capture it presents a conflict of interest. You could say anything to make yourself seem innocent. Moreover, as your memory is apparently unreliable, we're left to speculate as to the reason why this alleged DeSchepper person wanted your mobile suit."
"She wanted the mobile suit. The fact that she got the pilot and the suit was just a bonus."
From the back of the room, Noin's voice rang out clearly above the Corporal, respect or no. The whole room, Heero included, turned around to see her rising with great effort from her seat near the door.
"I have something I need to say," she said hotly, and Heero caught sight of Milliardo grasping at her wrist and mouthing not right now at her. He might have found it funny, Zech's desperation, watching her hobble through the aisle, the military men eyeing her suspiciously and apparently uncertain as to whether or not they should be brandishing their guns. "I was there, and I haven't even been asked for a preliminary statement yet. I'm not going to be quiet anymore."
O'Keefe eased the soldiers with a wave of his hand. Once Noin had reached the front of the room, an admittedly uncomfortable amount time later, he helped her into the chair. "And who are you?"
"Lucrezia Noin-Peacecraft. I'm an officer in the Preventers Unit and I was the pilot of the passenger shuttle that went to retrieve Duo from the battleground."
Heero noted that O'Keefe's expression had suddenly shifted to inexpertly concealed terror. Something felt more off than usual about him today. "What information can you provide for us, Mrs. Peacecraft?"
It was strange to hear Noin called so formally. Heero wasn't certain he'd ever heard her called Mrs. Anything before. The titles didn't suit her, and certainly not now that she seemed so hormonally driven and angry.
"I was taken into captivity right alongside him. I can explain to you exactly how it happened and I can tell you exactly what she wanted."
O'Keefe nodded tentatively at the stenographer, and motioned for Noin to continue.
"I piloted my Preventer's issue shuttle to the attack site and found the mobile suit in question without power and heavily damaged from the firefight. My shuttle wasn't equipped to tow such a heavy vehicle, so I exited my craft to retrieve Maxwell separately from the suit. I didn't expect him to be alive. When I opened the cockpit I noted at once that he was still breathing and began to assess the situation. It was at that point that my shuttle was destroyed."
"Your shuttle was destroyed?" O'Keefe said.
"Yes, it was blown up while I was in the mobile suit's cockpit," Noin said with a nod. "I imagine it was because the Preventer's logo was loud and clear on the side of my ship, and any outlaw worth his salt wouldn't want one of us prowling around his cargo. They didn't know that I was inside the suit and must have figured that I'd died in the explosion. At any rate, I closed up the cockpit to buy some time and stayed there until we were towed to the mothership."
"And Master Sergeant Maxwell?"
Noin shook her head and shot Duo a comforting, motherly look. He didn't look back. "He was completely unconscious. He doesn't remember because he wasn't awake, and you can't blame him for that considering the severity of his wound."
Instinctively, it seemed, Duo touched a hand to the scar on his stomach, but this went unnoticed by all but Heero, whose eyes were locked on Maxwell alone. Again, O'Keefe nodded and motioned for her to continue.
"When the crew of the ship opened the cockpit they were heavily armed and they seemed surprised to see me, which is why I believe they thought I'd died. At any rate, they bound me and retrieved Duo from the cockpit."
"And his condition?"
Noin shrugged. "Dead, or damn near."
"Watch your language, madam!" O'Keefe shouted at once.
"I assume you've got all the medical files on his wounds and subsequent medication," Noin continued, unperturbed by the interruption. In fact, Heero caught her shooting the most irritated scowl he'd ever seen at O'Keefe. He felt heartened by her spirit. "They couldn't figure out how to close the wound and stop the bleeding, so they burned it shut. It was absolutely barbaric."
"And after they stabilized him?"
"We were moved to a cellblock in the ship's core. The medical staff followed us and injected Duo with…Well we know what it is now, but I had no idea at the time. I assumed it was a tranquilizer of some kind, or a painkiller. But he still looked dead, and he stayed unconscious for hours."
"How do you know what they wanted with the mobile suit?" the Corporal questioned.
"I heard them talking about it through the door. The same female who'd been overseeing the medical treatment was asking about the pilot. She was excited to have captured him. And then she asked about the suit and whether or not it could be reconstructed. She seemed more excited about that."
"And why did she want the suit and pilot?"
"Why the hell else would someone want such a highly qualified pilot in such a well-constructed suit?" Noin said incredulously. "They wanted to use them."
"How were you allowed to escape?"
"Duo talked them into letting me go. He laid on some rhetoric about my pregnancy, about my husband," Noin shot a glance back at Milliardo, whose face had gone as pale as his hair. "They got scared and shot me out in an escape pod after I provided some publicly available knowledge about Duo for them. I told them nothing you haven't already been told. Things about his childhood and his qualifications as a pilot. I won't repeat them to you because it'd be a waste of time."
"Very well then," O'Keefe said. "Is there any other information you have to add, Mrs. Peacecraft?"
Noin pushed herself up, again with great effort and an almost imperceptible grunt, and then she nodded. "Yeah, I've got some other information for you," she said. "You're a disgrace to your organization and you ought to feel ashamed of the way you've been treating these people."
O'Keefe stared at her, dumbfounded and seemingly hurt by the insult. Heero wanted to stand up and clap as Noin made her way back down the aisle toward her seat. But the room was locked in stunned silence, and such a flagrant display of disrespect—atop the disrespect Noin had just paid, at any rate—would've been seen as contemptuous, particularly coming from Heero. He knew the line when it came to O'Keefe, and to rub the Corporal's face in the dirt while he was already down would cross it by a fair margin.
O'Keefe began rubbing at the back of his neck uncertainly. "So we've reached a stalemate," he said after Noin had been seated. Heero found it amusing that the Corporal made no comment about her attitude. "Thus far we've seen no apparent hostile intent from the Master Sergeant and all testimony points to his innocence. And yet, we have video evidence that confirms he was the pilot of the mobile suit that detonated the M-204 colony and proves his guilt without doubt. Written testimony and medical records provided by Mr. Winner and corroborated by Ms. Poe suggests that Maxwell was drugged and mentally unstable at the time of the colony's destruction. I suggest we recess for lunch so that we can gather our thoughts. Perhaps it would be in our best interest to see the demonstration of this cockpit system that the First Gentleman has constructed."
The statement hung in the air for a long time, and it stole all Heero's mirth over Noin away. He didn't feel ready to demonstrate the cockpit system, and he knew as fact that Duo wasn't ready. But then the room was adjourned, and he knew he had no choice.
ф
The room had undergone a transformation in the time Heero had spent poking at his meager lunch. The tables and chairs that had once been arranged in stadium style had been moved outward to the room's perimeter, and an enormous screen had been placed where O'Keefe and his panel had once been sitting. In the center of it all sat the cockpit chassis, all in one piece and apparently operational. To one side of the chassis had been placed a cart with various monitors and instruments, no doubt what they would need for Duo to adequately demonstrate the manic nature of the simulations.
Once all of the formalities of reconvening had wrapped, O'Keefe ordered Heero forward to explain the machine. Heero stood, slightly distracted by the growling of his stomach, and he walked the room through the basic utility of the chassis. He instructed them on the rotational monitor displays, the throttles and pedals and keyboard controls, and explained the purpose of the odd-looking helmet that was rigged to hang overhead. And then, when he thought himself finished, he turned to the others—Trowa and Wufei and Quatre and Milliardo—and he said, "Did I forget anything?"
Milliardo stood and introduced himself briskly, then explained. "I imagined that the visor display would need to be seen outside of the apparatus, so I took the liberty of installing a wireless feed between the helmet's video display and the monitor over there," he pointed at the screen at the front of the room. "There will be no sound, though there is in the helm, but the images will come through clearly." And then he sat again and resumed his silence.
Heero was uncertain how to feel about this revelation, about the fact that Milliardo had modified the chassis after the fact. Thus far, he and Duo had been the only two to see what actually projected into the visor display in the simulations labeled Maxwell_1 to Maxwell_5, and Heero wasn't certain that those images were ever meant to be displayed to a crowd such as this. He wasn't sure that they ever should be. Of course, when he'd viewed the simulations Heero had recognized the images immediately as a detailed graphical account of the Maxwell Church massacre and its aftermath, but he wasn't certain that others, especially those without prior knowledge, would make the connection. And what was more, the stills had been often distorted in color and size and field of view to accent specific details: rubble and bodies and blood, mostly. It had taken a long period of intensive study frame-by-frame for Heero to fully grasp the extent of the manipulation. The images had been disturbing even for his tastes; he couldn't imagine what they must have been to Duo, particularly when the hysterics of Quell withdrawal had kicked in.
Still, Heero nodded and turned to O'Keefe. "What questions do you have?"
"Nothing at this time," said the Corporal. "Please demonstrate for us the capabilities of this cockpit system."
Heero nodded and unbuttoned his jacket, draped it across a table, and fanned out the left and right monitors so that the room could see them. Then, he sat down in the seat. He'd been expecting to have to demonstrate the initial build, but his stomach still roiled. He'd not truly piloted a mobile suit in years, not outside of moving them from hangar to hangar and motion testing specific parts. It had never been anything intensive. Still, he sat, adjusted the controls, and took three deep breaths to center himself. Then he powered on the machine and input the commands to open Sim_1, the most rudimentary program on the machine.
The monitors around him displayed a lifelike projection of space, and upon that background there appeared red, crosshair-like icons meant to represent the enemy. The simulation was slow, and Heero executed it with the ease and precision he'd been used to in more practiced days. Muscle memory carried him as best it could, but certainly not perfectly.
"What exactly is happening here?" he heard O'Keefe ask sourly. "Not all of us have experience piloting mobile suits."
Heero found it more difficult than he'd thought to talk while running the simulation, but he attempted. "This is a random simulation program that we found already installed on the machine," he said, and he missed two targets at once as soon as he began speaking. With a grimace, he continued, and the more he spoke the more targets he missed. A few he didn't see altogether. "All of the programs you'll see demonstrated for you came equipped on the machine when we salvaged it. This is the easiest program, and I would imagine that it was designed to test the random number generator that's used in the more advanced…" his voice trailed off as he locked on and fired against another half dozen targets. "In the more advanced programs. The red… The red icons are supposed to be enemy fighters. The design was taken from old mobile doll software."
"Is it customary to use only half of your console?"
Heero shook his head and jerked his hand on the right throttle, a blatant mistake. "No. This simulation doesn't involve the engines or the in-helmet display. It only engages the weapons systems."
The room fell silent for the time remaining in the simulation, and Heero completed it handily. And at the end a readout displayed on the bottommost corner of the right hand monitor, a dialog box containing statistics for the simulation. Heero exited the cockpit and rotated the monitor again so that O'Keefe could see it clearly.
"This box is displayed at the end of every simulation," Heero explained as he pointed. "Time of simulation, seven minutes. Average actions per minute, 130. Number of enemies, 280, which is one enemy on screen roughly each one and a half seconds, but it varies due to the random number generator. You saw, every so often there would be six or eight at once, which only increases as the difficulty of the program rises. Accuracy, 85.36%…" Heero paused as soon as he read the number and looked incredulously at it. Certainly there was a mistake in the math. Eighty-five percent, on a rudimentary program? He felt immediately ashamed. He could practically hear the insensitive commentary that must be filling the heads of every other pilot in the room. He'd certainly catch hell from Zechs the next time the two of them spoke. He cleared his throat and felt his face growing warm. "On most simulation programs, any accuracy over 95% is generally considered a perfect simulation as numbers beyond that would be unreasonable for a human to achieve, though certainly not impossible. I believe that Air-Space Force training requires ninety for a medal. Once you get above 97% it's considered a computer-level simulation, where the computer would be working against itself," he said, and the explanation did not help him feel any better. "Total enemies neutralized, 239."
"Run another," O'Keefe said. "I'd like to see the machine's ability on a higher setting."
Heero shot a glance to Relena, who gave the most imperceptible shrug. Then he looked to Quatre, to Trowa and Wufei, and each of them wore a mask of professional aloofness, as if they'd not seen the shameful numbers from the prior simulation. Milliardo wore a smug smirk despite the circumstances, and when Heero looked at Duo his brow was furrowed deeply, his fingers interlocked and covering his mouth. When he caught Heero looking, one eyebrow peaked up, as if to say "Really?"
Heero swallowed hard and pulled at his collar, but replaced the monitors and reentered the cockpit. "We'll do a mid-level run next. Though I'd be better able to demonstrate the machine's capabilities if I wasn't required to talk through it." He ran his fingers over the keyboard to bring up Sim_3 and poised his finger above the initiation key. "Do you have questions before I begin, Corporal?"
"No. Proceed."
The second simulation ran much more smoothly than the first had, but it also ran at a rhythm to which Heero was more accustomed. Quicker enemies made for more hits, and the simulation made use of the throttle and pedaling systems, which kept Heero's whole body working in rhythm. At the end of the eight-minute simulation, he'd neutralized 600 of 650 targets for around 92% percent accuracy, which he felt more comfortable with in the end, and when he exited the cockpit and ran the numbers to the room, he was satisfied that he'd simply been out of practice. Certainly he'd be able to match his performances of old with a little bit of work, if he wanted to.
"What is the difference in simulation programs?" O'Keefe asked.
"Well, these first few, the Sim programs, the Intro programs, and the Space programs are all variations of the same program you just saw me run. They increase in difficulty with each set, so the Sim_3 program you just saw was the highest difficulty of the lowest set. As you increase, the maneuverability requirements increase, the number of targets increases. Once you get into the Space set you start to control mobile doll AI in addition to your own suit. Space_5 runs a total of two thousand targets in a ten-minute simulation."
"And how did you perform on that simulation in your testing, Mr. Yuy?"
Heero paused in the midst of putting back on his jacket and stared at O'Keefe. "I didn't," he said bluntly.
"Why?" O'Keefe pressed. "Certainly an experienced mobile suit pilot such as yourself, a gundam pilot no less, would be able to execute such a simulation. What else will we use as a baseline for the Master Sergeant?"
Heero shrugged on his jacket. "I'm a programmer," he said flatly, "not a pilot. I haven't been a gundam pilot for a decade. I think it's about time we moved on from that." He paused and glanced back at Duo, who sat impassively and in the same position as prior to the second simulation. Then he looked back to O'Keefe and said, "As for the baseline numbers, you won't need any. Nothing I can do can compare with what Maxwell is capable of."
Heero knew that O'Keefe watched him all the way back to his seat beside Relena. His skin crawled. But then it was over, and Relena leaned over to him to compliment him on a job well done. Heero didn't agree, but he didn't argue about it either.
"It seems that the only next step is to have you show us what you've got, soldier," O'Keefe said dryly to Duo after a long period of contemplation, and Heero watched Duo's shoulders tense. There was no way he was ready to get in a suit.
But Quatre stood instead, and with purpose he explained, "We haven't neutralized the emosuppressants in his system. The simulation programs won't work effectively unless we…"
"Well do it then," O'Keefe barked. "All the equipment you need is here, isn't it? This is what we prepared all of this for!"
"Well, yes," Quatre said hesitatingly, "but I'd hoped we might have a little privacy…"
"I don't think that'll be necessary," said the Corporal with a wave of his hand. "Let's get on with it then. We don't have all day."
With a dissatisfied sigh, Quatre made his way forward and beckoned Duo to follow. Heero could see their mouths moving, could hear whispered words, but he couldn't tell what they were saying to each other. And then Duo had his jacket and tie off and had seated himself in the cockpit, and Quatre was fussing over him with care and concern. It took nearly ten minutes before anything happened.
"Monitors in, please. This is embarrassing enough without everyone staring at me," Heero heard Duo say, and Quatre pushed the monitors into standard mobile suit configuration. Once they were in position, Heero could see the wires trailing from the chassis' interior to the medical equipment, and Quatre flipped on the screen.
"We're going to let him run through a couple of programs to show you what his brainwaves look like under normal duress," Quatre explained, first to O'Keefe and then to the room. "I've hooked him with a remote line to administer the neutralizing agent at a random time. We'll know when he's been neutralized, but he won't. It'll take about ten minutes for the effects of the Quell to wear off completely, at least according to the records, but there could be variations on an individual basis, of course. After that we'll keep an eye on his brainwaves to see the abnormalities."
"Do you suspect there will be abnormalities?" O'Keefe asked.
"I absolutely guarantee them," Quatre said boldly. "I'd bet my life on it."
Heero heard Duo swearing from within the chassis. He didn't sound pleased.
"Helmet on," Quatre ordered, and Heero watched the wire supports move as Duo situated the apparatus in place. "Your choice of simulation to start, Duo."
The large monitor at the front of the room lit up at once and a long string of code flashed against a black background in what Heero reckoned was a boot up sequence. And then, seconds later, a slew of red crosshair targets appeared on the screen with a small numerical panel in the upper right corner. This display was similar to that which Heero had explained at the end of his own simulation, and displayed time elapsed, number of targets neutralized, accuracy, and actions per minute in real time.
Duo's numbers remained remarkably high, all things considered. He maintained an average of 200 actions per minute with north of 97% accuracy. More interesting, however, were the dips and rises of what Heero had come to recognize as an EEG machine. Quatre very quietly explained the readings as Duo moved through the simulation.
"These smooth waves indicate a state of relaxation—concentration, but relaxation nonetheless. You can see occasional spikes at times when the simulation becomes difficult, but they remain otherwise stable."
And then the first simulation ended, and Maxwell started the next, more intense program. His actions rose to 225, his accuracy maintained at 98% for a solid ten minutes, and his brainwaves remained relaxed and in tune. Halfway through, Quatre grasped a syringe from the table and injected its contents into the intravenous catheter. Then he stood back, heaved an enormous sigh, and waited.
Duo finished the second simulation with 99.84% accuracy, and Quatre instructed him to begin the programs labeled Maxwell. Duo started the first.
The images displayed on the monitor changed immediately from a backdrop of space to a view of a pristine colonial landscape. The red crosshair icons had been replaced by lifelike, moving images of antique mobile suits circa AC189. A multi-spired brick building that Heero recognized immediately as the church stood atop a hill. The image remained still for a while. And then the screen began to flash. Back and forth it went between the calm landscape and images of war and destruction, fractions of a second between teach transition, and the violence of the images jarred all who watched.
The simulations melted into each other, one started the moment the prior ended, and with each new program the progression of images grew more and more disturbing. Quatre pointed out very quietly, in a slightly frightened voice, how the electroencephalogram was reading signs of agitation and anxiety that increased with the severity of the simulation. And then it changed entirely.
Something had flashed on the screen that Heero recognized at once. He'd spent half an hour staring at the picture on his first day in the machine: A forensic photo of a blonde, fair-skinned woman, half of whose face had been obscured by blood and raw flesh. She'd been mangled and torn and her glazed blue eyes remained open and dead. The picture had been on the screen for less than two seconds, but it had been all that was needed. This was Helen.
Very suddenly the motion in the chassis changed. Duo's fingers no longer moved about fluidly. The grace of motion that normally characterized his piloting had gone. His fingers jerked wildly, erratically, but they hit the mark with perfect accuracy. The motion of the screen shifted as well, and as the images flashed Heero could see that the point of view—the point of view of Duo's imagined mobile suit—was darting around seemingly without control. But as Heero watched he began to recognize the efficiency: instantaneous reaction times. An enemy would appear, and Duo would move to it and dispatch it. The next would appear, and he would repeat. When multiple enemies appeared, he sent the imaginary mobile dolls after the ones too far out of his reach.
"He's hallucinating," Quatre uttered, and he pointed at the monitor. The waves had grown erratic and spiked, some overlapped, and the longer Quatre watched, the more distraught he seemed. The longer it went on, the more severe the dips and spikes. The visions intensified. The images intensified.
Eventually the room fell into utter silence, and as Heero looked around he saw all onlookers in a similar state of disorientation and disgust. Hilde had curled her legs up on the chair, was biting at her fingers with tear-rimmed eyes that scarcely blinked. Howard had leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands covering his mouth. Milliardo and Noin, together as one, were staring at the floor. And Relena, by this time, had buried her head in Heero's arm so hard that it hurt, and she clutched his hand in both of hers so that his fingers had long since gone numb.
No one had expected this.
After a point, all that could be heard was the wild clicking and tapping of Duo at the mobile suit controls, accented here and there by his heavy and erratic breathing. The noise was somehow otherworldly. But Heero kept watching, and despite his own mounting dread he could not help but be amazed. All he could see was Duo's left hand, but it never stopped moving and jerked between keys deftly. The monitor overlay read 425APM. One hundred percent accuracy.
It was no wonder the military vessels and the colony never stood a chance.
When the silence grew uncomfortable, Quatre moved to shut down the machine.
"No. You'll let it run," said Corporal O'Keefe. It was the first thing he'd uttered since Maxwell had entered the cockpit. "We need to see how this terminates itself."
Quatre stammered in argument, but must have decided there was nothing he could do. He stood, dumbfounded, and looked between O'Keefe and the cockpit helplessly. He'd gone pale. The simulations had been running for twenty minutes. It was supposed to have ended sooner.
And then came noises. Disturbing noises, half grunts and half cries of exertion, echoed out from the chassis. Five hundred APM, and Heero was certain he could hear snippets of Duo muttering something incoherently to himself. His fingers seemed to be slipping on the keys. He was panting now, jamming his feet against the pedals, crushing the throttle controls into the console. The display was inhuman. It was monstrous.
"Incredible…"
Heero's eyes shot to O'Keefe, who stared with an expression of wonderment at the dizzying monitor and its readouts. Heero's stomach knotted with rage, and before he knew what had happened he was on his feet.
"Shut it down, Quatre!" he ordered in half a yell, and O'Keefe rounded with an angry expression. But Heero did not back down, and said again, "I said, shut it down!"
Quatre moved with urgency and shut down his machines, then he yanked the main power cable connecting the chassis to the electrical and instantly the chamber went dead. The whirring of its motors and the clicking of the keys slowly faded away as Duo seemed to realize that the targets had gone. But he did not move within the cockpit. He just sat with his hands poised on the controls, his fingers spastically twitching.
Quatre leaned half into the chassis and Heero could hear him talking frantically, calling Duo's name. The cables mounting the helmet in place relaxed, and Quatre threw a second electrode-laden cap out of the way. More panicked calling, and then Quatre withdrew from the cockpit.
"Clear the room," he ordered to O'Keefe, and the Corporal simply stared. Quatre looked ill, he sounded faint. "Clear the room! This isn't a joke! This isn't a show!"
O'Keefe's expression changed very slightly, and he ordered the room to clear. Attendees filed in orderly lines around the outside of the room toward the rear doors, all except for Heero who stood rooted to the spot and staring at Duo's still twitching hands in the chassis, and Sally, who had begun pushing against the flow of traffic to make her way forward. O'Keefe hovered around the door, watching with interest.
"Heero, I…"
He looked down at Relena, who had taken on an unseemly shade of green. "Go," Heero said. "Make sure Hilde is okay, you get everyone gathered up and we'll take care of things here. I'll meet you later. It's okay."
Relena nodded, terrified, and rushed away.
It took until well after the room had cleared for Heero to gather the courage to make his way toward the disembodied cockpit, and when he arrived at its side both Quatre and Sally were practically inside of it.
"What do we do?" Quatre asked, and Heero heard a definitive quivering in his tiny voice. "I don't know what to do."
Sally shook her head. "I don't know."
Against his better judgment, Heero peeked inside. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see. Maxwell was whole, undamaged but for two bleeding fingers on his left hand. His face had gone as white as a sheet and he simply stared, dead-eyed and expressionless at the console. His chest heaved with shallow, shuddering breaths, and besides the trembling of his hands he was completely motionless and completely silent.
"He's catatonic," Quatre said dumbly. "Overloaded."
"Let me help," Heero ordered, and Sally moved out of the way.
Deftly, Heero removed the harness and fanned out the monitors, clearing a wide path for removal. By the time he was ready to pull Duo from the cockpit, Quatre had joined him, and the two of them together lifted Duo out. Heero could feel Duo shaking, could feel the cold sweat soaked into his clothes.
And the instant Duo touched the floor he broke into unrestricted motion.
"No!" He screamed all at once. Startled, Quatre fell backward as Duo began to flail. But Heero and Sally remained firm and grasped at his arms. "No, no, no!" His voice broke. He struggled to cover his face.
"Calm down!" Sally cried.
It did no good. Duo continued to thrash, and the more control Heero and Sally exerted over his arms, the more he kicked and squirmed.
"Get away from me! Stop it! Get off of me! Let me go!"
Heero maneuvered around Duo's back, holding as tightly as he could to the arm he'd gotten under control. And then he kneeled and nodded to Sally, and she let him go. As soon as Duo began to flail again Heero snapped into action, gripping Duo in an iron full nelson that rendered his upper body all but motionless. "Get his feet!" Heero cried. "I can't hold him if he keeps rolling around!"
Quatre and Sally practically threw themselves on Duo's legs, and at length managed to wrangle him into such a position that he couldn't move. Instead he continued speaking, begging, repeating, "no, no, no" and variations of "let me go" and "stop it, no more" until all his words had been lost between hysterical, tremulous gasps for air. Eventually no sound came forth at all, but Heero could see Duo's mouth continuing to move.
"Knock him out, Heero," Quatre said quietly. "I don't care how you do it, but put him out before he hurts himself."
Heero nodded and applied gentle but firm pressure to the sides of Duo's neck. And though Maxwell jerked once or twice in futile attempts to wrench himself free, eventually he stopped and fell limp and lifeless into Heero's lap. Sally removed her weight from Duo's legs and wiped at her forehead with her sleeve. Quatre looked ready to weep. Heero leaned back on his elbows with a great sigh of relief, and his eye was drawn to the back of the room.
And at the door, O'Keefe looked rapt.
"Fascinating," he said.
10
