Disclaimer in previous chapter. Please see Author's Notes at the end.
-x-
She didn't dare move, not until the door slipped silently back into place. The joint was seamless, the door seemed to expand slightly when it slid into the closed position, so that there wasn't even a line in the irregular but smooth cement.
The door had been there the entire time. There could be one in every room that had an outside wall.
That was how their invisible caretakers were moving about so freely.
Twins, he'd said. Wright and Librett, if memory served. Entertainment directors. Which made them the actors.
Stryfe was still trying to pull herself together, and Elizabeth left her alone, focusing instead on the man in her lap. Aaron was deeply unconscious, it looked as though someone had grabbed him around the throat. That was very forward, more aggressive than they'd been in the past. Right up to him, right in line of sight.
And he still hadn't managed to stop them.
She juggled him awkwardly – he was damned heavy as dead weight – and gritted her teeth when her wrist twinged in protest. Still, she was in pants, at least, and managed to wriggle her way out from under him, being careful of his head. He'd collapsed just about face first into her, and rolling him onto his back was very much like shoving ductwork into a bulb's u-bend. If he hadn't been a person, she would have used her feet.
But he was a person.
He was her only person. The only one she had left here, if what Knives said about Vash was true.
Not that there's any reason to believe him. The fear clutching at her throat was false, it was drugs or hormones and it was not her own. Vash was clearly not dead, Knives would never have spared Meryl. Would never have played with her. He was observing her behavior, that was certain, but why . . .? It wasn't like she was going to suddenly pull a grenade launcher out of her pocket and fight back. There was no reason to fear her responses, she was no threat.
Unless it had something to do with Vash . . .?
Elizabeth arranged Aaron's arms into a more natural looking position, and hesitated before smoothing back his hair. He looked terrible. She hadn't really seen him in seemingly forever, really hadn't been looking, but her own real adrenaline was combating whatever it was being done to them, and she could see the dark circles, the deep lines around his eyes and mouth.
Pain, she realized abruptly. He's in pain.
"Why . . . ?"
Elizabeth didn't bother to look up, intent on the front of his jacket. Had they injured him? Had he been hiding a previous injury from them? "Knives was testing you, Meryl. He wanted to see what you'd do." Carter did not move a muscle as she opened up his jacket, and she ran her hands down his sides, testing his ribs. They seemed intact. She didn't feel any significant swelling anywhere along his abdomen.
"Is he okay?"
She rolled his undershirt up, expecting to see the handprints on his chest. The ones on her wrist had only faded a little, so it would stand to reason that the original rashes would still be there -
It was just, they didn't stop there. They were present down his belly, down his sides, even crossing the waistline of his trousers. Not always a full handprint, sometimes just a line, like one finger, or –
Elizabeth very, very carefully did not panic. She rolled his shirt down and began the process of fastening his jacket. "He's fine." It was hardly more than a whisper, and she summoned the haughtiest tone she could. "Were you planning on sitting there gaping like a thomas calf all day, or are you going to help me?"
Meryl made a strangled sound, but finally started getting to work on the knife that somehow miraculously hadn't removed her hand at the wrist. And Elizabeth forced herself to look at her. To really look.
Meryl Stryfe. Insurance saleswoman. One of Vash's people, without doubt, even after all this time. Especially forbidden from coming to Eden, if Knives was to be believed. The diminutive woman had slipped her right hand into her sleeve and was using it to protect her fingers as she worked the double-sided blade back and forth. It was buried deep in the cement floor, and it couldn't weigh very much so it had to be ridiculously sharp and thin.
It didn't help that Meryl was shaking too hard to really grasp anything. Or that she was still panting, on the cusp of hyperventilating as it all sank in. With these chemicals on top of all of it –
Actors indeed.
Elizabeth glanced back towards the main door with a half-formed thought of getting the other woman a sip of water, and one of their 'entertainment directors' returned her gaze levelly.
The engineer couldn't help her sudden, violent flinch backwards, she fell back directly onto her fractured wrist and the joint gave, sending her falling further onto her elbows. He was only a few feet away, but he did not reach out. And he could have; his arms were unnaturally long, with graceful fingers reaching nearly to his knees, and they were covered with what looked like a fine white down. All of his exposed skin was covered with it – and nearly all of his skin was exposed – and she watched it dance as the air from her sharp exhale reached him.
He couldn't have been more than five feet tall. His eyes were a faded red, and they watched her without emotion. He didn't even blink.
Elizabeth swallowed hard, pushing back so she could sit up and get more distance. In reply, he took a step towards her. Her next scoot brought her to the corner, there was nowhere to go, and still he watched her, unblinking. Then he took another step.
Into the room.
His eyes slid from her, and only then did it feel like she could breathe. He was wearing cloth, what looked a bit like a miniskirt woven from the same down that covered his skin, and she could see that his legs were also long, and that his torso seemed unusually short for his height. There was not the slightest sound as he moved; the air slid over the white filaments absolutely silently, like the wings of an owl. And as he moved, it was just like Carter said.
The light seemed to move around him. Once she lost sight of his eyes, he blended into the white world around them.
But not flawlessly. She could still see him. Aaron would have seen him coming.
There's no shadow, she realized suddenly. Though she could barely make him out, striding unhurriedly towards Meryl, there was no shadow at all, not even when his feet were a mere millimeter from the surface of the floor.
Meryl.
The other woman had noticed, and done exactly the opposite thing she had – Meryl seemed to have stopped breathing altogether. She still had her right hand wrapped around the knife blade, it was hard to tell if she was shaking from fear or exertion, and inexorably, the strange man continued forward.
Elizabeth swallowed again. "So are you Wright, or Librett?"
Meryl was trapped. And she had a weapon. Could they use the knife to fend off this . . . this person, or would that be a violation of their agreement?
Maybe that was why Knives left it.
The strange man did not turn at her voice, though he came to a stop just in front of Meryl, whose hand slipped from the blade as she leaned back as far as she could. She could have wriggled out of the jacket, it looked like she'd thought of that because it was unbuttoned and it exposed more of her skin –
And the man reached elongated fingers forward – and grasped the blade. It released from the cement effortlessly, he had leaned down and back up all in one smooth movement, and he studied the knife for a moment before he tucked it into the down on his left forearm.
Then he lowered the arm, but the blade did not fall free.
He didn't speak; without pause he continued towards the outside wall that they now knew concealed a door, and then he walked through the cement and was gone.
Elizabeth blinked.
That . . . that was impossible . . .
. .. that was impossible. No one could walk through a solid wall.
He was just, quite simply, no longer visible. He was still right there in the room with them, and there was not even the slightest outline of him, even though she knew exactly where to look.
Unless he'd already moved.
Meryl made a soft choking sound, withdrawing her unpinned hand to her chest and clutching her jacket closed. For a moment, they simply stared at the spot where he had last been visible, and then Elizabeth forced herself shakily to her feet.
This door, at least, was off limits. And she was not going to leave Aaron alone in the room with . . . with that.
"Meryl." Her voice sounded tight to her ears. "Help me move him."
The other woman drew her legs closer to her chest but was unable to push herself to her feet without the use of her hands, which were frantically trying to mash button into slit. She wasn't having a lot of luck but it didn't matter how wrong the order was, so long as the jacket was closed. So long as the amount of skin exposed was minimal. Whatever the drugs were, it had to be on those tiny tubules, they looked like tiny pearled feather shafts. They weren't long enough or hard enough to penetrate fabric.
"Meryl."
She put her shaking hands on the wall and managed to get to her feet, edging around the room. When she was close enough to be of help, Elizabeth picked up one of Aaron's arms. "Take the other. We'll drag him."
He was truly dead weight. She had dragged unconscious bodies before; she'd knocked out her instructors on more than one occasion as a teenager, but none were as rag-dolled as Carter. It felt like one good jerk was going to pull his arm out of socket entirely, and the uniform slid with a human-like hiss on the concrete floors as they half fell, half sprinted out of the room into the hall.
"Kitchen." It was the place their meals were delivered, each one a white plate containing mostly white pastes, and it had windows on two walls. It would have a door, hopefully a door they could quickly find and utilize.
"We need to get out of this building." Stryfe just nodded. Get someplace where everything wasn't so damn white. Where it might be easier to see these guys.
It seemed Meryl's instict was right. Knives had begun collecting a new crew of mutated humans. A new set of Gung Ho Guns. Which meant that handprints and fear were the least of what these men could do. And now that one of them had revealed themselves, now that one of them had walked right up to Aaron and grabbed him –
They were getting more daring. It was time to respond.
The kitchen was located diagonally from the room they had left, and traversing the hallway backwards was terrifying. Every step, it felt like something soft brushed against the side of her jaw, and Elizabeth rubbed it anxiously against the stiff fabric of the uniform collar. It was only a few more steps to the other room –
And a glance showed that three plates had been set out for them, on the floor of the room, in a neat triangle. Just like before. Some type of colorless, brewed liquid. A blob of white vegetable paste. And a perfect circle of mashed ivory protein.
She didn't even try to pull Aaron around them, he was too limp and unless she had had his wrist in her hands she wouldn't have known he was even still alive. It didn't look like he was breathing at all. "We've got to get him to Doc," she heard herself announce, calmly, as if Carter was nothing more than a valve needing replacement on the fourth conduit on the left. She accidentally knocked over one of the white ceramic cups with a clatter that made them both flinch, and the beverage that had tasted like tea when she had dared to try some ran across the perfectly level floor. "Meryl, hold him."
Elizabeth released his wrist onto his chest, unwilling to drop it entirely, and headed immediately for the walls. They'd checked them for cracks previously, she had personally run her hand along all of these walls, so how the hell did they trigger the doors . . .
The engineer cast her mind back. Knives had simply walked towards the wall and it had opened, but they'd all done that. He'd said they had to remain within a certain distance of the building, so clearly there was a way to leave, but how . . .?
How had the doors in the ship worked? She'd just walked right to them, but of course she knew where they were –
And they had never opened while she'd just been pacing, like in Millie's room. They didn't operate on motion alone.
She pictured the aperture in the other room, and its distance from the window, and then she walked purposefully towards the wall in the same place. Just about the time she was pretty sure she was going to run nose-first into cement, she saw a bar of sunlight.
On her left.
She collided with the side of the doorframe, but not too hard, and shoved herself away a bit too forcefully to cover the blunder. It didn't matter if their captors saw her mistake. They knew how to get out.
"Elizabeth-"
She turned on her heels, quickly crossing back and taking hold of Aaron's forearm again. "Let's just get him out, okay?" She knew they wouldn't be able to easily drag him through the grass, but her need to leave their prison was just too great. Out there was salvation, and in here were horrors-
But Meryl was looking back the way they had come. There did not appear to be anything in the doorway.
"What?" She couldn't help her sharp tone. "Move, Meryl-"
Meryl licked her lips. "Look." And she jerked her chin at the floor.
There was a footstep through the spilled tea, as if someone in socks had just paced through. And the cup that had been knocked over was standing upright. The wet footprint continued, fading slightly as the liquid was left behind, towards the door. The strides were very long, and the footprint stopped just before the doorjamb.
Meryl had been standing right there. Right next to that cup, and had apparently felt nothing at all.
"Out there or in here, they're going to stay with us." Meryl's voice was hoarse, but steady for the first time since Knives had visited them. "It will be night soon, and it'll be cold. He's already in shock. If we try to spend the night out there, he could die."
Elizabeth straightened, letting her eyes flash. "I am not leaving him here alone-"
Stryfe shook her head, once. "I'm not asking you to. I'll go find Doc and bring him back. Stay in this room until I get back, okay?"
That was a simply terrible idea. "There are two of them, Meryl, if we split up we don't have a chance-"
And the other woman gave her a wan smile. "We never had one of those."
There was nothing to say to that, and Stryfe squared her shoulders and walked past her into the late afternoon light.
-x-
Wind touched her face, seemingly for the very first time, and Meryl Stryfe sucked in her first breath of Eden.
It was hard to enjoy it; she choked, and covered the cough as best she could so as not to alarm the statuesque engineer that was staring after her, face expressionless. They only had time for a quick glance before the door shut, and suddenly there was a wall there, whole and complete.
Meryl eyeballed the distance from either window. Four point three feet from the window on the right, and another three feet to the edge of the wall, and four point three again to the next window.
Sometimes being an insurance claims investigator came in handier than one would think.
"I'll be right back," she called at the house, as loudly as she dared, but Elizabeth never appeared by either of the windows, and Meryl found herself heavily resistant to the idea of peeking in. It was better to find that scene when she had Doc.
And Milly.
Meryl consciously refused to bite her lower lip, put on her best negotiating face, and turned on her heels to face Knives' Eden.
Their 'house' was a low, one story structure, with the same cement on the outside as in. It wasn't alone; smaller versions dotted the hillside as it curved increasingly steeply up to a tall cliff-like face. Scaling that would be difficult, and with the low shrubs and grasses as the only cover, only the new Guns could manage it unseen. To her left was an enormous mansion, it looked as if Knives had scooped it directly from one of the richest neighborhoods in December or Mei and transplanted it directly into his valley.
That was undoubtedly his house. And it was pretty unlikely that he'd let anything as disgusting as a human in there. She'd go there, if she had to, but those other sheds were a better bet.
Meryl shielded her eyes from the glaring suns and gave the valley another glance. There was a larger version of their building, two stories, but just as plain on the outside as theirs. That looked a bit more promising.
. . . or it was the domicile of their two invisible guards . . .
But hesitating would get her nowhere. Aaron was getting worse, not better. And she was about halfway down the gentler slope of the hill, so she had a good view of the valley and any structure that might contain Doc. Besides the white sheds, there were plenty of trees – she recognized them from the garden they'd visited when she'd been forced to take a shot at the female half of the Nebraska Family to save the old couple back in Promotory.
At least she'd thought she had, but later had realized there was no way her derringer had done that, the shot had been so loud, and now she could no longer pretend she didn't recognize it -
Unbidden, her gaze turned back to the mansion. Was . . was he in there . . . ?
If he was, if Vash really was in that house, then Knives would have certainly let Doc in. And there could be a trail that would lead through the grass back to where Doc was!
She started for the mansion quickly, keeping her strides short and her weigh balanced. The ground was uneven and soft, but not in the giving way of sand. It felt . . . strange, through her uniform boots. The grass kept grabbing at her ankles, adding drag to her steps, and she moved out of the highest of it, slightly further into the valley where it was shorter.
Probably because it got shaded sometimes by the trees. One of them, on her right, was gigantic, it stood outside of the main stands, and its roots were long and sinuous, like thick snakes –
No. Not like snakes.
Like Plants.
There were Plants under the tree. In the bright afternoon light they didn't glow, they seemed to be a dull brown like the dirt, and they were plastered to it, too heavy outside of their bulbs to so much as raise their heads.
It was enough to arrest her in her tracks. She knew, of course she knew that Knives had taken them, and each of them had been photographed for Bernardelli's records, so she'd seen what a Plant – at least, a non-humanoid one – actually looked like, but-
But they hadn't looked like this. Vash had always been careful to wrap them in some type of special cloth, protecting their modesty, so only their faces and the limbs that had slipped out had been in those photographs. She'd studied them countless nights, reminding herself that each of those faces, so clearly female and so clearly drugged, each of those faces was as a child being freed from a lifetime of slavery. The confusion and fear in their sightless eyes had been because they didn't comprehend that there was anything outside of the glass world they'd always known.
They were children, and Vash had always had a soft spot for children.
But these . . . these were not children. They were all supple legs – way too many legs – and wings with impossibly long feathers that wrapped around their fully mature female bodies. Their hair was long, it reminded her very strongly of Vash's when it had gotten longer, but it wasn't as long as she would have thought it would be, considering they should never have had a haircut. All blondes.
Just like Vash and Knives.
Though they had no irises or pupils, though she had been told countless times that they couldn't see so much as they could sense, it felt as if they were all looking directly at her. One of them unwrapped a wing, stretching it up almost to touch the lowest hanging branches of the tree, and then folded it against her side.
They were gathered around something. Something whiter than they were, with hair almost the same color as dirt.
Meryl crept as close as she dared, hands wrapped around the hem of her jacket. It couldn't be . . .
Nothing more than I have done for you.
Knives had left them to lay around their cell – and he had left Millie to do the same.
You are free to assist her, if you wish.
Knives hadn't done anything for her. He'd just left her here. To die.
She was surrounded by Plants. Not humanoid ones. And she wasn't wearing a protective suit.
Millie's eyes weren't sightless, but they weren't seeing, either. Her pupils were tiny pinpricks, though she wasn't in direct sunlight she was lying on her back, with her head lolled to the right and her mouth fallen half-open. Like the Plants, she looked as if gravity was sucking her into the ground. But she was alive. No visible burns like Doc, no lesions. Her lips were badly chapped, but that was probably from the suns. Meryl bit her lip as Millie blinked, sluggishly.
"Heehn."
Her mouth didn't move at all, her jaw didn't open or close, and her lips never twitched. But Meryl was certain it was supposed to be a word. It wasn't a moan, it started and stopped and then Millie took a deeper breath.
"Heehn," she repeated.
Meryl raised a shaking hand and wiped thoughtlessly at a tickle on her jaw, realized it was a tear. She was crying.
"Millie," she whispered.
She was in nothing more than the white hospital robe, no sign of the blanket that she'd been wearing in the cab of the truck. Her bare feet were dirty, but it was probably from the ship, there wasn't any green on them so clearly she hadn't been wandering the grounds. Her head twitched uncoordinatedly to the left, and the Plant beside her did the same.
"Sempai," a hollow voice murmured. "Sempai."
No. It was more than one voice.
Meryl staggered back a step, and all their eyes – Millie's and the Plants – followed her. Millie's guttural annunciation was smoothly covered by their voices.
"Sempai. Sempai."
Meryl felt herself take another step back, and Millie's eyes drifted apart, with the left one watching her and the right one still trapped in the middle of the socket. Her head jerked again, but the right side of her body never so much as trembled. It was the right side of her mouth that had fallen open. It was her right eye that wouldn't move.
Back on the ship. Her right leg had given out. Doc had told her it was a stroke.
"Mille-"
If you attempt interaction with any of my sisters, your life is forfeit.
But how in the hell was she going to get Millie out of there? There were three Plants, she was in the center of a triangle. There was only enough space for her to tiptoe between them and Millie, and she wasn't strong enough to pick Millie up bridal style to carry her away-
But she could carry Millie the same way Vash had carried Knives. Over her shoulder. If she could just get between them and Millie, she could grab the taller girl's arms. It could work.
It would put her within touching distance of the Plants. Without a suit, she was already close enough to get burned. If one of them reached out, if one of them touched either one of them -
Meryl glanced around, terrified she'd find Knives glaring down at her from the mansion porch, but there was no sign of anyone. Not Elizabeth. Not Doc. There was no pair of pale red eyes staring accusingly at her, no rash suddenly appearing on her skin.
Her stomach clenched, and Meryl stepped forward again, closer to Millie.
There were red marks on her right arm, bright on the pale skin. Not a whole handprint, not like them. More like three fingertips had been laid gently on her upper arm, the way one might try to get someone's attention. They'd touched her as well.
White-hot anger began roiling against the ice in her stomach, and Meryl almost tore off a fingernail yanking her fists off the hem of her jacket. One of those wretched twins had touched her. When she couldn't so much as raise a finger against them, they'd touched her –
Then again, someone must have carried her here. She couldn't have come down the valley wall on her own. Someone had brought her here and laid her beneath the tree. And there wasn't enough red on her for it to have been the Gun she'd seen. Doc only had one arm, so it must have been –
Have been –
No. Knives wouldn't have been that kind.
But then . . . the Plants?
She looked at them with new eyes, looked at their faces. None of them looked as they had in the photographs; they did not seem to glow with diffuse light. Perhaps that was why Millie didn't seem to be suffering from Plant radiation? Even their blonde hair seemed oily, like Millie's. But that one . . . with the upturned nose. That was the first Plant that had been removed, Millie had said she called herself Pelu. And the one near Millie's head, with the arch look about her forehead, that one was Tami. The third was lying with her back mostly to Meryl, and had several of her wings wrapped around her, as if she was cold.
"Sempai," they called out, in perfect unison with Millie. Each of them spoke at a different pitch, it sounded strangely like the chants at church.
"I'm here," she tried, a little louder around a thick lump in her throat. "Millie, I'm going to come over to you, okay?"
If these Plants were speaking for Millie, did that mean that she could hear through them? Were they doing what Knives had been doing? Were they acting as her brain?
But if they were, why did she look so terrible? And why did they look so much like her?
"Eh," Millie replied. It didn't sound particularly anxious. More importantly, none of the Plants moved. Nor did they interpret the word for her. They were silent.
So if they did understand her, or if Millie understood her and they understood Millie, then maybe it would be okay.
Did talking to Millie constitute interacting with the Plants?
Who cares, you idiot, she growled at herself. You're almost going to be stepping on them. If Knives could see her, she'd be dead before she ever got close to Millie.
If any of the Plants responded poorly to her, she would be dead as well.
The first step was harder than she'd thought it would be. On the balls of her feet, hardly daring to breathe. It would be easier to pull Millie from her waist so Meryl decided to go for her feet, which meant stepping over the Plant whose back was to her. Her wings were shifting down her sides and her hips, as if she was stroking herself to keep warm.
Was Millie cold, or were they?
"Uhm, hello," and she hated how uncertain she sounded, how fake the brightness was, "I'm going to come and get Millie, okay? She's sick, and she needs some medicine." Medicine might be a foreign concept, she wasn't sure Plants ever got sick in the same way humans did. "She needs help."
"Sempai," they responded, and Millie closed her left eye. The right one remained open but drooped.
Meryl wiped her chin again with her cuff, and took another step. "I won't hurt you." It came out terribly unsteadily. "I just want to help my friend. Is that okay?"
"Unngh." It sounded weary, and Millie didn't open her left eye.
Oh, Millie.
She took another step, letting the grass rustle, moving slowly. Announcing herself as much as possible. If just one of those wings opened, it would touch her.
"I'm going to step over you now." Please let this be alright. "Don't be afraid."
Not like me.
Another step. She was within touching distance of the Plant. She'd specifically chosen the bottom pair of legs to step over, with the smallest set of wings, and she leaned forward a little, hoping to catch the Plant's eyes –
Only the right one. It was staring forward, and her left was closed.
"H-here I go," she faltered, and then she lifted her right leg.
Outside of the stroking movement of the larger sets of wings, the Plant didn't respond.
Meryl dared to step over the Plant, afraid to commit her weight until her toe touched down, just next to Millie's bare ankle. Nothing alarming happened. Millie – and the third Plant – did not open their left eyes. No one spoke.
She waited just a second, then eased her weight onto her right foot, and all three Plants raised their heads.
Meryl jumped a foot into the air with a squawk and flinched hard, unconsciously bringing her feet together and landing less than an inch from the third Plant. She was looking at her with both eyes, hair drifting becomingly around her face, and one of her calf wings reacted, folding itself into that scant distance between them.
Meryl yelped and hopped again, halfway up Millie's legs and now beside the knees of Pelu. The Plant responded to the quick motion by cocking her head slowly to the right. There was no fear apparent in her face, and Meryl danced in place, arms outstretched to keep her balance. The third Plant just watched her.
And Millie opened her left eye.
"Sempai."
As one, all three Plants reached out towards her with an outstretched hand. Pelu was the only one who connected, wrapping her hand around Meryl's right leg. There was nowhere else to go, and Meryl squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the pain.
-x-
"NO!"
The air was searing, his eyes were watering too badly to see but he still strained against the buffeting exhaust, moving one hand in front of the other. The steamer was completely out of control now, the engine had to be half melted and the gases were blistering. The steel pipe he was using to pull himself towards the engine compartment was weakening in the heat, and some of the wrist-sized screws were rending with a terrible metallic shriek.
They sounded like the passengers. They sounded terrified.
"VASH!"
It was incredible how such a tiny person could make her voice carry through the wind, and he grit his teeth and forced his left hand to keep grasping. He had to get there in time, he had to change their course –
He was never going to make it. They had too much momentum, even if he managed to change their direction the steamer would just go into a slide. Their collision with that cliff was all but fated at this point.
BDN had made certain of that.
"Sempai!"
That voice stole all the breath from his chest, and Vash ducked his head, blinking down between his chest and the steamer to see the upside-down, determined little form of Meryl Stryfe crawling laboriously up the ladder.
She'd get seared to a crisp, what the hell did she think she was doing-
If he didn't get rid of that cliff, they were all going to die. Nothing would stop the steamer now, and that was a solid granite wall they were rushing toward. It wouldn't take the same effort as the fifth moon, he could charge and –
Vash braced his right foot against the joint that held the pipe to the roof of the steamer, reaching for the Colt. It would hurt, he barely had time as it was, could barely see, but his aim didn't have to be perfect. There was no settlement for hundreds of iles in that direction, the beam would go straight into space thanks to the curvature of Gunsmoke. It would be safe.
Vash took a deep breath of the choking exhaust, then braced his right arm with his left. A twinge ran through his chest, clearly a warning. He gritted his teeth and tried to remember what it felt like. What it felt like at July. What it felt like in Augusta. He reached deep into that place – and his grasping fingers met a flat wall.
Vash's eyes flew open in shock. The Colt remained intact. The cylinder that Knives had built inside of it had not emerged.
The thought of his brother made his chest twinge again, and Vash cried out in frustration, tightening his fist. Now, of all the times, he couldn't do it? Was he too afraid of the pain?
I have to. They'll die.
He closed his eyes, willing the feathers to grow. Willing himself to feel the static electricity of the cartridge interacting with the Gate within him. Willing his chest to burst into flames, his heart to falter. He threw his arms open wide to the pain. The twinge was more, this time, it was a shudder that weakened his spine, and the force of the next explosion threw him down onto the steamer roof.
"VASH!"
He clung to the scorching metal, felt the heat burning his skin. He still had the Colt in his right hand, what was wrong? He reached out telepathically, searching for any trace of the Plant he knew must have left its imprint on the cartridge, and there was nothing. No resonance. It was as if the gun was not even there.
There was no more time.
His eyes flew open as the countdown in his head expired, in time to see the mottled granite rushing to meet him, to meet them. He was flung far into the air as the engine crumbled like paper against the stone, the metal and the shrieking and Meryl was in the air as well, he reached out with all his might, but his arm did not extend, no feathers, his fingertips brushed empty air and her eyes watched him, unable to believe that he hadn't caught her, and then he struck the rock, he felt his back break-
-x-
Knives opened his eyes, glancing at the screen. Willing it to show him a fluctuation. The idiot had actually tried this time, even if he hadn't succeeded –
And there it was. The smallest possible unit that could be measured. One hundredth of a second in duration.
That could have been anything. The equipment would have picked up the slightest psionic resonance. The slightest telepathic murmur. It didn't indicate that the Gate itself had responded.
It indicated nothing.
Knives shouted in frustration, shoving himself from the tube. This was getting him nowhere. If he suppressed the idiot's awareness and played to his emotions, he got the same result as the first time. He'd killed Rem a dozen ways by now, and not once had Vash given in. This was the first scenario that had gotten Vash to agree to using his Angel arm, but even now-
Even with no memory of what had happened to him, he couldn't overcome the mental suppression. Wherever Vash had gone in his mind to prevent himself from turning, it could not be found.
Damn him. How could Vash know so little about his own powers, and in this condition, still be able to hide that part of himself away? How could he have put it someplace that he couldn't find?
Where would the idiot hide such a thing? There had to be a path-
A long hallway, choked with ash and wind, wooden doors unevenly spaced, falling apart –
Knives took a quick breath, blinking repeatedly.
What was that . . . ? He hadn't seen that in Vash's mind. Vash's mind was filled with empty space, a universe with diffuse light created by millions of tiny stars. There was nothing like that -
A broken bulb. The glass from the outer bulb had come down around him, slicing the back of his hand. The air was choked and opaque with the ash and dirt of the destroyed settlements. Static leapt from cloud to cloud, providing the only illumination.
That image of the doors, it felt just like that place. That place that Vash had let him see.
His Eden. His mind.
What the hell . . .?
Knives closed his eyes, willing the flash to come again. A hallway . . . but it was like grasping water. The broken moment of a forgotten dream.
A dream. Perhaps when he had been unconscious, the inhibitors and the production Plant –
The spider.
Knives felt his eyebrows furrow in irritation. That damned woman. He'd meant to leave her with instructions, but the footage showed it had gone much further than that. Much further than he'd intended.
Was it possible . . .? Was it possible he had actually formed some type of telepathic bond with her? If she had seen what Vash could see, that would mean she'd had access to his mind. That would mean it had gone both ways.
If it had gone both ways . . . no. That was unthinkable.
What had the spider seen? What did she know?
Knives opened his eyes, staring blankly at his brother's forehead. Controlling the mental construct the way he was doing revealed every thought Vash had as he had it. Four times now Vash had sensed something wasn't quite right, had sensed something amiss, and he was certain that was contributing to Vash's subconscious realization that he was not really in danger.
Had the garbage somehow left something behind? Something Vash could sense on him, like the scent of a lascivious woman brushing against his coat in a crowd? Just the thought repulsed him, made his skin crawl.
What had the woman done?
-x-
Author's Notes: I know you guys are very worried about Millie, and I'm afraid I haven't really dispelled that issue yet. Sorry. I promise that I will, in gory detail, but it will probably take a couple chapters. It really depends on Knives. He's been calmer than I plotted him to be, all those months ago, and it's kind of screwing with me. I guess I should have figured he'd be a pain in the ass.