Hmmmm; I got a couple iTunes gift cards for christmas, so I've started watching "Caprica," which is a pretty cool, albeit utter bizarre, show. So I've been effectively 'WTF' ing for the past half hour or so, and then I thought I'd mix some stuff and concepts from "Caprica" with "Fake," so yay! :'D
More out-of-nowhere sci-fi shistuffery! :D
Also... I know ch. 11 is total shit, but ignore it if you want. In all honesty, it's just me being a smart ass. It really has no intrinsic value to the story. P:
Disclaimer: I own nothing. NOTHING. NADA. Not. One. Bit. Of any pre-existing material here. Nor am I making money off of it. Plox for not suing, guys! :)
[Fortschritt]
[Progress]
Jonouchi was sitting by Seto's bed, in his room, looking around somewhat nervously. Leda had stumbled out of the TV room, her blood half coagulated, helped by Hiram. He went to find Seto and saw him sitting on the couch, looking dazed.
He asked if he was okay, helped him up, before being shrugged off as Seto walked hurriedly up the staircase to his room, heading to his bathroom.
"I'm going to clean up, wait in here," he said, and Jonouchi sat down in the spiny-chair that stood at attention by a small desk, rolling around the room aimlessly before stopping and spinning around in a circle beside the bed.
"Having fun there," Seto asked as he came out of the bathroom, dressed in a new shirt and slacks, hair dripping, cleaned up. He smelled strongly of soap- the kind you pick up because it's on sale.
"Spiny chairs are always fun. Betcha never thought about that, huh?"
"Thought of what?"
"Of using a spiny chair for actually spinning around."
"Not like a loon, no. But Mokuba does that all the time."
Jonouchi continued to spin before Seto grabbed onto the beck of the chair, pulling it to a stop in front of him, his chest to the back of it, resting his chin atop the high back of the chair, playing absentmindedly with Jonouchi's messy hair.
"How good is your hearing?"
"What?"
"How. Good. Is. Your. Hearing," Seto asked.
"Um... pretty good, I guess... Why?"
"How much did you hear? How much of what was said?"
Jonouchi didn't answer for a moment.
"...Almost all of it. You think I'm one of the... One of the 'fakes,' don't you? You and Leda and Hiram..."
"Are you?"
Below his fingers, Jonouchi shook his head feverently.
"I don't know. I know that mo- Sadie- I guess you know about Sadie, right?"
Seto nodded before remembering the Jonouchi couldn't see him.
"Yes. The previous Maglightum for the Paladin organization."
"She said something about my being a special kind of 'fake.' That I'm different from everyone," He rubbed his eyes. "You're going to make me say this to Leda, aren't you? That I'm a fake-"
"We already knew that."
"So what else do you know? That I'm the person on the news committing all the murders?"
"Do you know why you're killing all those people?"
"No... I don't."
There was a whoosh of air. Everything was still, and utterly silent.
Jonouchi stood up, walking to the door.
"I should go. See you at school, Seto."
He closed the door quietly. Kaiba didn't move, still leaning on the back of the chair, before moving to walk down to his home office. He sat behind his desk, thinking.
The situation had gotten more complicated. Jonouchi knew, so was he going to tell Sadie? That scientist?
A shrill, automated alarm klaxon sounded from his computer, making him jump before he turned around to see what was happening and turning the volume down.
A box was up on the desktop, with red flashing words-
Security Breech
Mainframe 33149-00027
Sublevel B
Computer 89
Mainframe 33149-00027 was the mainframe in the lab... Computer 89 was Franz's access portal.
Someone was trying to hack the mainframe, to get into the encrypted information. Shit.
"Shit!"
Seto jumped up, walking hurriedly out of his office and the front door, waving away Roland when he tried to ask where he was going at such a late hour. (Late? It was only 9 or so)
Wrenching open the door to his car, he put the key into the ignition before pulling out of the driveway and speeding towards the tower.
Who in the name of god was hacking into his mainframe? The lab mainframe?
He doubted it was Franz- Franz would probably be asleep. And Rotwang had no reason to hack the frame-
That left Erich.
Pulling up into the parking garage behind the tower, Kaiba reached across to the glove compartment. There was a leatherman and a gun. He grabbed the gun before heading into the building.
The receptionist was still at her desk when he stormed into the building, looking extremely angry and holding a gun in plain sight.
He ignored her as she stood up, asking just what the hell he was doing with a gun, as he walked into the elevator and pressed the ground floor button twice.
The elevator couldn't go fast enough. He tapped his foot on the floor impatiently, tapping the gun against his leg. The door finally opened with the customary little 'ding' and he walked quickly through the halls and typed in a security bypass code.
The crackling sound stopped and the doors slid open.
Kaiba waked in with the gun poised to shoot. At the computer terminals against the wall, there was...
Nothing.
Nobody.
But a terminal was on, bathing the dark lab floor in an eerie blue light. Binary and lines of coding flickered across the screen busily, the occasional line of code, letter, or number blinking and staying in place. Setting the gun down on the table next to the terminal, watching as the coding filled in.
"Alright, then," He whispered to himself, "Let's see what you want..."
Number after number, code-line by code-line. The coding filled in, blinking after a moment. The desktop blinked up, files opening and files blinking before closing down.
It hadn't been a few seconds before Kaiba began typing.
The screen blinked a few times before shutting down.
Pulling the gun down with him, he knelt down and opened the cabinet that hid all the wires and connections for the computer. Pulling aside curtains of wires and mounds of tubes, he got to a main information-connection cable. It was fiber-optic film, wire connections, and data link cables, all contained in a metal tube. It could easily be opened if you broke apart the base of it, where it was connected to the floor. Sure enough, it showed definite signs of it.
He opened it up- getting it into the same way the hacker did- and pulled apart the filaments and wires before he found what the wanted. Pulling it off a bundle of data link cables, he got out from under the tabletop and took a look at it. It was simple, old technology, really.
A fiber-optic slew of wires, bundled together with small connection spikes and a small transmitter in it. An old hacking device, to be sure, but one of the must durable and effective types that would be in use. It would have been local, someone in the lab, except there wouldn't be much use for any bit of the fiberoptic setup. Why transmit it to someplace else when you could access it directly- a terminal right there? Nobody could get in here except someone who already did-
Kaiba had his reservations about that goddamned kraut.
And he was absolutely right.
Erich was going to die.
Again.
Even if it meant dragging him all the way back to those ancient, decrepit gas chambers he watched over so long ago to do it.
Or maybe he would strap him in a chair and electrocute him, the old-fashioned way. He smiled at the thought. That would be wonderful. Maybe he would even have a mock news-paper page made up, like with Ruth Snyder's execution.
Oh yes, that would be so nice...
He was to busy fantasizing, fixing the panel that hid the wires in the back of the little hidey-space below, to notice Rotwang walking up behind him, stopping to look in an admonishing manner before going to work on his maschinemench.
The buttery, supple copper had metamorphosed into a clear, shimmery, light crystalline substance- the softest, prettiest, most form-fitting, rigid, and delightfully pliable fabric-looking metal. Where a face would be, there was now a smooth, opaque mask of the same material. It was blank, a canvas wiped clean. Pulling out a tray laden with an innumerable amount of tools, he set to work, getting abjectly lost in his process of divine, never-ceasing creation.
He remembered Joh Fredersen's commission, the girl, Maria, and Hel... Losing Hel... and the anger, directed at Joh Fredersen, that accursed man, that welled up inside him, gushing and grinding through every immaculately preserved vein and artery, every wide plane and microscopic alleyway, keeping him alive utterly defining him-
Until he noticed a person examining the exposed part of his creation's cranium- the processors and speech centers and such. Kaiba was bent over, looking thought bundles of wires and micro processors, taking it all in and cataloging every detail.
"What is it you wish for me to do for you today, Herr Kaiba?"
The simple question was infused with a venomous dose of the same concentrated, rank hate that fueled him.
"What is this?"
"My creation."
"An A.I.?"
"A creation. My creation. A life. And what are you doing here, herr Kaiba? If you're looking for Franz, he's shut himself away somewhere."
"And Erich?"
"What of him? He's gone."
This gave Kaiba a shock- he started jerkily, straightening himself up to a standing position.
"Gone? Gone! What the hell do you mean, gone?"
"I mean he is no longer here. Which is why Franz has shut himself up somewhere."
"Shit. Shit. Whee did you say Franz was?"
"I said I don't know. He's somewhere here. Go look for him, if you want so much to find him."
Kaiba took one last look at Rotwang's Machine Man, his creation, uncertain and on-edge, before turning to leave.
Heading down one of the brightly lit, blank passageways reminded him of the bomb shelters and bunkers from wars long gone. It unnerved him. Eventually he came to Franz's room, where he had most likely shut himself, working on something to get through whatever emotional pain he was going through.
He didn't even bother nocking, just pushing the door open and looking around. Sure enough, there was Franz, sitting in the bed, with an ashtray and cartons of cigarettes littered around him. It smelled disgusting.
"Franz."
"Hm?"
"What are you doing?"
"M'smoking."
"Hurry up and get up, then, I need your help."
"Medicine's in the lab."
"I'll get that in a moment. I need some help concerning Erich."
If Kaiba was unprepared for the ashtray that was thrown at his face, dodging it and letting it crash into the wall and break into tiny crystalline pieces, he was certainly unprepared for Franz breaking down like a small, emotionally disturbed child, muttering to himself and very nearly crying. Standing there, Kaiba listened for a moment, letting Franz relish in his depression.
"Dammit, dammit dammit dammit... couldn't do it I couldn't do it or anything just... damn, shit! Had to fucking leave- not even die!"
"Where did he go?"
The doctor looked up at him, a cigarette stub clamped tightly in his mouth. His age and vulnerability was prominently displayed on his face. A broken man.
"I don't know. I have no god-damned idea. He just up and left."
"Do you know if he'll come back?"
"...No. Probably not. That wouldn't be... him if he came back. He's... he's gone."
"Do you know what happened recently?"
Blue eyes went wide. A hand covered the mouth that held the stub, the smoldering cylinder of tobacco fitting between slim fingers.
"Ah mein gott... He... he hacked something- one of the computers, didn't he?"
"How did you-"
Franz cut off the question.
"It's... if he's already dome something about it, it's not important. You stopped it, right? The hacking?"
"Yes."
"Then he'll come back to try again. I'll wait for him."
"Are you sure?"
Franz got up from the bed, wearing a light linen button-down shirt that stretched down to his mid-thighs. Walking over to a clothes dresser, he pulled out a drawer, pushing aside it's contents to pull out a gun- a Mauser, upon closer inspection.
"I've got everything I need," he said, looking pensively at the weapon. "Everything I need. Go on now, herr Kaiba, get your medicine and go about your business. I will see you another day."
Kaiba left it at that.
A few minutes later, he was back in his car, driving home, a small stockpile of medicine in a bag situated on the passenger seat. He put the gun back into the glove compartment, pulling onto the main road, answering the phone when it rand shrilly. He flipped it open-
"Hello?"
The voice on the other end of the line was hurried, panting, out-of-breath.
"K-Kaiba? Hh-Hey. Need some backup- Dammit!"
The sound of gunshots volleyed through the connection, a ground out scream and something going 'squelch.'
"What- Leda? Leda, what the hell are y-"
"Don't argue! Get down here now! Hiram and I, we're in some deep shit down here! Hff- sonovabitch's won't quit-"
"Where are you?"
"D-downtown, the old train depot. Hurry your ass up!"
"Got it."
The line went dead.
The train depot wasn't but a few minutes from here, if he sped, Which he indeed would.
Ignoring the 'No Right Turn on Red' sign, he twisted the wheel as hard as he could, ignoring the protests of other drivers, he hurtled on down towards the bridge. The train depot was a few block over to the east. Turning through some obscure roads, making a left turn here, and a right two blocks down, he left the car hidden behind a building. Pulling out the gun and patting his pants pocket for his pocket knife (Which was always useful in close-range combat) he jumped out of the car and ran towards the depot, and the sounds of violence. Deciding that having his knife in his hand would be a good measure on his part. Gun poised, ready to shoot, he ran around the corner and was shocked at what he saw. Bodies were everywhere- some up on gears, ground between revived parts of old machinery, the floor was slick with a mixture of blood and dust and dirt, body parts and corpses littering it like it was a mine field. Leda was in the middle of it all, bloodied and angry, her shirt ripped down the back, revealing the cross tattoo- blurred at the edges, black veins spiderwebbing out ad down her arms, up her neck and face, hacking fakes to bits with two swords shaped like crosses. Hiram was working his way through a slew of fakes, not even bothering with weapons, just ripping them to pieces.
It only took a few seconds to register, but it was enough for a fake to drop down behind him. None to quiet, screaming rancid breath in his ear, he spun around and hit it with the butt of the gun, shooting it in it's face. Another one tried to attack him from the side- knifed in the throat, then in the gut. Footsteps resounded above him. On one of the cat walks above, a fake was running above them. Taking the gun and aiming it at the sound, he got ready to shoot off a round when Leda lunged beside him, a fencing move, burying the blade in the skull of a fake before pulling it out and cleaving it in two, down the middle. It fell apart in a sticky shower of black blood.
"Head in the game, Kaiba, can't have you getting distracted."
Hiram materialized next to them in a flurry of dark fog. The three of them, back-to-back-to-back, facing down a legion of supernatural creatures from hell. Like the three musketeers. It was almost comical. Off in the distance, behind a curtain of blood that flew up from another shot fake, Kaiba saw the fake that had been running up on the catwalk. Blond, slim, tall... Jesus.
Taking off from where he was, he nearly lost his balance on a slick puddle of blood, following the pale form around a corner, up another flight of stairs and out onto the roof of the depot.
Skidding to a stop next to the edge of the roof, the figure turned, eyes widening in fear. Red eyes, yellow-tinted sclera. Messy blonde hair. Warm-tinged white skin. A scared expression.
Kaiba pointed his gun, praying he wouldn't have to shoot. Not on this fake, not on him.
"Jonouchi... Oh, God, Jonouchi..."
Stepping closer, observing more, he saw a red-smeared mouth, open and panting heavily.
"Jesus christ..."
"Are you going to shoot me?"
He wasn't standing four feet from Jonouchi now. He could smell the blood- it was fresh blood, too... were there hostages? Humans somewhere in here? He couldn't tell- to much dead blood, to many fakes... To distracted. He was getting to distracted.
"Are you going to Shoot me, Seto? Are you going to kill me?"
If he shot Jonouchi, it would be point-blank, in his abdomen. A direct blow to the stomach, and, since he was using hollow-tipped bullets, the blast range wold expand to cause severe damage to his surrounding internal organs and skeletal structure, effectively liquifying his insides. Basically blowing a big 'ol hole in his stomach. Under normal circumstances.
"Are you going to shoot me? To kill me?"
Three... three times he had asked that, mocking each time...
A mock-looking gun, the way kids pretended to have them- index finger straight, with the thumb up, substituting for the hammer and trigger of an old flintlock, pointed up against Jonouchi's temple.
This wasn't right... something wasn't right here...
"Bang? And I die? Because you shoot me? Because you will it so? Because you want to? Because it'll be pretty?"
Jonouchi spread his arms wide, smiling gently.
"Are you going to shoot me?"
This wasn't Jonouchi. Wasn't Jonouchi controlling his brain, his thoughts or actions...
"Shut up. Who are you?"
"You know me, Seto!"
He cocked the gun, the metallic click resounding off into space.
"Are you going to shoot me, Seto?"
Footsteps thunked heavily behind him, quickly, the click of another gun. Leda walked up beside him, a bit behind him to his right gun pointed at Jonouchi. A laser sight played across his chest. There was one snapped onto the gun Leda held, a more heavy-duty model than his hand gun.
Jonouchi seemed delighted at this recent development.
"Ooh, the vatican handler with the leash on her attack dog. Tell me, are you going to shoot me, too?"
"I'm not much one for guns," Leda replies, snatching a glance at Kaiba.
"What're you gonna do, Kaiba?"
"Yes, Kaiba, what are you going to do? Shoot me? What will that accomplish? I'll just be injured, you won't have any new information. Speaking of which" He turned to Leda, cold eyes looking at her with upmost contempt.
"You do know you were correct anyway, yes? But you- you and your hesitance, you can't act, you don't know what to do! So you simply rattle off excuses of why you just can't move your pieces across the board to this idiot! All the while we crawl around under your nose and leave you the most obvious trails! You humans are truly pathetic," He spat.
"Maybe I'll just shoot you now," Leda's eyes squinted in anger as she fingered the trigger.
"Oh, please do. But then, where would you be? You wouldn't have your so-called evidence, you'd still be a pawn for that priest, the replacement, and your useless pope. We'd still be at a stalemate- we are until someone decides to move a piece," Turning to look at Seto, Jonouchi smiled, all blood staining pointed, white teeth. "Unless the piece decides to move itself. What are you waiting for, Seto," The smile got wider when Jonouchi noticed that Kaiba's hand tightened on the gun's handle, his finger so, so close to pulling that trigger.
"Give it your best shot. Shoot m-"
The sentence was never completed. A loud BANG! echoed around the depot, bouncing off the taller buildings and the cranes. Whatever was controlling Jonouchi wasn't cracking a smile now as it looked down at the giant hole where internal organs had been. Kaiba was right. The hollow-point had expanded. How it was going to be patched up was beyond him.
Black, viscous, gluey toxins dripped down from the wound, splattering in large puddles as Jonouchi's body fell over the edge of the depot's roof, a full three stories in height and onto the tracks that led out over a large, dry canal. Kaiba heard him hit with a sickening 'thump.'
Pocketing the gun, he jumped over the side, ignoring Leda's insistence that he leave it be, and landed gracefully on the tracks before running over to Jonouchi's body. It was disturbingly kind, in all reality.
Looking closely at the wound, Kaiba noted that muscles had been combined or interchanged with fiberoptic, high-durability micro-tissue, that the spinal column hadn't been severed, but his intestines, pancreas, liver- all gone, nothing left in their place but a hole defined by silvery-grey twitching layers of muscle. He had just blown a cavern in his...
His what?
His lover?
And he had probably killed him. He would take him back with him anyways.
Pulling Jonouchi's body up, he carried him back bridal style, going as quickly as he could through the much and grunge that now coated the platform before getting back to his car. He couldn't take him to a hospital, but he could take him to the lab. Back to the lab.
Laying the body... Jonouchi- not the body- in the back seat, making sure it was out of view and strapping him in as best he could, before taking off.
Leda ran out of the depot, Hiram materializing beside her, watching as Kaiba sped down the main road. Overhead, in the dark night sky, thunder clapped and lightning went off, illuminating the sky with purple-white bolts of light. Rain started to patter down. Leda turned to Hiram, seeing him hold her old-fashioned navy coat- bloodied and covered in a number of unmentionable substances- which she gratefully accepted as he held it open for her to shrug on. Stowing the gun and the swords, she drew the coat around her and headed off, Hiram keeping pace with her, grabbing for her dangling hand, clenching and unclenching on itself. She leaned up against him.
"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"
What do you mean by the right thing?
"Getting mixed up into... all of this. Letting Kaiba take that shot. Doing the things I do."
What do you think?
"I think I don't know. I don't know anything right now- I don't know if I'm right or wrong or if I even believe in what I'm supposed to be fighting for..."
Whatever you do, I know that you'll choose the right path to go down, that you'll do good. I have faith in you. Now, Leda, may I ask something of you?
"Ask away."
If you were ever faced with a... situation like the one on the roof, if I was ever the one you were ordered to kill me, would you 'take the shot'?
"...I would do whatever would be right, Hiram."
Even if it meant costing me my life? Even if it meant nights alone or never seeing me again, and never looking back?
"...Yes."
Moving a pale arm around Leda's shoulders, Hiram drew her into a one-armed hug, holding her hand and leaning into her hair, inhaling the soapy, sweaty, bloody scent of what she had just done.
You are doing the right thing.
[Ende ch. 13]
Wow. Like, wowowowowowowowwww. This is getting heavy. With a new development. Which will be explained.
Thanks for hanging in there so far, guys! It's almost time for this story to draw to a close, so... wish me luck in finishing it! :'D