Chapter 11: Collapse
Krisalyn's ears were ringing. It happened at times, and if it bothered her enough, she would relent and wear her hearing aids. But her hearing aids were in her staff locker on KaibaCraft 3, and she was a hundred miles away, stranded on a cold, metal ship in the middle of the ocean with a brother who wouldn't even look at her.
Zigfried darted between keyboards and switches. She could tell he was muttering to himself, but she had no hope of reading his lips when he was always angled away, always avoiding her gaze.
Joey stood close, and she took comfort from his presence, though he'd also started avoiding her gaze. Ever since their arrival, he'd been growing agitated, and he now fidgeted constantly, shifting from one foot to the other. His recent bout of coughing worried her, especially because he also looked peaked. Even his lips had grown colorless.
He was sick, probably from all the tournament strain, including fighting literal monsters on a beach. And the only reason he wasn't still on the blimp with access to the best doctors money could buy was because he'd come along to protect her. Kris felt the ache of that sharply, like a pebble lodged between her ribs.
She wished she'd never agreed to Z's plan. Better to let her brother be disappointed in her before she'd raised his hopes. Better to never let anyone else get caught up in it and be hurt.
Of course . . . if she'd never infiltrated Battle City, she never would have met Joey.
Selfishly, she couldn't wish to reverse that.
"Hey," she said, in what she hoped was a quiet, gentle voice. "Maybe we should go back upstairs for some fresh air and sunlight."
Z would probably work better with her gone, and that thought lodged another pebble in her ribs, making it harder to breathe. By the grace of her father's training, Krisalyn bit back her grimace, kept her expression pleasantly neutral.
Joey finally looked at her. His beautiful brown eyes had dulled, shadowed by a clear pain.
Sure, fresh air, she thought he said, though it was harder to catch the cadence of his muffled words over the ringing in her ears.
Then he looked sharply over her shoulder. Krisalyn turned, following his gaze, to find her brother arguing with Kaiba's bodyguard. She hurried over, catching Z's wrist as he nearly hit her in a wild gesture.
"What's happened?" she asked in German.
Zigfried looked at her, his pale green eyes flashing not with anger but with panic. As the ringing in her ears grew, she missed what he said, and her own panic echoed his. So she let her hands speak in place of her voice.
Can't hear, she signed. What's wrong?
In response, Zigfried fingerspelled something, but his hands were shaking, and he scrambled the letters. Go-azbr-uo.
Kaiba's bodyguard rumbled something, drawing her brother off again. Krisalyn shot the man a dirty look, though he didn't seem to care. She looked up at the control screens, trying to make sense of the endless green lines of code. It all just looked like scrambled numbers to her eyes. The blinking lights of the control panel were no better.
What had her brother gotten himself into? What was the part of his plan he'd always avoided discussing?
The guard's voice roared in a sudden outburst. The single word was loud enough for Kris to hear, but the shape of it dulled at the edges, blending into the infernal ringing. She tilted her head, rubbing her left ear fiercely, but it made no difference. Somehow, the ringing always chose the worst times to distract her, to shrink her already limited hearing.
Missiles—was that what the guard had shouted? That couldn't be right. Muscles, even less likely. Missives, maybe. Had Zigfried been communicating with someone?
She looked up, and her eyes locked with Joey's. What little color had been left in his face was now gone. He swayed on his feet, clutching his arms around his ribs like he was holding his very insides together.
He started to speak, but his words dissolved into a coughing fit that buckled him at the waist.
Kris's heart jolted into a fearful tempo. She ran, catching hold of his arm just beneath the shoulder, bracing him up.
"Joey, what's wrong?" she demanded. The entire world seemed to be unraveling at once.
When he looked up with glassy brown eyes, his lips carried a smear of blood. He spoke a few words, but Kris was distracted by the bright red of his blood against his pale lips, and the ringing swallowed his quiet voice whole, leaving her with only confusion.
Then Joey collapsed.
His weight dragged Krisalyn's arm down. She held for the briefest instant, then buckled, crashing painfully to her knees and barely keeping the presence of mind to catch his head so it didn't crack against the floor. He didn't seem to be breathing.
"Zigfried!" she screamed. "Help!"
When his sister screamed, Zigfried rushed to her side. Roland had been distracted by the news—missiles, preparing to launch—but upon seeing Joey collapse, he came back to the present moment, with all its problems.
Just as he was about to move, to follow Zigfried, a snatch of movement halted him. To his shock, one of the pod lids rose, and Mokuba swung his legs down, stumbling on the cold metal floor. Roland waited with heart hammering to see the remaining two pods open, but they didn't.
"Mokuba." He rushed to the boy's side, touching his shoulders lightly to be sure he was real, looking him over for injuries. "What happened? Where's Seto?"
"Seto . . ." The boy's dark eyes glazed. Slowly, he nodded. "Seto got me out. He's so very clever, isn't he?"
Roland frowned at the boy's odd demeanor, but the commotion around Joey drew his attention once more. If Seto had opened a way for Mokuba to escape, he would shortly follow, and in the meantime, there was a pressing matter at hand.
"Mr. Wheeler's collapsed," he said urgently. "Run to the chopper and radio for a doctor."
Would it matter? Could a doctor reach them before the impending danger?
His mind replayed the exchange with Zigfried moments earlier.
Ze system has made a remote connection, he'd said.
Roland asked where, and the answer was the worst thing imaginable: a KaibaCorp weapons satellite. When Roland responded that Seto had destroyed every such satellite, Zigfried dissolved into German, though his message was clear in any language. Obviously, he missed one.
Somehow, Gozaburo had sent a launch command to a satellite carrying three missiles. Based on Mokuba's return to reality, Seto was getting the best of his adoptive father in the virtual world, so Gozaburo had decided to blow the ship and everyone on it to kingdom come. His definition of a victory had always been unhinged.
Zigfried estimated they had thirty minutes to get off the ship, with or without Seto. Roland had to ensure that was with.
"Mokuba," he grunted, stunned to see the boy hadn't moved.
Rather than running to send the message, Mokuba had stayed in place, turning his hands over and back, examining each one like he'd never seen fingernails before. He touched his face, squishing his cheeks upward and grimacing. He ran one finger along his upper lip. Tapped his sneakers against the metal floor.
"Mokuba, now," Roland said, with more harshness than he'd ever directed at the boy. Usually Mokuba dove headfirst into helping people. Roland would have gone for the radio himself, but Mokuba would run faster, and Roland was trained in basic medical responses if Krisalyn or Zigfried didn't know them.
"Radio a doctor for what?" Mokuba finally snapped. "Funeral rites? We're eighty leagues from civilization, and even assuming a life flight were dispatched, it would take one hour and twenty-six minutes to reach us. It's a waste of time and resources."
The mathematical response would have been expected from Seto; hearing it from Mokuba was like watching an alien speak. But that wasn't what truly gave Roland's heart a jolt.
A waste of time and resources. That had been one of Gozaburo's favorite accusations. Roland had heard him use it to shoot down countless projects over the years. Mokuba had heard it as well, of course; Roland had just never imagined the boy would choose to imitate Gozaburo in anything.
Maybe meeting the man again had rattled him.
"Stay here," he managed, because he had to say something, do something. He was responsible for the lives of everyone on this ship.
Roland hurried over to Joey. Zigfried had convinced his sister to lay the boy out on the ground, and Roland felt a flood of relief to see he was still breathing, though each breath carried a wheezing, labored sound. His eyelids twitched in unconsciousness, and a streak of blood stained the corner of his mouth. His skin was pale as the grave.
"I have no medicine here," Zigfried said, looking up with clear panic. "My sister says he is sick from ze tournament."
Dehydration, perhaps? That would explain the collapse, but not the blood. Roland wished he had more extensive training in the medical field.
"How did you get here, Mr. von Schroeder?" he asked. "Do you have a helicopter?"
Without Seto, there was no one to fly the jet—and little chance they could get Joey safely secured in it anyway. Not while he was unconscious. A helicopter was at least slightly better, and Zigfried's might be bigger or faster than the one Roland had flown. It had only been stored on the island for emergency purposes.
"Ja, natürlich. I have my fasser's luxury SC50."
A better option indeed.
"Can you get him to a hospital?"
Zigfried glanced at the control panel. "Herr Bodyguard, ze missiles. I must . . ." His gaze landed on Mokuba, and he lurched to his feet. "You! Wie bist du aufgetaucht? How did you emerge?"
"I can't understand a word you're saying," Mokuba said flatly. He'd gathered his long black hair in both hands and seemed to be searching for a hair tie. He eyed a thin electrical cable.
"How did you come from ze pod?" Zigfried strode forward threateningly, and Roland caught his arm before he could get out of reach, forcing him to a halt.
"Seto cracked the code. I begged him to come with me, but he insisted on facing Gozaburo himself. He said he'd sooner die than let anyone know the truth." Though the boy's words could have been construed as emotional, his tone was far from it. He still seemed frustrated at the hair falling over his shoulders.
Before Roland could speak, Zigfried beat him to it.
"Nein, du lügst." Zigfried narrowed his eyes.
"Nein yourself," Mokuba shot back, abandoning his hair. "Isn't that what your entire bargain was about—truth? I have it for you. Seto stole your virtual technology just like he stole KaibaCorp itself. He murdered the man who rescued him, provided for him, nurtured him, and then he danced on the grave. And he got away with it all until now. It was an impressive display, really. Laudable. Gozaburo let himself be outwitted, so he deserved what he got. He's the past, and so was Seto. I'm the future."
Each word sounded closer to Gozaburo Kaiba until Roland could practically hear the man's voice echoing from the past. Historically, Mokuba's worst moods only made the boy more passionate, not apathetic. Certainly never callous. If anything, he cared too deeply, loved too strongly.
And there was no one he loved more than Seto.
"Mokuba," Roland rasped. "What's gotten into you?"
Based on Mokuba's return smile, he seemed pleased with the question. "Vision, Roland. Now, are we going to stand around waiting for an abrupt death by missile, or are we going to do the practical thing and head for civilization?"
"If Seto found a way out, he'll be here any minute," Roland said. "We'll leave once he and Yori are secure."
"Suit yourself." Mokuba tugged at the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt, feeling for something that wasn't there and scowling when he realized it. His scowl only increased as he plucked at the edges of his yellow vest, like it was a banana peel someone had thrown over him from the garbage. He pulled it off and dropped it on the floor.
Zigfried gave a frustrated grunt, pulling free of Roland's grip, which Roland allowed because the pink-haired programmer wasn't trying to get away. Instead, he grasped Roland's arms with a sudden urgency, his eyes fierce.
"Seto could not have a way out, zis is what I am saying. Have you not watched all my efforts? Gozaburo did not block me wiss a tiny little firewall and only ze matter of breaking srough. He has redefined ze functions. He has—ach, he has made ze players so zey are different inside ze code, ja, and when I fix zis part, zen zat part breaks, verstehen? It is an endless loop! Die verschlimmbesserung!"
At Roland's blank look, Zigfried released him and shouted, "I have not ze language for zis! Nor ze time! Seto Kaiba may be genius, but he is not miracle. He is not built of digital experience."
"Where are you going?" Roland demanded, turning to catch Mokuba at the door to the room.
Mokuba flicked his hand over his shoulder carelessly. "Radio a doctor, right?"
He jogged up the stairs and out of sight. Roland glanced at Joey, still fighting for breath. The two pods at the center of the room remained locked.
How much time? he wondered. Had it been ten minutes since the outbound launch command? Twenty minutes left.
"You are not listening to me!" Zigfried looked on the verge of bursting a blood vessel. "Only Gozaburo could free zat boy, do you understand? I could not. Seto could not. Only Gozaburo!"
Roland was not meant for things like this. Seto was the one with the mind for advanced technology. He was the only one who'd ever outwitted one of Gozaburo's strategies.
"Why would Gozaburo free Mokuba?" he asked.
"I fear zat 'why' very much indeed!" Zigfried's pale green eyes were wide and frightened. "I fear why zis man—a man who is only a mind, existing in a virtual space—would launch missiles which will destroy himself. I fear why zat command is given and zen one person is freed while two remain. I fear ze deal zat has been made."
"Mokuba would never make a deal with Gozaburo! He would never do anything to put his brother in danger. He's as loyal as they come."
"Zen explain how he has walked away"—Zigfried pointed at a pod—"while his brozer remains zere."
Roland looked at the doorway where Mokuba had disappeared. His mind spun, trying to make sense of the boy's words and actions, wishing desperately he had half the sense or cleverness Seto possessed. Seto would have known exactly what was wrong with Mokuba and exactly what to do to correct things. He always did.
Roland's instincts screamed the danger, but they couldn't make sense of what it was or how to fight it. Any sense he carried had been worn threadbare by monsters and madmen, the nonstop chaos that had infiltrated Seto's tournament and persisted even after its ending.
Monsters . . .
His weary mind snagged on that thought.
While scrambling for answers, he was only considering plausible things. Just that morning, he'd fought literal monsters on a beach, creatures unexplainable by anything except magic. He'd sat in a helicopter and listened to a sensible young woman describe how a bracelet allowed her to summon a dragon. His world was not just in the process of turning on its head; it was already upside down and flailing.
So why did he think this answer would be sensible?
"It's Gozaburo," he said, speaking the words with equal parts certainty and insanity. "It isn't Mokuba. It's Gozaburo."
He couldn't say how, couldn't explain it, but his instincts agreed, and as soon as Roland made the realization, his legs were moving. He ran up the stairs, the metal clanging beneath his heavy-soled shoes.
Throwing his shoulder into the door, he burst into the fading sunlight across the ship's deck. The high-pitched whine of a helicopter engine greeted him, the blades already spinning into a blur, lights blinking along the tail and cockpit. Mokuba—a boy who'd never flown a chopper even in simulation—sat strapped into the pilot's chair. Through the windshield, he met Roland's eyes, and his lips curled in a predatory grin Roland had seen a thousand times on a different face.
Roland ran forward, but the landing struts had already lifted. The helicopter rose into the evening air, out of reach, and his final glimpse of Mokuba was the horrifying image of Gozaburo's grin.
Note: Hope you guys are doing well. Thanks for reading. :D