Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Solaris ❯ Chapter 4 ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 4

They walked down the empty corridors in silence. Kaiba could not help thinking that this scene was taken straight from a horror movie: two people stuck in a building together with a crazy murderer, wandering alone in the clinic, white corridors, listening carefully to the smallest sounds…

If this were a movie, at least one of them would be certain to die.

Good thing, then, that this isn't a movie, he thought and glanced at the quiet man who walked beside him. Not for the first time he wondered just what was going on under that white mop of hair, and just quite sane this companion of his actually was. Now, this thought gave the movie plot a twist to a totally new direction, and with an annoyed frown he pushed it out of his mind.

They had come up with something of a plan: they had locked all the doors through the main computer, which would force their quarry to remain in the same small area where he happened to be, without being able to wander at large on the station. Meanwhile, they would search everywhere, one area at a time, and… well. What they would do once they'd find him remained to be seen.

“Do you really think this is the wisest approach?” Kaiba said as he punched in a code to open a door to yet another quiet corridor. “We could wait until we get help from Earth, without having to hunt him down by ourselves.” By ourselves and without weapons, he added quietly in his mind.

“It would take time, and I'm not sure we have that luxury. We're counting on having him locked away from us - who knows if that really will work. We don't know where he is, or what he can do - if he finds the code to open the doors we're in trouble. I don't really want to spend any more time in a small restricted area with a madman running free than I absolutely have to. Besides…” he shot a wild grin at Kaiba, “Don't you like hunting?”

Kaiba sighed and pondered again on the burning question of how to define sanity.

“Why do you insist on starting at the labs?” he asked after a while. “Do you think we'll find him there?”

Bakura shrugged. “It's as good a place to start as any other. Besides, I want to see that everything is in order there.”

Kaiba's eyebrows rose a little. “Is there anything specific you're worried about?”

Bakura just shrugged again, and soon they reached the laboratory doors.

Everything seemed to be fine. The white tables were spotless, the cupboards neatly organized, and at least to Kaiba's eyes nothing seemed to be touched. Bakura opened a locked door at the end of the laboratory, a door that should have led to some kind of a storeroom. Instead Kaiba could see the corner of a bed, and a table.

Someone was sitting by the table. White hair, pale skin… eyes of the same brown as Bakura's turned to look at them in surprise, widening a little when noticing Kaiba behind Bakura's back.

Carefully keeping his expression blank Kaiba looked at Bakura. “So, who's this? Or are you too suffering of a split personality?”

“No. He's my brother - my twin, to be exact.”

“Let me guess, he's dead too?”

“Wrong again. Or at least if he has died, no one's bothered to inform me. We haven't been in touch for, I don't know, for many years.”

“Why?” Kaiba looked at him curiously, but got no answer.

The younger version of Bakura stood up, smiled at him hesitantly and bowed a little. “Good evening, sir. My name is Ryou Bakura.”

Kaiba turned his frown toward him, and the boy's smile faltered.

“Has anything happened?” Bakura asked, and Ryou glanced at him with a surprised look.

“No, nothing… why?”

“Never mind,” Bakura stated grumpily. He nodded at Kaiba. “Let's go then.”

“What is going on?” Ryou asked, confusion in his voice, but Bakura had already turned his back to him and was shoving Kaiba out of the room. Kaiba glanced at the confused boy with many questions in his mind, but he decided to leave them unvoiced for now. Instead he let himself to be guided out of the room and watched Bakura lock the door behind them.

“All in all, this is beginning to look quite suspicious,” he stated when the white-haired man turned back to him.

Bakura frowned. “What do you mean?”

“All these people I've seen here so far have clearly been clones of people you have access to: you, Yami, my brother. Apparently Ishtar too, for I guess this person we're searching for will look just like him.”

Bakura snorted. “You're still thinking we're cloning people here? Honestly, you have much more vivid imagination than people give you credit for.”

Kaiba looked at him with indignation. “Don't you know who designs the Duel Monsters? There's nothing wrong with my imagination.”

“I've noticed,” Bakura stated dryly, and they fell silent for a moment.

“Then what are you doing?” Kaiba asked finally. “Why haven't you reported these things? Why do you keep that boy, your brother or whatever, locked in the lab?”

“What do you think? For research. I don't want to report anything until I've got at least something scientifically plausible to say about this.”

“Scientifically plausible…” Kaiba snorted. “I'm waiting with deep interest, I tell you.”

Bakura sighed. “Mainly, what I want to find out is whether these… people are actually people, or if they are just figments of our imagination.” Kaiba gave him an inquiring look, and he went on, “What I mean is that if they are born from our minds, they shouldn't know anything we don't know, but… if they are more than that…”

He stopped in mid-sentence, and Kaiba nodded slowly. “You mean, are their memories simply our memories of them, or do they have memories of their own, the memories of those people they are supposed to be? I don't quite understand how that could be. How could some clone - for clones of some kind these must be - that has been made here and now know what my brother knew when he was alive, things he never told even me? It is hard enough to believe that this creature would be made of my memories, but of Mokuba's… that's impossible.”

“Much of this is impossible…” Bakura muttered darkly.

Kaiba had nothing to say to that, so he remained silent. Bakura started rummaging around in the cupboards and closets, dug out a wide assortment of different bottles and tubes, and made a quick `cocktail' out of them. Kaiba nodded approvingly as he watched Bakura pour the liquid into small glass bottles.

“You'd better be careful with those,” he said, and Bakura looked up at him, grinning widely.

“Here's one for you too,” he said and threw one bottle to Kaiba whose reflexes were luckily quite good.

“You are bloody crazy,” he muttered as he gingerly held the bottle, trying to force his startled heart to calm down.

“Shall we go then?” Bakura said cheerfully, ignoring him, pocketed the other two bottles and picked up the chair leg again. “We've got a mad astral split personality clone to catch.” He marched out of the laboratory, and shaking his head Kaiba followed him, still trying to figure out whether he wanted to put the rather explosive bottle in his pocket or carry it in his hands.

So they went on with the hunt. They moved from one secluded area to another, slowly, cautiously, all the time expecting bullets to fly at them from some dark corner - well, at least Kaiba kept the fact that their quarry had a gun clear in his mind. He wasn't so sure of his companion, though, but he had to admit that even if Bakura seemed to take the situation a little too lightly at times, at least he made a very good stalker and didn't take any unnecessary risks.

“This is taking a long while,” he muttered to Bakura after they had checked the umpteenth room. He glanced at his wrist watch - they had been at it for over three hours by now. He went quickly through the floor plan in his mind. “We don't have too many places left.”

“So we have to come across him soon,” Bakura muttered, starting to sound a little annoyed. “He has to be here somewhere.”

Kaiba stopped suddenly on his heels. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

Kaiba watched thoughtfully the walls around them. “What kind of ventilation system does this place have?”

Bakura cursed so vividly that even Kaiba learned some new words. “Yes?” he said calmly. “What was that?”

Bakura took a deep breath. “I've no bloody clue, I'm a scientist, not an engineer. But I guess it could be possible, technically… I'd imagine all parts of it should be accessible for reparations… I've no clue!”

Kaiba sighed. “Let's find a computer. There must be some info on this, and I don't want to continue any further until we know for sure.”

“We're pretty close to our rooms,” Bakura grunted. “We could as well go to check how Malik is faring.”

Two more locked doors opened manually - Kaiba was beginning to get quite tired of this - and they were back in the corridor they had started from. On the way they had gravely noted a ventilation hole on the ceiling, covered by a grating, but big enough for a grown-up man.

Malik's door came into view; it stood open. Bakura cursed again and started running. “Déjà-vu,” Kaiba muttered, and ran after him.

This time the room was empty, and Bakura's curses were turning quite expressive once again. Kaiba stepped in after him and closed the door behind him. “Make sure there's no one here,” he said to Bakura and wasting no time turned on Malik's computer. As the computer hummed on he shot an estimating look around. “Does it look like there's been a fight, or do you think he's left on his own?”

“Hard to say,” Bakura said and kicked a fallen paper basket. They hadn't exactly cleaned up after the previous fight. After checking that the rooms were empty he peeked over Kaiba's shoulder and saw he had already found all the files about the station's construction.

“It's not too bad,” Kaiba muttered. “There are some ways to get from one area to another, but it could have been worse.” He printed out a floor plan, studied it a moment and then picked up a red pen and crossed out some areas.

“These are secure and we have already checked them. Here,” he drew a line from one part to another, “and here are connections that possibly could be used.”

“Do you think…” Bakura started to say but fell quiet in mid-sentence.

“What?” Kaiba asked, with deepening annoyance as Bakura hushed him down.

“There's someone in the corridor…” Bakura grasped his chair leg and slid to the door while Kaiba stood slowly up and positioned himself on the other side of the doorway. Now he too heard the muffled steps from the corridor.

The moment the door opened and a shadow appeared in the doorway they both jumped at it, Kaiba grasping the hands and Bakura raising the leg to hit.

Their victim gave a startled yelp, stumbled, and fell down on the floor dragging Kaiba as well down into one bundle. Bakura threw the chair leg away and grasped a handful of white hair.

“You!” he yelled, shaking the white mop of hair he'd grasped. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Please don't pull my hair like that, it hurts,” his brother's look-alike muttered miserably.

“How did you get here?” Kaiba asked, scrambling back to his feet. “All the doors are locked.”

“Yes, the doors...” Ryou muttered, rubbing his head. “I used the ventilation duct.”

Bakura cursed. “If an idiot like him can do that…” he muttered, but paused then. “Wait a minute. Just how did you get out of the room into which you were locked? The vent-hole in it is hardly big enough, and I can't quite believe you'd have been able to break the door.”

“No,” Ryou admitted. “It's just... in fact, Yuugi came for me.”

“Who?” Kaiba asked.

“The ghost from Mutou's past, the one that drove him crazy,” Bakura muttered and Ryou shivered.

“It wasn't his fault, really...” he started to say, but Bakura cut him off.

“So you're saying he's still wandering around here?”

“Not really.” Ryou's voice was quiet and sad. “He went away, he said we won't meet again. I think it's about his time, he was already fading...”

There was a moment's silence. “Why?” Kaiba asked then. “Why did you come here? You could have stayed in you safe, locked room and not get involved with… whatever it is that's going on here.” Ryou just shrugged, uncomfortably, gazing down, and Kaiba gave an exasperated sigh. “Never mind, then. We need a new plan. Would you, by any chance, have any suggestions?”

Bakura snorted. “Him?”

“Why not? He is, in the end, one of them.”

“It doesn't mean I'd know... anything,” Ryou blurted out, clearly disturbed by Kaiba's tone. “I... I just...”

“Yes?” Kaiba prompted when he fell silent, and he sighed.

“I think this... this person you're looking for... wants to get away from here. There's nothing here that would interest him. That's what Yuugi said, anyway, and it makes sense from what he told me.”

“This Yuugi again,” Kaiba muttered. “Can we really trust him?”

“I do, anyway,” Ryou said and now his gaze was level. “He told me about this… visitor of Ishtar-san's. He's quite psychotic, apparently.”

“And why would Yuugi know anything about him?”

Silence followed Kaiba's question, and he stared at the white-haired boy with narrow eyes. Just when he was about to repeat the question, Ryou gave a small sigh and shook his head as if to banish some questions of his own.

“Long ago, back when Ishtar-san was suffering of his split personality syndrome, Yami already knew him. They had been friends since they were kids, and of course Yami did his best to help him. He's the one who knew most of what was going on back then, after Ishtar-san himself. And… this Yuugi, he is… or was… no one else but Yami himself, when he was young.”

“What?” uttered Kaiba at the same time as Bakura exclaimed “How?”

Ryou shrugged. “I don't know how these things work. And I don't know exactly what happened back then… some things went wrong, and I guess… Yami changed, turned into something he didn't used to be, and… maybe he just couldn't stomach seeing himself as he once was… I don't know. Yuugi means `game', doesn't it… I think there's some kind of a hint there, but I've no clue what it's all about.”

He fell silent for a moment and continued then, sadly, “And now it's too late to ask…”

“So…” Kaiba was still trying to gather his thoughts. He remembered the boy who had appeared in his doorway back when he had watched Yami's video message. Who else could have hair like that… And the voice he'd heard on the background on the video… it did remind that of Yami's didn't it? Just younger. He'd have to watch that video again.

“So. All this is very interesting but doesn't really tell us anything new. We already know that we're dealing with someone dangerous - and armed, better not to forget that. You said he'd want to get away from here? We already checked the port and there was no one there - though I guess it's included to those areas he can have reached since we were there, via the ventilation system.”

Ryou nodded. “Yuugi was quite positive that he'd be there. He's someone who enjoys pain and hurting others, and in the end there are but a few people for him to play with here. He'd surely want to go back to Earth.”

“Play with, huh?” Bakura muttered. “We'll see about that. But does he think he'll survive when he's away from Solaris' influence? I haven't had the chance to fully research this, but I think that Solaris' radiation has an important role in… simply put, keeping your bodies together.”

“I don't know,” Ryou admitted.

“Whatever's the truth about that doesn't really matter,” Kaiba said thoughtfully. “As long as he believes he can make it, he'll try. In other words, he's most likely trying to steal my shuttle right now as we speak here.”

“I don't think he'll leave from here as long as someone's alive here,” Ryou stated. “Even this place is okay as long as there's a chance to… have some fun.”

Bakura snorted. “Fine. He should be at the port then, right? Let's go have some fun, then.”