Disclaimer in previous chapters. In which Vash and Knives are naked, but nothing exciting happens. Reposted because I found a typo.
- . -
She was smiling.
He liked that. It meant she was happy, and that made him feel very warm inside. He smiled back, shyly, and she giggled.
He liked that too.
But she didn't come any closer. She seemed content to simply smile at him across the space between them. It was a space, he decided, but he wasn't sure if it was a big one or a little one. There was nothing to compare it to or measure it against. He wasn't certain it mattered. Perhaps they were just next to each other. The distance, whatever it was, was comfortable. He could see her, and she could see him.
They stayed like that for a time. When it seemed like he ought to, he moved closer to her.
She giggled again, and his smile broadened.
"Hello," he said in a voice that seemed the right volume.
She held up a slender finger to her lips, but did not respond with words.
He blinked at her, momentarily confused, but she continued to smile, and his faltering grin grew bright again.
"You don't want to talk, huh."
Again she held up her finger, and her large, round eyes looked very pointedly to her right. He followed her gaze, seeing only space. It could have been a tiny space or a huge one. There was no way to tell.
He wondered what was in that space that he couldn't see.
He wondered what would happen if he moved into that space. Since only one thing could take up a space at any given time, maybe he would encounter it and find it.
She shook her head, black hair falling around her ears. He was sure it was black, because it was very dark. And there was light, so he could tell the difference.
And if it the hair was black, then the light was white. Or close; somehow it didn't seem pure.
She followed his gaze, then shook her head again.
He smiled. "Okay. I won't then."
Her smile wavered into a very mischievous admonishment, and he immediately stared down at his feet, feigning abashment. When he opened his eyes he saw his boots.
He was wearing boots.
He was wearing large boots, brown with buckles and a metal plate strapped to the bottom arch. He could see that they went high on his legs, and between the panels of a startlingly crimson duster a round metal kneeguard twinkled dully at him.
He stared at it for a long time, finally reaching up a mechanical finger to reposition tinted glasses. It changed all the colors but her hair.
"Thanks for helping me," he said. "Are you kicking me out now?"
Her look of admonishment became more stern, and he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand.
"Are you afraid someone will hear us?"
He looked again to her right, seeing nothing in the space. She stamped her foot impatiently, attracting his attention again before pointing.
She was pointing at him.
He glanced down at himself again, this time setting his sights higher. Or lower, depending on his perspective. He looked at the crimson duster, noting the stray bulletholes that allowed sand to trickle down into his body armor now and then.
But he didn't feel any sand caught against his skin.
He didn't feel anything against his skin.
Confused, he unbuttoned the central panel, pulling it open to reveal his chest.
There was blood everywhere. It was startlingly red, it was the duster in his hands. He was covered in it.
He looked back at her in shock, and she gave him a stern look in return, folding her arms across her chest to express her displeasure.
He looked back down at himself disbelievingly. They were all gone. The things that held him together, that chilled him through and through on all the cold nights, that smelted his flesh when he lay on the hot sand. Where they had been was now nothing; his blood poured from the holes as sand would have. It trailed down his leggings and kneeguard and boots, until he was wearing nothing at all that wasn't thickening blood.
And the space between them was less than it was before.
As he stared, she touched him, gently, across a hole that gaped as wide as a mouth might have. Where she touched him, he shivered, and found that she had filled the hole with light. It was brighter than his skin, and it kept the dark blood within him.
She then looked at him expectantly.
He stared down at himself, horrified at the amount of blood that was pouring out of him.
"You can't be serious," he tried weakly.
She thinned her lips grimly, and stared at his left arm.
Almost afraid, he followed her gaze, followed it to an empty space where there ought to have been his arm. It looked like it had when it first was gone, only it wore a halo, a band of light that made it look almost two inches longer than it had before.
He bit back a noise, starting to shake. He felt sick, and suddenly the light that made her hair dark seemed even less white.
"No," he pleaded, in a voice that was less than before. "I can't. Please, not yet -"
She looked disappointed, and he stared away to her right, escaping to the space there and not caring who had been there before, listening.
- . -
The ache pounded on, a combination of sob-less weeping, a cracked cheekbone, and the strain of exhaustion. It forced her to reflexively blink, which in turn changed the pointless point she was staring at so sightlessly.
It had been a long time since Meryl had cried.
Or maybe that wasn't true. Maybe it was just that she didn't remember feeling ashamed about it in a long time.
After all, she had cried when Wolfwood had died. More for Millie than for him, his absence was shocking only because of what it had done to her best friend.
Maybe that wasn't true either.
Less than nine months had passed since she'd last cried. Not so long after all.
"I'm not old enough for this, Millie," she sighed into the white. White panels, white floor, diffuse white light. White sheets, white skin.
"We're not old enough to keep having people die around us. That's supposed to happen when you're forty, and I'm not even thirty yet. Not even close."
White eyelids that didn't move.
"So, the best thing for you to do would be to open your eyes and tell me what happened."
As hours of her previous requests had gone unanswered, so did this one.
"You're in the best medical facility on the planet, you know," she reminded the still, pale figure, idly playing with cool fingers. She knew it wasn't because of the color, but it seemed that this white ship sucked the warmth out of a person. Millie was beneath two blankets, but she was still so cold.
And thinking of Millie and cold in the same sentence was so wrong.
"And they'll fix whatever he did to you," she continued, exhaustion and the favoring of her right cheek smoothing the raw edges of her voice. "You'll get better, Millie. You don't have a choice, so just do it already."
But Millie didn't move. None of the lines and waves and dots and beeps changed. She blinked at the imaginary grains of sand in her eyes, staring at the wall across from the high, unfamiliar bed she'd kept her vigil by for the past several hours. It seemed longer. It had been, since Knives' attack; at first they'd given her a medical exam and led her back to her suite, her prison, telling her they'd let her know when they had news.
And Dr. Shrew had been true to her word in that; she could bet the woman would also be true to her words regarding Vash and Knives.
Meryl was surprised they'd allow her in the same general area of the ship that Vash was presumably staying in. Presumably they felt there was no threat. She was one person against a literal army.
An army that had contained Millions Knives.
An army that had eliminated the single largest threat to the humans on Gunsmoke.
An army that had done what she'd set out to do. Find Millie, and stop Knives. Both those goals were obtained. There was no need to question, no need to whine because it didn't happen the way she'd planned.
Millie needed her now. In a week or so she'd be released to break the news to Bernardelli, and then she'd have a whole new set of problems to deal with. It was odd, but she was looking forward to that paperwork.
She was looking more forward to the idea of Millie having to do it with her.
Meryl Stryfe forced her stiff body to stretch, blinking a few more times and searching the spartan room for something, anything to stare at besides the white. As with most of the ship, there were no windows, but a light mounted on the back of the headboard created a diffuse glow in the room. Millie looked positively tiny in the huge white bed, her lighter brown hair trailing across the pillow. She was nearly as pale as the pillowcase, and the lightest mint-colored blanket was pulled up almost to her neck. Meryl had pried out her left arm just so she could hold Millie's hand.
She almost looked like a child.
She almost looked like Wolfwood.
It had been hard to lay him out, but she'd been there, because Millie didn't have the heart. His lips had been that pale, a little blue-tinged like hers. His skin had looked like something that wasn't skin anymore, somehow. Somehow it had been like a skin-shaped covering draped over him rather than his own.
She never wanted to see that kind of skin on Millie Thompson. Never.
"I wish it had been me," she whispered to the other girl. "You didn't deserve this, Millie."
This. This was the thing that Dr. Shrew didn't describe past the phrase 'direct trauma to the brain.' Possibly the last tiny bit of telekinesis he could muster, not enough to cause her skin to bruise but powerful enough to cause bleeding in her brain.
She was so strong. The thin, cool fingers that Meryl had wrapped her own around were so strong. Strong enough to carry Wolfwood's cross like Vash had, once. Strong enough to toss boulders larger than Millie herself. Strong enough to survive Millions Knives.
But her brain, it wasn't any stronger than anyone else's. Some might have argued weaker, but Meryl knew better. Behind that childlike face was a calculating, quick mind.
She had all the smarts in the world. It just never occurred to her to be mean.
She was innocent.
And innocents died around Vash the Stampede.
She grimaced, part in guilt for the thought and part because grimacing sent the dulled ache of her cheekbone up another notch. "I guess one of us had it coming, huh," she chided herself. "It was only a matter of time before it all fell apart."
But that wasn't right. It hadn't come to one of them.
This time, it had come to Vash. Vash and Millie.
The two innocents.
And it had come to Knives. Knives, who lay probably in the next room in a drug-induced coma. Kept imprisoned by the chemicals that had been perfected on his twin.
As for Vash, he was probably in a coldsleep tube by then.
If he was alive at all.
Meryl slouched further into the wheeled, backed chair and let it slant on its axis. She re-arranged Millie's arm on the bed, laying out the too-cold fingers carefully.
It sort of looked like Vash's mechanical arm.
He was white, too. Like everything else on this ship. Whiter even than Millie. A white glow on a black screen, curled and distorted and misshapen.
Another tear crawled from beneath her lower eyelid, and she sighed. Of all the times she'd seen him, even the horrible times, never had he looked like that. She'd seen him twisted with pain, she'd seen his eyes glow with inhuman anger. She'd seen his fists curl when he wanted to lash out, knowing he had the power to wipe his enemy from existence but never even once considering using it.
Maybe he should have. Just this once.
Meryl closed her eyes, knowing her body would force her brain to cooperate eventually. It only mattered that she was here when Millie woke up. It didn't matter if she was awake at the time, or saw those eyes open. It only mattered that Millie would know she was there. That she wouldn't be alone.
It had bothered her that he'd been alone. Chosen to be alone.
Even though Meryl had reminded her that he'd chosen to die with God. If he truly ever had believed in God. And even if he hadn't, she did, and she knew without a doubt that He was there with Nicholas, even if he couldn't see Him.
And that meant God was here, too, with them.
God and these creations of His that thought they were gods. That had created the Plants in their own image. That chose now to destroy them for their wickedness.
"We get sand instead of water, huh," she murmured aloud.
An ocean of it, which would make this ship the Ark.
This Ark, buried itself beneath the waves.
She was too tired to wax philosophical, and the image of the ship tossing in a sand sea faded to a deep sleep.
- . -
"You're missing the point."
"You're too focused on the total casualties. I agree they're unacceptable, but-"
"If we agree, why protest every time I bring it up?"
Elizabeth entered the chamber quietly, nodding slightly to her escort as he left her at the door. The meeting was well under way, which was to be expected. There was no reason to include a civilian in internal affairs, obviously, though apparently Commander Grey had miscalculated the amount of time necessary to finish them up.
Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, though she wouldn't call it an acknowledgement. It was more as though she had merely caught his eye as it was passing to another speaker.
Elizabeth took a seat at the end of the long, glowing table, ignoring the twinge in her arm. Dr. Shrew had set the fracture well, and given her something for the pain. She'd taken her arm out of the sling to prevent it from getting in her way at this briefing, and the splint that kept her wrist still was slim enough to fit beneath her blouse sleeve.
Sooner or later she was going to need to wash that blouse. And herself.
Elizabeth rested the aching limb on the table and began interacting with the panel there. She took care to sigh deeply but quietly, attracting everyone's attention though quite clearly trying not to.
Her technique worked. After a moment, they continued as though she were not there.
"The point," the commander spoke into the sudden silence, "is that we lost two parties before we had sufficient intel to start getting our men out of harm's way. Let's start at the beginning."
General Phillip seemed to be expending effort to control his voice. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she brought her current logistical plan up on her own panel.
"We know the advanced systems worked. The log of detections is in front of everyone."
There were a few muted beeps as everyone brought that information to the fore. She almost smiled as she noted her panel was not included.
"As you can see from the logs, there was no anomaly. The Plant's vehicle was detected one thousand yarz out, just as the vehicle previously was."
"Then what the bleedin' hell happened? The paging system went down?" The voice was heavily accented, and not one she recognized. Of course, now that their first mission was completed, it was only to be expected that the lesser-ranked military leaders and supervisors would be included in the briefings.
"The system failed to notify both the on-call technician and forward the alert to all pre-configured PDAs," the general confirmed.
"The application and security logs timestamped between twenty hundred hours and twenty-two hundred hours are missing," added the familiar voice of the commander's assistant. "And the shadow copied volumes that housed the backups of those log files were overwritten with what looks like a block text dump. The data is gone."
"Do we have a record of who was logged into the root system at that time?"
"Almost everyone. All standard personnel were on alert and those soldiers needing to check out weapons were on the system as well."
"Security information on the server closets?" The accented voice again.
"Kept on the same volumes as the shadow copies," Terry replied.
"Do you have any useful information, Private Asoaurd? We're all very impressed with your homework, but could you cut to the chase?"
"Could the Plant have done this?" the commander asked suddenly, and the grumbling voices quieted.
"In the case it failed, to spread suspicion through the ranks?" Phillip mused. "I doubt it, Bryan."
"I agree," he said softly, "but the only other option was that someone specifically aided the Plant infiltration of the New Kennedy. I don't want to make that assumption if there's another answer."
"Do you know exactly when the volume over-writing took place?" Elizabeth finally glanced up, having no other excuse to continue ignoring the conversation, and found Dr. Greer staring rather intently at the table. "There should at least be a timestamp on that."
"At twenty hundred forty-two," Terry said, mostly for the others' benefit. "Which coincides with the Plant's activity within the New Kennedy."
"So it could have," the accented officer muttered. "Or anyone else could have, to take advantage of the distraction of the crew."
"No," Dr. Greer shook his head. "We were locked out of the systems still running through A-20034 by twenty hundred forty-two." He trailed off thoughtfully. "This would have required administrative rights, but that administrator would have had to have been logged in prior to the Plant's manipulation of A-20034 and also been disabled at that time."
"It could have been a scheduled task," Terry offered, but then frowned. "But it would have authenticated as a user at the time the task was run, not prior."
"So no one could have begun the volume over-writing during the Plant's attack besides Knives or A-20034?"
Most of the officers avoided looking directly at the commander, and after a moment he sighed.
"Think on it, gentlemen. We can't close the current protocol until this issue is resolved. Faber, take the systems completely apart if you have to, but get me an accurate timeline of executed commands if nothing else."
The accented man nodded sharply, and Bryan caught Elizabeth's eye.
"Now, I believe Ms. Boulaise has put together logistics requirements for the eventual re-location of the stolen Plants?"
She smiled confidently at the room, at home with their stares. Elizabeth was constantly surprised at how easily Commander Gray was able to quiet a room full of squabbling advisors. He never interrupted them, nor did anyone ever interrupt him. He never had to change his tone to one of sarcasm, or menace, or even really raise his voice. While she'd perfected the volume-less crowd control technique years ago, she could not silence a room full of engineers with a simple word as completely effectively as he could.
Perhaps it was a boon of being in the military.
"As you gentlemen might have already guessed, transporting a non-humanoid Plant a significant distance is no easy – nor inexpensive – task," she began, getting directly to the point. "I started this graph as requested, assuming the missing Plants were located and recaptured in perfect health. As you can see from alpha one, even a sedated Plant emits energy that can cause degradation of human tissue after sustained and prolonged periods of contact. This can be negated with standard bulb technician gear, of which your inventory records twenty suits."
She waited for everyone to catch up, scrolling to the second page of her presentation thoughtfully.
- . -
It was amazing, to see them beside one another.
Only perhaps twenty feet and a thick panel of clear polymer separated them, and the observation window linking the two theaters was coated to prevent glare. Looking at the both of them, it was hard to believe they were really twins at all.
It was hard to believe Knives was a Plant.
He was laid flat on a metal operating table, completely exposed beneath the flooding white lights, looking for all the world like a cadaver about to be autopsied. The room notably lacked the equipment it might normally have held; there was no need for it. The Plant never moved saved a slight rise and fall of his chest, never protested the cold metal beneath his bared skin.
Millions Knives was deep in the coma Dr. Shrew had prescribed for him. His brain activity and energy outputs were steady and absolutely what she expected.
It figured he'd be as perfect at that as everything else.
Though he was the same height, the same breadth of shoulder, he was more filled out. His musculature told of a steady stream of calories and perfect exertion. His skin bore no burns, not even sunspots. Five round scars dotted his arms, legs, and stomach, each direct and none through a major blood vessel. They had healed well, better than most of Vash's scars, so that they were simply slightly raised, a slightly angrier red in color and a slightly smoother texture.
He knew this body was not as old as Vash's. The Plant's twin had shot him at point-blank range with his Angel Arm, resulting in tremendous trauma to his lower body. There was no seam across Knives' torso or groin, no indication of where his original body had been so invisibly melded with his new flesh.
Vash's suspicions had to have been correct. Only another Plant could have generated such a product.
After all, a Plant had generated the original.
He turned away from the window, looking down on the now unfamiliar body beside him. Vash had always been rail-thin, a physique his lifestyle had not improved. Constantly undernourished, but then again, he didn't have to consume calories to survive. Constantly dehydrated, which did seem to have an overall effect on his health.
Constantly being carved up by the humans he worked so very diligently to protect.
And all their repairwork removed, leaving him with what little of his original flesh had had managed to keep.
He'd been bathed twice now, the first time a rough attempt to get him sanitary and hygienic, the second to bring down a skyrocketing fever. Clearly Vash was having difficulty maintaining a steady body temperature, probably a mixture of the cocktail of drugs in his system as much as the modified organs fighting within his body.
He too lay naked, though so much of him was covered by absorptive bandages he might as well have been clothed. It was impossible to tell what was going on inside of that torn body; periodically he was hemorrhaging energy, making it too dangerous to use the one-of-a-kind imaging technology Dr. Shrew was so eager to try. He was honestly surprised she was allowing him so much time with the Plant, considering her curiosity. Some of the most critical hours were passing as Vash struggled to determine his true form.
His arm, the intact one, was still elongated, too thin and tapering to a ridiculously delicate wrist and impossibly curled fingers. Despite the inhibitors it had not returned to its humanoid shape, which didn't bode well.
The scar tissue forming at an accelerated rate across his body was possibly more alarming, if only because it had added another inch to his left stump in the past four hours.
Matter didn't get created from thin air. He was already in bad shape, and of course it figured he'd choose that time to decide to regenerate a lost limb. God only knew what his body was consuming to produce that flesh.
It was probably the reason for the energy hemorrhage, actually. Just as another Plant had done for Knives, Vash was doing for himself.
"You have bad timing," he told the young man softly.
Vash didn't respond.
A time passed, in which Vash's temperature climbed another degree, and he was not surprised to hear the doors open. He was surprised that only one pair of feet walked in, and bird-like claws held not a syringe but a folder.
He greeted her by flatly meeting her eyes, and she smiled humorlessly.
"I see its progress has not significantly improved your mood."
He returned her expression. "I'm not certain I consider a raging fever and continued blood loss progress."
She shrugged, coming closer to Vash, still not seeing him behind those reflective, round frames. "To be honest, I'm startled it's survived this long. That is in no small part directly related to your efforts, and I am thankful for every moment."
He shook his head, keeping his comments to himself. Every breath Vash took was another piece of data for her to record and analyze. That was all his survival would be to her. Pieces of data.
If not for his surety that Vash would suffer this fate twelve times over to protect them all from Knives, he would have ended the young man's suffering the moment they'd left him alone in the room with Vash those few hours ago.
"But that is not why I have interrupted you," she continued, offering the folder.
He didn't accept it. "You scanned Knives."
She raised an eyebrow. "I did," she agreed. "Once the inhibitors work their way out of its system we'll begin improving its compatibility with the current bulb's modifications. I expect we'll have it installed within twenty-four hours." She paused, and uncharacteristically smiled. "Though I suppose I should add a buffer of two hours in there. I think we all agree it should still be comatose throughout the installation procedure to prevent the . . . vigorous protest its twin exhibited."
He wondered if Knives was really powerful enough to destroy a bulb from the inside.
Oh. Knives.
He chose to keep that point to himself. Likely Knives would fall into the same state Vash had, if forced to the same form as his sister Plants. Peripherally aware only, probably not capable of generating enough emotion to manifest knives. They'd keep him under maintenance sedation for a week, probably, to allow him to get used to his new world.
He stole a glance at the other man, exactly as he had been moments ago.
Such an agreeable coma.
"I actually wanted your opinion on another matter," she continued into the silence. "The injuries the Plant caused Millie Thompson."
He didn't pause then, taking the proffered folder and opening it immediately. The room was mostly white, so he didn't have to hold the scans far to read them in detail.
Intracranial bleeding, sporadically smattered across her frontal lobe.
He looked at the next one, taken at a different view. The damage seemed to follow the branching of the main blood vessels there, stretching exactly one-hundredth of a millimeter into the surrounding tissues. It looked as though someone had simply caused all the fluid in those vessels to suddenly boil outward.
"I was guessing telekinesis, though obviously diagnosis is rather useless."
He stared at the third scan, confirming the first two. The damage was very precise, but if the vessels had been damaged . . .
"Is she still alive?"
Dr. Shrew nodded. "Yes. Furthermore, she's not in a coma. My assistants are running a few tests now, but it appears as though she's actively engaged in REM sleep."
Dreaming. She was dreaming.
If all the major blood vessels in her frontal lobe had ruptured, she would be dead.
"So the vessels didn't rupture. This blood came from somewhere else," he mused aloud.
"I came to the same conclusion," she admitted. "It would appear the Plant damaged the tissues immediately surrounding the main blood vessels, causing the nearby capillaries to collapse and thus the bleeding."
Why would Knives only damage her? Was there a limit to the types of matter he could control with his telekinesis? Obviously it had been a touchy subject for Vash, and he'd been hesitant to push the metal powers question when Vash was so physically damaged. The last thing he needed was for the man to start experimenting with his telepathy, and get a whiff of what normal humans actually thought about on a daily basis.
"I also came to the conclusion that this damage was not intended to kill her."
That much was nearly certain. How he could have accomplished this damage so carefully, already inhibited . . . Doc snuck another glance through the glass.
"I believe its intent was to permanently mentally handicap her." Dr. Shrew was staring at Vash again. "To make her childlike, peripherally aware. To make her appear to be in the same state as a conscious Plant. Perhaps in an effort to encourage us to personify the non-humanoid Plants."
Gather sympathy for the sister Plants he knew he couldn't protect anymore? Given how vehemently Vash protected humans, there was no reason to believe that Knives didn't also possess the same fervor to guard that which was valuable to him.
But Knives hadn't made a habit of making statements with living humans. He found their dead bodies to speak loudly enough.
"You believe your soldiers will locate his home and the missing Plants."
She snorted. "Of course we will. There's only so much surface area to explore. Assuming the Plants don't die from exposure, it's only a matter of time."
And that was true. Even if the freed Plants stayed exactly where they were, they'd eventually be found. No matter how fast Vash – and presumably Knives – could move, they were within a day or two of human settlements. A well-performed search of about a thousand-mile radius of all the major settlements would turn them up.
With neither Knives nor Vash to protect them, he wondered what the newly freed Plants would do. If they were even aware, as Dr. Shrew suggested they were not.
"I don't agree with your diagnosis," he said softly, folding the scans back into their cardboard and handing it back to her. "I do not believe the attack was meant to mentally handicap Millie Thompson."
She stared at him, eyes hidden behind a white glare. "Oh?"
He shook his head, still staring through the glass at Knives. "He wouldn't go to the effort. He believes humans are worthless, and wouldn't understand so subtle a point. It was an attempt to kill her. He was too weak to tear the main blood vessels, but strong enough to tear away their moorings in the capillaries. Nothing more."
Not that she didn't have a point. Diagnosis was moot. Given the damage, whether it was his intention or not, Knives had effectively ended the productive life of Millie Thompson.
"I see. What a lucky woman," Dr. Shrew said softly.
- . -
Author's Notes: Hopefully it's not terribly apparent, but I had a hell of a time with this chapter. I have lost count of the number of times I've re-written it. So I apologize for the delay. I'm still not happy with it, but I am beginning to suspect I never will be. I know it's a bit of a let-down after the long wait, but it was necessary for the pacing. Since, y'know, I'm not mean enough to just wrap it up neatly in a chapter and have Vash and Knives donate their power to terraforming Gunsmoke or anything.
. . . hey, that's a pretty good idea, actually . . .
Kidding! Next chapter will pick up significantly as far as the plot is concerned, and after that I think it's going to fly by. Thank you guys for sticking with me, and as always, if you notice anything weird let me know!
Also, I have read Trigun 1 and 2, and Max 1 and 2. OH MY GOD! That's all I have to say. Holy cow. Plus, Knives? Now I totally get the incest angle. I don't agree with it, but I get it.