Disclaimer in previous chapters. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
(Yes, an update. It's real. ; )
- . -
The twin suns were no more or less bright than usual –so much for the claims they were burning out. The sky was blue, but not any more intensely than usual. Though she searched the heavens for several long minutes, there was no single quality she could tuck away into her memory, nothing for her to pull off the shelf and say 'This is what I saw the morning we let Knives wake up.'
It was almost disappointing. There was nothing special about the morning. Not one thing.
Doc stretched on his perch, a folded up tarp that had served as the night's extra windgard, though it hadn't been necessary. The tents they'd pilfered from the ship were amazing – like nothing she'd ever seen. They anchored well, breathed without letting out the heat, and were still slick and clean despite the night's winds. Similarly, the rations they had taken were convenient and filling. A meal that cooked itself, and left you only with a shell container that you threw away rather than washing.
Doc hadn't eaten much of his. He was old, and small, and probably didn't need much food, but it worried her. He was not feeling as well as he was pretending to. And he was pretending to because they needed him to be fine.
They were all pretending, for the same reason.
Meryl Stryfe gave up her search of the sky and instead let her gaze fall across the desert past the old man's wrapped shoulder. Aaron was out there somewhere checking to make sure they weren't going to be unfortunately interrupted in their morning endeavor to prevent genocide. It would not do to give Knives any more ammunition than he already had. No one had gone with Carter; though it was dangerous, she was pretty sure he preferred the solitude.
Elizabeth, the only one of them available to have gone with, was leaning on the opposite side of the truck from Doc, keeping one eye on the production plant and the other firmly fixed on something only she could see. Meryl doubted it was a blue-coated traveling priest.
Wolfwood would have had no trouble doing what they had failed to do last night. She was sure of it.
Meryl's eyes fell of their own accord to the sand gathering against the truck tire, her ears pricking back to the one tent they hadn't broken down yet. The fabric was snapping a little in the breeze, but the sound was soothing and random enough to drown itself out into so much background noise. It wasn't what she was looking for, and it wouldn't interfere with her hearing the sound she was listening for. The sound she wasn't going to hear, at least not for a while.
Millie hadn't woken.
She hadn't so much as twitched when Aaron had gently picked her up out of the cab and transferred her into the tent Meryl had hastily set up. That wasn't strange, after all; she probably hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few days, not if that terrified look she'd worn in the infirmary had been any indication of her stay at Knives' side. But as they lessened the drugs, her sleep had changed. Meryl was an expert; she'd shared untold nights with the other girl, and the sound of Millie's breathing was something she actually missed when they had separate rooms.
Something about it changed. It was slower than it should be. Shallower. It lacked sound that wasn't really there, that teasing echo of a happy sigh on every breath that indicated Millie was in the midst of some pleasant dream. The closer Knives came to consciousness, the less Millie was Millie.
But of course that was going to happen. She knew it was going to happen. When Knives opened his eyes, Millie might stop breathing altogether.
All of them might.
Gravel and sand crunched out to her left, but Meryl didn't bother to watch Aaron approach. The horizons were clear, then; he'd climbed to the top of the rock outcropping and that was the highest thing for miles. He'd dislodged the carrion birds earlier, and the racket they made reminded her unpleasantly of a man in a white coat, and the feeling that they weren't going to go far, not when they had pretty much been handed a meal that cooked itself, and would leave behind empty shells to be thrown away.
"How much longer?" The engineer had a knack for thinking along the same lines, and it was really starting to irritate Meryl.
"Not long," Doc reassured her, his tone dry. And, as usual, he wasn't wrong.
By the time Aaron had finished his walk back, confirming with a look that there would be no interruptions, Knives was already beginning to come around. She could tell it in his eyes, the lines around them deepening as he became aware of the sun. He was in the shade of the trucks, laid out on one of the same cots they had all slept on, wrapped in the same blanket his brother wore. Vash was beside him, within touching distance despite Elizabeth's protest.
If Knives couldn't move, as Doc said he wouldn't be able to, there was no need to put him that close to Knives. Doc simply wanted to make sure that Knives could see him well enough to understand what they were going to tell him was the truth.
Not that they were likely to get the same courtesy in return.
It was frighteningly like watching Vash wake up. When she'd taken care of Knives at the house, he had always been fully aware of his situation; she'd never seen him unguarded like this. His eyes slitted, then closed in resignation, just like Vash when he realized it was morning and he was going to have to get up. The second attempt came almost immediately after, the settling in of memory. The realization that something horrible had happened.
How many times she had seen Vash wake in a panic.
Blue eyes, lifeless ice without the green, flew open before they were ready. Knives sucked down the deepest breath he could, and had he been Vash, he would have been sitting bolt upright. True to Doc's word, however, little besides his Adam's apple jerked as he tried, and short, sharp gasps cut the morning air.
Knives wasn't as good with pain as Vash was, Meryl reminded herself.
Doc opened his mouth and spoke.
"Good morning." His voice was calm. "I took the liberty of giving you a mild stimulant. We needed you cogent. You have noticed you cannot move or access your Plant-derived abilities. This is temporary."
No one had protested Doc's plan. Knives wasn't likely to honor any agreement he couldn't remember.
He twitched at the voice, barely, his head turning slightly towards the sound, with wild white eyes. Doc gave him a slow smile. "We will not harm you," he continued, in the same calm voice. "I will give you a moment to gather your bearings."
Meryl didn't miss Aaron's hand shift subtly to his pistol. She knew she wasn't taking her hand off hers until she was sure Knives was back under. The look on his face was making the hair on her arms stand up.
Knives, for his part, did essentially as Doc had instructed. After another hard look at Doc he rolled his eyes upward, catching sight of the rock outcropping they had taken shelter beneath. A landmark on the way to Eden, Doc had predicted. His eyes passed over the top of her head; Meryl had purposefully placed herself outside of his expected field of vision, but she was still close enough to be useful if necessary.
Knives did not appear to be eased. When his exploration finally concluded with a glance to his right, his breathing became curiously deeper, and increasingly steady.
Just like Vash, he had assessed his situation and determined a course of action. Without any input from them at all.
"He is still alive," Doc assured the Plant. "But I will not lie to you. He's not well."
From her angle, it was impossible now to see the expression on Knives' face, just the line of his cheekbone and his hair. His Adam's apple bobbed again, but he did not speak, and after a moment Doc's smile drooped and he continued.
"As you can see, we're taking you both to Eden. We've woken you to ask for your help."
Knives did not shift his attention back to the doctor. "Why?" His voice was not as raspy as she thought it would be, nor did he slur like Millie had. In place of these imperfections was a deep malice, too familiar for comfort.
No matter how calm he appeared, he was every bit as incensed as he had been the last time she had spoken with him, and if he could have moved, they would all be worse than dead.
Giving him this chance had been a mistake.
Doc, however, seemed completely unruffled. In answer, the wizened old man shifted his gaze to Vash. Vash was covered up to his shoulders, to keep him warm in the cool morning air, and he looked as he had the night before.
"Vash's installation was not completed without its problems." Doc gave Knives time to interrupt, but the Plant's sole attention was on his brother. Meryl did not mistake it for patience. "He produced minimal amounts of power before he was uninstalled. The chemicals necessary to force the manifestation of his Gate interfered with his transition back to his humanoid form. Presently his Gate is completely inactive."
Standing slightly apart from all of them, Elizabeth shifted. Knives' attention drifted to her only briefly before his eyes bored once again into Doc's. They had cooled visibly from his initial surprise. "So what."
Meryl almost stopped breathing.
Doc, however, gave the Plant an apologetic smile. "I cannot save him. If his Gate is not reactivated, he will die."
Knives managed a disgusted snort. "Obviously." It dripped with dismissive scorn. "And? You expect me to believe you spared me to save him?"
"Yes," Doc answered plainly.
Knives closed his eyes, either against the sun or their apparent lack of any discernable intelligence. "Then why are there still inhibitors in my blood?"
"Make no mistake, we also intend to survive." They had all agreed earlier in the morning to let Doc do the talking, given how handily he had manipulated them the night before. She was starting to doubt the wisdom of that decision. Talk about putting their cards out on the table. "I could think of no other option that would guarantee us the opportunity to speak."
Knives was silent a moment, eyes still closed. "You want me to spare your lives in return for the privilege of watching my brother die from the damage you spiders inflicted?"
"We didn't put him in that bulb," Elizabeth suddenly blurted, and Meryl's eyes widened when she saw the look on the engineer's face. Elizabeth was no longer leaning against the truck, and her elegant fingers were twisted into fists. "Don't lay there and pretend this wasn't your fault!"
Knives' eyes blazed open, and his head partially rose from the cot. "How dare you-"
Aaron had moved when she did, both of them had pistols in their hands, but Knives did not rise magically from the cot with his Angel arm fully extended. She could still see the tops of his shoulders, his arms and back had not moved –
"They went after him to get to you, Knives! They knew you caused the Great Fall!" She took a step towards the cot, visibly shaking. "They only managed to catch him because he was so exhausted from trying to follow your goddamn rules! Anyone could see he was falling apart, and you did nothing to help him!"
"My rules?" It would have been a sneer if Knives had not been so furious. "My rules? If Vash was following my rules you would be atoms bonding to the ashes of your worthless parents!"
She reeled as only Elizabeth could, a slight wounding in her eyes, never affecting her carriage. For a moment there was silence, and the snapping of the tent canvas behind Meryl. When Knives spoke again, his voice was deceptively calm. "Never again speak of that which you do not understand."
"We understand." Meryl heard her own voice as if someone else was controlling it. As if Legato was making her speak instead of her own brain. "We understand that you'll use this as an excuse to claim your agreement with Vash is broken."
"And the validity of that can be deliberated at length," Doc cut in, seeing an opportunity to regain control of the conversation. "However, to do that, all parties must be capable of speech. I perhaps better than any of the others understand what you are capable of, and the risks involved with letting either of you survive. Still, I propose just that. Grant us safe passage to Eden. I will help you as much as I am able. Once Vash has recovered, there will be plenty of time to worry about the future."
Knives cut his eyes back to his brother, and the tent snapped again in the sudden silence. Elizabeth was visibly holding herself back, back straight and chin high, and Meryl didn't dare look to Aaron. He had to be feeling the same; this was not going well, and it was not going to end well. Letting him see Vash like this, and expecting anything from him-
"You're wrong, old man." Knives' voice was quiet, and rock-hard. "On every count but one."
Doc slowly slumped, his smile growing weary. "Then I look forward to being educated."
Meryl blinked. Somehow she had heard nothing that sounded remotely like agreement, rational discourse, or sanity, but Doc was relaxing as if the battle was over-
"And what of the inhibitors?" The way Knives said it, so casually, it was as if it wasn't even a question.
"A gesture of goodwill," Doc said expansively, and this time it was Aaron to step forward. The old man raised a few fingers to forestall any further interruption, however, and his smile was as enigmatic as usual. "When you awaken in Eden, I shall turn over the remainder to you myself."
Of course. Even Doc wasn't stupid enough to let Knives off his chemical leash until they were safely in the homicidal Plant's private stronghold. Particularly since no humans were allowed to know its location, so naturally arriving there was equivalent to a death sentence even under the twins' supposed agreement.
As she'd pointed out last night. Meryl stared at Doc until she caught his attention, then raised her eyebrows. He gave her a short nod in return, and Knives' eyes followed. He was getting more motor control; this time she was certain he glimpsed her.
"You and the engineer I may tolerate. No one else."
Doc shook his head, slowly. "I'm afraid not," he corrected. "There was no practical way to hide the path to Eden from them. I do not believe excluding them at this juncture is in any party's best interest."
The way Doc had so carelessly phrased it, it was the most reasonable sounding threat Meryl had ever heard. Knives responded by baring his teeth.
"Oh, I know what you're going to say," Doc interrupted him smoothly. "And you will guarantee our safety. Until Vash recovers, I will have your word that we are secure in your care."
Knives lips' curled in contempt. "And what do you suppose will happen when he doesn't?"
"We are ready to take that risk for those that are dear to us." Doc's voice was very soft. "Millie Thompson is also very badly hurt, and I would insist on your assistance in healing her. She played a vital role in saving both you and your brother from permanent installation, as well as rescuing the production Plant from the ship."
At the mention of her name Knives' face seemed to grow a touch sterner, but when Doc mentioned the other Plant, it melted into something . . . calculating. "Denying them a power source. My, you did think of everything."
It was humorless, touched with condescension. And however backhanded a compliment, it made the hair on the back of Meryl's neck stand up. Elizabeth looked ready to speak again, but something made her pause, and a quick glance at Carter revealed only wariness.
"Naturally," Doc murmured. "Ideally, once Vash and Millie have recovered the current process will go forward. We are not interested in interfering with the transition from Plant-based power to other means."
For a time the Plant was silent. Though he hadn't gone about it the way she might have, Doc had done a pretty good job of laying out options. It was still colossally foolish, but Knives had very little choice but to agree.
Then again, that was a foregone conclusion. Of course he was going to agree. The devil was in the details.
"If you are truly so attached to my brother, I can expect that you will abide by his wishes?"
Doc's eyebrows climbed half an inch. "Vash is very dear to us indeed. And if he, free from influence, also determines that all of humanity should be exterminated for this offense, I don't see that we would have a choice."
There was a flash of dry humor in the ice. "Your sight is better than I thought. Very well. I will grant your party passage to Eden. If you operate within my rules, you will not be harmed."
And there it was. The capitulation without the surrender of control.
"And what are your rules?"
Knives' eyes bored into Doc's face, unblinking. "You will surrender all weapons, including chemicals, prior to crossing the border into Eden. Once you have arrived, you may not attempt to leave. You will remain in the designated area. You will not interfere. You will not interact with any citizen of Eden."
"Will we be provided with shelter from the elements, and provisions, or should we bring our own supplies?" There was not the faintest hint of sarcasm. And it was a good catch; as far as those rules were concerned, the 'designated area' could be as large as the amount of ground they stood upon. As soon as they stumbled they would technically be in violation.
The corner of Knives' lips twitched. "You will share the same cells and meals as my other human servants."
Meryl frowned in thought. It was unlikely that Knives would consider any human to be a citizen, so he had just neglected to forbid them from interacting with the human servants. Not that they were likely to get much out of them. A grinning group of Gung-Ho Guns formed in her mind's eye, and she suppressed a shudder. On second thought, forbidding the human servants from interacting with them sounded like a rule to lobby for.
"And forgive me for being so detailed, but do your human servants typically find these cells and meals adequate for survival?"
"For the duration I anticipate."
Doc's smile grew wide. "Perhaps we will take our supplies along in the name of self-sufficiency."
Knives' lips pulled upwards in an expression she had never seen from Vash. "Indeed."
"Then we have an accord." Certainly not a contract. "We shall continue to travel in a northerly direction from this point. Forgive me, but our transportation is limited. For everyone's comfort and safety, I will be keeping you mildly sedated until our arrival."
Surprisingly, Knives closed his eyes. "I would prefer the drugs to further discourse with you."
Doc moved then, unfolding his legs and standing from atop his creased tarp. Knives did nothing. He did not open his eyes nor turn his head as the old man withdrew a syringe from his front pocket and ran it one-handed into the catheter on Knives' right arm. Meryl might have mistaken the gesture for submission had she not spent those hours nursing him back to health last summer; Knives was genuinely ignoring them, plain and simple. He did not catalog them as a threat.
Even as he was falling unconscious, he believed that he'd already won.
And in all likelihood, he was right.
Doc crouched over the Plant a moment, and when Knives' expression melted again into a mask of his brother, the wizened old man straightened. "I think that went as well as could be expected."
Rocks hissed as they were pressed into sand. "So you think Eden really is due north?"
"Close enough, my boy." Doc settled back into his tarpaulin throne and regretfully capped his syringe. "I can put him under deeply enough to possibly rouse our young navigator, but frankly I think it would do her more harm than good. We are well within the general vicinity Ms. Thompson laid out."
"You were too lenient." Elizabeth's face was cold. "You should have forced him to acknowledge his position."
"His position as what?" Doc's voice was mild. "As our prisoner? We can kill him, yes, but all the drugs in the world would never force him to do as we wished. What is the purpose of making him lie to us?" The old man sighed, and ran his good hand up his bandaged arm. "No, my dear. When we made the decision to try to save Vash and Millie Thompson, we gave Knives all the power. What we have done is express to him that we're aware of that."
"That was a mistake," Elizabeth repeated. "He'll see through pandering."
Meryl glanced behind her as the tent snapped. It wasn't pandering. Doc was right; their decision to give Knives the opportunity to talk . . . it was essentially meaningless. What was he going to say? Please kill me? Of course he was going to let them tell themselves that there was a way out of this that didn't end with the extinction of the human race.
The real conversation would take place when they arrived in Eden. They had until Vash woke – or never did – to fight for every last human life on the planet. This conversation had had a foregone conclusion.
The only real choice facing them now was whether or not to change their minds about Millie and Vash.
Meryl felt uncomfortable under their eyes. It was a presence on her shoulders that made her want to twitch. There were loopholes, yes. Specifying that Vash had to be free of Knives' or a drug's influence had been good, but 'interfering' could mean almost anything.
Then again, on page seventy-whatever in the Bernardelli handbook, making contracts with patients under the effect of doctor prescribed sedatives was strictly forbidden.
Millie would remember the page.
Her eyes widened, and she went back over the words in her head. Doc said insist. He had insisted that Knives help. Knives had agreed.
"It's hardly ironclad," she finally offered, then cleared her throat. That was hardly a professional evaluation, Meryl Stryfe! Get it together! "You hit the high points, but we'll need to err on the side of caution. And I expect it goes without saying, but security from any humans that might be in Eden is hardly guaranteed."
Aaron inclined his head.
Meryl hesitated. "He didn't mention that we tried to kill him earlier." Was it possible that he didn't know . . . ? That Millie was able to hide that from him? Would she have?
Doc's eyes were bright as he looked at her. "I noticed that myself."
"There were no closing provisions," Elizabeth noted. "He never said we could leave."
Doc glanced up at the suns, shading his eyes with his good arm. "If Vash recovers, Knives would never tolerate humans remaining in Eden. We won't have to ask; we'll be lucky if we aren't thrown out with only the clothes on our backs."
If Vash didn't, it was all moot. And since those risks and players hadn't changed in the last eight hours . . .
"Mr. Carter, could I trouble you for assistance loading everyone back into the trucks?"
-x-
It wasn't the first time he'd seen terraforming. Several of the uber rich on Gunsmoke could afford gardens of half a square ile or so, and there were some actual fields in areas where water occurred naturally. His duties didn't always leave him sweating blood in stuffy cupboards. He'd seen most of what Gunsmoke had to offer, one way or another.
The outskirts of Eden, from a botanical point of view, were fairly underwhelming.
There were scraggly patches of wiry grass, sufficient to excite a herd of thomases but nothing like the fantastical fields of Earth. He hadn't really expected a sudden line in the sand, lushness to nothing – that wasn't how the real world worked. Gardens only grew that way when rich boys with no handle on how to spend their father's money designed them.
This place, it was designed by a Plant. There was plenty to see in the way the dunes rolled gently. Those patches of grass meant the sand was not transient – this soil would stay more or less put. The hills in the distance looked similarly scraggly, and they had a lovely view for iles and iles.
Eden, more than any paradise, was a military base. There was no cover of anything that would get them through this unseen. The ground was diverse enough that simple camouflage of rock and sand wouldn't cut it. The wiry grass did not appear to have a pattern but it was irregular enough that a moving patch of it would be readily apparent. And it was very likely that at least three sides of Eden were similarly landscaped.
If Knives had left anyone besides the production Plants to guard his home, then they should have been spotted twenty minutes ago, and a decent sharpshooter would have enough time for a shit and a shave and still have ample opportunity to pick them off at his leisure. Sneaking away was not a viable option.
Aaron Carter wiped sweat out of his eyes and scanned the horizon for air disturbances. Anything too cold or too hot would be visible, would indicate tunnels or some other transit system besides what was essentially a dirt road. Would indicate a border. He was leading, with Stryfe glued pretty much to his bumper, so their dust trail looked more like a bus than a convoy, and that was cutting down on extraneous airborne crap. He hadn't picked out anything suspect yet, but it didn't mean it wasn't there.
They'd have to do that surveillance from the other side, then. If they got the chance.
Miss Elizabeth was still and silent beside him. She'd been here, probably enough times that she knew whether or not she'd taken this path before. He didn't ask. It didn't really matter.
Topping the first hill gave him a peek at what lay beyond, which was unsurprisingly still pretty dry. More grass, a few low shrubs. All of this was the planet greedily sucking atmospheric water, it was a symptom of whatever the Plant had been doing, rather than the product. There was no indication of man here, no outbuildings, no footprints in the sand that rolled beneath their tires. No gate with an armed contingent, no trespassing signs.
No fuel pump, either, and he watched the gauge steadily decrease as he climbed a steeper hill. Combining both tanks might get them back to Mei. That would add another few minutes of prep to an impossibly long escape.
Who was he kidding. Their only way out of here was the fourth wall – which wouldn't be like the other three – or some diversion that blew half or more of Eden to hell. And grass and sand weren't all that explosive. Successful circumvention of Knives' rules – or retreat if Knives chose to reinterpret – was not feasible.
The second ring of hills was the last, and as expected, it dipped into a deep valley. The area was too large to be a volcanic crater, though it was certainly in the right area for one, and the fourth wall turned out to be a gently rolling plain that probably went on for two dozen iles.
Only the valley had been terraformed, but it was enough even to distract him for a moment. The shrubs were gigantic. They had to stand at least a dozen men tall, and even an uneducated glance told him there were over half a dozen kinds. Their stems were so broad and dark that he probably could have rammed one full tilt without bringing it down.
There were innumerable sniper positions in that thicket, but it would give equally good cover to them. Especially the insurance agent. She was small enough to probably live up there. The giant ones only went on for perhaps half a square ile, and the rest was what he had come to expect – lush, knee-height grass, interspersed with taller, more structured plants that were in various forms of flowering or blooming.
More importantly, their sand road suddenly became hard-packed dirt, and it led to what was clearly a large, grand house. There were several outbuildings nearby, all squat and square and sterile white.
If ever there was a border, this was it.
Aaron brought them to a halt at the flat ridge that marked the very top of the ring of hills, and let the engine die. There was no sign of live humans. No servants trimming the verge, no wink of motion in the drapes of the manor house. No gun turrets, either. No visible defenses of any kind.
Then again, he supposed the Plant's turret was portable.
With no other option for testing, or declaring their intentions, he opened the truck door and climbed out. Doc had been traveling in the back of Stryfe's truck, and he could see the truck shifting on its struts as someone moved around in the back. Thompson was visible, sacked out in the front passenger seat. She didn't appear to have shifted much. Meryl had similarly exited her vehicle and was taking advantage of the break by hydrating. She was still wearing the insurance agent mantle of cool confidence, but beneath it fight or flight was prominent. She was not as certain as she wanted to appear.
As stupid as it had been not to send at least one of them back, he understood. Even if Knives hadn't figured it out in the ten minutes he'd been conscious, sooner or later he was going to. If Thompson had been that connected to him, it made sense that he could get at her brain just as easy. If there was anything left of it. And if they claimed to be dealing with Knives truthfully, but sent a human back to civilization, one that knew the general location of Eden, it would be the same as reneging.
And at least Stryfe could take care of Thompson. She could have that closure at least.
He turned back to the valley, watching the approach, but there was still no motion. In fact, considering there should have been half a dozen Plants wandering around, he was surprised. Was this a dummy Eden? A hologram to snare unwary travelers?
Quiet voices carried on the twilight air, and he sharpened his attention as Miss Elizabeth exited the vehicle.
She didn't meet his eye, but she did deposit her emergency firearm on the truck seat. Then she closed the door, not quietly, and leaned on it with an attitude of boredom.
He hesitated. Usually it was Sunjy that cautioned her about this kind of behavior in rough parts of town. She was flaunting her best weapons, but that might not be the kind of attention she could fend off here. Not after Stryfe's warnings.
And Sunjy could get away with those kinds of cautions. He'd known her since before she'd developed those weapons. He'd seen the man actually adjust Miss Elizabeth's bosom outright, and at the time, she had simply blushed. None of her other employees, himself included, would dare to take such liberties, but Sunjy had been fearless.
Not for the first time, he wondered how long she could keep it together.
The creak of springs behind him signaled a significant shifting of weight, and Aaron settled into grunt mode before turning and staring through his eyebrows. Doc must have been weaning the Plant off the hard stuff for hours, because Knives was on his feet, with the blanket wrapped almost carelessly around his waist. Aaron knew exactly how much the Plant weighed, and he'd gotten a good estimation of his physique when he was out, but seeing him in motion . . . he moved as if he knew exactly how to use all those muscles. If the hot sand on his bare feet was a problem, it wasn't evident.
Aaron was similarly evaluated, and he remained slightly overbalanced and dead-eyed. Light blue eyes slid past him, perhaps assessing how far they'd come into his territory before waking him, and then the bastard spoke.
"Take them."
Elizabeth was still in his line of sight, always in his line of sight, and he actually saw, clearly, a shaft of light reach out and touch her. She jumped, startled, and the light moved with her-
And the outline of a figure, too vividly green against the more wiry grass of the outskirts.
Pressure, on the back of his neck.
Of course. They weren't moving quickly, so there was no air displacement. No more sound than if he'd reached out to tap Miss Elizabeth on the shoulder.
Aaron turned and made a grab for his attacker, and this time he knew what he was looking for. Something that was bending light. Maybe it was hologram technology, and it didn't work if the background was lighter than the figure.
He was staring at a man. About his height, and rail thin, a double dollar twenty if. Pale, more pale than the sunset, and as the hand withdrew, it almost looked as if it was covered in down. Whoever he was, he moved like a cat, carelessly dodging the attempted grab. Aaron took a step in to shorten the distance between them, and then he was fairly certain he was shot. Multiple hits, simultaneous.
He hadn't heard a goddamn thing, but nothing else would feel like this, unless –
Knives – the guy's name was Knives-
He heard Miss Elizabeth cry out, but he couldn't manage more than a muffled grunt. His legs, his arms, his chest – Jesus, his chest. He could feel his heart seize up and falter. He was on the ground, now, his head arched back, and he could not move the arms crushed against his chest. Could not take a breath. His vantage showed him the underside of the truck, and in his peripheral, always, Miss Elizabeth, curled up grotesquely in the dirt.
-x-
Author's Notes: Uhm. Hello? Hi there! You might not remember me. I started this crazy complicated Trigun fic and then abandoned it like a hot mess for another fandom. Ehm. Hi?
Well, it's been eating at me slowly, and considering it IS planned out, and Mouse keeps reminding me, and Inkydoo keeps reminding me . . . why not! I suppose I really ought to at least let Vash, oh, I dunno, talk? In a fic that centers around him? I apologize for any style changes and the cliffhanger. And I guess you already expect this, but not everything will be explained in the next chapter. It's kind of a lame update, actually. I'll do better next time!