Ch. 6: the start of an absolute
The soldier came out, and grabbed Zero by the shoulder, leaving bloody marks on it, "Come on, get in there!" he pushed Zero through the doorway, and started to shout. "Zero! It's Zero! Ciel found him! Zero's back, He's finally back!" As he shouted, blood dribbled out of his mouth. Zero stood with a dumb, blank expression on his face, not knowing precisely what to do after having his name called out in such a momentous manner. Every voice immediately went silent, every head turned, every jaw dropped, everyone began to slowly drip blood. There was a momentary silence. People were staring dumbly forward for several seconds, the blood pooled on the ground before them, a lone recruit shouted.
"Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!" He was soon joined by a roar of a thousand or so raucous voices screaming at the top of their lungs and raising fists in the air in triumph at the uproar, blood spurted out of every mouth, dripped down every fist. Zero was grabbed by a soldier, and passed through the crowd as if he were some trophy that an underdog team had finally won. Some of the people leapt on him and smeared him with blood, others merely wanted to lay a hand on him, the blood still covered him. Hundreds of voices welcomed him, congratulated him, yelled at him, thanked him, and a million other things that Zero couldn't comprehend because of the confusion those voices made by smashing so often into one another, splattering blood on him and turning into a loud jumble of indecipherable noise and blood. Zero was dumbfounded by the sudden onslaught of adoration, and simply allowed himself to be pushed along, not doing anything for himself. The hands smeared their bloody palms along his back, a few even stroked his face.
"Thank you so much!" rang in his ears. "It's so wonderful to have you here!" echoed through his mind the blood now dripped from his slack jawed mouth. He couldn't take it, he was stifled under a million thanks and praises, drowning in blood. He was beginning to drown in the sea of grabbing hands smearing the blood on him and loving words that sprayed him with the crimson substance. His eyes stared blankly forward, his mouth hung slightly open, bleeding, the limpness of his body went unnoticed as he passed through the crowd He was riding gently along the passing hands, feeling five bleed upon him at once as soon as the five before just reached the end of their range. The bleeding fools noticed nothing. They were like a three-year old first seeing a cute little kitten; squeezing it to death, but only with the best intentions, of course. The impromptu bloodbath continued for what seemed like hours, though Zero knew not how long it truly had been. A pair of hands fought through the ocean of blood that the others created, pushing them laboriously aside, and slowly making their way to Zero. A man followed behind the hands, wearing a technologically advanced visor and a long, pale green robe. His half grey, scraggly hair swayed back and forth as he turned to either side, yelling at the many bodies around him, but he bled just as much as they, what did he think he could do? He reached a pair of crimson hands forward, lifting Zero's limp form from the practically rioting mob around him. Zero was lifted over the shoulder of the man who saved him, and was carried out of the room, still dripping blood, dripping, dripping, dripping...
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Zero snapped out of his cot with a start, breathing heavily. His joint lubrication and coolant systems had apparently overheated, and caused him to sweat like a normal human would. It was Five-thirty A.M. Cerveau had taken him back to the base very quietly, and given him a private quartering room in which to sleep. The dream had disturbed him, he had no idea what was going on; blood seemed to creep into every corner of his subconscious mind. He decided not to allow such things continually ruin his life, so, sitting up in his cot, he repeated his mistake of the day before: hitting his head on the closed cover. He opened it, sat up again, being careful not to hit his head on anything further. He knew already that an attempt for further sleep was futile, and he got up, beginning immediately to search for anything but the annoying tech suit he had worn literally since he could remember. He finally found a closet with a few extra sets of street clothes in it, and started going through it. He settled rather quickly on a black t-shirt, brown leather jacket, and an old, worn out pair of jeans. He walked out of the room feeling much better, and headed to the exit, the place of which he remembered because Cerveau had shown him the way to it just eight hours ago. He left the base, not this time fearing his being locked out, because he now owned a password transmitter(1).
Zero walked slowly out of the warehouse to the old building from which he had watched the sunset yesterday. It was still dark, though the faintest tinges of dawn danced playfully along the broken skyline around him, teasing the night with the pale blue hopes of coming day. Zero stepped one foot on to the railing of the balcony he had been on last night, and did a backwards flip on his way to the roof, which he landed upon the edge of, and ran to the vertex. He was surprised to find such strength hidden within him, and flexed his hand as if to test the tightness of his grip. He sat for hours, simply watching the sun rise, slowly, lifting the dark purply-blue of the night over the city, pushing it slowly, tipping it over to the other half of the world. The pale sky of the early morning was nearly overtaken by the glowing white radiance that the large sun emitted the moment it crossed the horizon. Its glow instantly stretched all shadows to a nearly infinite length, covering nearly everything not straight before its gaze into a darkness not unlike the one it was encased it mere minutes ago. This, however, soon passed, and all was bathed in the soft light of the bright sun.
This massive change took no more than five minutes; Zero was enraptured by the surreal experience. It was the most beautiful thing he could ever remember seeing, though there was little for him to remember. He sat, and watched the sun still slowly rising over the dead city, still trying to recapture the beautiful moment when it arose.
"It's pretty, isn't it?" Called a familiar voice from behind Zero. He turned and saw Allouette climbing laboriously over the edge of the roof. "I come up here every morning to watch it." She rolled on to the roof and started walking towards Zero at the same time.
"But how do you get back in? I wouldn't think they would give password transmitters to children."
"They don't" Allouette sat beside Zero, "My daddy goes on guard duty every morning, and he lets me in." Zero nodded his head.
"But you're up here late, why is that?"
"Because I was looking for you; I wanted to bring you up here to show you, but you already found your way up here." She sat and hugged her knees, "It's almost time for breakfast; we should head in soon."
"Why?" Zero asked, "We can't eat, why should we have to go in?"
"Momma always makes me eat when the refugees from Neo Arcadia do; she says it's just being polite or something."
"Well, I'm not going to be going in, I'm trying to avoid the people in there as much as possible."
"Oh, Well, I guess I'll see you later!" Allouette expertly slid down the roof, continuing down the half-broken off drainpipe, and walked back to the resistance warehouse. Zero sat for several hours, wondering about the odd world he had been plunged so violently into. He had realized how incredibly quickly his entire remembered life had gone by; it had been, oh how long was it again? Only his fourth day of memory, yes; that was it, four quick days. Herein he had killed a man, betrayed an army, nearly gone insane from the euphoria he somehow aroused, and obtained a stuffed rabbit. What a life, what a world! Zero was aghast and astounded at the massive upheaval his return had brought about, as well as hated the populace about him for so taking him by storm. The sun, according to his internal sensors, was beating down on the silent earth abut him at nearly 100°, and it was merely eleven in the morning: apparently the ozone had deteriorated even further. But how did he know that? He could never tell you a thing about the war about him, nor the organizations involved in it, not even a simple meal could he label, yet he knew what the ozone layer was, he could molecularly decompose for you the structure of the ceramic roof tiling he sat on. He knew the most incredibly random and most often useless facts, for that is typically how facts go: when you need them, you know them not, but you will remember them in a life or death situation, but of course only after you have forgotten how to escape the deadly place. This was the life of Zero. He soon lost his train of thought when a second voice came.
"Zero?" He turned to see Allouette's mother climbing far more laboriously an gingerly than her daughter up to the roof, "Zero, are you still up here?"
"Yes, come on up." He stood and reached out a hand to pull her up. He didn't know why, but he felt an urge to help her; make her comfortable.
"Allouette said you were watching the sunrise, but why are you still up here: It's nearly noon!"
"I don't want to be bothered by the mob again; I think it would be better for me to stay out of the base for a while." He led her by the hand to the top of the roof, and helped her sit on the corner of it.
"Oh, are you still going on about that silly thing? Only a few raw recruits are still stupid enough to even talk about you like that, most of them sobered up when you hit that man and took off. And if the new guys piss you off too much, then you can teach 'em a lesson in the effects of gravity upon the reploid's skull." She chuckled at her crude little joke, but Zero was surprised at such a motherly person using such language. Clearly he didn't hide it very well, because she spoke up again. "You're wondering what a mother is doing talking like that, Huh?" She lowered simultaneously her head and voice, and continued, "A war does many things to a person. It does even more to kill another." She pulled a handle similar to Zero's from her back, and turned it on, watching a pale blue light shimmer up and down a long blade it fashioned. She turned the sword slowly, observing the shifting of the patterns as they sped to keep up with the electromagnetic redirector that held the blade in place.
"You've had to fight, haven't you?" She nodded her head solemnly, "I'm sorry, I know how terrible it is to have to kill another,"
"How, you are supposed some kind of massive killing machine incapable of emotion, hell, you even brought about the maverick virus! You can't possibly know what it's like!" She knew that it would be easy for him to know, but she didn't want to admit, even to herself, that anyone else could know how she felt.
"I do." Zero felt like he recognized the involuntary 'poor me' act, he almost felt like he knew the woman sitting beside him like his closest friend, "I can't count those whom I killed, I can't repay my debt to the world, I don't even know why I killed, but now the pain of knowing I took their lives has come to haunt me, the blood is on my hands and it won't wash off."
"That's so sad." She so desperately wanted to scream to him 'It's me, Iris, Don't you remember?' She wanted to say he loved him, to be held by him, to kiss his soft, sweet face again. She couldn't though, she tore her face from the watery-eyed stare it had fallen into, and buried her face into her knees, "I'm sorry, I had no idea! Everyone thinks of you as the weapon they need to win the war, but they forget that you have emotions too! And so you're so sweet and caring, but they just want you to kill for them, I'm so sorry!" She flung herself onto him at these words, and sobbed desperately into his chest, her hands grasping each other behind his neck.
Zero was entirely taken aback by the onslaught of sympathy that was now freely streaming from the young woman beside him. Although he didn't complain, She was, after all, quite beautiful, and, like leviathan, he felt something was right about her. He slowly and unsurely wrapped his arms around her, and, after seeing that she was still sobbing into his chest, he held her tightly to him. Time passed, each held the other gently. It was nearly four in the afternoon before Iris was calm enough to lift herself from his chest. What am I doing? She almost immediately thought to herself, not knowing what had come over her before, I'm married now, I can't let this happen! She stood, starting to blush.
"I'm sorry, but I have to go now," She covered her face, and ran down the side of the roof, and climbed down in a much more clumsy fashion than her daughter. Zero sat, flabbergasted, not knowing precisely what had happened, but he most definitely disliked the ending of it. He stood, seeing no more reason to stay on the roof, and walked down the roofside himself, entirely bewildered by her actions. He entered the warehouse, and entered the password (Ax1442h3n), and allowed the elevator to take him slowly into the dark well that led to his so unfamiliar home.
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The base was far busier than when he had entered yesterday, although most seemed too intent on their tasks to take notice of Zero, which he liked very much. He walked down the hall, and into the large room where everyone had been gathered the day before, and realized almost immediately that it was very much the same as the command room in Neo Arcadia. A large screen filled a wall, though it was dim; often flickered, and many old, somewhat dilapidated computers had a few tech-operators at them. Cerveau was standing a computer close below the massive screen, typing furiously, and giving several orders to those who came to talk to him.
Zero walked past the room and to the elevator on the other side of it. This elevator was not password blocked, as it was already in the resistance base, and only went down a few stories. The cave at the bottom of the elevator was dimly lit, being occupied only by a few storage rooms and Cerveau's medical lab. Zero swept quickly towards Cerveau's lab. As he entered, He saw Ciel sitting on the side of the bed, the hookups taken out of her, and a bandage wrapping around her midriff. She was reading a book quite intently beforehand, but looked up when she heard the door open. She closed the book, and dropped it on the bed beside her, standing up as she did so. She grabbed her side as she stood up, wincing from the unhealed wound being stretched. However, the young woman soon recovered her balance, standing gingerly as she didn't want to aggravate the wound any further.
"You don't have to stand." Zero said matter-of-factly.
"I never said I did." Ciel smiled, starting to walk towards him.
"And yet you act as though you did."
"Appearances can be deceiving."
Ciel stumbled on her way towards Zero. He stooped quickly, and grabbed her under the arms, and helped her to stand properly again. "Necessities, however, cannot be ignored. You still need to rest."
"It's just the morphine. Cerveau took me off of it only about an hour ago; I'm still a little shaky."
"Sit down at least. You're still a little behind on your strength." He led her slowly back to the bed, helping her back to her previous position.
"Look, Zero." She followed him with her head as he sat beside her. "There'll be a lot to be done around here, and you're kind of at a situation where you can't do a lot to help anyone until you figure out how to help yourself, am I right?" Zero nodded sullenly. "I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to, but I will have to ask for your help on occasion, I'm sorry to do this, but we need you, the whole world needs you. I'm sorry you got pulled into this war the way you did, but you are the hope for us all. Just you being here has already helped tremendously, and I don't know if you even can do anything to help us, even if you wanted to, but please Zero, please! I know it's a lot to ask, and I know it'll be hard on you, but you have to he-" She was cut short by a finger pressing itself to her mouth.
"Calm down," Zero said softly, "Do you have any idea how overly-sentimental all of that just was? Of course I'll help you. I didn't just go through all of Neo Arcadia's crap to sit here and do nothing. I'll do whatever you want me to." He looked in to her blue eyes. They rippled and trembled just like pools of endlessly deep water. She stared back into the cool, calming grey that glowed softly in his eyes. She felt it again. Milan! She felt the exact same way as when he had held her. One of Zero's hands had placed itself on her shoulder, she felt happy; whole again. Like a part of her that had left on a very long trip had just come back.
What am I doing? Zero thought to himself as he watched his hand place itself on her shoulder. I hardly know her! What am I doing, and with the situation with Allouette's mother, this is getting so confusing. Zero wanted to stop it, but, at the same time, he didn't. He knew that no good could come of whatever was about to happen, but he couldn't make it stop, it felt too wonderful. His face slowly, very slowly, began to drift forwards. Ciel's face did the same. Her eyelids drifted lower as her head pulled forward, her breathing was slow, calm, and in a way she couldn't even pinpoint herself, happy. Zero's thoughts drifted back to what Cerveau had said the previous day: "According to record, you were quite the lady's man" He assumed that this whole scenario was his sweet-talking, 'lady's man' side taking over. The train carrying his thoughts snapped back to the room when he felt Ciel's hand wrap around behind his neck, as well as both of his arms around hers. Their faces were only a few inches from each other's. The train gathered speed. Her cheeks began to flush, her breath was warm on his face. The wheels shot sparks in every direction, the engine glowed red hot. Her head tilted, both of their faces were less than half an inch from the other's. The train glowed brighter, began flying at breakneck speeds, shot sparks everywhere. Zero closed his eyes and let himself go.
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The train exploded; His mind exploded. His lips met hers, the room was a blur, a siren wailed in his mind. She felt it, his mouth kissed hers, everything was right for a moment, a siren wailed in her mind. He watched himself kiss her, he couldn't stop it, he wasn't sure if he wanted to. He knew he shouldn't have, the siren told him that. But it felt good, it was good, but the siren wouldn't stop. He had no idea how long he was there, but while there, he argued his way out of all of the possible explanations, like a two year-old, he bawled, saying that it was good, it had to be right, he would make it right! But the siren would not quit. It pounded in to him that something was amiss. The siren… the siren! It wasn't his head, a klaxon wailed over and over through the entire base, repeatedly stating the annoying fact that there was a problem. He pulled himself away from Ciel with a reluctant jerk, and looked to the door. Ciel came to the same realization as he, and ran out the door, completely ignoring the pain in her side.
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"What's going on?" She yelled, stumbling off of the elevator into the central operations room. The Klaxon still sounded, and in this room, it was accompanied by a flashing red light.
"Miss Ciel!" Several people murmured, taking various levels of action to help her. Cerveau and another soldier ran to her side, each taking one of her arms around herself, they stood her up.
"Ciel, you shouldn't be out of the bed until tonight." Cerveau tried to pull her back towards the elevator, but with a surprisingly strong jerk, Ciel pulled away from him.
"I'm fine, just a little tired 'cause of the meds." She stubbornly continued forward, the soldier who had helped her previously still helping her along. "What's going on?" She asked him, stabilizing herself over a computer screen, immediately beginning to type furiously.
"A small squad on patrol was taken prisoner by the Aztec strike team; they took them to the old recycling center again."
Ciel swore under her breath, "Are you doing anything about it?" She turned towards the man with an accusing look in her eyes.
"Yes ma'am, the call for the third battalion just went out, and we're calling in the aerial force bombing team from their liberation run through the mountains, if the third battalion can't get it, they will be able to arrive in a matter of hours."
"Idiot, we don't have hours. Send three separate battalions, and get them assembled within ten minutes. I don't care if they're all there or not, I want them heading to that recycling center in ten minutes at the absolute latest. Am I understood?"
"Yes ma'am." The man saluted, and ran off to give the orders to the rest of the base.
Ciel continued typing away on the computer, preparing everything she could think of for whatever kind of events could unfold. "You're late." She snapped as a shadow cast itself over her shoulder.
"Sorry, I just wasn't in the same kind of rush you were." Zero replied sarcastically. He had actually gone back to his quarters to change back into his tech suit "What the hell is going on?" He asked.
"A squad got captured by Neo Arcadia; they're being kept in the nearby abandoned recycling center. It was recently reactivated, and now they've begin using it as a retirement center."
"I'll go." Zero said.
"Don't be stupid. You don't have to do anything for us, and we'll be able to take care of this on our own. You stay here and try to relax a little." She turned around to push him off to his quarters, but the room was devoid of all red aside from the siren and a few blinking buttons on the computer terminals.
Footnotes:
1. A password transmitter receives a password sent by the central hub of the establishment that the password is used for. This signal is insecure, but the password is sent by the transmitter through an immensely complex mathematical equation, revealing a separate password. The second password will be the real one, as the first one was sent insecurely. This method is used mostly by top-secret organizations that cannot allow any secrets out at all costs.
Author's note: And so it begins! The first mission will officially commence next chapter. Sorry this one took so long to put up. Sickness, travel, and writer's block are to blame for that. I'll try to update faster next time. And please, people, tell me what I can fix, I have a personal feeling that my writing is getting worse, and I don't like that! Please help me out a little.