Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ The Night's End ❯ Down the Rabbit Hole ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer- The Surgeon General warns that reading this fic is not guaranteeing to raise IQ. The author warns that writing this fic doesn't make these characters hers. The two points raised above have no correlation. I would also like it noted that the last two pages of this chapter were written at 4 in the morning after a bolt of inspiration...therefore if it make no sense...blame it on lack of sleep and I'll fix it later.


Meryl's Thomas stopped of its own accord. Sighing in frustration, she raised her binoculars to her eyes once more to scan the horizon. 'Still nothing,' she sighed again, before lowering them once more and reaching for her waterbottle. But, like the many times she'd reached for it before, it remained as dry as her surroundings. Scowling fiercely, she sat back in her saddle and focused on the dune that her Thomas was climbing at the moment, scanning for any hint of what she might have seen before.

Still nothing? That was a laugh. Nothing seemed to be a bit of an overestimate, she figured. There was no sign of anything that could have possibly been the light she'd seen. No people, no vehicles, nothing. And she'd been at this for hours, just wandering around and looking. She probably looked like a fool to anybody passing by, and she felt like one too. By now she knew each and every sandy foot of every dune that she'd ridden today, since discovering that Vash had abandoned his room in the middle of the night. Damn that man...

By now one of the suns was in her eyes, forcing her to squint, and giving her a terrible headache. Five hours on the Thomas...and still nothing. She hadn't imagined the light, but there really was nothing to be done about the situation besides going back into town for the night and coming back tomorrow. One of the suns was beginning to set over to her left, and she was getting a headache from the constant light in her eyes. And any pain reliever's she had would be nearly impossible to take with her parched throat...

Why was she even here? Why did she care about a light that she saw hours ago? Sure, it was out of the ordinary, but there were millions of possible explanations for them, and the majority of those explanations didn't need any sort of help from her whatsoever. So why was she here? Perhaps it was because of that preacher in black that Millie favored? Honestly, Meryl didn't know what Millie saw in that man, but still, why was she here? Hard as it was to admit, even to herself, she decided it was probably simply because it was what Vash would have done had he been conscious at the time. That poor guy--she stopped that train of thought before it could get potentially embarrassing. Strict control, that was what she prided herself on. She wasn't weak. She didn't want to feel weak.

With a start, she realized that she'd hadn't been moving for quite some time now, and the second of the suns was setting. By now, Millie would be getting worried. And could she really trust Millie to keep Vash out of trouble? Shaking her head, she turned her Thomas back to town, choosing to ignore the possibilities of the light for the time being. If it was still plaguing her tomorrow, she go and check it out with Millie, but for now...she'd better concentrate on finding her way back to town.

Reining her Thomas around, she had just started retracing her steps when the earth beneath her began to shake. Trying to keep her Thomas in line while maintaining her seat, she watched as the sand began to slide off of the dune she was on, revealing some new material underneath. "Oh my God," she managed to whisper before her Thomas lost it's footing and fell, dumping her out of the saddle and rolling her down the dune's slope. With a frightened bleat, the Thomas took off as fast as it could, reins dangling behind it.

Rolling to a stop, Meryl coughed a few times before scraping the sand out of her eyes and looking at the new structure rising where the dune had once been. It was a huge dust-encrusted metal plate, that poked out of the dune like the cover to a book. It bowed slightly towards her, and from her current vantage point at the base of the far side of the dune, she couldn't see what this 'door' was opening up to reveal.

"What the-" she scrambled to her feet and drew for her derringers. They weren't there of course. Cursing herself silently, she recalled that she'd stripped the heavy derringer holsters off of her cloak earlier when she'd been forced to help Vash into the saddle. They'd been getting in the way, and Millie couldn't handle the man herself. Out of water, out of bullets, a mysterious door into the ground out in the middle of nowhere...could this get any worse?

The shaking stopped, and the now-revealed door stopped creaking open. From the other side of the dune, Meryl could hear the buzz of electrical equipment and a faint hum of-something else, coming from inside the opening. Curiosity overcame discretion, and she stumbled up the slope to where the plate was.

It was even larger from up close. Running her hand over it, she felt the pitted nature of the metal and saw the scorch marks buried underneath years of sand and dust. The edges were faintly rimmed with rust which flaked off when she brushed her hand over it. It was cool to the touch which surprised her. Even approaching nightfall, the desert was still almost unbearably hot.

She stepped around the side of the door, watching for anything that might be dangerous. There were numerous incidents of travelers coming into contact with lost technology, and not every tale ended happily. With any luck, there wouldn't be any trouble here, but she wasn't willing to take any stupid chances on security robots catching her. Especially since she was woefully unarmed and alone also. However, she had a feeling that if she didn't investigate this mysterious door at this point in time, she might never see it again. And for a lost technology on a dying, desert world, never is a very long time to ask of something that would only take a moment. Only a moment. And if she repeated that to herself enough, she might even begin to believe it.

From the other side, she could see into the pit that had opened up. Below her was a gleaming metal deck with a ramp that led further into the ground. Sand from the dune had spilled over onto the metallic deck and it mildly dusted the walkway below her. There was no sign of danger, and she figured that had there been security robots around they would have been here by now. It seemed perfectly logical, since she was well aware that they could sense her from a distance, and they certainly could overpower one lone human through sheer firepower and numbers. There was no need for them to go sneaking around. No, there certainly was no need. Therefore logic dictated that there was no security system.

"Meryl, you're psyching yourself out,'' she breathed, before forcing herself to walk straight out from her hiding place behind the plate and around the edge to the gaping hole that led into what she was beginning to suspect was a ship. She would have felt much safer had she had even one of her derringers with her, and even more secure in her position if Millie had been there to watch her back. Or if Vash... "Stop it." No more thoughts of that nature. Keep your mind on the situation at hand Meryl Stryfe.

Her footsteps echoed off the walls as she entered the passageway. A faint buzz was all she could hear. It was the sound of a hive of sorts...the sound of millions of small voices working together...it was the sound that the mechanical portions of the Plants made. It was, in short, the sound of the lost technologies. Following the buzz, she walked down the corridor until she was stopped by a sudden branching. In front of her, a sign with arrows pointing down either way informed her that one way led to the "Control Room," and the other led to "Crew Quarters." Figuring that the crew's area would probably be more likely to have water and a clean set of clothes, she followed the arrows, keeping an eye out for anybody else along the way. However, she had this feeling that the ship was probably uninhabited. It felt...dead, if an inanimate object could ever be said to be so. Or rather, not dead but merely unfulfilled...as if its part in the grand scheme of things had been forgotten. She shivered slightly at that thought. Although she didn't know what this thing did, or was designed to do...it was unlike the remains of the other ships she had seen, and that scared her most of all, though she hated to admit it. It was different, and it still worked to some extent at least, as evidenced by the fact that the door was still opening after so many years (she didn't even want to think about WHY the door was opeing). And although this ship was probably something designed to help her ancestors through their journey to this planet, it WAS lost technology, and sometimes things were better left undiscovered... But here she was again, psyching herself out, when all she needed to do was find something to eat and drink before she shrivelled up and died. "That's it Meryl, just focus on the now." And keep talking to yourself like this, and people will think you're crazy, she added silently.

Finally reaching the designated 'Crew Quarters' area, she read the little map in front of the door to it, and followed the directions there to find a cafeteria which served both water and preserved food rations. Searching around, she located a cup and proceeded to eat and drink until the pain in her stomach and the cracking in the back of her throat were gone. After she had finished the meal, she washed her dishes and set them aside, before going to look for a change of clothes.

Inside the area labeled 'Barracks,' she found several shipsuits, a few of which came close to fitting her. Evidently whoever had used these before her had been taller than her by about half a foot, but she wasn't going to complain. Seeking out a shower, she was pleasantly surprised to find it still worked, and despite the fact that she was unable to get all of the traveling grit out of her hair and off of her skin, she felt immensely better than she had previously. Now all she had to do was to get to town...

Searching every section of the Crew's Quarters, she couldn't find any methods of transportation at all. Not surprising, but still vaguely disappointing. This place was starting to get on her nerves, with its quiet noises, and it's sense of alien purpose. "That's just paranoia talking," she assured herself before leaving the Crew's Quarter's to head down the hallway to the Control Room. When she passed the hallway where she'd entered the ship a few hours ago, she noted with dismay that in the time she'd been gone, the door had shut again. "Damn." Sighing wearily, she headed towards the Control Room once more. Transportation first, deal with getting the door to open later.

Finally, she reached a door labeled 'Control Room.' It slid open with a hiss as she walked up to it, and she was greeted by a louder version of that same electrical hum that she'd noticed earlier. Here however, it seemed to fill the air expectantly, as if not daring to believe that someone was here after all this time. It was the expectant hush of an audience waiting for the play to start, and she was the star.

Glancing around the room nervously, she started at one end of the room and circled her way around, keeping an eye out for anything that might be of use. She already had a feeling that she wouldn't find a car stashed around here, but anything else that might be of use would be appreciated at this point. Get items and go...her brain whispered feverishly. Leave as soon as you can.

And she would have too, had it not been for one of the Control Room's stations. As she circled the room looking for anything of value (and feeling remarkably like a grave robber), one station in particular caught her eye. Stopping in front of it, she watched it's holo-screen turn a whirling ball of sand into a lush, green planet. Desert to paradise... The thought, though inconcievable, was the dream of every settler on this planet, and she just might have found the answer in this lost ship. Breathless at this sudden discovery, she reached out to touch the green world before it dissolved once more into the brown one, and jumped back as the station seemed to switch off of screensaver mode and into operational mode. The planet shrunk to one corner, still whirling madly through it's cycles of wet and dry, and numbers and letters flicked across the screen in rapid succession.

After a few moments, the screen stilled to two simple phrases, which she read through slowly to make sure she understood them.

"Phase one has successfully ended with a 87% survival rate."

"Continue with Phase two? Yes/No?"

She watched as her finger hovered over the question, hardly believing this was happening. It was though, and here she was with a chance to do what could possibly be the most important decision ever made in the history of this planet. Everyone knew that the Plants were dying off, and experts in Bernardelli were saying that there were chances that they would all be gone before the end of her lifetime. And here she was with what could be the answer to it all.

She pressed 'Yes,' and watched as the screen processed this information.

"Thank you Dr. Galloway," it printed after a moment, "Phase Two implemented. Expected Time: 25:00:00."

With a start, Meryl realized that for better or worse...she had just affected the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet. And although she didn't consider herself devout, she sent up a prayer that she had made the right decision. The right decision...for everyone. Please. Was it really that much to ask?