Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Resistance is Futile ❯ Invasive Procedures ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2 - Invasive Procedures

Two hours left till the attack. Heero sighed and tried to made himself comfortable in the narrow air vent. His investigations hadn't led to many results yet. He had hacked into the computer mainframe of the base, but with no use at all. None of the files had told him why so many soldiers were ordered this way, only that it was so and that these orders were given high up in the chain of commands. But they had already known this facts, it was the reason why Heero was there in the first place.

And the conversations of the staff that Heero had eavesdropped hadn't brought any results, either. The soldiers also didn't know why and to what purpose they were here. This whole mission was simply frustrating. But he had still two hours left until he and the other pilots would attack the base as planned, and Heero was going to make use of every single second. Maybe he would be able to find out something after all. Therefore he was now hiding directly above the main elevator. The through traffic was the heaviest there and due to this the probability to gain some knowledge was the biggest.

Completely exhausted Heero laid his head on his hands. This heat! It was incredibly hot throughout the whole base! At first he had thought the heating system was malfunctioning but when he was scanning the files of the computer mainframe he found out that there wasn't anything wrong with it. On the contrary, the tropical climate was totally on purpose. The environmental conditions were: atmospheric pressure 2 kilo Pascal above normal, 92% humidity, 39.1 degrees Celsius. Why it was like this he didn't know. And he couldn't for the life of him think of any logical reason for it.

He stretched his legs carefully and tried to make as little noise as possible. Fortunately he was accomplishing this reconnaissance mission on his own. These air vents were incredibly narrow and if he had been locked in here together with Duo it would have been so much more unbearable. Duo… Heero sighed at the thought of his braided partner.

Duo seemed to be seriously angry with him. He hadn't said a single word to Heero after his furious departure of the living room. And Heero had noticed that he actually missed Duos endless babbling. As much as it annoyed Heero sometimes he now realized that Duos silence disturbed him even more.

And that wasn't good at all. Duo caused emotions in him. Unwanted emotions which completely contradicted his conditioning and training. He could hardly maintain his mask as Perfect Soldier when Duo was around him. It only took a little smile or a glance of these amethyst eyes and Heero was completely lost. That was the reason why Heero tried to ignore Duo as often as possible. If he didn't look at Duo there would be no danger to drown in those violet orbs, if he didn't listen to Duo he couldn't be infected with his cheerful laughter.

And still… Heero sighed once again. And still he caught himself all the times searching the proximity of Deathscythe's' pilot. He deliberately set mission parameters so that he and Duo had to finish them together and justified it with the fact that their teamwork was just perfect. And as often as possible he shared a room with the braided pilot even when there were enough empty rooms available. Only to be near Duo.

It couldn't continue like this. The emotions Duo caused in him mixed Heero up. He shouldn't be able to have any emotions at all. Duo confused him so much that sometimes he wasn't even able to concentrate on his missions. Just like now. Instead of thinking of his task Heero only thought of Duo who wasn't even there with him! For which Heero really was grateful of. Even the idea of Duo being here with him in this narrow vent - body to body - caused a fluttering feeling in Heeros stomach.

He had to get this under control. He didn't care how. Emotions were adverse for the success of the missions. And after all, to accomplish the missions successfully was the most important thing in Heeros life. Wasn't it? Yes it was. He was a soldier and he was fighting in a war. He had to concentrate on this alone. Nothing else could, nothing else was allowed to matter right now. Maybe after the war he would be able to…

The opening elevator doors beneath his hiding place interrupted Heeros thoughts. Four men came out of the elevator, stopped briefly and Heero recognized the commander of the base among them. Then the four men continued their way down the corridor and Heero decided to follow them. If he was going to learn anything it would be from the commander. Without a sound he crawled through the vents that ran above the corridor and followed the soldiers into a small storeroom finally.

The commander stopped in the middle of the room and without anything to be spoken one of the soldiers interrupted the connection of the surveillance camera. Heero held his breath intently. Such proceeding contradicted every OZ-regulations. Meanwhile the other two soldiers briefly searched the room and Heero was really glad that none of them thought of looking at the vents for then they would have found him quite easily.

They still weren't speaking but nevertheless Heero had the impression that the four men were communicating somehow with each other. Their actions were simply too coordinated. They were acting incredibly efficient, there was no unnecessary gesture or useless motion. They made almost the impression of a well functioning computer program. But that was ridiculous, wasn't it?

Finally the three soldiers stopped in the middle of the room, just like their commander. Heero waited intently for something to happen, but nothing did! the four of them stood imply there, didn't stir and had all an identically empty expression.

Heero shook slightly bewildered his head. What was happening down there? None of the four men had been moving for whole ten minutes. Not a single stirring, not a fidgety sigh, they even hardly blinked. That was more than strange. Heero was just considering if it really would be useful to hold out where he was any longer when finally something happened.

The door opened and four other soldiers entered the storeroom. They went directly to the commander, saluted and one of the soldiers said, "Sir, you wanted to speak with us here?"

The commander nodded and laid his left hand on the shoulder of the speaker. And finally the three motionless shapes began to move, even though hardly noticeable. If Heero hadn't watched them so thoroughly he possibly wouldn't even have noticed it. Nearly unperceived they moved closer to the three other soldiers until they stood directly near or behind them.

"Sir?" the speaker asked once again as the commander didn't answer him, than suddenly everything happened real fast. The three soldiers who had entered the room with the commander gripped like lightning and held their three counterparts tight on their upper arms while the commander lifted his right hand and brought it right to the neck of the speaker.

"Sir," cried the soldier once more and tried to free himself from the grip of the commander but although he held him with only one hand the soldier couldn't break free. And the other three also couldn't get rid of their captors' grips. Suddenly two small tubes emerged out of the commanders' back of the hand and drilled themselves into the neck of his victim who stopped struggling right away. After a few seconds the tubes withdrew back into the hand and finally the commander unclasped his victim who didn't move and simply stood there glassy-eyed.

The other three soldiers had started to strike and kick out wildly when they had seen what had happened with their speaker, but their guards were quite unimpressed by their actions. It seemed as if they didn't even feel the kicks. And it didn't strain them at all to hold down their victims.

The commander stepped to the three remaining soldiers one after another and repeated the procedure. The tubes were drilled into the neck of everyone of them, everyone stopped struggling right away and everyone stood there glassy-eyed.

None of the eight men stirred and after a few minutes the commander began to move and left the storeroom, followed by six of the soldiers. The seventh soldier who belonged to the original company of the commander reconnected the surveillance camera and left the room likewise.

Heero lay in his hiding-place and trembled in spite of the heat. What he had seen there had been simply unbelievable! Horrible! Atrocious! What HAD he actually seen right now? What the hell had happened there just now? What had the commander done there? What were those things that had emerged out of the commanders' hand? Und why had the soldiers stopped to struggle at once and had followed the commander obediently?

Did they carry out some experiments with obedience drugs? But why didn't Dr. J know anything of it? These drugs would have been developed somewhere and J would have known of them in any case! And Heero would have had to find some information about them in the computer files of the base. Moreover, they wouldn't have had to disconnect the surveillance camera and meet in a storeroom if the experiments had been ordered.

It didn't matter what it was but Heero realized one thing. Something really strange was happening on this base. And instead of answers he only had found more questions. What a pity that he hadn't more time to get to the bottom of those events. But maybe that was even better. Heero normally didn't give a damn on premonitions or intuition but he had a really bad feeling about the just observed incidents. It surely was the best to destroy the base and everything in it before whatever was going on here could run rampant.

Whereas it occurred to him - the attack of his four colleagues was quite imminent and if he didn't want to be blown up together with the base he should better be on his way to his Gundam. Heero just started to crawl when the door of the storeroom opened once more. Immediately he froze again and hoped whoever just entered would go away quickly.

Unfortunately he couldn't see anything from his actual position since he had moved away from the ventilation grille. Hence he only could listen to the person down there.

"They had been here," he heard the cool, emotionless voice of a woman.

"Are you sure?" answered a male voice.

"Certainly, Doctor. The readings are unequivocal." Again the voice of the woman.

"Do you know where they are now?" asked the man, "We have to find the commander before he could catch anymore."

"Let's go back to the corridor and try to pick up the tracks there," answered the woman.

Heero breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god the two would disappear in a moment. Anxious he listened for the sound of the opening door but nothing happened.

Suddenly he heard the man ask silently, "What's up, Seven?"

"I have a strange reading…" answered the as "Seven" addressed woman. Heero heard some silent cheeping sounds and then the woman said to his dismay, "I read a life form. Someone is here. And he is hiding in the air vents."