Disclaimer in previous chapters. Author's Notes at the bottom.
- . -
The little boy was gone.
So was the older one; only iles and iles of coarse remains met her searching eyes. The ash-choked wind seemed darker, and colder somehow. Like the heat it carried was hollow, only a memory of warmth.
There was more smoke in it, now, and it was blocking out the twin suns. Perhaps night was approaching, or had already settled.
She held a hand over her eyes, not to shield them from blinding light but rather to prevent her hair from crawling into them. Perhaps the change in temperature had caused it, but the wind was tugging more emphatically on her than before, and as it carried so much earth, it was getting harder to make out clear outlines.
She was no longer on the outskirts of the great mass of rubble. The ruined city, presided over by the giant, shattered plant. Now she stood in what had possibly once been the center of the great structures. The plant was much closer, almost directly overhead. The small, cracked bed of the inner bulb was still intact, rather amazingly given the size of the debris the wind now tossed. There were just as many flashes of lightning as before, and just as silent, and she could see the bed of glass was empty.
Had the boy rescued his brother? Had she helped? Or had she left them again?
She frowned, rubbing her face with her hand only to smear freezing sweat and dirt. Her hair, no longer held back, immediately flew forward and glued itself to her skin. Trying to tuck it behind her ears did her no good, as this wind wouldn't permit it to stay there, and eventually she gave up fighting with it.
She needed to find something she could use to tie it back. And then find the boy.
And ask him what had happened, that this world had become even more empty than before.
A quick search at her feet found that she was actually standing not on flat earth, as she had imagined, but the roof of some building. Or perhaps just the still-intact ceiling of some chamber; it was hard to tell if the complex but somehow frighteningly organized paths were hallways or narrow streets. She could have been standing in the half-cleaved skeleton of a great ship, or the center of a ruined, compact city. Whatever was beneath her foot had been polished coarse by the sandy wind and long dulled by the cloying filth of the smoky atmosphere. It was impossible to tell if it was metal, wood, plaster, or stone.
Curious, she bent at the knee, noting her feet were still bare, and the oddly unfamiliar blue jeans constricted around her hips uncomfortably. It was hard to move in these clothes, though she supposed they were comfortable enough for standing around or laying about. Neither was an option for her at the moment, and she pulled her fingertips across the scabrous surface.
It was colder than her bared toes indicated, and quite hard. Not likely to collapse or chip away anytime soon.
But she still couldn't tell if it was stone or metal. It was far too dense to be plaster or wood.
She remained crouched, another large crag to her right creating a little lee to escape the direct gale. Without a constant point of light, it was impossible to determine direction. She'd have to use the wrecked plant as her marker; none of the other debris was recognizable, nor did it seem to stand out as a monument quite as much. She was fairly sure no matter how low she climbed into these ruins, she would always be able to see that plant.
If the plant was the center of the . . . city, of sorts, then she should probably start her search there and go out in straight lines to the very edges. She would use the protruding remainder of the inner bulb as an arrow, pointing north. In that way, she could orient herself and search the area by grid.
She frowned again, wrapping her arms around her violently dancing white shirt. Of course, what was she looking for? A way out? The little boy?
How had she come here? And how had she left before?
Lightning flashed brilliantly, almost directly above her, and she flinched. There were plenty of lightning storms, she knew all about them. Whenever there was lots of sand in the air, it caused static electricity to build up. It usually sought out tall things, like steeples, metal rods on established buildings, or people standing in the center of fields or dunes.
Perhaps standing on a flat sheet of something she wasn't sure wasn't metal wasn't the best place to be.
She blinked, and considered her thought for a moment. Sempai would have given her that blank look if she'd heard it-
. . . sempai?
She could see the woman clearly; short, black hair almost the same color as her own, a crisp white uniform, somehow she seemed small of stature but huge in presence. She seemed completely familiar, as though she saw her every day.
She also didn't associate the woman with this desolate, arid place.
Because – because there was something outside of this place. The place she went when she wasn't here.
The wind kicked up, throwing more earth into the air, and the edges of the city began to become even more indistinct. She cried out, stumbling in her crouch as she was buffeted, and for some reason she couldn't seem to catch herself –
She landed hard, and awkwardly, on her left shoulder. Her head and ear struck the ground solidly, and for several seconds she was unable to do anything more than lay there, gasping. Sand and dirt crawled in with every breath, and the very air tasted burnt. Warmth pooled around her ear, and she shakily reached up a hand, touched it.
When she withdrew her fingers, they were dry. No blood.
It rang alarmingly, though, as she tried to sit up, wincing as she looked around. She'd been blown clear off the roof – or ceiling – into one of the many pathways through the debris. Openings yawned darkly in the high walls of the corridor, and in both directions it went on for several yarz before branching off to the right and left.
Her left hip popped unpleasantly as she picked herself up off the chilly ground. It was wearing a deeper carpeting of sand than the level above, but even so was too hard and too even to be well-packed dirt. Perhaps it was bedrock? Most of the cities had to be built on it so they didn't sink, or become a sandworm's next meal. Unless it was another level of metal, from the wreckage of a ship –
The wind howled overhead, evidently not pleased it wasn't able to push her around as easily in the narrow avenue, and the high walls seemed to press in on her. She wasn't tall enough to catch the lip, even if she jumped, and while their had been no end of fairly large pieces of rubble lying around above her, this corridor was absolutely clean of any obstacle.
The openings on either side of her seemed to be haphazard; there was an uneven number of them and they were not arrange symmetrically along the length of the walls. All of them were equally dark, however. She picked one at random and peered inside, hoping to find an intact piece of furniture, or at least something, to give her a leg up and –
But somehow she was staring at a pair of wooden double doors, instead of coming through them. She was in a well-lit, cool office, leaning comfortably against a heavy oak desk. Beside her was a man – no, a body, sprawled face-down. Blood pooled around it, but there was no danger of the liquid getting on her turquoise and white bodysuit.
The doors pushed open, as she knew they would, revealing a sight that made her heart ache just a little. A joyful smile, one she hadn't seen on his face in ninety years or more. The same hair, they'd both kept the same haircuts even after all these years.
It was amazing how quickly his expression changed. His mind was still intact, still agile; agile enough to come to the conclusion that his happy jaunt to July hadn't ended the way he'd hoped it would.
And that was important. That was the first lesson.
Time to move onto lesson two.
She smiled, and raised her hand in greeting to his suddenly uneven gasps.
"Hey there, Vash."
He began to weep, and said nothing.
"Now everything that joined you and Rem together is finally gone." Spelling out the obvious was a little gratuitous, but her brother was really quite thick-headed, and a little emphasis couldn't hurt.
The effect was immediate; his chin dropped, and some of the shock faded into anger. Real anger.
"Is that your excuse for killing?" He was still crying, but his voice had steeled. Of course they'd have to go through this again . . . she inwardly sighed.
"Haven't you learned anything over the past hundred years?" She stood, leaving her fingers brushing the surface of the desk, and faced the window.
"The scars they carved into your body will never regenerate." And how she would make them pay for each and every one, even if he was still too brainwashed to do it himself. "Symbolic of your foolish waste of energy on this human garbage."
"Regardless of how you feel about them, they are living beings." His voice shook, though not with weakness. "They deserve to live!"
Her patience snapped. Obviously she was going to have to escalate the situation to force him to new ground, otherwise he was going to parrot back her words all day. "What's the use of growing up if the only thing that grows is your useless sentimentalism!" She turned back to glare at him, finally letting her frustration show. "You're still a good for nothing, pathetic wimp!" As she turned she raised her gun.
It wasn't really her gun; she'd taken it off a human on her way in. It had been more than sufficient to kill this last link to Rem, and though it was nothing like the gun she'd fashioned, the gun that Vash was just now realizing he needed to draw, it would still be sufficient.
She fired almost lazily, though to his credit Vash was moving quickly. He was still too shocked, too caught up in his ridiculously misplaced emotions, and neither barrel was even raised to eye level before her bullet found its mark.
With a cry Vash was propelled backwards, slamming against the joint of the far wall and the floor a full second before his left arm – and her gun – clattered to the ground about two yarz away.
She began to stride forward as Vash curled over himself, clutching the remainder of his arm and shoulder. He still held his gun, the one she'd made for him, in his right hand – perfect. She stopped her advanced, reached out with her mind, and snapped her fingers.
The casing of that modified Colt leapt off the barrel as though it had been magnetically repulsed, and the cartridge – part of one of their sisters – began to crackle as it resonated with the Gate within Vash's remaining arm.
"Wh-what the hell is that!" He sounded terrified.
She couldn't keep the anger out of her voice; after all these years, was it possible that he still didn't know? "This is our gift, brother! Now it's time to take out this worthless human garbage forever!"
Another mental nudge, and his arm transformed, absorbing the gun into itself as his Angel Arm began to manifest. He screamed; she knew it hurt, it had hurt like hell the first time and the second hadn't been so great, either. It was a much greater pain than a bulletwound. She would know. And part of her ached to see him there on the floor, howling as he felt his powers for the first time, but the rest of her was still appalled that it was the first time.
Vash couldn't stop screaming, but he did do something unthinkable. Struggling every step of the way, and physically countering her helpful telekinesis, he slowly raised the cannon, so that it was aiming – out the window?
No. He was aiming it at her. Or at least, trying to.
"Are you going to shoot me again?" He wouldn't dare. He would not dare.
She tried to strengthen her telekinetic hold on Vash, but he was shielding – when the hell had he learned to do that? If he knew how, why hadn't he been doing it from the start? He was fighting her with raw strength and he was winning.
"Are you actually GOING TO SHOOT ME AGAIN?"
Behind the arm, his blue-green eyes burned with pain, with loss, betrayal, and – and hatred.
She couldn't stop him. He was too far along the charge, now; if he didn't release the energy his Gate would collapse in on itself and take half the planet with it. She put every ounce of her power into her telekinesis, shouting with the effort, but there was –
White light shown brilliantly, there was a strange sensation just below her belly –
She staggered backwards, suddenly enveloped in black, and belatedly she realized the broken shrieking still echoing in her ears was the wind.
She caught herself in the slightly better-lit corridor, feet hissing through the sand, and stared at the doorway. Her breaths were coming in gasps, and she had both arms wrapped quite firmly around her stomach. It was still there, her legs too, but she was sure that beam of energy had cut her in half –
What . . . what was that? Who had that man with the spiky hair been? Her brother? Or . . . or the little boy's brother? Was that what had happened while she'd been gone?
There was no hint of that terrible, destructive power in the doorway; it stood forlorn and absolutely lightless. She stumbled backwards away from it, turning to the other side of the alley. Another ingress stood, slightly less square than the first had been, and just as dark.
Should she . . ? But she needed to get back on top of these buildings, so she could at least see. A glance upward still showed her the plant, and she hesitated. Did she really need to go up higher? Did she really want to risk running into that blonde man again?
And why, immediately after she had seen him, had she thought and said those awful things?
She blinked, her breath catching in her throat. She'd said that everything tying him to Rem was dead. Didn't that little boy, the one she was looking for, call her Rem?
And hadn't he said that he had killed her?
But how could that be? How could she be Rem, and be dead, and be talking about herself? And if that . . . that body had been someone that had known her, why would she have killed him, have hated the very sight of his blood . . .?
The wind shrieked above her, but this time it couldn't touch her, and she ignored it.
That was impossible. She couldn't be Rem. The little boy must have confused her with the woman he said he'd killed, the woman who had had ties to that dead man.
Had the little boy grown up to be the man with the spiky hair?
But it was the wrong color. The little boy's hair had been such a light blonde, almost snowy. The spiky hair –
Vash. She'd called him Vash.
The Stampede, her mind wanted to append. Sempai had denied it –
Rock clinked against rock, and something made her duck away from the doorway she'd been contemplating. Just in time; a shoe-sized chunk of the wall tumbled down where she had been moments before.
Her stomach clenched in fear, but it was almost instantly replaced with anger.
"You leave me alone and let me remember!" she shouted at the spiteful piece of rock. If a rock could glower, this one was. It was rather silly, to shout at a rock, and to say what she had said. But somehow, it felt completely right.
It was like this ruined city didn't want her to remember what was outside it. Who she was when she wasn't here.
Outside of here there was Sempai, a woman who was her friend. And there was a spiky blonde man named Vash the Stampede. And he was the brother of the little boy. His was the shape she had seen silhouetted in the broken bulb. And he had been searching for connections to Rem. And she was supposed to be Rem.
Only she wasn't Rem. The little boy had just mistaken her for the other woman. Maybe the other woman had been a black-haired woman who wore loose white blouses and hip-hugging blue jeans and walked with bare feet. Maybe that was why he'd been confused.
He'd been afraid that his brother had been sick. She'd agreed to save his brother, and to not abandon him. Rem had apparently made the same promise.
The whole story sounded so familiar. Like she already knew it, she'd put these puzzle pieces together before. It was like a dream when you had a cold; your brain was frustrated because it was uncomfortable and so in your dream you kept playing chess, only you had too many bishops and the rooks moved like pawns, and no matter what you did you couldn't move them on the appropriate squares because the squares kept moving –
The wind was positively roaring now, and the sky had blackened almost as dark as the ingresses around her. She couldn't even see the ends of the hallways, anymore, and reluctantly she moved back towards one of the walls. She could try to feel her way down to the corridor and take a left, and forget about trying to get up to the next level – the wind would just knock her back down anyway. It was foolish to think of the wind as angry, but it sounded furious with her.
"I'm sorry!" she shouted at it, in the hopes it might calm down. "I just want to find the little boy!"
She waited a beat. Then another. The wind didn't die down. The sky didn't lighten. Maybe it's night, and this weather is natural. She needed to stay on this lower level until morning came. She'd be safe down here, so long as she stayed as far from the walls and falling debris as possible. She reached out blindly, arm outstretched as far as she could make it go, and started walking to her left. Her hand met solid wall, and she dragged her fingertips along it, still walking left. Left was away from the bulb, and she would follow her plan of locating the outskirts of the city. She continued for a few steps, stretching her utmost while keeping the barest possible contact with the wall.
It wasn't long before the rough wall suddenly vanished. Another door. She didn't enter the opening, instead continuing forward and letting her hand pass through space.
Fingers wrapped around it, warm and firm, and tugged.
"You . . . you came back . . ."
- . -
"But this is . . . is . . ." Candice trailed off as she fought for the correct word. "How could they! Now, when you've done the impossible and we're getting good, solid data –"
She didn't miss the placement of the pronouns, nor the compliment, but she cut the girl off anyway. Such reckless words. They'd gotten spoiled in the last year by the general. While Candice was relatively new to the concept of military science, she herself had been part of the military for quite a long time. Almost since birth, considering she'd probably attended more of her father's functions by the time she was one than her research assistant had her entire life.
"I expected that order hours ago," she said briskly, watching as a perfect, highly detailed scan came up. She rotated it, just to ensure the three dimensional image was really intact. "The Plant should have been euthanized the moment it attacked."
The other girl remained silent a moment, and Dr. Shrew ignored her, zooming into the frontal lobe of the brain. While its general shape didn't seem to have changed, the activity was spread throughout and an odd amalgam of Plant and human characteristics. The scan had done a fairly complete job of recording that, and she cleared the file and waited for the next to compile.
"But as head of the research division shouldn't that be your call?"
"Security of the ship," she responded automatically. "The breach indicated a level of threat that might not have been contained. It is the commander's responsibility to guarantee the safety of the crew, and this research is threatening that."
Not anymore, of course. Now the Plant was actually incapable of generating that power, the most obvious visual confirmation being that its arm had shrunk by about an inch. The fingers were still a bit long, but Gate activity had reached an all-time low. Without the electrodes directly attached to the Plant's arm, they'd never be able to detect it at all.
She could rail at the unfairness of the order all she wanted, but the fact was she had to obey. 'At the end of the current tests', though, could be interpreted many ways. She was scheduled to keep working on the Plant for another hour, but if the tests she started at ten minutes till ended up taking her a bit past that schedule . . . it looked as though she had a little room to wiggle.
Of course, an hour and a half wasn't enough time to get solid data on anything about the Plant, so she was now trapped in determining which tests would prove to yield the most useful data. She'd gotten all the biopsies and tissue samples she could during the transformation phase, and even dead the Plant would still be viable for a short time. The autopsy, of course, would be a good time to dig into the organs, so she should probably concentrate on results that required brain activity.
As relating to what, though? Life functions she'd recorded. Without actually analyzing the data she'd already gathered, she had no idea which functions to study on a closer level. Basic life functions that remained the same immediately after birth and throughout life . . . she had cells multiplying in petri dishes in the incubator down the hall, specifically paying attention to the types of energy the mitochondria were producing and what types of materials those cells were consuming.
Outside of cellular mitosis and respiration, what else would be the same in an infant Plant and an adult . . .?
At what point did the Plant's body reach maturity, and what marked it?
Nerve cell caps or bone. Bone would survive longer in a cadaver than nerve cells, so nerves it was.
Dr. Shrew repositioned the equipment, this time settling not on the regenerating stump but the full arm. She'd been studying the scar tissue for about twenty minutes, and they had a good idea how it was being produced so quickly. Or, at least they'd run the right tests. Looking at the nerve cells in that arm would probably give her an incorrect reading, considering the ends would be new and there'd be no age-damage to the protein caps.
They knew generally when this Plant had come into existence, but not how long it had taken to get to full maturity. The protein caps on the nerve bundles should give an indication of when the nerve cells themselves had stopped growing.
Candice watched the imager reposition, and she readied the next template for data input. She didn't ask what they were looking at, and Dr. Shrew didn't volunteer. Part of the learning process was coming to your own conclusions, and the young girl obviously needed a little less hand-leading and a little more mental exercise.
"How long do you think you can delay them?" she asked in a small voice.
"Perhaps a half-hour," the doctor responded, then frowned. "How long do you estimate it will take to analyze the data we've already gathered?"
The girl started inputting dates, patient IDs, and observer names into the template to prepare it for the data dump. "Decades," she finally answered. "I just . . ."
So she, too, was becoming emotionally attached? Dr. Shrew restrained a sigh. She'd fallen into the same trap; nothing else explained her actions immediately after the Plant's return to consciousness and breaking of quarantine. And the Plant was contained, and was not nearly as much of a threat as it had been when they'd first removed it from the bulb. Part of her wanted to question the order.
The rest of her knew better. She was lucky she hadn't been placed on administrative leave for that lapse in judgment. And she was merely waiting for the meeting invite to appear on her schedule. There was no doubt, when the saboteur was found, that the commander was going to interview her. She'd placed all of them at risk, including her other patients.
Dr. Shrew glanced at the overhead monitors, noting the two women were leaving observation two. She hadn't even bothered to listen to their conversation, too wrapped up in ensuring the mechanism was working to one hundred percent efficiency. If she only had an hour and a half to complete data collection for her project, that was all she had. The good doctor had quite a few painkillers pumping through his system, and was in no position to advise or consult. Not that she would prefer him to; this was a simple exercise in basic research protocols, and nothing else.
A glance at her other patient's room revealed exactly what she would have expected; the young woman was in a moderate state of unconsciousness. Her current test results had shown an increase in the intracranial bleed, which had been a little unexpected. She'd have thought the majority of the damage had already been done, but apparently the pooling blood was still causing damage to the tissues surrounding it. She'd ordered the administration of a clotting agent, to stop the hemorrhage, despite the fact that it would only contribute to the clots already present.
Part of her simply wanted to know if the girl would wake again. That she could move as well as she seemed to with such damage . . . it was probably an journal article in itself, and she was glad she'd assigned Sam to continue recording. Apparently they hadn't gotten much audio, at Meryl Stryfe's request, but she'd corrected that oversight. If the girl woke again, they could at least get a proper recording of her articulations.
Any other time, it would have been a fascinating case. She wondered when they'd get the resources to actually look into it. Likely not until the woman was long dead, but at least they didn't have to wait for Millie Thompson to stop emitting equipment-damaging energy when they wanted to get a glimpse of her brain.
She pulled her attention back to the screen as the machine began creating a three dimensional image of the nerve bundle she'd chosen to study. They'd need to get two more, one in a leg and the other near his brainstem, in order to make sure their results were consistent. That would probably take about forty-five minutes, and also use up the majority of her time.
"I wish we had time to let it wake up," Candice finally finished her thought. "I wonder if it . . . would talk to us again."
Dr. Shrew raised an eyebrow, glancing at her student. "Are talking Plants such a novelty to you?"
Candice ducked her head. "I . . . I'd like to ask it questions. What it remembers of maturing, of its mother . . . all the psyche write-ups on Plants are so conjecture-based."
She resisted the urge to shake her head. As if the Plant would be any more objective than a regular human.
As if this Plant would be any more sane than a regular human, after all this.
- . -
Meryl stared at Elizabeth, watching the engineer's eyes shift as her brain started calculating all the aspects of her plan to escape.
Or her plan to prevent their escape.
She had considered not suggesting they see Doc, but she needed to hear it from him. That Vash was going to die no matter what they did. He'd known what had happened to Millie the moment he'd looked at her test results, and he'd lied to Dr. Shrew. Meryl trusted him to also have as accurate a grasp on Vash's condition.
And he had all but said the same thing Elizabeth had. That she wasn't going to get a chance to say goodbye.
But if she did, take it.
Vash, her Vash, he was long gone. Nothing about him had been recognizable in Hondelic. If only she'd read the damn letters, gotten over her stupid pride and just read one, she'd know, she'd really, honestly know –
Was Doc telling her that Vash was going to die, or he was just never going to be the same?
And if she got a chance to find out, take it. So he wasn't sure, either way.
And the rest, with Millie . . . what she wouldn't have given to hear him just tell her something. Damn the recordings, just give her an answer she didn't have to extrapolate! He was telling her that Millie was somehow connected to Knives. That was why she could talk, she could think, she could . . . could pick people's thoughts out of the air.
But Knives had screwed up, hadn't had enough time to finish whatever it was before he'd succumbed to the gas. He'd screwed up, and he'd hurt her badly. And so now she was in some halfway point between braindead and – and Stun Gun Millie, Gung-Ho Gun number fourteen.
It explained almost everything. Why Millie had reacted so badly to the news that Knives was going to be installed in a bulb. Why Millie had tried to strangle her the last time she'd woken up, mumbling about her 'brother'. Her insistence that they save Knives was programmed into her, and there would be no dissuading her.
And yet, some of the things she'd said, they sounded just like her. Importance of family. Concern that her own disappearance had upset her 'sempai'. Those were things Knives would never say, would never want one of his lackeys to think or feel.
And he certainly wouldn't want his lackey to be teetering so precariously between life and death.
How was he doing it? Wasn't he in a coma? How much effort did it take him, anyway? What if – what if there was a distance restriction, and taking Millie away from this ship would make her worse?
And what was worse? Was Millie going to die or not? Both doctors acknowledged physical damage to her brain. It would never heal, it would never go away, and they couldn't fix it. Could Knives? If one of the clots moved, and Millie had a stroke, could Knives prevent it from having any real, debilitating effect on her?
But how? Could he . . . heal her? Could Plants do that? And if they could, why hadn't Vash healed his own scars?
But Knives healed himself after July. Vash had told her that much, before he left to meet his brother. And if Knives could, would he heal Millie? As a reward for her good work in freeing him?
Just before he went on his genocidal rampage, that Elizabeth said Vash himself refused to interfere with?
God. Was that the choice? Millie or the entire world?
Obviously freeing Knives wasn't an option. Did she trust this ship and its crew to take the threat of Knives seriously, keep him contained, in that bulb? Then, even if there was a distance restriction, even if Millie couldn't leave the ship, at least she could still . . .
Could still live.
And Meryl wouldn't leave her.
That left her still wondering whether Elizabeth was honestly trying to get them out, or she was simply trying to act as the catalyst that revealed their escape plan to Commander Gray.
Meryl continued to stare at the engineer. Her words seemed to echo in her ears. Being useful has kept me alive. Terry's admission that Commander Gray was dangerous. Was she really not seeing the whole picture? Were their lives really in danger, the longer they remained on this ship? These people still considered themselves part of the Earth military, held to the high standards their military had been for centuries. Surely they weren't just going to come in here and have them all executed. That was ridiculous!
But . . . what if it wasn't?
The engineer seemed to focus on her for a second, and Meryl finally broke eye contact, patting Doc gently on the chest before turning back for the door. If Sam was done, she could do her thinking beside Millie as easily as here.
She heard the other woman follow her out the door, down the hallway. Their boots clicked on and off unison; Meryl was taking two steps exactly in time with every one of Elizabeth's. She was having to take two steps to keep up, a pace she couldn't maintain forever.
She was Meryl Stryfe. She didn't sit quietly. She acted on what she believed in.
Maybe Terry Asoaurd did know her. Better than she knew herself.
Meryl, get a grip, she snapped at herself. She was letting everything happen around her without having any input. She'd been doing it ever since Vash came back and -
Meryl blinked, fighting an audible gasp.
Oh my god.
It was exactly right. She'd been waiting for Vash to return to the town, return to her, and she'd never stopped waiting.
There were, and had been, important decisions to be made, and she was in a holding pattern, waiting for something to happen.
Well, it happened, she snapped at her brain. And here it was. Trust Elizabeth to get the rest of them out? Trust Elizabeth to take care of Vash?
Could she trust this woman with something that important? Was that what Doc meant when he said she wouldn't get the chance to say goodbye to him? Because he knew she'd choose to stay behind with Millie?
She turned, the door opening automatically as she approached it. How did they sense her, she wondered. Was it something on the uniform? She recalled seeing the commander, and guards before him, touching buttons on their collars –
She reached up, idly, and fingered the button that held the bottom corner of the collar security to the main body of the fabric. Was it a button, or some kind of device? Was it capable of recording what they were saying? Did it help the computers track her whereabouts in the ship?
They'd have to do something about that, if she wanted them to escape.
She suddenly wished she'd seen Sunjy or Aaron, and could ask them. They'd be working for Elizabeth one way or the other, but she wondered what they wanted.
And what Millie wanted.
She took her place, on the edge of the mattress, and picked up Millie's hand. It was warm, still had blood flow. The hard work she'd done all her life had left calluses, particularly on the thumb-side of her index finger, where the trigger cage of her stun-gun rested. Then there was the index-finger side of her middle finger, where her pens rested as she wrote. Her thumb itself was almost rough to the touch, but the rest of her hand –
It was so soft. It reminded her of her mother's hand.
Millie would have been an excellent mother.
She smiled, a little sadly, at her own thought. That she didn't really believe that Millie was ever going to be a mother. Even if she stayed on this ship, even if Knives kept doing whatever it was he was doing –
Even if she stayed here, Millie would constantly be trying to free him. They'd have to keep her under lock and guard, or maybe – maybe they could just trust Meryl to keep an eye on her.
Or maybe they'd just lock them both in cells to prevent them from causing trouble, and ask them to write reports to Bernardelli from time to time.
Is that the life Millie would choose, if it were between that and – nothing?
Meryl started as she realized Elizabeth was on the other side of her, leaning in to closely inspect the sleeping woman. She looked just like she'd looked before; peaceful, but with that little, frustrated pucker between her eyes. She said she didn't know what Knives had done, but if he was somehow in communication with her –
But he was in a coma, wasn't he? She had no idea how telepathy worked, but if they'd given him inhibitors, didn't that mean his telepathy was inhibited? Obviously they worked, because he'd been unable to completely control or brainwash her, so . . .
So if he was inhibited, and he needed contact with her to . . . to think around her damaged brain for her, then . . . how did that work? If he couldn't use his telepathy, shouldn't she be exactly the way Sam and Dr. Shrew thought she should have been?
"Don't touch her," she heard herself snap, as the woman extended graceful fingers towards Millie. The very last thing she was going to allow, escape plan or not, was anything that would make Millie worse than she already was. God only knew how the other woman would be when they got her away from Knives' influence, but anything she could do to protect her friend, she would.
God. They were going to use her to get off this ship, just like Knives was using her now. There was no difference between Elizabeth's intention and the homicidal Plant's. Both of them just wanted out, and Millie Thompson was their ticket home.
But she was more than a ticket. She was a woman. A strong woman, capable – at least currently – of making her own decisions. And this would be a decision that Millie would make. They didn't have to wonder. She was still in there, she was no slave of Knives. At least not completely. She would explain to the other girl what had happened, let her know that Knives might be somehow influencing her, and ask her to make her own decision.
Though it wasn't difficult to guess what that decision would be.
The engineer gave Meryl a very thoughtful look, and it burned her. How dare that woman look at her that way. That woman, that sold out Vash to keep her own skin intact. That dared to insinuate she even thought she'd been right to do it. That it put her in some elevated position. That cooperation had gotten her farther than resisting. Wasn't she just as much a prisoner as they were? What had all her information gotten her but still in a position she felt threatened her life?
Could she be trusted? Had she really started this entire adventure with the intent of finding Vash? Or had it all been a bid to stop Knives, and here was the woman's dream come true? A world without either plant? A world where July could never happen again?
She felt for the engineer. She really did. It would have been horrible, to see your parents die before your eyes, leaving you alone in a quickly encroaching desert. Seeing how terrible adults could really be, having every stable fact of life shattered in mere days. Knowing that one man was responsible, and there was nothing in the world to stop him from doing it again.
Nothing but his own heart.
If she allowed Elizabeth to leave with Vash, how much of a chance was there that the Plant wouldn't end up with a bullet in his head less than an ile into the desert? How likely would it be that she wouldn't leave him to die without a second thought?
"We have to wake her up, Meryl. We don't have time-"
"She'll wake up on her own." She'd always woken violently, and Sam had told her that changes in Millie's blood pressure might dislodge the clots, which meant a stroke, which meant –
Which meant she'd be that much worse when they got her away from Knives. If she chose to leave.
Would letting Millie . . . do something, when she woke up, would that help or hinder her? Doc said that fighting with her would be worse than letting her walk around, but obviously Sam disagreed . . . But Doc wouldn't ask her to do anything that would make Millie worse, would he? He wouldn't be that desperate to get out of here –
He wouldn't simply use her, as Elizabeth was doing. As Knives was doing. He wouldn't sacrifice what life she had left like that, would he?
It didn't matter. It was Millie's decision. One she could make up when she woke up. If she woke up again.
That was a big if, and as much as she didn't want to admit it, Elizabeth was right. They had a forty-five minute window before the tests on Vash would be concluded. At that time, Dr. Shrew might take her attention off him and take an interest in the last tests they'd run on Millie. At that point, there was the chance that she would come to the same conclusion Doc had. It probably wouldn't happen instantly, but . . . it would happen.
"How quickly do you think Dr. Shrew will figure it out?"
The engineer was obviously holding onto her impatience by a thread. "Quickly enough. We only have forty-five minutes-"
"I know what he said," she interrupted dismissively, and was glad to see the other woman's eyes flash. "She won't figure it out instantaneously. Millie will come around on her own. Startling her will only raise her blood pressure, which will move the clots-"
"It doesn't matter if it does or not," the other woman snapped. "Knives is processing stimuli for her. She can literally be rendered almost braindead and she'll still be capable of using the computer systems. Weren't you listening?"
Meryl cocked her head to the side, slowly. "We're not taking Knives with us," she said, as slowly and evenly as she could. "I assume Millie will get worse the further she gets from him. I don't want her any worse than she already is."
Elizabeth blinked, taken aback either by her manner or her words. But only for an instant. "We're not leaving Knives here," she replied, as though trying to explain a difficult concept to a simpleton. "Recapture immediately after escape is a huge worry, and we can eliminate it now. Don't you get it? If Millie has access to Knives' skills or memories through their telepathic link, we can take over the ship."
Meryl tried not to gape at her. "Who cares about taking over the ship? All we need to do is get Aaron, Sunjy, and Vash, and get out! There's no reason to make this any more complicated than it already is!"
"We can uninstall their production Plant. Without a main power source, they can't contact their satellites. They won't be able to locate Eden. Without either Knives or Vash in custody, they can't prevent the current power project from continuing. They'd be back to square one."
But why would she insist on taking Knives along? Why not –
Oh. Because they'd turn him into the production Plant.
"You were the one that said with such surety that Knives would wipe out the humans if freed, and Vash wouldn't stop him."
Elizabeth just shook her head slowly. "Meryl, Millie won't agree to help us unless the plan involves freeing Knives. And if she's – she's as perceptive as she usually is, she'll know something's up as soon as we agree. Just leave Knives to me."
Meryl blinked. Was Elizabeth saying she was going to kill him?
Don't think about it. The thought flitted across her mind like a moth caught in an updraft. She was being vague on purpose because she didn't want Meryl to know the plans. And Millie would pluck them right out of her head if she thought about it. Stop thinking about it. Just let Elizabeth take Knives out of the bulb, and worry about what to do with him later.
If nothing else, they could put a bullet in his head an ile out into the desert.
Then again, Elizabeth might be planning on setting Knives free.
She discarded the notion immediately. No. Elizabeth might be driven by a desire to stop either twin, but she certainly wasn't going to help the one that had caused July in the first place.
"Let me be perfectly honest." It wasn't as though she could prove Elizabeth wasn't lying –
She could. She could just as Millie.
Elizabeth waited patiently as Meryl fought with herself. No. She wouldn't exploit Millie's new talents. She'd always had a good eye for liars, she was an insurance investigator. She could trust her own intuition on this one.
"I can't trust you anymore." It didn't get much more blunt than that. "Give me a reason why you'd want to save Vash rather than see him dead."
Elizabeth did a very good job of not changing her facial expression. "Because he's my friend. Because he's right about the exploitation of the Plants. He saved my life, even if he was indirectly responsible for killing my parents. And I think he would kill himself before he'd allow it to happen again."
All of it was true, but it was so easy to say.
The engineer suddenly smiled. "I don't begrudge you your distrust. I've certainly earned it. But if we're going to pull this off, we need to work together. If I think Vash is too far gone, and might threaten another city, I'll shoot him myself. But until then I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He did for me."
Behind them, the doors slid apart.
Meryl tried not to jump, and also tried to hide her reflexive reach for her nonexistent derringers. Damn. She never should have left the nurse alone with Millie. Had Sam already figured it out?
But there were no guards, no guns. Terry Asoaurd stood in the doorway, holding nothing more threatening than a rectangular, folded yellow envelope.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," and he sounded honestly apologetic. "I've got the documents you requested."
Meryl just blinked at him, mind blanking. Documents . . . ?
Oh.
She slid off the bed, pasting a smile on her face. Did he know what he'd just interrupted? "Thank you! That was . . . quicker than I expected."
He smiled as he handed her the thick envelope. "No problem. I did the best I could." He looked past her, nodding politely to Elizabeth. "Ms. Boulaise," he added in greeting. "I don't know if Dr. Greer briefed you, but –"
She just nodded. "Yes, I heard it was a corroded line. It's a good thing he found it when he did. If that Plant had gone out of control . . ."
The private just nodded, and Meryl tucked the envelope into one of the internal pockets of the uniform. Another sign, Nicholas? she thought to the air. You want me to trust her?
Not that her imagined indications from the dead priest had gotten her anywhere but almost totally screwed.
Private Asoaurd just nodded, looking upwards as if imagining the worst. "Trying to step up G-101B's installation would certainly be a problem," he commented. Then he squinted.
"It looks like Dr. Shrew has finally taken an interest in her . . . less threatening patient," he commented, a little sadly.
Meryl blinked at him. "I'm sorry, I don't understand . . . ?"
He nodded up at the camera. "She's taken away your privacy," he said quietly. "I hope you said whatever it was you needed to, unless you want it recorded for posterity."
Meryl couldn't help a glance over her shoulder, looking at the dark disc in the ceiling. It looked the same as it always did, a little blinking light showing that it was on. But had the light always been amber . . .?
Elizabeth moved subtly by Millie's side, but remained silent.
He brought his gaze back to Meryl, and his eyes were very sad. "I'm very sorry," he said, softly enough that she wasn't sure Elizabeth could hear.
Oh shit.
The audio had been on since they'd been in the room.
He wasn't here to deliver the documents. He was here to tell them their plan was up.
He correctly interpreted her silence as shock. "It's the most humane thing to do," he added, in what he probably hoped was a reassuring voice. "All of her preliminary data reports that it's suffering."
. . . what the hell? What was he talking about?
Was he talking about Vash?
"I have to go," he said suddenly, interrupting her sudden intake of air. "I need to check in with Dr. Shrew. If she's already moved on to checking Ms. Thompson's test results . . . Just . . . I'm sorry." Before she could even get a word in edgewise, he'd spun on his heels and begun to retreat.
"Wait! What do you mean?"
He didn't stop. He headed out of the room without a second glance, shaking his head. Probably growling at himself. She started to follow him when Elizabeth spoke.
"Meryl, wait."
She hesitated, letting the doors close behind him, and didn't turn.
"But-"
"We need to wake Millie up. Now."
Meryl slowly turned. Had he said –
It's the most humane thing to do. It was in pain.
He was sorry. Sorry that something was going to happen to Vash when Dr. Shrew was finished with the tests she was running. Only he didn't know that the doctor was actually still running tests. He figured if the audio features of the surveillance had been turned back on, it meant that the doctor was finished with Vash and had moved on to Millie.
When Dr. Shrew was finished with Vash, she was going to . . . to what? Put him in permanent cold sleep? Kill him?
Oh, god. They had forty minutes – or less – before Dr. Shrew would no longer be able to use the imager thingy. If she even bothered to use all that time on her research.
And if the audio was on, and there was anyone actually listening to it . . . like Sam . . .
"You're right," she agreed. Oh, Millie, I'm so sorry . . .
The engineer had the good sense to wait for Meryl to walk back to the bedside. Millie looked so small against that huge white pillow. So pale, still.
She gently brushed the other woman's cheek with the backs of her fingers, and the furrow between Millie's eyebrows deepened.
"Millie? Millie, it's time to wake up."
- . -
Author's Notes: Yes, you expected something to actually happen, but instead, you got introspective!Meryl. What were you thinking, that I'd actually get to the action? Silly readers. As I always say, any questions brought up in this chapter will be spelled out in later chapters (the question of Millie talking while Knives was completely inhibited will be answered next chapter, actually. I promise.)
However, if you see any plotholes, please point them out? I'd really, really hate to miss one, and I'm counting on all you folks to be my betas! I recently discovered the Stats section of this site, and I was astonished that this thing has gotten almost three thousand hits! (And my Bleach series, Afraid, which I finished ages ago, has gotten triple that. Holy buckets!)
Thank you folks so much for the reviews and the support! And remember, if you see anything amiss, please don't hesitate to let me know! If there's something you'd like to see out of this monster, let me know! If there's something you think could be better, let me know! And thank you for letting me know that you're enjoying this fic as much as I am. ; )