Disclaimer in previous chapters. Lots of plot furthering will ensue!
- . -
"Are you so afraid of a little pronoun? Afraid it will turn your precious resource into a flesh and blood person?"
He kept his voice under control with the experience eighty years had taught him, just watching her.
Nothing in her mannerisms indicated the comment had struck home. She let the overhead lights reflect off the lenses of her glasses, quite effectively hiding her eyes from him. Her stature never changed, the slightly stooped but rigid set of her shoulders the same of researchers across the planet.
He had no doubt she was what she said she was. A doctor. Well-trained. Possibly one taken out of cold-sleep in the past forty or so years. Possibly actually trained on Earth.
Hopeless in her ideology.
"Simply assigning a pronoun because of outward gender appearances is irresponsible," she said after a time. "There's no evidence that the Plants cannot change their gender appearance at will, and little on the psychological or physiological level to suggest it's more than simply outward appearance. None of the Plants that have been dissected had anything resembling a human uterus, so calling them female would be a misnomer."
He closed his eyes. Any of the Plants that had been dissected . . . "You're not dealing with a first generation Plant," and he enunciated each word carefully. "You're dealing with a man. A Plant raised by humans, a Plant that mimics human response. You performed the surgeries, and you still deny that he has a human's physiology?"
The other doctor laid her polymer clipboard down very carefully on the lab bench that separated them. "I understand you have a certain . . . sentimental attachment to this particular Plant. It's not unusual –"
"This particular Plant had saved your skin three times before you even came out of cold-sleep, doctor," he snapped. "And he has a name, not a designated number!"
"It had a designated number when it was manifested on the primary ship," she replied coldly, clearly working hard to control her temper. He'd long since abandoned any desire to do the same. "And those records are lost. So unless you want me to pull that Plant out of its bulb and take it apart on the molecular level, I suggest you start cooperating!"
He leaned back in his chair, regarding the white lenses set on that thin face. "Dr. Shrew, isn't it?"
She took a seat across from him, leaning her elbows on the lab bench that separated them. Other than the security guard at the door there was no other living thing in the room with them. But it teemed with activity. The white walls and metallic floor reflected the colors from the many monitors installed around the room, their readouts flickering and numbers scrolling by. To his left, a variety of fluid-filled tubes bubbled and murmured, keeping their O2 to N concentrations exactly optimal. Behind him, where his sleeping pallet lay, the soft sounds of some lost Earth music played in a gentle suggestion of sleep.
He hadn't slept since they'd forcibly sedated him. He could sleep when he was dead.
He wasn't sure that was going to be much longer, anyway. For any of them.
"Ah, so now it's my name instead of unkind substitutions." She was almost smiling.
"I was just wondering if you knew anything about your namesake," he continued mildly. "It's really quite fitting, you see, and I wasn't certain you were in on the joke."
She flipped to the third page on her clipboard, gracefully pulling a pen out of her coat pocket. Clearly she was disappointed with something, and he just couldn't imagine what it could possibly be.
She was about as likely to get help out of him as she was to swallow a cold-sleep chamber.
"A small family of rodent found on Earth. I'm well aware."
"Actually, shrews weren't rodents," he corrected quietly. "They differed in many ways. Most notably, they were born with their permanent teeth, and missing their zygomatic bone. I couldn't help but note your rather unusual facial structure."
She continued to smile that polite, insincere smile.
"Of course, that in itself is merely an insult, and not one of the better ones I've tossed your way." His voice was very dry, as though he were in a lecture. "The irony comes in the fact that many members of the shrew family, despite being mammals, were venomous."
Her smiled broadened. "I see." Those odd front teeth were showing. "If there's nothing else, you could always try wasting our time with nursery rhymes."
"I can't tell you what I don't know," he responded, folding his hands on the bench. "I know what Vash told me, and I'm afraid it was nothing you'd consider relevant. He told me about emotions, his love for the humans that raised him and his sadness at the Great Fall."
She flipped to the fourth page, analyzing something behind her white glasses. "Its output levels are a little disappointing, I'm afraid. They've steadied out since yesterday but they're not what we'd expect from a Plant that demonstrated a significantly larger output on more than one occasion. What can you tell me of those experiences? Did the Plant mention pain?"
He felt his head cock to the side. "He did. He mentioned how horrified he was that he was forced to destroy two human settlements. He mentioned how guilty he felt, despite having little to no control over what he had been forced to do."
She shook her head slightly, still scribbling. "My purpose in this project is to determine how this Plant and its genetic twin manifested on the primary ship, and how to repeat the process. Did you know that?"
That actually was a surprise. He figured she'd been brought on when he'd refused to remove Vash's bionics. Not that it had really created much of a delay, and he'd seen what kind of condition Vash had been in at the time, but he'd rather hoped the young man had merely been affecting the drugged look.
But of course it made sense. She was the one that had manufactured the drugs. She'd been a part of this project from its onset. They'd needed an expert in Plant physiology to create useful inhibitors, since the known Plant ones might not have had the same effect on a Plant like Vash.
Because Vash wasn't really a Plant. Not like the others. He wasn't necessarily their next evolution, but his mother had made significant changes to him – and Knives – for a purpose that was lost when she was destroyed in the upper atmosphere in Gunsmoke.
While privately he held onto the theory they had been created to facilitate communication between Plants and humans, a last ditch effort by their mother to create a being that could speak both languages, there was no way to tell. They blended in with other humans perfectly, after all. He had seen no records that all the doctors that had tended to Vash over his long life had ever had any suspicions, even though they'd had to do exploratory surgery repeatedly to find bullets and other objects.
As far as he'd ever seen of Vash – and he'd scanned the man from head to foot when they'd rescued him out in the desert – there was no indication he was a Plant besides a small spike in brain activity where normal humans had none, and he maintained an internal temperature of 99.4 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the human 98.6.
And he healed unusually quickly. He actually probably could speed up that regeneration to nearly instantaneous if he wanted to, though it would take years of training and would also require someone to be injuring him the entire time.
He was fairly sure Dr. Shrew would be happy to help.
"Too many Plants have been lost over the years, and while we're confident that Earth will eventually send a small fleet to determine our fate, until then you have a responsibility to your race to assist us in the creation of new Plants," she was continuing. "Since Plants have only an outward appearance of gender, the fact that Plant designate G-101A is outwardly male isn't relevant. But as the first Plant born, if you will, outside of Earth, and spontaneously, it may hold the key to Plant manufacturing here on Gunsmoke."
"So humans can't survive without Plants," he said softly. "I suppose all the towns currently subsisting on solar power will eventually die? It was your people who began that silly rumor about the suns burning out, wasn't it."
She made a face. "I know nothing of such details," she sniffed. "I can tell you that without the ability to manufacture food, this planet will not be able to sustain growing human populations. The Plants are the only feasible way to terraform this planet, and without such drastic means we will not be able to sustain the current growth trend in the population."
"What makes you think the population is going to continue to grow? After all, without resources the infant mortality rate will go up significantly. What makes you think the human population won't steady out at a currently sustainable level?"
She looked as though he'd just insisted that gravity was static. "There's no reason to deny the population the resources necessary for growth. The Plants provide pollution-less power generation. I understand your first personal encounter with a Plant has deeply influenced your philosophy, but you must understand – most Plants are not treated as designate G-101A –"
"Yes, most are treated like batteries," he interrupted. "Clearly if they don't know they're living things with the same rights as their human captors it eliminates the negative moral implications of trapping a living thing in a machine and draining it dry of life so you can have cool air pumped into your laboratory."
She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "I'm not going to try to convince you-"
"Good," he hissed, leaning forward until the guard at the door cleared his throat warningly. "Because you're wrong, Dr. Shrew. All your 'project' is doing is slowing down a perfectly logical switch from Plant to solar power, and killing a very good friend of mine."
She actually glanced towards one of the monitors. "The Plant is behaving optimally."
Two of the monitors showed power generation, one on a general scale and the other on a very fine one. Both showed that Vash was capable of generating the standard amount of power a normal Plant would. In fact, he was emitting more of certain types of energy than a normal Plant, and unfortunately it was the types of energy most sought after for the more difficult products. However, he was emitting less of the more common types of energy, including heat energy and light energy.
"You haven't gotten him to sustain that kind of output for more than a few hours at a time," he growled. "Look at him. Have you ever seen a Plant just lay there like that?"
The third monitor showed an energy-scan of the insides of the bulb. Apparently Vash, as drugged as he'd been, had taken offense to the cameras in the bulb with him on his first day there and consumed them in a large ball of white energy. Whatever he'd done had interfered with the camera even prior to its destruction, so no one was really sure how he'd done it. Unfortunately, he'd confirmed his ability to behave like a Plant.
Of course, he'd probably known, once he realized he'd been installed a bulb, that the game was up. At that point, perhaps all he wanted was a little privacy as he . . . changed.
Looking at his outline in the screen, there was no doubt his physical appearance had changed significantly.
"It's the first Plant we've ever observed that hasn't been whole," she objected. "Most Plants generate a mist that allows them to create updrafts, which they catch with their wings and float. Clearly it cannot do the latter. Once floating, most Plants' main bodies are fairly still. This Plant is behaving, therefore, as normally as it can under the circumstances."
Vash hadn't uncurled. He'd spent days trapped in this lab, staring at the screens, watching the inevitable. How Vash was slowly defeated with inhibitors and sedatives and chemicals. Until he stopped moving altogether.
Until he gave up.
Once he'd done that, everything had gone, from Dr. Shrew's point of view, much more smoothly. They'd forced his Angel Arm to manifest, and with that manifestation Vash had no longer been able to control his energy output. He'd curled into a ball in the lowest part of the Bulb, and he hadn't moved since. Occasionally his wing would flutter, more often than not to wrap around him, as though protecting him from something.
He was pretty sure Vash didn't have complete control of his manifested limbs. He'd never had much chance to use them, and it would be the equivalent of strapping an extra arm on a human. It would reflexively move, even instinctively on some occasions, but otherwise the most anyone would do with it the first few weeks was whack it into things or find it exploring the world around it like it had a mind of its own.
He had the feeling that wing was working on the same premise. Vash was still aware enough to feel distressed, to feel pain. The wing was alternating between relaxing and reacting to the chemicals they were feeding him to stabilize his energy output.
"Nothing about Vash is behaving normally," he spat. "He was never meant to be in a bulb. He's dying, and you call it 'optimal behavior'."
"It won't be in there forever," she pointed out, almost sympathetically. "It isn't like anyone expected this Plant to behave like other Plants, at least for day to day generation. And those same expectations will be carried over to the Plant's genetic twin. Of course, that Plant, when captured, will likely be whole, and many of the problems we've had with this Plant may have no bearing on the other. There's no way to tell if the power generation difficulties are a symptom of the loss of a limb."
Unfortunately, she had a point. He was pretty sure Knives could fully manifest wings and Angel Arms both if he felt like it. There was no reason to believe they weren't capable of transforming their legs, either.
"Then what are your expectations of this Plant?"
She actually smiled faintly. "As soon as Dr. Greer is satisfied he can maintain a safe bulb environment with this type of Plant, designate G-101A will be given to my team. We were brought on to determine how this Plant came to be and see if we can recreate the environment with our own Plant, A-20034. That Plant came of the same stock as the Plants aboard the primary SEEDs ship, so the same capabilities for producing offspring should be inherent."
He wrapped his brain around that a moment. "Could you take a human child and determine from it alone how sperm met egg, doctor?"
She turned to look at him, and since her angle had changed, he could actually see her eyes. They were nearly as blank as the lenses had been when they'd been reflecting white light. "Not entirely, but it would certainly give us a place to start. And your help would speed the process along."
He leaned back in the chair with a grunt. "I will not help you," he growled, mostly to himself. "I will not help you experiment on Vash."
"I understand the bionics removal went very poorly," she said carefully into the ensuing silence. "Without understanding of your technology, the technicians did a poor job removing the mechanism while leaving its nerve cells intact."
He was certain of that. Once he'd woken he'd discovered they were still at work, and he was pretty sure the drug had knocked him out a good six hours.
It wasn't as potent as the stuff they'd given him back at his own ship. That had effectively kept him under the entire trip. All he recalled was sand, and a sweet, thick syrup they'd poured into his mouth. Probably to boost his electrolytes in the heat. He had no idea where this ship was, how this crew had managed to stay apart for so long.
Longer than they had. Long enough to think they were still a part of the Earth military.
Long enough to think they were still on Earth, in a way. That they should have all the things that were promised to them when they signed up for the mission. An Eden, terraformed with the blood of all those Plants.
He found himself wondering what Jessica was doing. First Brad, now him . . . they'd never let him return. Even if everything they wanted came true. If they were able to capture Knives before he went on a rampage and wiped out half the settlements or more. If they were able to install him in a bulb, effectively removing the threat of him from the planet. If they were able to determine how the twins were born, and force the other Plants to produce offspring along with all the other things that were squeezed out of their gentle, confused bodies.
"What happens later?" he asked suddenly. "Let's say you capture and install Knives into a bulb. You determine how the twins were born. You even recreate the environment successfully. You already agree that Vash cannot be used for day to day power generation. What will you do with him then?"
She blinked, clearly offput by the question. "Well, cold-sleep, of course," she said, as though it were obvious. "We can't have a Plant existing outside of a bulb consciously. Dr. Greer's tests and the devastation to the human settlements proves this Plant's 'Gate is larger than any that has been previously measured. Should we be in need of a huge, concentrated burst of power, G-101A would of course be a prime candidate for re-insertion into a bulb."
He closed his eyes and rubbed them tiredly. Oh, Vash. He tried to imagine that overgrown blonde hair, those deep, blue-green eyes staring at him from the inside of a bulb as massive amounts of power were drawn from him. Whether it would feel like it had when Knives had forced him to fire on July. Whether he would be conscious enough to realize he wasn't killing anyone, that the energy was being controlled not by him, but by something else.
Whether he would simply be trapped in the nightmare of Augusta every time he was taken out of the cold-sleep tube.
Whether it was better to let them finish him off now.
Or whether it was better to hang onto hope that somehow, he could be freed.
Of course, to what end? The resources on this ship had to be limited, but now they knew so much about his physiology. Their sensors had a limit, but the settlements would always be on the lookout. He could survive in the desert . . . but was surviving enough? Would Vash be glad, if he were aware, that every time they pulled life away from him it was to further human goals?
Shouldn't he be giving the same consideration to Knives, the analytical part of his mind wondered. If they contained Knives, a huge threat to both Vash and the humans on Gunsmoke would be eliminated. He wasn't sure Vash's little deal with the devil was going to hold up forever. Then again, there was no guarantee that Knives' incarceration would either. If neither ended with Knives' death, both could conceivably be the end of humans on Gunsmoke.
"With your help, what must be done to the Plant could be limited," she said softly, as though sensing an opening. "Your understanding of this Plant type is significantly greater than mine, at this point. Assisting me would be lessening the time-"
"Why do you care?" he heard himself ask, but there was no venom behind it. "The Plant is unaware of pain, isn't that right? Why would it matter to me if the time spent carving that Plant into tiny pieces was lessened or lengthened? Clearly you don't think Vash would care one way or the other."
And to be honest, he wasn't really sure Vash would, either. Not now.
"I'm glad to hear you refer to the Plant as what it is," she responded, almost clinically. "When you were first brought in for consulting, I was afraid you simply couldn't tell the differ-"
"Consulting?" He couldn't help a low laugh. "You consider kidnapping a method of employment? Are we on the high seas, Dr. Shrew? Are you perhaps 'impressing' me as the British navy used to do?"
It was clear she wasn't catching the reference, and he sighed. "I was not 'brought in for consulting.' I was kidnapped from my home. I had patients back on that ship, friends, responsibilities. I don't see that helping you will change my position as a prisoner of this ship and its blasted commander, and I don't see how assisting you with Vash's eventual dissection is going to change his."
"I'm not going to dissect the Plant!" She sounded outraged. "It's the only specimen I will be allowed to observe! That Plant is a precious resource!" Her tone clearly said, what do you think I am?
"That Plant is precious," he agreed. "That Plant is a young man with a life, with responsibilities. That Plant is Vash the Stampede, and you owe him your life."
She flipped the pages on her clipboard, tucking her pen back into her labcoat with more force than was necessary. Ah, so he'd finally managed to offend her. Apparently he needed to go after her intentions more often. Maybe she'd leave him alone.
Maybe driving her away was not the best way to assist Vash. Maybe helping her run her tests would ultimately be less painful for him.
He watched her stalk towards the guard, who stepped aside smartly as she reached the door. "As always, it was very education to speak with you, 'Doc,'" she managed politely.
The door slid closed behind her, and the only sounds left with him were the bubbling tubes and the final, allegro movement of a symphony he'd never heard.
- . -
Moving was a long time coming. Her head hurt in ways she'd never imagined it could. Not in all the times she'd gotten drunk had she ever felt like this. Not even after Mr. Vash had defeated the Nebraska Brothers and the town had thrown the party had she felt like this.
That at least had come with dreams of cake and ice cream. This came with –
Millie's eyes snapped open, then immediately squeezed shut as bright light assaulted her already aching head. She had seen a blinding flash of movement, and her stagnant brain finally decided there had been actual motion involved. It sent that inquiry to her stomach, which informed it that it couldn't tell whether they were moving, but it felt like vomiting anyway.
She swallowed down that urge, discovering that at some point a small, furry rodent had crawled into her mouth and died. Her tongue was thick and plastered to the roof of her mouth, and there was a bitter, coppery taste that soured as her tongue curled back towards her molars.
Once the nausea had passed, she felt it safe to try to open her eyes again. She just slitted them, making out the color of brightness.
Sand. That was light reflecting off sand. She'd seen it enough times to know. So she was moving across the sand.
Her lower body seemed to be completely numb. Her ears were telling her that she was surrounded by something noisy and there were fabric-rubbing sounds near them, which she interpreted as being jostled.
Another careful, slitted look revealed what seemed to be a dusty windshield, and the blessed, darker-colored dashboard of a vehicle.
She was in a vehicle. Goodness! Was she driving!
She pulled herself upright with the deep sigh of one that hadn't taken more than a shallow breath in many hours. She had been unaware that she hadn't been upright, but now that she was it was obvious that she'd been lying sideways, on her left shoulder, and her back would have hurt more if her head hadn't reacted to the change in attitude by clenching itself into a ball and wailing.
Millie brought a hand up to her head, noting it hadn't been wrapped around a steering wheel that in fact, upon close inspection, didn't seem to be attached to the dashboard in front of her. She risked a slow and careful look to her left, and found the steering mechanism.
Someone else's hand was on it.
That was good. Otherwise she'd have been driving who knew how long in what direction in the desert, and been in very big trouble indeed.
A few careful blinks later, it occurred to her to wonder who was driving. It wasn't like Meryl to make her go anywhere in that condition, and especially not after a party like she must've –
Another jarring flash, but this time it wasn't in front of her eyes.
Blood.
Crates.
The ramp, she'd watched the ramp go by and for some reason a leg seemed to stick into it and then disappear again, then stick into it and then out again, and she thought she was going to throw up –
Something had been digging into her stomach, but it removed itself jarringly, and she'd been flung into a hard something, that huffed slightly when she landed on it as if put out it had to support her weight. A noise, a door slamming. A motor turning over.
But what before . . .?
Another flash, almost as if it had been waiting for her to ask that question.
Millie felt herself start to shake. It was odd, that her headache started trying to throb to both that and her pulse, and it occurred to her that it was very odd that she had a pulse at all.
Her narrowed eyes found the hand on the steering wheel, and followed it to a wrist, up a relaxed-looking arm in a non-descript red shirt, a broad shoulder, and the profile of a face she knew almost immediately didn't look quite right.
Platinum blonde hair finished off the look, and the clear, topaz blue eye she could see wasn't looking at her, stabbing at her brain and reaching in and –
She closed her eyes, barely feeling the tear that trickled down her cheek.
Oh, Meryl. Mr. Vash. I didn't mean to tell him those things –
But they couldn't hear her. She needed to calm down.
She was still alive.
He was there. In a truck with her. Close enough to do whatever he wanted.
And apparently that was to take her with him someplace.
Why? Where were they going? And why would he bring her, if she'd told him everything he'd asked?
She opened her eyes again, scanning the cab of the vehicle. It looked like a truck – her ears seemed a little sharper, and they could hear a creaking coming from behind her that wouldn't have been made by a land rover. Where had Mr. Knives gotten a truck? Was it the same truck the men had kidnapped her in?
How much time had passed? It seemed very bright to her glassy eyes, but it could have just been morning. Maybe she just slept the night, and he was taking her back to town?
Why would he do that? So she could warn everyone that he was going to destroy them?
She needed water.
Millie continued looking, up at the top of the cab, where the old fabric was tearing away from the roof of the cab, flopping a little in one corner. There were no extra compartments built into it, no hidden bottles. She let her eyes fall towards the floor, but nothing was rolling around her feet. The bench-like seat contained just her and Mr. Knives –
And a canteen, leaning lightly against his right leg.
She stared at it a while, contemplating her chances. She couldn't snatch it from him, it would be rude besides. And he wouldn't want to drink after her, so if he offered it to her it would be the same as giving her all his water.
He wasn't going to do that either.
She swallowed again, hoping it would generate enough spit to talk, and tried.
"Why?"
It seemed to her she'd asked that question before. Maybe she needed to quantify it – he never seemed to answer her question when she asked it.
She let her head fall onto the headrest, to her left, and watched him. If he was going to hurt her, there was literally nothing she could do about it. Anything she might have wanted to keep from him, he now knew.
There was nothing to lose.
He glanced at her, once, a very calculating look. "Silence," he said after a moment. It wasn't loud, it wasn't even particularly laced with venom. Just a command.
His mind was clearly on other things.
"Why," she repeated doggedly. Why was he taking her with him? Why did he inject her with that syringe? What was in it? Where were they going? What did he want with her?
He didn't look at her again, and for a long time she thought he was simply ignoring her.
"If you're asking why you're still alive, the answer is the same one I gave you before. I require a proselyte to attend to my affairs in the human settlements."
A lackey. Like Mr. Legato.
"I – won't," she managed around her tongue. It wasn't working right, and despite her thirst she was starting to get anxious. She still couldn't feel her legs, really anything below her belly. She experimentally tried twitching a foot, and her eyes watched them swing gently as the truck took them over a dune.
She couldn't walk. Even if she got free of the truck, she couldn't walk.
"You won't?" he repeated, and some of the hatred she remembered from his stay in their rented home returned. "Weigh your choices carefully, spider. I can leave you here if you like."
"Why . . . why can't –"
In her peripheral vision, she saw him glance at her again, this time a little longer.
"Raise your right arm," he commanded.
Sluggishly, she obeyed. She was able to lift it with little effort, but the movement lacked coordination. She let it drop back into her lap.
She felt like she had a fever, like she had the time she caught the flu from thomas fleas. Her stomach cramped, reminding her that it wasn't happy with its current contents.
Blood. Her blood. Her nose had started bleeding, but he wouldn't let her wipe it, and she'd swallowed a huge glob of it –
"Do you feel pain?"
She dropped her head against the headrest again, but this time she was afraid to look at him, preferring to squint out the windshield. "Head."
Without warning he struck her, and after a moment she realized she was looking out the right passenger window, and there was a blur of something dark that stayed stationary as the bright sand flitted past. She was too close to it, she leaned back with a little effort and tried to focus.
A smear of something.
Shaking, she reached up that hand again and touched her face, then pulled it away.
There was blood on her fingers.
Her lip was cut.
She licked it experimentally, tasting salt. Cut on her teeth. Oddly, it didn't hurt. Her headache wasn't even that much worse. He'd knocked her into the window, she should be unconscious –
Maybe she had been.
She turned again to look at him, not surprised to find him watching her. Critically.
"Is your headache worse?" he asked calmly.
She almost didn't answer him. "No," she finally whispered.
He continued staring at her, and she immediately averted her gaze. She heard him make a noise – maybe a laugh?
"Contact makes it easier with your kind, but it's not necessary."
"Why did you – do that?" It was getting easier to talk, but she was still terribly thirsty.
He was silent for a long time, and she was pretty sure she fell asleep, because when he spoke she found her eyes were closed and she briefly wasn't sure where she was.
"Judging your reflexes. Humans are usually mediocre at best, but you're especially pitiful."
She considered that a moment. That he hadn't hurt her for his own amusement or to punish her was a little reassuring, but only a little. Testing her reflexes? He was the one that had – had done this to her! He'd given her that drug, he'd –
She closed her eyes again, turning her head away from him. Suddenly she didn't want to talk to him anymore. It was okay to just sit in silence. She tried to wiggle her toes again, imagining she could feel her socks scraping against her skin as the digits moved.
"Massage your legs."
Her eyes opened again, but she didn't look at him. "Why?"
The truck lurched to a stop and Millie, completely unprepared, slammed face-first into the dash. Stars exploded in front of her eyes, and she cried out when he grabbed her by the hair and hauled her back into her seat.
He forcibly turned her head to look at him, and he appeared significantly less patient than he had before.
"If you continue to question me, you're not going to live very long."
He didn't release her until she choked out something she hoped sounded like "I understand," and she tried to swallow down her sobs as he threw the truck back into gear and continued on. She did the best she could, following his directions. Her arms were clumsy, she was really just wiping limp hands on the tops of her pants. But as she continued the motion, blinking through her tears, she noted that both her hands and arms slowly started to respond.
Her legs tingled unpleasantly, but as she got some dexterity back the tingling turned to stabbing pinpricks, and it started traveling down her knee and shin. The next time she tried to wriggle her feet, she saw them twitch.
She kept at it, half afraid Mr. Knives would totally lose patience with her and half relieved that it seemed to be doing some good. Maybe she'd been sitting in the truck so long her lower body had just gone to sleep, and this was just getting circulation back. Maybe he knew that. Maybe he needed to make sure she could walk, because they were going to be in a town soon.
It made sense they'd be coming to a town soon. A human settlement. He needed her to do something.
Millie took a deep breath, glad that the pain in her head seemed to make everything else just twinge.
If she refused him again, he would probably hurt her again. Maybe kill her.
But if she obeyed him, wouldn't –
Maybe he wouldn't ask her to do anything horrible. Maybe he just needed her to do something simple, like pick up a letter. Maybe they were approaching April, and he needed her to get the letter that she'd written and sent. She wasn't sure it would be there yet, but she wasn't sure how much time was passing even as she was thinking.
When she could freely rotate her feet at the ankles and feel all her toes she dared to stop her work, leaning back slightly in the seat. They were going over quite a few bumps; there was no doubt in her mind Knives was not taking a well-traveled route. It was dangerous; sinkholes were prevalent in the desert, particularly in areas that weren't built up on the limestone foundations like the settlements.
Maybe he'd been around so long he'd learned what the sand looked like around sinkholes.
Slowly her tense shoulders relaxed; she hadn't realized she'd been clenching them until she felt them loosen. Her companion did nothing, and she dared to lean back into the seat like she meant it. Iles passed away like that, Millie afraid to move and Mr. Knives never so much as twitching a muscle.
He'd changed clothes, her mind noted. He'd been wearing a red and white bodysuit when she'd first encountered him, but now he was dressed – like a human. A loose, short-sleeved, red cotton shirt billowed across his chest in the wind from the open window, and nondescript brown breeches stretched down to well-worn, faded leather boots that tied up to his calves. An empty holster sat mid-way up his right calf. It was that the canteen seemed intent to crawl into, bumping his leg ever so gently as they jounced across the landscape.
Where was his gun?
She thought back to their brief stay in the rented home. She wasn't sure she'd actually seen Mr. Vash's, either, then, but he'd definitely had it in his hand when he'd put his foot down in Hondelic.
She shivered slightly, though the cab of the truck was just as hot as the outside air.
Mr. Vash had been especially scary that day. He'd apologized for it over and over again in his letters, it had taken her a long time to reassure him that she and Meryl were fine, they understood. He hadn't really meant the destruction to leave the council building, but considering the power he normally used from the weapon, she pointed out it was amazing he'd been able to control it as well as he had. In hindsight, she wasn't sure that was a good thing to be telling him, but it did seem to reassure him. He hadn't mentioned the event since.
Millie stared at the desert going by, the dunes in the distance, and then she turned and looked at Mr. Knives.
"I'll help you," she said, softly but clearly.
He didn't spare her a look, and she didn't expect one. She sat up straighter and wriggled her feet again, trying to get a glimpse of the town. There was one nearby, but it probably wasn't April. He might have been taking her to Inepral City, or possibly Mei.
He was looking for more of those men. He'd killed them before he could ask them what he wanted to know.
He wanted to know what had happened to Mr. Vash. It was the only thing that made sense.
Mr. Vash was the only one he loved enough to wear human clothes for.
Knives made a choked sound beside her, and she glanced at him again. His expression was quickly fading, but for a split second it had looked pained.
"Are you all right, Mr. Knives?" She didn't think she'd injured him, but perhaps he was tired. He'd been driving for a long time, and if he told her where they were going, she could at least drive in the general direction until they arrived or he woke again.
He changed his grip on the steering wheel, but otherwise didn't shift his position. She watched him blink, but found the motion quick. So he wasn't fatigued.
But then again, Mr. Vash had shown amazing resilience in the same department.
"What . . . do you think happened to him?"
He stared out at the desert around them, making a detour around a particularly large dune of sand. She watched him straighten the vehicle without so much as a glance at the suns to ensure he hadn't accidentally changed direction. He seemed to actually be driving to something rather than at it, something he could actually see. She squinted at the horizon again, but didn't make out anything except more sand.
Then again, Vash had spotted her Mr. Priest over almost an ile –
Millie bit her lip. She wasn't going to forgive him for that intrusion. It had been none of his business and – and Nicholas was dead. It wasn't as though anything he had done would have endangered Mr. Vash, certainly not so long after his death.
"I don't know," the Plant finally ground out.
Encouraged, Millie pursued. "How do you know the men that kidnapped me are responsible for what happened to him? Maybe they're just after you." After it came out of her mouth, Millie realized it probably hadn't been the best observation to make.
Knives twisted his lips into something that wasn't a smile. "Because you were unconscious."
Because she was unconscious? That had been because of what he had done, and –
"The syringe?"
"Plant inhibitors in pure form shouldn't have affected your physiology at all." It was curt, in the manner of feeding her the information to fend off further questions.
Plant inhibitors? So they made drugs that just affected Plants? Of course, you dolt, she chided her brain. She'd seen crews administer sedatives to the Plants before Mr. Vash had extracted them. It was supposed to make the process easier on them, but she was pretty sure it hurt them anyway. After so long in a protected environment, to feel the sand-clogged wind on their skin alone must have been foreign and unpleasant.
That was why he'd given them to her. To see if anything happened to her. If not, he'd know the syringe had been meant for him.
But it had affected her anyway. Was that because Mr. Vash was more like a human than most Plants? So they had to modify the drugs to affect Knives. But how did they know what would work –
Unless they tested them on another Plant that was like Mr. Knives.
She stared at Knives, horrified. "But how -?"
He lowered his chin a little bit, a mannerism she'd seen from Mr. Vash when he was forced to get serious with some bounty hunters. "I don't know," he repeated.
Her heart sank. If Mr. Vash had been kidnapped and they were drugging him, then he couldn't get away on his own! They'd have to find him and help him! And even if they did, Mr. Knives would see this as Mr. Vash's plan failing, which would mean they'd be rescuing him to just turn around and start wiping out settlements.
He'd agreed to that. That if anything went wrong that Knives wouldn't be held to the terms of their compromise, and that Knives had made stipulations of his own. Did that mean that Mr. Vash would help him . . .?
She took a deep breath, swallowing a fresh set of tears. Oh, Mr. Vash. It didn't make it any less wrong, but now at least she could understand what had made Mr. Knives kill those men –
"How will you find them?" Her voice was positively tiny.
He gestured sharply with one finger, hand still on the wheel. "I already have."
She stared, seeing dunes. She started looking for tiny people on the far horizons, or glints that would be sunlight reflecting off other vehicles. He snorted.
"They build small bunkers about an ile out of town, stocking them with supplies from the settlements. The design is simple, and the location easy to determine."
So they were taking the stocks the towns were building, in order to make the Plants work harder before they were liberated. Or was it to limit the amount of goods that would be available between the pre-production and post-production teams' switchout? Why would they need to stockpile supplies like that?
So he had to be taking her to a town that was about to be converted. If she'd still been in New Phoenix, then that meant they were either heading back to Collins or going on to Inepral City?
"Meryl!" she exclaimed. She'd almost forgotten! Sempai would probably have gone on to the meeting, knowing how important it was. Meryl probably thought she'd gotten drunk in a bar somewhere and would meet her at the sand steamer. When she hadn't – well, Sempai would be worried. There was no doubt. But it shouldn't have stopped her from doing her work. It was the job, after all. How many times had Sempai reminded her?
Or would she have stayed in New Phoenix looking for her? Millie closed her eyes and was fervently grateful that she hadn't found them. Mr. Knives and Meryl in a room together was tense enough even when Mr. Vash was there to protect her. Without . . .
"What about her?" His lip twitched, either from distaste or an irritating piece of sand, she couldn't tell.
"Oh, I just realized I made her worry," she said quickly. "I don't know if she went on to Inepral City or stayed in New Phoenix looking for me."
He grunted. "It doesn't matter."
She supposed not. If they knew about the letters and they'd actually kidnapped Mr. Vash, it wasn't too weird to think that they'd figured out Inepral City was next on the list for upgrades, even if they hadn't met with the council yet to set a date.
Her stomach clenched suddenly. What if they were upset that Mr. Knives had killed their men, and they went after Meryl in desperation? Even if they knew she wasn't writing letters, they worked so closely together, and this could have affected Bernardelli –
She filed the word into the back of her mind, knowing something about it was important and confident her brain would spit it back out when it clicked. But they might have been intercepting reports, if they thought that the girls still followed Vash the Stampede.
Instead, he had been following them. It made for a nice change, except that this had happened.
Oh, Mr. Vash. Please be safe.
Knives let off the gas, and the momentum of the truck was quickly stopped by the soft sand. He finally took his hand off the wheel, and pointed to a spot almost directly between where both suns were just starting to think about setting.
"Walk," he said clearly.
She immediately opened the door to the truck, if only to mollify him that she was going to obey him this time. "What – do you want me to do when I get there?"
Her tactic worked; he didn't kill her for asking yet another question. "Whatever you want."
It was more cryptic than the original command by far, but he pierced her with a look as easily as he could have with a knife, and she found herself out of the truck and walking before she'd really had much time to think about it. She wasn't afraid of him, she wasn't-
She was.
The sand was quite deep, and despite the fact that she could now feel her legs, they weren't behaving as well as they normally would. She felt weak, drained somehow, and she wondered how Mr. Vash felt. Was he even conscious? Maybe not, if he couldn't tell his brother where he was. Maybe what it inhibited was his ability to talk without speaking. Maybe he was just asleep, and they were waiting until they kidnapped Mr. Knives before they did anything.
The wind was worse than it had been in the cab of the truck, and she glanced back. It was about thirty yarz behind her, and she could clearly see it was now empty. The driver's side door was closed, but there was no one sitting behind the wheel.
Unnerved, Millie glanced around, even shielding her eyes as she looked out at the sand in all directions.
Mr. Knives was gone.
She swallowed around a breath of dry air, marked her position with the truck, and started out again.
She didn't know how far she walked. It felt like twenty iles, but it was probably only fifteen or so minutes before she actually saw a little shoe-sized black box, half-buried in the sand. She headed for it, a little curiously. It did nothing, not even when she knelt next to it. Tentatively, Millie reached out and brushed a handful of sand off the top.
It seemed to slip into the sand slightly. Curiously, she pressed down on it.
It sank into the mound of sand around it, and beside her, a black void suddenly swallowed the ground.
Millie's eyes grew wide as she watched the door completely open. It was a ramp. The bottom of it looked exactly like it had when she'd seen the leg moving – when Knives had carried her out, she realized. He'd slung her over his shoulder and carried her up a ramp just like this one.
Which meant she'd find another room, filled with crates and maps and two men with nice voices and syringes.
And maybe water!
Millie entered slowly, but it was hard to see in the dim of the underground structure. "Hello?" she called out shyly, but no one responded. It didn't seem very long before she'd walked the ramp's length and come to a door. The same door she'd fallen against as she'd been backing away from Mr. Knives. Her hand shook slightly as she grasped the knob, and she pulled the door towards herself.
The first thing she noticed was that it wasn't much lighter in the room than on the mostly-underground ramp. The second thing she noticed were two red dots in that darkness, about eye level and clearly not connected to each other.
Dust dislodged from the opening door was falling, glinting faintly red at about her chest level. Millie looked down at herself and found two red dots playing across the front of her traveling coat.
What in the world . . .?
They didn't hurt. They didn't even feel hot. They didn't prevent her from taking a step into the room, either.
"Who are you?" a voice called out sharply.
She looked back at the two red dots in the room.
"Where's Mr. Vash?"
She heard an odd click, and realized they both must have guns. Did the guns make the red dots?
"Who are you!"
A faint sound of sand sliding down the ramp caught her attention, and she hastily pulled the door shut behind her.
"Please, please listen to me, and just run," she begged. "He's coming to kill you."
- . -
Author's Note: I didn't realize the 22nd was Knives' Day! My bad. You get Knives anyway, just late. ; ) In three days I'm going out of the country for a week and a half, so I will do my best to finish this before I go. Otherwise I'll leave you with a really good cliffhanger, I promise.