Chapter 46:
Kira roused precisely at 4:00a.m. and found himself feeling a lot better than he had felt before drifting to sleep. His head was resting more solidly on his shoulders; his sight more focused and his thoughts less baffling. He had only been asleep for an hour, but that hour had worked miracles. He shifted, stretched his back and unfolded himself out of his little corner.
Stellar was watching him, her violet eyes glinting under the harsh fluorescence. She was in the chair Kira had occupied in his first shift, her chin on her knees, her feet tucked in. In the same precarious balancing act he had seen her sleeping in.
She was silent until he got to his feet and approached her. Then gazing up at him, she smiled a faint smile, "Morning."
"Morning."
"Did you have a good sleep?"
Kira shrugged, and returned her smile with one of his own. "Not bad." He found an empty chair which he set beside Stellar and straddled it backwards, so that he could fold his arms across the back of the chair.
Auel had changed sleeping positions. He had sank lower down into his chair, arms folded across his chest, head back, pale blue hair spilling over the back of his chair. Sting was still in his little isolated corner, but he had slid down into a lying position, with his right arm thrown back to pillow his head. Both of them slept on despite the scrape of Kira's metal chair against the concrete floor. A survival skill they had all picked up: sleep while you can. Despite their calm and composed appearances, Kira knew too that his team members were not any less deadly. It was just another rule of the game: they were not easily awakened by the mundane sounds around them, but any peculiar sound – the soft tread of an intruder, the soft click of a gun's safety lever, the hiss of a blade scything through air – and they would be jolted out of their sleep as if the very building they were in had been rocked by an explosion. It was an essential skill to master if you wanted to have any decent sleep at all, considering that they found themselves sleeping in odd and foreign places each time they were on a mission.
Kira turned to Stellar and found her staring intently at the monitor which showed Lacus Clyne huddled in her corner asleep. Stellar had her eyes fixed on the screen and she didn't turn back to meet his gaze. He could sense it – the mild tension that still resonated between them, like a smothering fire gasping for air.
"You've got something you want to say to me." It was a statement, not a question.
Stellar turned to him, lilac eyes wide with slight surprise. "I've got nothing to say," she murmured.
He didn't respond to that. Just fixed his own amethyst eyes on her.
Stellar turned away. "It's your decision," she said with a wry smile, "I've got no right to interfere." The words sounded alright. Except for the bitterness in her tone that was at odds with the smile on her face.
"But?" Kira said.
She turned back again to look at him with confusion.
"I can sense a 'but' in that sentence," he gave her a faint smile.
He watched as she hesitated, as if wrestling with herself internally before coming to a decision. "But," she said finally, "I think there's something strange going on and you should find out." Then quickly added again, "Still, it's your decision."
Kira laughed at that. "My decision?" A smirk crossed his face, "You mean the 'my life, my choice' kind of thing?"
"Something like that."
Kira laughed again. "Only problem is, I think our lives belong to Rau."
"That's true," Stellar reciprocated with an amused grin.
They lapsed into an awkward silence again, the topic fizzling out before them, like a taboo that couldn't be spoken about.
"So," Stellar winced, "you're not going to find out more? Even if there is obviously something peculiar about this?"
"It's not in our position to question these things, Stellar," Kira admonished, his tone taking on a more serious one, "it's not about whether we have the right to know or not. It's not about whether we are curious or not. It's about survival, Stellar. If you and I want to live, we're going to have to forget all about this conversation. It's what we've been fighting for all this while – to make sure we stay on Rau's good side and stay alive. That's it. That's just it. You don't want to end up like another one of Rau's victims. You don't want him to send another team of genetically modified bastards to hunt you down. Everything we do now, it's for our own survival." He glanced at Stellar, who avoided his eye and stared at the floor. When she lifted her gaze, her eyes were tinged with redness.
"Sometimes," she whispered. "I wish I could die."
"We all do," Kira said grimly. "But we can't. They won't let us. So the most we can do, is to keep each other alive. And I want to keep you, and Auel, and Sting alive. That's my job. That's why I can't go off and find out who 'Kira Yamato' is. That's why I can't let you find out either." He reached out towards her with a reassuring hand and ran gentle fingers through her blonde locks, brushing them back away from her face. She was like a child, all folded into herself, knees tucked to her chest.
"Besides, if you die, who's going to care for your fishes?" He added, smiling.
That got Stellar's attention. Her eyes drifted towards the glass cylinder set on the desk, in a safe corner away from the mess of computers, monitors and wires. The fishes were still and unmoving in the water, like suspended in open air. Asleep, perhaps. But you could never really tell with fishes. They slept with their eyes open. The team had bought the aquarium for her, when they found out that the side-effects of the medication and drugs made her suicidal. It hadn't been a pleasant discovery. But then again, the rest of the team hadn't been happy learning about their own side-effects either. Still, they had found ways to overcome them, ways to minimize their effect, ways to manage each other when things got out of control. Kira had told her to kill off a fish each time she felt the urge to die. He said that watching the life seep away from another living thing would ease the desires. The first time it had happened, she couldn't get herself to do it. But she realised that just watching the vulnerable little creatures weave their way amongst the weeds, their rainbow scales glinting and reflecting off each other, served as a fine distraction. And so, she found her own little 'hobby'.
She glanced up at Kira, who met her gaze with his soft, warm eyes. "Alright."
"That's our girl," he praised, drawing back with a grin, when she favoured him a smile. "Now," he glanced at his watch. 4:29a.m. Almost time for the final showdown. "Let's wake Auel and Sting. It's time we got ready for our debut performance."
Miriallia's couch was lumpy but Athrun wasn't complaining. It was not that he was comfortable, because he wasn't (the couch was a two-sitter settee and he had difficulty folding his lean body just so that he could jam himself into the narrow seat and not roll down. Plus, the valley between the upholstery was messing severely with his spine). It was because he wasn't sleeping, or at least, the gears in his mind were still spinning. His body, on the other hand, might be feeling the exhaustion.
He crossed his arms across his chest and tried to get comfortable, wriggling about so that his left shoulder could tuck nicely into the gap between the armrest and back of the sofa. It didn't work. So he thought instead about what he had to do once dawn broke.
Athrun would have preferred to head out immediately. Time was of essence, and Lacus didn't have much left. But Miriallia and Luna had both convinced him to stay for the night and Athrun had to admit that their reasons made sense. He wanted to return to Kira Hibiki's apartment and find out who had entered the house recently, but the neighbours sure would not appreciate someone knocking on their doors in the middle of the night. He was also tempted to charge all the way to DEX enterprises, but Lunamaria and the team needed time to gather their research and he needed time to work the clues and put together the jigsaw pieces.
Athrun had never believed in coincidences. When something happens the first time, okay. The second time, okay. The third time? Not okay.
Lacus had mentioned DEX enterprises, he was sure of it. But back then, the trail had gone cold – none of the photographs of DEX enterprises' employees had matched the man Lacus had danced with. Of the four DEX enterprises' representatives invited to the Clyne Mansion, Lacus said that none of the photographs had been that of the elusive Kira Hibiki. Athrun had deduced that whoever the man was, had given her an assumed name, or that the four guests that had turned up in the place of the employees had been imposters. There were a lot of questions and a lot of possibilities.
But the mention of DEX enterprises again made Athrun sure that he was one step closer to finding Lacus. He just needed a little more, so that he had enough to save Lacus. He wasn't looking to take down the kidnappers – that could wait. His goal was simply to save her.
That thought was nearly enough to get Athrun moving from the couch and rushing for his car, although he had no idea where to begin his search. But as he glanced over to the other side of Miriallia's office, and saw Cagalli curled up in another one of Miriallia's sofas, he sank back into the upholstery.
Cagalli was smaller in size, and fitted the couch much better than he did. She was asleep, head against the armrest. It was when Miriallia pointed out that Cagalli needed the rest, even if he did not, that made him pause and hesitate, eventually taking up the forensic scientist's offer to use her office couches' as temporary bunks. She was right – he had been dragging Cagalli all over town, even though she was injured and needed respite.
Athrun watched her as she slept, and wondered if what Cagalli said was true and the implications of that truth. Everything would change, if Kira was alive and came back. Everything would change, if his enemy was Kira. He wasn't sure if he could pull the trigger if he came face-to-face with his childhood friend.
Yet, he would do it, if it meant that he could save Lacus, or Cagalli, or anyone else as a matter-of-fact. Because if Kira came to harm someone, he wouldn't be the Kira that Athrun knew.
Athrun shut his eyes and tried to block out those thoughts. Getting stressed about it wouldn't help his cause. He opened his eyes to glance at his watch and saw that it was 4:30a.m. Lacus had been MIA for nearly fifty-six hours. In all other kidnapping cases, such a situation would have been considered a lost cause. Police officers wouldn't say that, but there was no doubt that they were thinking about it. Athrun refused to.
A rap on the door snapped him out of his thoughts. He glanced up over the edge of the armrest, his right cheek pressed tight against the velvet, and saw Shinn standing in the doorway of Miriallia's office.
"Problems sleeping, Chief?"
"Yes," Athrun admitted. He swung his legs over the edge of the couch and hauled himself into a sitting position, elbows propped up on his knees. Shinn pushed himself off the doorframe and approached on silent feet. He sat down beside Athrun on the couch and watched as Athrun rubbed his tired face with both hands.
"Yzak's got you what you wanted," he whispered.
Athrun glanced over and noticed that Shinn had his hand snuck into his coat. Surreptitiously, Shinn withdrew his hand and Athrun caught a glimpse of the familiar black metal. He reached out and took it from Shinn, quietly slipping it into the pocket of his own jacket, together with the spare magazine that Shinn also produced. "It's a .357 SIG," Shinn said quietly, "15 rounds in each magazine."
"How did Yzak get this to you?"
"Luna passed on the message to Yzak and he pulled a couple of strings. One of his pals in the Firearms Department knew a guy involved in the illegal trade of weapons but turned witness for a case. He's still got some connections in the business though so Yzak bullied him into getting the SIG. I just met him four blocks away to get this gun."
"Is this going to leave a paper trail?"
"Not likely. The guy's keeping mum about it because he knows he'll get in trouble. He's got a share in a shop selling guns to patrons without licenses and he knows he ought to keep his mouth shut. So it's all good."
"Okay."
"And Luna wanted me to pass you this." Shinn dug into his pocket again and drew out a caliber handgun. It was small, almost tiny in Shinn's hand. "A .22 revolver. She keeps it in her purse when she's off duty. Says it's suitable for the ladies." He gestured at the still sleeping Cagalli. "We figured that if Cagalli's tagging along with you, you're bound to get yourselves into trouble. Would be good for Cagalli to hang on to a gun. You'll have to teach her how to fire it though."
Athrun nodded and slipped it into his jacket pocket too, alongside the spare magazine for his own SIG. Both his jacket pockets were now weighed down and it was obvious to any practiced eye that he had firearms in them. He wished he had brought his gun holster, but quickly dismissed that regret for he had other things to focus on. "How's the research going on?"
Shinn shrugged. "I believe Meyrin's compiling the data. We should have some news in about half an hour or so."
"Okay."
Kira sat back and watched as Sting hooked up one monitor to another. The mess of devices and machinery that littered the warehouse floor was astounding. And so were the things that Sting could do with them. "How much more time do you need?" He called out.
His green-haired accomplice grinned. "I just need five minutes or so to get the system running and then we should be able to begin tracing the whereabouts of Yzak Joule."
"And wherever Mr. Joule is, will be where the serum is," Auel added in a singsong manner, as he twirled around in his chair.
"Right." Kira said, smiling. He leaned back against the wall and settled down for the wait. After all, unlike Athrun Zala, he had all the time in the world.
Author's note: There! More action coming up in the next chappie so stay tuned! And don't forget to review, review, review! Tell me, what do you think about this chapter, and what do you think is going to happen next!