Title: Alternate Dualities
Author: WingNut
Archive: http://www.fanworkrecs.com
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters from Gundam Wing, I just play with them for non-profit fun until they run screaming back to their creators.
Warnings: AU - AAAAAAAAAAAU. Some yaoi, lemon, violence, language. You should be a legal adult to read this. Open-mindedness helps, too.
Pairings: all over the map; Duo-centric. yaoi and het.
Author's Notes: A huge helping of "suspension of disbelief" would be appropriate before you read this. I'm sure J or G could explain the science behind it, but they're kinda dead right now...
Part 4 ~ Confusion (cont'd)
"Whoa, there, Wu-man!" Duo brought his hands up in the classic gesture of surrender. He also leaned back slightly and planted his feet outside the chair's legs. With his weight balanced just so, he was ready to throw himself back or to either side if Wufei showed even the slightest sign of distraction. Unfortunately, Wufei was staring at him unblinkingly, completely ignoring Heero's threatening stance two feet away.
Unsure of what he'd said to cause this drastic reaction, Duo decided to keep his mouth shut until he understood what was going on. Which could be a loooooong time, given the situation...
It was Sally who broke the tense silence. "Duo..." she began hesitantly, "you're not yourself, you're acting... confused, and claiming to have seen the future... different possible futures."
He switched his gaze to her, not daring to move his head. "Yeah..." he said suspiciously.
"Think! Those are the symptoms of Zero Syndrome! You've got to let us treat you, the drug was improved enormously just before Quatre... We can't take the chance you might..." she broke off, and he was shocked to see tears slipping down her face. "Please Duo, please let us help you."
He managed to keep his mouth firmly shut on the questions trying to burst out. Since Quatre? Quatre had Zero Syndrome? What the hell was Zero Syndrome? They couldn't take the chance he might... what? Start blowing up empty colonies? And Sally wanted to give him drugs?!!!?
"Duo," Wufei's voice was hoarse, his face set in stern lines. "You don't lie - give me your word you will accept treatment and I will-"
"No!" For someone notoriously unemotional and expressionless, Heero did 'quietly furious' very well.
"Wha-" Duo started.
"I will trust him if he gives his word!" Wufei said to Heero, still keeping his eyes and gun on Duo.
"I-" Duo said.
"You would have him agree to treatment before he's even been diagnosed!"
"Did-"
"And what would you do, Heero? Have him put it off until he's incurable?"
Duo gave up trying to interject a comment and just listened, his gaze shifting back and forth between his increasingly angry friends.
"Scan his brain for lesions-"
Brain lesions? The food he had eaten earlier was now a solid lump of lead in his belly.
"Which takes two weeks to interpret! Early treatment is vital-"
"That drug has too many horrendous side effects to be given out unnecessarily!"
Duo's eyes widened at that one. He wasn't a big fan of drugs in the first place. Drugs with bad side effects - no way!! He was beginning to understand why Heero had drawn his gun. He concentrated on planning his escape.
"It isn't unnecessary! You heard what he was saying-"
"Now you are a doctor?"
"I was there! I saw what Quatre was like! I-" Wufei's eyes were filled with anguish.
"So you killed him!" Heero sneered. Duo gathered himself, ignoring the pang that shot through him at his partner's words.
"I HAD NO CHOICE!!" Wufei screamed, and for half a second his gaze flickered towards Heero.
Duo dove sideways, using one foot to hook the chair up at Wufei's head. He hit the floor rolling to get under Sally's downswinging arm, and headed for the door at a dead run. Two shots rang out and splinters from the doorframe peppered him as he passed through, but he wouldn't let anything slow him down.
He was out of there.
Quatre was dead.
Duo peeked around the corner at the exit of the underground parkade at Preventer HQ. The security grill was down, and the two Preventers on duty at the gate were checking the occupants of every vehicle exiting.
From the level of nervousness he assumed that Sally had flagged his name with a 'locate and report' warning while Wufei wrestled with Heero. Realistically, it was all she could do until Commander Une was notified. As soon as that happened, the security would be far tighter.
Quatre was dead.
He bent over and scuttled silently to the jeep he had targeted. It was parked in the pickup area, obviously waiting for a field team. He made it to the side of the vehicle and checked cautiously over the hood. Neither agent at the gate was looking his way; he had made it without being seen. He had already fed a continuous loop into the security cameras covering this area, so he didn't need to worry about being caught that way.
He tucked his braid inside the front of his jacket, against his skin - he never had replaced his shirt. Then he lay down on his back and wriggled under the jeep. The gate guards were looking in the vehicles, not under them. He picked out his hand- and foot-holds, and tested them for comfort and security to make sure he could keep his grip long enough to get out of the parkade. Then he waited for the agents requisitioning the jeep to appear.
Quatre was dead.
Duo felt a wave of loss and confusion break over him, and this time he didn't push the feelings away. He grieved for his sweet friend, for his comrade through the war. He hated not knowing how and why he had died. Wufei and Quatre were both Preventers, so of course there would be a report on the incident. He itched to read it.
Quatre was dead, and Wufei had killed him. But Wufei was still alive, so Heero and, more importantly, Trowa, must have agreed with the necessity of Quatre's death. Trowa had agreed... Zero Syndrome must be even worse than he had imagined.
His mind veered back to the scene in the office, Wufei pulling his gun on him, Heero pulling his gun to defend him at the same time. He wondered how things had turned out after he had escaped... Heero vs. Wufei, now that would have been an interesting fight to watch. Wufei was a master at hand to hand combat - easily the best of the Preventers, but Heero was tougher than anyone he had ever seen.
But no matter who came out on top, that left Sally free to report her suspicions and organize a hunt. He doubted that Heero would resort to physical means to stop a pregnant woman. He certainly wouldn't try his patented hit-the-solar-plexus-so-hard-that-the-nerves-are-paralyzed-and-the-victim-can't-breathe-and-passes-out punch. He rubbed his lower chest, remembering his own experience on the receiving end. That punch hurt.
Sally... She had been so upset when she decided that he was experiencing Zero Syndrome episodes. He didn't feel delusional. It had been real. But that's probably what Quatre had thought, too...
He wasn't crazy.
He wasn't.
But maybe...
...maybe he really was.
Maybe he was really wrapped up in a strait-jacket in the Relena Peacecraft Home for Ex-Gundam Pilots and Other Unstable Personalities, staring at the wall, drooling and smiling over the pretty pictures in his head. He shivered.
Maybe he was on drugs. Maybe he was in a coma after a head-on car wreck. Maybe he was dead, and this was Hell, having to live the same events over and over again, only slightly different each time.
He mulled that one over for a moment. But if this was Hell, then how come he'd managed to have great sex? Wouldn't that kinda defeat the whole punishment aspect? Although, he'd never thought of Heaven as the kind of place where you had great sex. At least, Father Maxwell had never described it that way... He shook his head and pulled his thoughts back to the problem at hand.
OK, so if he were really insane, or in a coma, or on drugs, or whatever, then it wouldn't matter what he did inside the... delusions. Because no matter what he did, in reality he would still be insane, or in a coma, or on drugs. Nothing he could do 'inside' would affect what was really happening 'outside'.
But what if he were really... here. What if these 'delusions' were actually real, somehow. Then it would matter what he did. It would matter a lot. And in this case, it was looking more and more like a matter of life or death.
So... he should act as if it were all real. If he were nuts, then it wouldn't matter; but if he weren't, then it was simply the right thing to do.
Feeling a little better for having come to that conclusion, he took a moment to check out the gate guards again. They were still alert and watchful, but not as tense and worried as he thought they would be if they knew what his friends suspected. He wished the driver of his jeep would hurry the hell up, though, because Sally would be spreading the word by now and he did not want to get caught...
As if his thoughts were the cue they needed, the elevator opened and two agents sauntered across to the jeep. Duo wedged his feet in and grabbed hold with his hands as they threw their gear in the back and dropped into the only two seats. The engine roared to life and he lifted himself off the ground.
The wait at the gate was nerve-wracking. The guards were almost finished the check when the phone in the security booth rang. Although Duo strained his ears, he could hear nothing of the conversation over the sound of the motor.
He started to sweat, wondering if it were Sally, or worse, Commander Une on the phone. While he clung like a love-starved limpet to the bottom of the jeep, she could be warning the guards about him. Well, if they wanted to apprehend Shinigami, they would have to be smart and thorough and determined as hell. And lucky. Very, very lucky.
He was thinking so fiercely that he was taken by surprise when the jeep lurched forward, up the exit ramp towards freedom. The driver paused a moment at the top to check for other traffic. Duo dropped to the ground and let the vehicle pass harmlessly over him.
He stood up, pulled his braid free and dusted himself off in the middle of the driveway, just outside where the security grill was coming down. After a moment, he heard a shout and saw one of the Preventers on the gate running towards him. He grinned and waved jauntily before turning and sprinting away.
Duo stopped typing, listening intently. The voices coming from beyond the locked door faded again as the speakers moved down the hallway. Cautiously, Duo finished entering his query and waited for the system to respond.
He didn't have a lot of time. It was 3 am, and even now his fellow Preventers were tearing the city apart searching for him. A missing former Gundam pilot turned Preventer suffering from Zero Syndrome was apparently enough to frighten Une into issuing a warrant for his detainment, pending medical treatment.
He noted the careful absence of words like 'diagnosis', 'prognosis', or even 'investigation'. He also noticed that the warrant didn't mention which condition he would be treated for. Was that to keep the apprehending Preventers from being too trigger happy, or for another, more sinister reason? After all, an arrest would mean records, procedures, and publicity - and the Preventers wouldn't want news stories about a second of their number succumbing to Zero Syndrome. A detainment, though, would be much more flexible and... covert. He didn't like the implications at all.
The reply to his query came up on the screen. "Zero Syndrome... OK, let's see... delusions, realistic visions of possible future scenarios, blah blah blah, sounds like the Zero System all right. Ahhhh, but this happens after use of the system is discontinued - that's different. Hmm... distinctive symptom is the formation of lesions in the tissues of the brain - yuck-o - causing paranoid hallucinations and psychotic, increasingly violent, and unpredictable behaviour - unpredictable, that's me... Diagnosis only confirmable by autopsy - hah! over my dead body! - or by comparing brain scans created at least 10 days apart for differences indicative of lesions. Heh. So that's what Heero meant... Rare - oh that's a relief - but confined to those who have interfaced with the Zero System used in the gundams Wing Zero or Epyon, or in the highly similar ALDIS."
He frowned at the words. "What the hell is ALDIS?" He typed in another query and waited while the system processed it.
Slender fingers tapped meditatively against the desktop. His current location was good in several ways - warm, dry, safe from the dangers of the street, with ready access to the information he needed in order to decide what to do. The downside, of course, was that Preventer HQ was filled with Preventers - each of which would try to 'detain' him as soon as they recognized him. And given his distinctive appearance and colourful history, anyone who saw him would likely recognize him. He stroked his braid and sighed, "Ah, the price of fame."
Of all those who were hunting him, he suspected Heero alone might have a notion of where he had gone to ground. Hiding in plain sight, so to speak. He could only hope the idea wouldn't occur to Wufei or Sally...
After going to the trouble of being seen leaving the building (and a long time it had taken those gate guards to notice, too!) he had easily lost his pursuers. Then he had picked up one of his stashed work bags (a paranoid holdover from the war that suddenly seemed not paranoid enough), returned to his starting point, and broken back in again.
Once inside, it was simply a matter of avoiding internal security, finding an empty office - agents Storm and Tundra were away on assignment for 3 weeks - and hacking into the Preventer's information data base to find what he needed.
Although Heero had helped design the security for the computer system, Duo knew most of the traps, and was able to avoid them. The bag of tools he had retrieved allowed him to get around the retinal and thumbprint scans, and checking the underside of the keyboard provided him with Storm's comp-ident and password. Apparently the bald man had never listened to the lectures on computer security...
The terminal beeped softly and filled with text. He rubbed his tired eyes and scanned the screen. "ALDIS... Automatic Long-Distance Interface System... Experimental cockpit program developed by the space arm of Winner Enterprises - whoa, Quatre, what were you thinking? Designed to interface with humans in stasis - stasis??? - during long voyages to distant stars."
He shook his head, his braid wiggling down his back in reaction. "Oh, now there's a good idea. Go into hibernation for a couple hundred years and hook the Zero System into your brain for the duration. No wonder they went nuts testing it..."
His next search brought up possible courses of treatment. Simply put, there was only one: a drug called Carazine. Carazine was still being developed, and its use was hotly debated, as there had been several cases where a patient had reacted badly - and severely - to it. Possible side effects ranged from sleep disruption to the onset of epilepsy to 'personality disintegration'.
Duo grimaced at that - he had no desire to play guinea pig. His determination to remain out of custody had just hardened into stone, his close escape giving him a case of retroactive shivers.
He frowned, thinking over what he'd just learned and comparing it to what he had experienced. He couldn't have Zero Syndrome, the facts just didn't match.
He didn't feel violent (well, no more so than usual). But if he had been psychotic, he would have simply killed the Preventers at the parkade gate instead of sneaking by them.
And he wasn't really seeing visions of possible futures, either, because the past was changing too. The two different outcomes of the raid couldn't have been two different futures stemming from the same infiltration, because in one the background on the sleeve patch was red, and in the other it was green. There was no way one scenario could be turned into the other - they had to be completely separate.
And he couldn't even begin to explain Sally going from zero to 9 months pregnant in the space of four days...
It had all started during the infiltration at the research lab, when he was caught by that purple beam. The feeling he'd had then, of fire racing along his skin, of being torn apart and unable to breathe, that feeling had signaled the start of every... transition, for lack of a better word. He'd had it in the hospital, when he woke up and learned Heero was dead. He'd had it again in his shared office, just before Heero came in and proved he was still alive. That feeling was a signal... and the source of that feeling, the beam from that damned weapon, had to be behind this whole mess.
OK, but what could he do about it? How did he get back to normal, back 'home'? Destroy the generator? Turn it on and jump back in the beam? Self-detonate? He simply had no idea.
He shook his head and sighed as he thought of one more possibility. It was foolish, but it had to be tried. Solemnly he stood, clicked his heels together and recited, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
Nothing happened.
Damn.
End Page 3
(:./wingnut/alter3)
