15 Oct 2002
revised: 12-Nov-2002
Title: The Longest Dream Part 18 -Discoveries
Author: Hope of Dawn
Feedback: Critical commentary desperately desired. Hit me with your best shot!
Archive: GW Addiction at http://www.gwaddiction.com
Legal stuff: None of these characters are mine. Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sunrise, and Sotsu Agency, among others--Xenogears belongs to Squaresoft. For time-wasting purposes only and not for profit, so don't sue, 'kay?
Writer's Notes: Given how little I know about this stuff, I tried to make the technobabble in this part as believable as possible. If anyone spots any glaring errors, please let me know, okay?
Warnings: AU, X-over, shonen-ai, angst. War isn't pretty, after all.
It had been weeks since the abortive invasion of Nisan and despite their victory, the scars remained. Even before they had gone into battle, Sigurd had feared what would happen to the tiny island city--now, he walked the crater-pocked fields with Bart as they made their way between the littered wreckage of Gears and wary Aveh patrols, trying to assess what was left.
The open plazas and delicate stone bridges, the tiny bubbling fountains... were all gone. Most of the sturdy little ivy-covered houses and shops now bore the scars of Gear combat, embers of fire still smoldering in the shelter of bombed-out walls and ruined gardens. Shattered brick and and cinders crunched into dust underneath their boots; Sigurd caught a glimpse of charred flesh and blackened bone moments before it crumbled underneath his unwary tread.
If Billy had been there, he no doubt would have stopped and offered prayers for the poor unfortunate soul. Sigurd's pause was merely a reflexive flinch--his own scarred and cynical self had been stripped of any such faith years ago. All that was left was his loyalty to the man he followed, his commanding officer... and his brother.
He sighed, scrubbing a hand through the silvered hair that hung in front of his face. Nisan was no longer the verdant green refuge of his memories. Instead it now wore a chalky shroud of ash, blackened around the edges by Nicklay's ambitions, and had no welcome to spare anyone.
The distant sound of tearing metal trickled through the air as they topped a small rise over the battlefield. Bart came to an abrupt stop, shoulders sagging as he watched a weary team of engineers work to cut the body of a soldier free from the twisted-metal coffin his ruined Gear had become. Sigurd knew that even if they had managed to pry him out of there alive, the man still wouldn't have survived. The chronic shortages of medicines of the last two years had done much to ensure that wounded soldiers never lived long enough to become cripples instead of corpses. Even so, Bart's guilt was almost palpable as finally broke their silence.
"How many?"
The question was an inevitable one. Now that the euphoria of their unexpected victory had faded and the immediate aftermath of the battle had been taken care of, all that was left was to count their losses.
"One-hundred forty-three dead." Sigurd paused, watching as the team respectfully lowered the mangled remains, then continued. "Sixty-three wounded. Most of the fatalities came from the divisions stationed in Nisan; they fell in Nicklay's initial attack. The aid of the Gundams prevented the major losses we were expecting in our assault, but three-quarters of the wounded are on the disabled list."
"I... see." Bart set his jaw and turned away.
They continued on towards the cathedral, following the trails that the Aveh patrols had established through the debris-filled streets. Here in the heart of the city, even the massive bulk of the cathedral seemed to slump in weariness. The round, gaping hole of the shattered Angelus window stared blindly into the sky, and they could hear the nuns' weary dirge, punctuated by the measured mechanical thumping of passing Gears.
As soot-stained as the cathedral itself, the holy sisters sang the Final Hour even as they worked doggedly to bury the dead; hoarsely voiced harmonies that turned the hymn into a digging cadence. There were no grieving wails from the families of the victims, no outbursts to break the rise and fall of the requiem. The living had no time to grieve.
With an undignified scramble over the edge of a crater, Bart slid down towards the cathedral in a cascade of loose rock. Sigurd glanced at the gaping hole in the lee side of the church where Sandrock's shadowy form still stood pinned by the weight of the wall, hedged around by trusses and supports. His temporary preoccupation did not go unnoticed. Bart picked his careful way over to the Gundam and laid a hand on the ancient mecha, looking up at it for a moment. With his tanned face drawn in uncharacteristic lines of pain, Bart looked very different from his usual rambunctious self. "Sig?"
"Yes?"
"I'm--" Bart closed his single remaining eye, rubbing two fingers along the leather band of his eyepatch. Swallowing hard, he forced out the words. "I'm afraid, Sig. When I think about how much worse it could have been--how many people we would have lost if they hadn't been here... If we hadn't had the Gundams' help--I don't think we would have won."
His hand dropped, clenching into a white-knuckled fist. "Nicklay's too damn clever, Sig. He's patient and he's careful. . .and he has military resources we just can't match." That blue gaze lifted, and caught Sigurd's own.
"I never thought I'd say this, but--if we stay on the defensive like this, we're going to lose. . .aren't we?"
Sigurd looked up at the sky, feeling a momentary twinge of guilt. His loyalty to his commanding officer demanded that he divulge all information, including Jessie's recommendations. . . but his love for his brother kept him quiet. Bart would never make the choice to sacrifice his newfound friends as bait in a trap, even if it was the only way to turn the tables on Kislev. He'd sooner sacrifice himself--and that was something Sigurd would never allow.
"But--we can't go toe-to-toe with Kislev, either." Bart's voice was low, and more desperate than Sigurd ever remembered hearing it. "What are we going to do?"
Sigurd's reply came without hesitation.
"What we've always done, Bart. We keep fighting, and we wait for him to make a mistake." His single blue eye narrowed on the younger man's uncharacteristically somber face, and he grasped Bart's shoulder in a reassuring grip. "Nicklay may be patient--but so are we, remember? It took us years, but we beat Shakhan, and freed Aveh. We defeated *Deus*, Bart. Nicklay is nothing in comparison. Right?"
After a long moment, Bart's head lifted. "You're right--as always, Sig." He looked up at the cathedral, then beyond to where Xenogears stood sentinel. His shoulders straightened, resolve rekindled by his brother's fire. "We've been through worse than this. And you know what, Sig?"
"Yes?"
Bart cracked his knuckles, offering Sigurd a fierce grin. "I think it's high time we proved to Nicklay exactly how worse it can get."
Musty-smelling and drafty, the little alcove in the upper balcony of the Nisan church had been little used, even before the attack. Now, with the wind gusting through the shattered Angelus window and fragments of shattered glass crunching painfully underfoot, the entire upper level was deserted of even the most devoted of followers.
Perhaps it was selfish, but Heero preferred it that way. Privacy was hard to come by these days, and the five of them had obtained little enough time to themselves since their reawakening. Dragging his gaze away from the skeletal framework of the broken window, he turned to the others.
"So. Assessment?"
Wufei crossed his arms and leaned against a convenient pillar. "Exactly what are you asking us to assess, Yuy? After all, it's not like we haven't already chosen whose side we're on."
"Have we?" Heero locked gazes with the other pilot. "We've fought in one battle for them. We owe them a debt of gratitude. Do we owe them our lives?"
Quatre frowned from where he was perched on a stone bench, heels kicking idly against the wall. "In all honesty... I'm not sure gratitude should figure into this."
"So you're saying we shouldn't have helped, then?" Trowa put in quietly. Quatre shook his head.
"No. I'm not saying that at all. I mean," He stopped, and waved one hand at the shattered window behind them and the city beyond, still obscured by lingering smoke. "This--no matter what the politics involved may have been--this was *wrong*. I don't know about all of you, but I couldn't have stood by and let another defenseless people be wiped out. Not again. Gratitude has nothing to do with it."
"I agree." Heero's statement left no room for argument. "We did what needed to be done. Our mission was to stop the invasion, and save Nisan. We've accomplished this. The question still remains: do we continue to fight for them? Whose side do we chose?"
Duo was cross-legged in the corner, a sooty smudge over his nose and cheek as he frowned intently at a circuit board in his lap. "Or do we choose one at all?" he said as he scrubbed carefully at some carbon scoring. "Face it, guys. We're one helluva curve ball that's been thrown into this whole situation, and we don't know the first thing about what we're dealing with."
Wufei looked over in mild surprise. "I'm a bit surprised to hear you say that--I thought you were getting along pretty well with these people. Are you saying we shouldn't help them?"
"Hell, no." Duo bit at the end of a piece of wiring, peeling away the insulation. "Bart's great--a wonderful guy. Fei, Billy, all the others--they're good people. And I don't think I'm the only one who feels that way, either." He glanced sidelong at Wufei, grinning around his mouthful of wire. "Don't think I haven't seen you hanging around with Citan, Wu. Going for the scholarly type, are we?"
Wufei felt the tips of his ears redden, much to his chagrin. "Unlike you, Maxwell, I actually value intelligent company. The man knows a great deal--not only about medicine, but of this world's history and technology," he shot back. Pausing, he murmured, "It's been a long time since I had the time to converse on such things."
"And yet, it seems he wouldn't be above using us as bait, if necessary," Trowa reminded him. He leaned against the stone wall, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I am tired of being used."
"Though to be fair, Trowa, they were only discussing the possibility of it," Quatre pointed out. "They never actually said that they were going to do it. Or, for that matter, that the others would even agree."
"IF they decide to get permission first." Trowa looked stubborn. "The three of them seemed pretty comfortable with the idea of going behind the others' backs."
"Maybe--maybe not," Duo said thoughtfully. He slid a knowing gaze over to Quatre. "Citan isn't stupid. Just the reverse, in fact. And I find it rather interesting that he allowed them to discuss all this just a few tables away from us."
"Maybe he forgot?" Trowa said it dubiously, as if the statement tasted sour.
Wufei shook his head. "I find that hard to believe."
"Sigurd seemed distracted, and I could believe that he might have forgotten to take into account just how good our hearing was. But Citan? That guy has a mind like a steel trap." Duo twisted the exposed wiring onto a terminal. "No, I think he *wanted* us to hear their discussion."
Quatre picked at the embroidery around one cuff, frowning in thought. "But why?"
Duo shrugged. "Beats me. This spy-versus-spy thing was never my gig, you know that. You and Trowa would stand a better chance of figuring that one out than I would. As far as alternatives go, though, I only see three of 'em." He ticked them off on his fingers. "We can ally ourselves with these guys. We can ally with those Kislev guys. Or we can flip 'em both the finger, and take ourselves and our Gundams out of the fight altogether."
"That last option could get nasty," Trowa said quietly.
"Yeah, I know." Duo grinned, then sobered. "I think we all know what happens to independents in a war. You get both sides shooting at you, whether you like it or not. The shit that went down after Operation Meteor sure taught us that."
"Still, we have done it before." Heero was coldly logical as he figured out the odds. "We could probably do it again, but not for long. No supply lines or repairs would mean we'd eventually have to abandon or destroy our Gundams." He frowned; he wasn't one to get sentimental about a Mobile Suit, even his own Wing, but for some reason the very thought of destroying his Gundam again. . .hurt, somehow.
"I don't like our odds of survival," Quatre added, scowling. "Though I like the thought of allying with Kislev even less. Anyone who would attack a defenseless city full of refugees..."
"I agree. And though everything we've heard about Nicklay has been from his enemies, and is therefore biased, I think the man's methods speak for themselves." Wufei's response was equally fierce, his face stony.
"And Aveh's ideas about using us as bait?" Heero asked.
"Why don't we wait and see?" Trowa suggested slowly, looking pensively out the window. "They haven't actually *done* anything yet--and they have treated us well, you must admit. If they continue to be honest with us, perhaps allying with them would be the best course of action."
Duo snorted. "And if they lie to us?"
Trowa's gaze was as cold as ice. "Then we teach them what it means to have Gundam pilots as enemies."
Tucked into the corner of the cluttered medical lab that he had claimed for his own use, Citan squinted closer at the notepad, adjusting his glasses as he attempted to read his own untidy scrawl.
"Final analysis conclusions show a thirty-seven percent decrease of nanite type B... three? Or eight?" He peered closer at the number. "No, I think that's a three, because if I remember correctly, the analysis for type B-eight is down over... aha! ...here, right under the coffee stain. So by process of elimination..." He reached over blindly, groping for another report. "...yes, that would have to be nanite B-three."
The chair creaked loudly as Citan leaned back. Alone in the makeshift testing labs, with only the rhythmic clanking of the lab machinery for company, he didn't need to worry about inadvertently enhancing his reputation as the ‘eccentric Solarian Doc' in front of an audience. And to tell the truth, he'd gotten used to talking out loud to himself up in the mountains. It helped him think.
"Just one more batch to process, and we'll have a representative sampling from all regions. Which, if the pattern holds true, means that the nanites are losing their effectiveness in the general population." Citan sighed, closing his eyes and steepling his fingers. "Thank the stars. . . I was afraid we'd be living with the consequence of *that* particular blunder for generations."
Even so, something niggled at the back of his mind. Barely there, it was almost too elusive to grasp, but there was something about the test results... something bothersome. Though why that would be the case--after all, they all had breathed a collective sigh of relief when the initial wave of mutations had subsided. The pain those poor people had been in as their own bodies suddenly turned on them... It had been horrifying, not in the least because it had been their own attempts to help that had been the cause.
Plotting with Gaspar, one of the three magi of Shevat, they had attempted to overthrow generations of Solarian conditioning and genetic controls in the general population by seeding the atmosphere with nanites, but the project had gone horribly wrong. The Solarian physiological limiters had kept the general population docile and powerless, true--but they also prevented the onslaught of debilitating mutations born of centuries of Deus-spawned genetic manipulation. Gaspar's nanites, designed to free the Lambs from their Solarian masters, had done their work all too well, and they had all been horrified at the result: an plague of debilitating mutations, turning friends and family alike into vicious Wels that roamed the landscape, driven mad by pain and their need for human blood.
It had been two long years before they started to see any signs of lessening in the plague of Wels. And while they weren't out of the woods yet, the decrease in the nanites present in the bloodstream of the general population was very promising.
However--objectively speaking, the nanites *should* have hung on in the population. That was what they were created to do, after all. Curiosity peaked, Citan frowned as he tried to come up with a logical explanation.
An inherent flaw in the design? He rejected the idea as unlikely at best. Gaspar was a magi of Shevat, and had practically invented nanotech. Only Krelian could have conceivably beat him in technical skill when it came to genetic engineering.
"So if it isn't a flaw in the design, it must be some other factor. Perhaps an environmental one?" The frown deepened as other test results came to mind. "But all the nanites, regardless of strain, seem to be failing. Which argues for a widespread resistance across the board."
Leaning forward, Citan grabbed a sheaf of reports, tracking down the printed lines of data with one finger. "Preliminary evidence of mutation throughout DNA code. Then we suddenly have no growth upon contact with this one genetic sequence... which attached to primary gene pattern alpha-001. Regenerative response stimulated, subsequent nanite levels dropped by 23%..." He shuffled to another report. "The exact same reaction, but this time the gene sequence is attached to primary gene pattern alpha-002, and here to alpha-005." He stopped short. "It's always the same gene sequence--but the attached primary pattern changes--in five variations?"
Abandoning his chair, Citan swung over to the lab computer and started calling up the related data. The initial data seemed to show that the nanites were failing due to what appeared to be an aggressive regenerative response. But where did this kind of aggressive reaction come from?
"It appears to be linked to the alpha gene patterns somehow--" He tapped the screen, considering. "--but *everyone* has those patterns. They've been used in Solarian genetic profiling for centuries."
He stopped short with a sudden realization. "Wait a minute... I remember seeing something about this before." Citan turned to the bank of cabinets that lined one wall and began pulling files. "Trauma lab work... post-combat medical checkups... a dietary analysis of the chu-chu tribe?" Citan blinked. "When did I put that in there?" In a uncharacteristic flurry of tossed-aside papers and data disks, he came to the files he had been looking for.
A quick upload into the computer, and the numbers scrolled obediently by on the screen, now cross-referenced with the newer data. "Initial medical examination of five subjects post-hibernation... lingering drug residue, but no lasting cellular or genetic damage. Standard tests performed--all responses within upper range of standard Solarian citizen classification A. High resistance to toxins, natural decay, and presumed full ether-use range. No growth of nanites in sample under laboratory conditions; no significant mutation in genetic code due to regenerative response of primary genes."
Citan groped for his discarded chair, and sat down hard. The exact same regenerative response. In Heero, it was attached to alpha pattern-001. In Quatre--002, in Trowa--003, Wufei--004, and Duo--005. Five alpha patterns--each present in a single Gundam pilot.
Quatre's remembered voice suddenly rang in his ears. "They did that to all of us--turned all five of us into sterile, mutated versions of humanity. Just so they could win their war."
What were the chances of these young men having the exact same gene sequences as an isolated population of people born ten thousand years later?
Infinitesimal.
The memory of his own response suddenly gained a new significance. "I can assure you that there is not a single person on this planet who has not been genetically altered in some way, myself included."
How was it possible that two unrelated groups of people to exhibit the exact same regenerative response to nanite technology? Especially when one of those groups was over ten thousand years old? Compared to the modern human population, their genetic makeup should be--Citan's train of thought faltered--positively... prehistoric...
Five pilots in stasis, conceivably the oldest humans on the planet.
Five alpha gene patterns. Each one unique to a single pilot... and all of them present in the modern population, whether Lamb, Shevite, or Solarian. Gene sequences so common that he hadn't even noticed them before.
And Deus--not a god, but a living machine of immense power. With the original colonists dead, it had recreated an entire human population to serve its needs... but from what?
The answer couldn't be that simple...
...could it?
End Part 18
(:./hope/dream18)
