Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Justitia ❯ Chapter 17

Justitia 17: We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. -Edward R. Murrow

Wufei watched them prepare with a mixure of interest and foreboding. It was strange, to be together in the fire again, to see them pull out their war-time personas, dust them off and donne them, seemingly without effort, while he felt he had never put it aside. He could not shake the sense that all was not well, either in them or in himself. He could not feel his limbs as anything more than a heavy numbness and it was taking all his willpower and knowledge of himself to remain upright. That, in itself, was not worrying; it concerned him, certainly, but he could work with it. He could not work with what he did not see or understand and their enemy was both to his mind.

A gentle touch brushed against his arm, silently questioning, quietly supporting, but Wufei shrugged it off. Kindness and understanding were not what he needed from Trowa at that point. Rather, he needed cold, calm and calulating; pilot 03, and they both knew it.

He leant over the table and grabbed the katana the security guards had collected in their weapons muster, checking the catch of the hilt on the mouth of the sheath. It caught a little, but not noticably. The blade was sharp.

Duo was already waiting at the door. Wufei walked through at the same time as Marie, but he didn't look down, knowing she was not looking up as she headed inside, while Wufei headed out. He didn't mind being bait, when the prize was worth it.

The security guards nodded to him as he went to the elevator, hitting the button and waiting for the carriage to come up from the levels below. He didn't bother to watch Duo quickly open the elevator vent over their heads and only vaguely saw his dark shape disappear through the hole from the corner of his eye. By that time the elevator had arrived, the doors opening wide to reveal a space at once ordinary and yet fear-inspiring at the same time. It never ceased to amaze him how such everyday items took on a different light when viewed from the right perspective.

There was no sound, no indication at all that Duo was above him, but Wufei spared it no thought as he hit the down button and the carriage lurched to life, sliding south. How Duo was avoiding the cameras in the elevator shaft Wufei was not sure. He could only assume Une and Sally were doing something on the computers upstairs. It was beyond his concern, unless Duo was caught, and the liklihood of that happening was slim. Very slim.

But not impossible. Wufei frowned darkly as the doors opened. The man from the front desk was gone and the front doors were barred with heavy iron slats he doubted anything short of a Gundam could hope to break through. Of a bomb. A really big bomb.

He walked slowly, keeping to the middle of the floor, making sure the cameras picked up on his presence and buying Duo a few seconds of time to follow in the slender cavities between floors.

Wufei was not sure what to think of Duo. He had once done everything in his power not to think of him, midly amused that Heero seemed to think of him too much, but otherwise blocking him out of the picture, along with just about everything else. Now Duo's name was synonymous in his heart with a great deal of pain and loneliness and he was not sure how to separate it. Was not sure he wanted to, because he knew if he tried he would have to tell Duo the truth; tell him everything that had happened. Or he could just give over the report and let him read it for himself. Neither was appealing. Both seemed somehow cowardly; he could live without Duo's friendship, and for all he knew it could develop anew on its own. Without the need for pity.

Except Heero did not pity him, and Wufei couldn't help but wonder if Duo, too, might not think any less of him for one mistake. Or a thousand mistakes. It was rather hard to keep track of them.

The stairway to the sub-levels was abandoned. His steps were small as he took his time going down, not really sure how Duo was following him in the very walls. He trusted Maxwell to get the job done without knowing all the details; that had not changed. So he simply took his time, taking in the details that didn't exist. Grey wall, grey floor, grey ceiling that was slightly lower than Wufei had thought, or maybe it just looked like a smaller space now because of the situation.

Archives were abandoned, but he went through each level anyway, straining with all senses for any sign of life but finding nothing. He did notice his box of old logs was not in its usual place, and he thought several files were missing. He knew Heero had taken one file, but there were others that should have been there. It was odd, that a stranger mght have them, or that they would want them to begin with. Still, he shrugged it off, not really surprised.

The first signs of life came at level six, which Wufei thought ironic as it was the one level that held supposedly nothing. There were fresh footprints in the dirt that covered the floor and the light had been replaced at the opening, casting a bright white light over most of the front of the level. There were supplies there and he wished he had bothered to take a quick look at some point during the week because he would have seen something, anything that might have given them away. He could have stopped it before it began. But it was too late.

That didn't mean Wufei didn't want to take it back. He hoped there was enough lying around for Duo to work with and headed on.

They were waiting at the entrance to level seven, in the corridor with its boxes upturned, catalogue forgotten. The moment he opened the door he spotted the little red light on his chest and paused, just waiting, letting them make the moves. They had, after all, offered the invitation.

"Chang Wufei." The figure was obscured by the light she was standing in front of, merely a silhouette to Wufei's point of view, but he knew her; knew her voice and the manner she stood and the tremble in her voice.

"Sarah." Archivist. Terroroist. Somehow the profile just didn't fit in his mind, but he doubted fourteen year old child suited it any better and he was not about to argue that one.

A man came forward, someone he didn't know but he let them run their hands over his body and pull free the katana from its sheath over his shoulders, and he let them take the knife from his boot and the pistol from his side because it didn't matter where they took them, where they put them, he would find them and he would kill them.

They pushed, prodded and he let them herd him down the corridor toward his office. He reached out to run his hands over the field, to maybe say farewell to Meilan, but they slapped his hand down and Wufei knew he was not going to die today. He could not die without saying farewell. He just wasn't sure whether that thought pleased him or annoyed him, so he ignored it and walked into his office with a clear mind.

They didn't offer him a chair. He thought that was a mistake, but not their first. Rather, he was made to stand on the other side of the room from the door, beside his filing cabinet, whichj had been turned over on its side, his art books spewed across the floor, his weapons piled in the bin by the computer desk.

"He's alone?"

Wufei didn't know the man who turned around to look at him from his monitoring of the computer screens. He wasn't sure why the man was asking when it was obvious from the security feed that he had come alone, no matter how false that was in reality. Still, the way the man looked at \his subordinates made Wufei wonder if there wasn't more to the question. Not that he minded. All that mattered was to Wufei was that the man was sitting in his chair.

"He's alone."

The man studied Wufei then, large brown eyes sliding up and down until Wufei felt exposed, his scars itching, every part of his body aching to be acknowledged while the drugs coarsing through refused to do any such thing. It was the first time since Sally had prescribed them that he was actually grateful.

"Where's the girl?"

Wufei stared blankly, trying to figure out what the man wanted, what he expected, and just how he should react to buy Duo and the others the time they needed.

"That depends," Wufei spoke quietly, carefully. "Where am I?"

The man smiled, thin lips pursed too tightly together, no teeth and dark shadows under the eyes. Wufei didn't like him. He almost felt sorry for him, without really knowing why. Perhaps because he was going to fail; because he would die. Because he was weak, but thought he was strong. How Wufei hated him.

"Very well, Chang. She can wait."

"For what, exactly?" Wufei narrowed his gaze, trying to keep his face blank, devoid of emotion while maintaining his focus and equilibrium. It was harder than it should have been.

"Because," the man smiled knowingly, "she is young and can be made to do what we want, at the point of a gun if necessary. But you…" He tapped a finger against his nose as if it was meant to mean something, as if he had some form of intuition that allowed to him to see Wufei's response. Wufei merely blinked, waiting. "I think, if I put a gun to your head you would let me pull the trigger and think I did you a good deed."

Wufei didn't bother moving, knowing full well that the bastard would get to the point eventually.

"I want you to listen, Wufei. And if at the end of my little talk you still want me to shoot you, then I can do that. But if you find you want to help me…Then we can do that, too."

Wufei wondered if Duo was above them yet, or maybe in the wall beside them. Had Heero hacked into his computer, or maybe Trowa was outside chatting up Sarah. Or Quatre could be running negotiations. He wondered how pissed Sally was at him.

Hands pushed him into a chair and he recognised it as the spare he had bought for Marie. He remembered buying it; how he had passed the little discount furntiure store on the way home after that first shared afternoon in his office and decided to stop. He didn't even know why he stopped until he saw the chair in the window. It was flawed somehow, doubly discounted, on the toss out table. It had been perfect. He had replaced the broken wheel. It hadn't even taken five minutes.

"You know we have the bomb you took from Antarctica."

Wufei didn't bother to negate the statement since it was true. Besides, he was trying to remember if had been the left wheel that had been broken, or the right one. He couldn't feel any difference.

"This is only one of several we hope to obtain and detonate. We are not terrorists, Wufei. We are liberators. We wish to liberate humanity."

"By blowing them up?" Wufei raised a brow, curious as to the logic they were using to justify their actions but not yet intrigued enough to pay complete attention.

"By destroying their limitations! By stripping them of this illusion they live under! By taking away their false security and making them work for what they desire." There was a fire not only in the man's dark eyes, but in his voice that seemed to permeate his whole being. Wufei idly wondered if his seat was flammable. He had never sprayed it with unti-flammable materials.

"You want to strip them of their peace," Wufei noted, yawning. It was nothing he had not heard before.

"There is no peace! You know as well as I that it is an illusion, a dream. Peace is a construct that will destroy its creator and hence destroy itself. It is an anomoly."

"Yet, it can be destroyed. Would that not make it tangible? If it is impossible why do we have it?"

The man scowled darkly, leaning back in his chair to study him, but Wufei just stared at the screens just behind his head, ignoring it. He couldn't feel his feet and it was making little phantom pains spirt their way through his legs, tryignt o reach lost limbs that were not technically lost. He didn't like it. There were so many things he did not like.

"That scar on your arm," the man sneered. "Is that a gift from a peace-loving man?"

Wufei stiffened, senses sharpening instantly as his arm flinched and his nerves hummed. He had not expected that. That had never been in the arguments before.

"And those on your chest, your feet? Are they signs of love, well-wishers? Is that what peace means Wufei?"

He was silent and Wufei knew it was his turn to speak but no answers were presenting themselves in his head. All he could think was `run' and that was not a viable option, so he just sat and tried to think of something else.

"No." It was the only answer there was. No, they were not signs of peace. They were signs of war, but he had seen war before and did not fear it. He would do it again, and again, and still when he came back he would want to take it back because in the end it never made any difference. People died, others suffered and all that was left was pity.

"No? Then is this peace, Wufei? It's fake, and you know it. It's an illusion and I will destroy it! We could destroy it together and people would understand. People would listen to you; you can make them understand, see the truth. If they see you they will believe."

Wufei wanted to laugh, because the man was so wrong. Wufei alone knew how truly wrong; how complete his isolation from the world ahd almost become. The world would never listen to him. They did not look up to him nor understand his thoughts and actions. They loathed him, wanted him dead; wanted to destroy him because he had once sat in the terrorist's chair and tried to steal away their precious peace. And yes, it was an illusion, because people didn't understand what it was.

"You are weak."

The man paused, face skewed in anger as he glared but Wufei merely stared blankly at the computer screens, hoping to catch some glimpse of the others even as he prayed he would not. Seeing them could lead to disaster and disaster was the last thing he wanted. Last thing he needed.

"Excuse me?"

"Weak," Wufei replied, louder, with more emphasis.

"I will rid this world of the lies! I will free humanity! I am not weak, Wufei. I look at this world and I am not afraid to see the truth. I can admit we are slaves to an ideal that cannot be realised. I admit we have been gullible and naïve, but I shall lead us into the light! And you will help me."

Wufei met the man's glare, feeling very little and wondering if that was normal. He could hear Sally's voice in his head, years old but so clear he could have sworn she was right there beside him. He had thought he was weak once; that he had no right to fight with Nataku, but she had helped him. Had told him a secret.

"Your heart is weak."

The man fumed, standing to tower above and Wufei realised how tall he was. It was rahter frightening really, but it was easy to calculate how tall the man would be with no legs.

"You would leave this world in darkness? You would abandon your people to a dream? A nightmare?"

"Just because it is a dark," Wufei noted quietly, so quitely the man actually had to lean down to hear him. "Does not mean it is a dream."

The man leant back, face incredulous for a moment before he laughed. He laughed so hard Wufei thought he might choke on it and die but the hope seemed short lived as the man stopped as abruptly as he had begun, hands snagging on Wufei's bullet-proof vest and hauling him onto his feet. Wufei thought it was probably a good thing, since he couldn't really feel anything below his knees, just a vague itch that told him the limbs were still there.

"Was it dark, Wufei, when they tried to cut your arm off?"

Wufei felt ice run down his spine, down to his arm where it settled, sizzling on his skin as the memory surfaced and he could almost feel the blood flooding down over wrist, spreding out over his fingers, dripping into the snow…

"Was it dark when they cut that hole in your ankle, hoping you would never walk again?"

Wufei shuddered, wondering if he wasn't just numb, if maybe it had been a dream that he left the snow. Wondering if he wasn't still at that table in Russia, with the gun in his hand. Maybe it really was that dark.

"Was it dark when they tied you to the chair, nailed your feet to floor and your tongue to the table?" The man leant in until all Wufei could see was his face laid over the images behind his own eyes and all he could smell was the hot breath, too familiar.

"Was it dark when they sawed down your teeth and left you to the vultures, hoping the buzzards would defeat you?" He smiled, knowingly, and all Wufei could do was stare at the wolf canines in his mouth, the familiar jagged edges of the saw so similar, the filed points haphazard and imperfect, blunted by time.

"Was it dark, or was it just a dream? Don't you want to wake up, Wufei?"

Wufei didn't care if the others were coming any longer. He moved, because there was nothing else he could do. His leg met the man's groin as his arm snaked out and connected with the side of the head, breaking out across the jaw and into the canines, knuckles snagging on the teeth and tearing, but he didn't care. He was already spinning, other leg coming up for a roundhouse kick to the shoulder that knocked the bone from its socket and it didn't matter that the man cried out in alarm because Wufei's other hand was coming up to silence him, sneaking into the open cavity of his mouth, fingers snagging the tongue and it didn't matter that the teeth tried to bite off his fingers because he couldn't really feel them anyway, and he didn't have to taste the blood. He leant in close, until they were eye to eye; until they could see their shared pain.

"It was pitch," Wufei sneered, full of nothing but the pain and the disdain. "But it was no dream."

He stepped back, releasing the bastard and turning his head a little to smile at the man holding a gun to his head.

"Kill him!"

The man's hand shook, wrapped about the gun, and Wufei sneered at the man.

"You cannot destroy peace. You don't know what it is to destroy."

"KILL HIM!"

Still the ahnd shook and Wufie locked his gaze to that of the stranger, filled with nothing but contempt.

"It's in you," Wufei whispered darkly. "You want to destroy it? Shoot yourself." He smiled as he leant back, waiting, trying to angle himself into a position to avoid a stray shot, knowing full well that he had no hope at such point blank range. Didn't mean it was not worth trying.

"I said shoot him!"

Wufei spun around to stare at the terrorist still on his knees, hands at his mouth trying to hold the blood and broken teeth. Wufeil felt no remose; the guy needed to visit the dentist anyway.

"Actually, you said kill me, but you forgot something." He smiled wickedly, ignoring the man with the gun and walking over to their leader, leaning down to run his finger over a bloody lip. "I'm already dead."

To the world, to his life, to himself, he was very, very dead. Had been for a very long time. Without peace, he would return to that; would die again and again until there was nothing left. Until peace was completely lost and he was dead. Dead, dead, dead. Without peace.

The gun went off and something thundered into Wufei's back. He heard the familiar chink of a bullet in the weave of the vest and turned to frown at the startled man, who was just staring at him as if he expected him to crumple to the floor.

"You want war?" Wufei yelled at the man, stalking to his side and snatching the gun out of his hands, tossing it aside. "I can give it to you! That's easy. Anyone can do that. But peace if hard; that's why people want it. Because it's something you have to work for; strive for. Die for. You think it's an anomoly, that it cannot be achieved, that man will break it apart ove rnad over? You're probably right, but that will be your fault; people like you. It won't be mine."

"It won't matter," the man on the floor spat out a tooth, blood spurting across the floor as he stood and looked down at Wufei. "All we need is your name and the girl and they will listen. There will always be people willing to follow, people who are able to see the truth."

"It's isn't truth, its weakness," Wufei quietly. "Those people will follow you because they are weak; because they are unhappy and they want someone to blame and are not willing to blame themselves. That's the dream; the nightmare. It's your self. You're trapped in the past, in what happened, and there is no one left to pull you out. You can't find peace because you're looking in the wrong place. It's not in this world, or the next. It's in you, and you can no longer give yourself that. But that's okay." Wufei smiled, walking to to the bin and pulling out his katana; his own, mission-ready blade with its plain black executioners hilt and its boring, dulled but sharp blade, over-used.

"It's okay," Wufei smiled, "because I can give it to you."

The man who had held the gun was moving, lunging for the gun, but Wufei reached him before he was halfway across the room and it was an easy thing, to slice through the thin skin of the neck with the tip of the blade and he was sure it was self defence and that it didn't really matter if it wasn't. No one would argue. No one would negotiate with terrorists.

Too easy to pivot, to bring the sword down and almost difficult to halt the decent, to watch the thin line of blood bloom on the neck like a warning, but to whom Wufei was not sure as the terrorist looked up at him with brown eyes divided and Wufei knew where the man was sitting. At the table, with the gun, trying to decide what his fate would be.

"You're dreaming, friend."

"I am not your friend," the man sneered, and a little of the fire returned to his gaze.

"Even my enemies dream then," Wufei noted coldly. "Where is the bomb?"

"You'll never find it."

"It's one building. Never is a long time." Wufei pressed the blade down harder, the blood wetting the blade, slicking the cool steel, making the cut easier. The man whimpered and his shoulders slumped.

"Is it dark?"

The man looked up, surprised by the question, but Wufei merely stared, blank and cold as he waited for an answer. He had not meant to ask it and did not know why he was waiting for an answer.

"There is no light, ever."

Wufei cocked his head to the side and let the blade drop through his hands, completely its pass through flesh and bone before he released it completely and left it there, heading for the door.

Ever was a long time too.

Sarah was in the corridor, eyes wide as she stared at him, gun in her hands, steady and cocked, ready. Wufei smiled, thinking she should have been the one inside, then maybe there would only be one dead body. Sadly, that wasn't the case. He raised the katana and levelled the point at her throat, smiling a little at the odd stalemate.

"Take me to the bomb. Now."

"Why?"

Wufei paused, thinking that was an odd question to be asking and that the answer was rather obvious, until he thought about it and realised what she was actually asking.

"Because it's right."

There were tears in her eyes and Wufei almost asked her the same question, wondering who she had lost, what it had cost.

"Even if it hurts?"

He lowered the sword and let a real smile slip through, just for a moment.

"It's right because it hurts."

Sarah let the gun drop, but she did not take him to the bomb. Rather, she slid down the wall and fell over, mind shutting down, limbs giving up as she succumbed to the dreams. Wufei could almost understand why, but not quite.

But then, Wufei had never been one for dreams.