Well, it is Sunday.
May. 14th, 2007 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_keXD This chapter is a smidge longer than I expected it to be. And everyone talks. I fail.
“So,” Duo began once Sanzo started showing signs of relaxation. “What brought you to the brink of sudden death?”
“Suffocation is hardly sudden,” Sanzo said sourly, chewing on a surprisingly palatable serving of protein.
“You’ve been planning it then?”
Sanzo looked into his meal. It wasn’t much to look at. “We were in a hurry to leave Persephone, we didn’t get the chance to fix the engine properly.”
Duo considered him for a moment. “I’m trying to phrase this as unobtrusively as I possibly can, so please do acknowledge the effort. Sanzo, what force in the fucking ‘verse made you leave the port without the expansion valve in an immaculate state?”
“We’re in trouble,” he replied curtly. Duo leaned back and kept staring.
“What kind of trouble?” A new voice sounded from the doorway. Out of the corner of his eye Sanzo noticed Goku look up and stare at the newcomer. He followed his gaze and felt his brows raise up into his hairline.
“Fuck me blind,” he said. “Yuy.” He cast a questioning glance at Duo and back to Yuy again, looking for dots to connect.
“Genjo. A pleasure, as always.”
“I beg to differ,” Duo muttered.
“I must say I am a smidge confused, despite the earlier introductions,” Gojyo interjected, stretching his arms out. “He’s Heero, you’re Duo, and you’re both on speaking terms with Sanzo – you can see what I’m having trouble with. Can I please get a straight answer?”
“Gonna be a problem, the straight part,” Duo predicted darkly. A wry smirk twisted Heero’s mouth, as he settled himself next to Duo, throwing a handful of papers onto the table. Sanzo stifled a groan and concentrated on his food.
“Right, I can see that plain as day.”
“You require a reintroduction?”
“I remember your name, pretty boy. It’s the gory details I’m after. ‘Cause no offence, but Sanzo being here right at home? Makes me think you’re a nutcase. A demented nutcase, at that. And it isn’t making me feel safe.” Gojyo was fishing for dirt, hopefully on Sanzo, this much was plain. Hakkai, on the other hand, was pretending to listen with half an ear, from what Sanzo could see, but paying very close attention to the proceedings. Judging by the tension he exuded, he was still assessing their saviours and the threat they presented.
“Can’t really argue with that.” Duo scratched the back of his neck. “Brief version would be, I used to pilot for Sanzo, before Kougaji seduced Miss Yaone. So obviously, I am insane.”
“Our dear captain has a knack for attracting nutjobs.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“I’m right here,” Sanzo found it fit to remind them.
“So that’s me. Obviously a nutcase, you can trust me. And then there’s Heero.” Duo gave Heero a long look, to which he replied with an eye-roll. “Heero isn’t entirely sane either.”
“What do you say, our oh-so-illustrious captain, who is right here?” Gojyo asked turning to Sanzo.
“Drop dead,” the oh-so-illustrious captain suggested. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly, looking Gojyo in the eye. He flickered his gaze to Hakkai, making sure the doctor caught the nod. He did. The relaxation was barely palpable, but it was there.
“Figured as much. He needs to get laid, doesn’t he?” Gojyo said, turning to their hosts with a flair. Sanzo felt actual terror. He knew where this was going.
“Wouldn’t help none,” Duo said. His wide, innocent eyes held a demonic glint, even though his tone was serious. “Trust me, I know.”
Gojyo sputtered in a most unbecoming manner. “What? You’re trying to tell me he’s actually had sex? Ever?”
“Well, I could tell you…” Duo regarded the companion thoughtfully.
“But then you’d have to kill me, I bet. So cliché.”
“Or, I could show you pictures.” Needless to say, calmness did not follow.
“You don’t have pictures,” Sanzo hissed leaning towards Duo, as the lot of them watched Gojyo flail in excitement.
“You know that and I know that, but it’s gonna be fun seeing what he’ll offer to see them.”
“No pictures?” Gojyo looked absolutely crestfallen. Sanzo almost laughed. Almost.
“As entertaining as Sanzo’s sex life is,” Sanzo bristled at that, “We still have the UEG fleet on our asses,” Kougaji pointed out, to Gojyo’s disappointment.
“Yeah, about that. What did you do this time?”
“Picked the wrong passenger,” Sanzo replied, “With the wrong cargo.”
Duo and Heero blinked in unison. “I fear to ask how wrong the cargo had be to get you in more trouble,” Heero said.
Sanzo looked down to the floor, at the fairly adorable picture Goku and Kouryuu presented. “Wrong enough.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“We can’t stay here, in any case.”
“You’d be safer here,” Heero said shaking his head.
“Doubt it.”
“We have cloaking devices and plenty of proximity alarms. And your passengers have a price on their heads, the kind that’d make every bounty hunter in the galaxy crawl from under their rock.”
Sanzo froze. “What?”
Heero picked up his papers and arranged them on the table. “Look familiar?” There were headshots of both Goku and Hakkai, with a neatly printed many-zeroed sums underneath.
“Fuck.”
“It never ceases to amaze, how aptly can you summarise any situation you find yourself in,” Duo said. “It’s amazing what inflection can do with a single syllable.”
“The only advantage you have is that these haven’t been released widely. Only to planetary government and high military circles. With orders to keep the search as quiet and as intense as possible.”
No one said anything.
“This might not be the best time, but what’s the cargo?” Duo asked, looking back and forth between the crew of West.
For a long while the crew was exchanging troubled glances. “He is,” Gojyo said finally, indicating Goku. “He’d been in a box when Hakkai brought him on board.” There was another period of silence.
“Okay, I give up. Why would anyone feel the need to stuff a kid in a box? Wait, don’t answer that. I can think of a few reasons. But surely a ticket would be less expensive?”
To Sanzo’s utmost surprise, it was Hakkai who answered. “Goku was a subject of a number of long running experiments. The lab has his retina scans, fingerprints, DNA samples, behavioural patterns, pretty much everything they need to identify him, should he be caught on camera,” he said as evenly as if he was talking about weather.
Duo’s face twisted in revulsion and anger. “Jesus. Who’d do that to a kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” Goku said, never raising his eyes from Kouryuu’s fur. “I’m twenty.”
“Long-running kinda implies it took more than a week,” Duo told him. “And no worries, ain’t gonna be throwing you a pity party.”
“Can I ask how exactly did Heero find out where were those pictures sent?” Yaone asked, looking at Kougaji, Sanzo and Heero in turn.
“Now would probably be a good moment to explain that Heero earns a living hacking everything with a microchip in it,” Duo said, smiling at Yaone. “Anything you want to know, Heero’s the person to ask.”
Yaone looked at Sanzo. “The military system passwords you get?” The captain nodded. “Isn’t that illegal?”
The resulting moment was one of those classic comedic moments, when everyone present pauses whatever they are doing, even if they are busy tuning a nuclear core, and looks toward the person who’d just been (unofficially) awarded the Idiot of the Year award.
“You’re in for a shock,” Kougaji said eventually. His girlfriend gave him a scathing glare.
“What I meant is, it’s a whole another level of illegal. Thievery and smuggling is one thing, but do you expect anyone to just ignore the knowledge that someone can gain access into their system just like that?”
“Heero’s good at not leaving traces of being there. And even if they knew it was him, finding us won’t be easy now. Besides, Heero would know if they tried. Bureaucracy, you see. Won’t go a step without making ten thousand mentions in the system.”
“Information isn’t hard to track. If your clients have a terminal with a fixed terrestrial address, finding them is easy. And from them it’s a matter of hacking the logs, waiting for transmission and tracing the data path back to the source,” Goku said, letting Kouryuu paw at his hair.
“See the kinda shit we’ve gotta put up with?” Gojyo said, pointing an accusing finger at the monkey. “And he does it all the time. Ask him how long till you’re turning blue in the face if your oxygen-whazzit blows up, that one’s my personal favourite.”
“He didn’t actually hurt no one this time. Be grateful,” Sanzo said.
“Hurt no one?”
Sanzo spared a moment to glance at Heero. “He doesn’t fight,” he said shortly. His voice was very quiet. “He kills.”
Down on the floor Goku froze. “I don’t feel so good,” he said, laying a hand across his stomach. His face was growing pale. Hakkai sprang from his seat and knelt by his side.
“Does anything hurt?” he asked, checking Goku’s pulse.
Goku shook his head and shivered violently. “Just. Just not feeling good.”
Sanzo was willing to bet the fever was making an appearance yet again. Goku’s eyes were glazed over and out of focus.
The silence was broken by Jien ambling over with a drink. “What, he’s a junkie too?” he asked, watching the proceedings.
The doctor blinked at him in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“He looks like he’s gone too long without a fix, if you ask me.”
“Oh. Of course.” The proverbial light bulb flashed over Hakkai’s head and flickered merrily. The doctor gave Goku a very calculating look. “That would explain a lot. Please excuse me,” he added in the direction of the general public, helped Goku up and led him back to West. Sanzo stared after them with his brows raised.
“He a competent doctor?” Heero asked, following Sanzo’s gaze.
“Don’t know, didn’t ask for his credentials,” Sanzo replied. He didn’t add that he strongly suspected, and most likely was right in assuming, that Hakkai was a brilliant doctor.
“One thing does bother me, though.”
Sanzo spared Heero a look. “Yeah?”
“Twenty, Genjo?”
“Fuck you.”
Sometime later Sanzo, to nobody’s surprise, found himself back on board West, seemingly intent on monitoring the infirmary. Goku was curled on the bench, asleep. Sanzo forced himself not to stare. On the other side of the small room Hakkai was flipping through pages of medical data, too fast to make out anything coherent, or so it seemed to Sanzo.
“What’s wrong with him?” the captain asked walking in.
“I’m not quite sure. The symptoms he’s experiencing can be attributed to withdrawal, I’m almost positive they are some form of withdrawal, but I can’t seem to find anything specific. There’re mentions of several types of drug he’d been injected with and addicted to throughout his life. There’s just as many withdrawal and detoxification treatments though. Here,” he said pointing to a long name that meant absolutely nothing to Sanzo, “This is the only thing he is addicted to now. Quite rare, quite expensive, hard to come by, for an average addict. Usually not worth the effort. Very difficult to substitute.”
Sanzo said nothing.
“However, it still doesn’t make sense. It’s addictive, yes, but withdrawal usually manifests itself by minor headaches, nausea practically never. Given his resilience, he should shrug it off without the slightest trouble. It doesn’t explain his condition.”
“Summarise that in English.”
Hakkai sighed. “Fluctuating fever and bouts of nausea are very taxing on the system. He’d lost consciousness when we were walking. His pulse is dangerously high. There’s a possibility of a myocardial infraction.”
Sanzo didn’t so much as blink, neither at the words, not Gojyo’s appearance. “A heart attack? But he’s just a kid.”
“The symptoms induce stress, which he had in abundance for most of his life. Combined with blood pressure, well. I’ll have to run some tests on his blood, but I daresay the possibility is there, if this keeps up.”
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” the companion said.
“Well, it is quite fascinating, from a medical perspective.”
“I don’t want medical perspective,” Sanzo said sharply. “I want you to fix him.”
“Believe me when I say I’m trying, captain,” Hakkai said, and for a moment Sanzo was inclined to believe him. Try as he might though, he couldn’t get over the cold, academic interest flickering in his green eyes. He left the infirmary without a word.
“You won’t get far around here, pissing his highness off,” Gojyo said, looking after the irate captain. “He likes to think he’s an evil bastard, but people actually like him, for reasons I have yet to understand.”
Hakkai allowed himself a smile. “Don’t you?”
“Please. He’s antisocial, rude and a lowlife thief.” As if to contradict the words, Gojyo’s mouth curved in a little smile, not exactly one of his winsome companion of the year repertoire.
“Why, I could almost say there’s genuine affection,” Hakkai said, smiling in response.
“The only genuine affection that man feels is for his gun.” Gojyo paused over the sleeping Goku. “Which is quite poetic, I suppose,” he added, patting the unruly brown hair awkwardly. Goku shifted and opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound emerged. Hakkai watched the two of them, his expression unreadable.
“You know, I have a really good memory,” Gojyo said suddenly. “I rarely forget names or personal details.”
“I suspect it must be useful.”
“You bet. Ladies love a guy who remembers their pet’s birthdays.” He paused. “Which is why I have so much trouble getting used to Hakkai.” The doctor froze. “Is my memory failing, Gonou?”
There was silence. Gojyo walked around the examination table and rested his hand against the counter, next to Hakkai’s hip. “Hakkai?” he asked, leaning forward.
“My sister was a newtype,” the doctor said, averting his eyes. His voice was very quiet. “What you might call a psychic. An empath. Nothing particularly obvious, nothing that would hinder her social life. Quite the opposite.” Hakkai paused. “She had an abundance of friends, as you may recall.”
“Yeah. Gregarious lady, Kanan.”
“The interesting thing about newtype empaths, is that with stripping certain parts of the frontal lobe you can increase the ability to a level that is quite frankly astonishing.”
Gojyo blinked. “Alright, but what’s the point of doing that?” Dumb question, he realised as soon as it left his mouth. Scientists would perform a full vivisection, just to record the patient’s reaction.
“The neural surgery and subsequent conditioning performed on Goku left his psyche somewhat unstable. Whilst triggered, he would display unparalleled levels of uncontrollable aggression. Other times he was prone to depression and self-destructive behaviour. No medication helped.”
“He doesn’t have many scars, though. How bad was it?” Gojyo recalled watching the kid strip off his shirt and he was certain that scars weren’t in the picture.
“Scars would be identifying features, Gojyo. A hindrance, considering his purpose. Physical enhancements were kept to a minimum, but obviously an increased healing ability was administered. Given appropriate care, I don’t think he wouldn’t scar much, if at all. Nevertheless, the damage he could inflict on himself could be – and on several occasion was – life-threatening. So someone came up with a solution: get a psychic to stabilise him.”
“How would they find one? I mean, it’s not something that goes into the ‘special features’ box on a birth certificate, is it?”
“Gojyo, you underestimate the amount of data a sufficiently covert governmental facility can acquire about any individual, including those born in the slums of the furthest moons. Me and Kanan – we were what you call privileged citizens of a central planet. Which means a social security number, detailed medical charts and school records, and that’s before we were even born.”
“I’m rather surprised you agreed.” Hakkai didn’t answer. Gojyo waited for a few seconds, before the truth dawned on him. “You didn’t agree. She didn’t agree.”
“You sound surprised. We’re talking about people who have no moral qualms about manipulating a child’s brain to create a professional killer.”
“Point taken. Fuck.” Another pause. “What happened?”
“I was away for a period of time, for research. They took Kanan to the clinic and performed the surgery.” He fell silent. “It worked,” he continued. “Her abilities went beyond mind-reading. I don’t know the details, but I heard that the plan was ‘a fabulous success’. Of course, eventually it backfired on them.”
“Kanan wasn’t conditioned, was she. They couldn’t control her.”
“They could, to an extent. But of course you’re right. She was too strong willed to submit to simple brainwashing. And considering that brain is an extremely sensitive organ and her usefulness depended on it, they couldn’t very well administer the same treatment Goku was subjected to. As I gathered, her main task was influencing Goku while he was in a battle mode, to limit his aggression.”
“Huh. Now that doesn’t make much sense.”
“I assure you, the word aggressive is a severe understatement here. However, they didn’t so much mind the aggressiveness of his fighting, as the lack of control. He would attack any target, without any discrimination whatsoever, which, as you can imagine, was a problem.”
“I’ll say.” Gojyo stared at the ceiling. “Did Goku kill her?” he asked. Hakkai closed his eyes and smiled. Gojyo didn’t like that smile.
“No. As I said, the experiment with Kanan proved to be a success. She managed to calm him down, make him more of a human being, so to speak. But the downside was, she had a free will. And under her influence, Goku could oppose the conditioning to an extent.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“In a way, your guess was correct. They ordered him to kill her, but he refused to.” Hakkai fell silent. Gojyo waited for the punch line. “I don’t know what happened, exactly. I think she was trying to escape, with Goku. The guards shot them both. She didn’t survive.”
On the other side of the infirmary Goku stirred. Both the doctor and the companion looked at him for a while. “He isn’t showing signs of having been hurt recently,” Gojyo ventured finally, more to say anything than because he was curious. He suspected he knew why Goku was in prime condition. Hakkai was a remarkably patient man, he’d found out.
“He heals abnormally fast.” Hakkai looked Gojyo in the eye. “As for the name, I was requested to pick a pseudonym for administrative purposes, whilst in the facility. Just so my actual name didn’t show on the payroll, or anywhere else. It allowed us some anonymity, in case we were discovered or shut down. Since my duties hardly changed, I kept it.”
“Very poetic,” Gojyo agreed. He realised belatedly that he was still crowding Hakkai in the corner of the room. Hakkai, however, didn’t seem to mind.
“Do you think I’m a bad person?” the doctor asked, looking at the computer screen.
“Yes,” Gojyo replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He grinned when Hakkai gave him a look that bordered on incredulity. “Well, no offence, but mass murder and kidnapping ain’t exactly good guy modus operandi, you know?”
“I suppose not.” Hakkai said, smiling. “I wonder, what does that make you?” he murmured into Gojyo’s neck.
“I’m a whore. Morality isn’t my forte.” And it wasn’t.
“So,” Duo began once Sanzo started showing signs of relaxation. “What brought you to the brink of sudden death?”
“Suffocation is hardly sudden,” Sanzo said sourly, chewing on a surprisingly palatable serving of protein.
“You’ve been planning it then?”
Sanzo looked into his meal. It wasn’t much to look at. “We were in a hurry to leave Persephone, we didn’t get the chance to fix the engine properly.”
Duo considered him for a moment. “I’m trying to phrase this as unobtrusively as I possibly can, so please do acknowledge the effort. Sanzo, what force in the fucking ‘verse made you leave the port without the expansion valve in an immaculate state?”
“We’re in trouble,” he replied curtly. Duo leaned back and kept staring.
“What kind of trouble?” A new voice sounded from the doorway. Out of the corner of his eye Sanzo noticed Goku look up and stare at the newcomer. He followed his gaze and felt his brows raise up into his hairline.
“Fuck me blind,” he said. “Yuy.” He cast a questioning glance at Duo and back to Yuy again, looking for dots to connect.
“Genjo. A pleasure, as always.”
“I beg to differ,” Duo muttered.
“I must say I am a smidge confused, despite the earlier introductions,” Gojyo interjected, stretching his arms out. “He’s Heero, you’re Duo, and you’re both on speaking terms with Sanzo – you can see what I’m having trouble with. Can I please get a straight answer?”
“Gonna be a problem, the straight part,” Duo predicted darkly. A wry smirk twisted Heero’s mouth, as he settled himself next to Duo, throwing a handful of papers onto the table. Sanzo stifled a groan and concentrated on his food.
“Right, I can see that plain as day.”
“You require a reintroduction?”
“I remember your name, pretty boy. It’s the gory details I’m after. ‘Cause no offence, but Sanzo being here right at home? Makes me think you’re a nutcase. A demented nutcase, at that. And it isn’t making me feel safe.” Gojyo was fishing for dirt, hopefully on Sanzo, this much was plain. Hakkai, on the other hand, was pretending to listen with half an ear, from what Sanzo could see, but paying very close attention to the proceedings. Judging by the tension he exuded, he was still assessing their saviours and the threat they presented.
“Can’t really argue with that.” Duo scratched the back of his neck. “Brief version would be, I used to pilot for Sanzo, before Kougaji seduced Miss Yaone. So obviously, I am insane.”
“Our dear captain has a knack for attracting nutjobs.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“I’m right here,” Sanzo found it fit to remind them.
“So that’s me. Obviously a nutcase, you can trust me. And then there’s Heero.” Duo gave Heero a long look, to which he replied with an eye-roll. “Heero isn’t entirely sane either.”
“What do you say, our oh-so-illustrious captain, who is right here?” Gojyo asked turning to Sanzo.
“Drop dead,” the oh-so-illustrious captain suggested. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly, looking Gojyo in the eye. He flickered his gaze to Hakkai, making sure the doctor caught the nod. He did. The relaxation was barely palpable, but it was there.
“Figured as much. He needs to get laid, doesn’t he?” Gojyo said, turning to their hosts with a flair. Sanzo felt actual terror. He knew where this was going.
“Wouldn’t help none,” Duo said. His wide, innocent eyes held a demonic glint, even though his tone was serious. “Trust me, I know.”
Gojyo sputtered in a most unbecoming manner. “What? You’re trying to tell me he’s actually had sex? Ever?”
“Well, I could tell you…” Duo regarded the companion thoughtfully.
“But then you’d have to kill me, I bet. So cliché.”
“Or, I could show you pictures.” Needless to say, calmness did not follow.
“You don’t have pictures,” Sanzo hissed leaning towards Duo, as the lot of them watched Gojyo flail in excitement.
“You know that and I know that, but it’s gonna be fun seeing what he’ll offer to see them.”
“No pictures?” Gojyo looked absolutely crestfallen. Sanzo almost laughed. Almost.
“As entertaining as Sanzo’s sex life is,” Sanzo bristled at that, “We still have the UEG fleet on our asses,” Kougaji pointed out, to Gojyo’s disappointment.
“Yeah, about that. What did you do this time?”
“Picked the wrong passenger,” Sanzo replied, “With the wrong cargo.”
Duo and Heero blinked in unison. “I fear to ask how wrong the cargo had be to get you in more trouble,” Heero said.
Sanzo looked down to the floor, at the fairly adorable picture Goku and Kouryuu presented. “Wrong enough.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“We can’t stay here, in any case.”
“You’d be safer here,” Heero said shaking his head.
“Doubt it.”
“We have cloaking devices and plenty of proximity alarms. And your passengers have a price on their heads, the kind that’d make every bounty hunter in the galaxy crawl from under their rock.”
Sanzo froze. “What?”
Heero picked up his papers and arranged them on the table. “Look familiar?” There were headshots of both Goku and Hakkai, with a neatly printed many-zeroed sums underneath.
“Fuck.”
“It never ceases to amaze, how aptly can you summarise any situation you find yourself in,” Duo said. “It’s amazing what inflection can do with a single syllable.”
“The only advantage you have is that these haven’t been released widely. Only to planetary government and high military circles. With orders to keep the search as quiet and as intense as possible.”
No one said anything.
“This might not be the best time, but what’s the cargo?” Duo asked, looking back and forth between the crew of West.
For a long while the crew was exchanging troubled glances. “He is,” Gojyo said finally, indicating Goku. “He’d been in a box when Hakkai brought him on board.” There was another period of silence.
“Okay, I give up. Why would anyone feel the need to stuff a kid in a box? Wait, don’t answer that. I can think of a few reasons. But surely a ticket would be less expensive?”
To Sanzo’s utmost surprise, it was Hakkai who answered. “Goku was a subject of a number of long running experiments. The lab has his retina scans, fingerprints, DNA samples, behavioural patterns, pretty much everything they need to identify him, should he be caught on camera,” he said as evenly as if he was talking about weather.
Duo’s face twisted in revulsion and anger. “Jesus. Who’d do that to a kid?”
“I’m not a kid,” Goku said, never raising his eyes from Kouryuu’s fur. “I’m twenty.”
“Long-running kinda implies it took more than a week,” Duo told him. “And no worries, ain’t gonna be throwing you a pity party.”
“Can I ask how exactly did Heero find out where were those pictures sent?” Yaone asked, looking at Kougaji, Sanzo and Heero in turn.
“Now would probably be a good moment to explain that Heero earns a living hacking everything with a microchip in it,” Duo said, smiling at Yaone. “Anything you want to know, Heero’s the person to ask.”
Yaone looked at Sanzo. “The military system passwords you get?” The captain nodded. “Isn’t that illegal?”
The resulting moment was one of those classic comedic moments, when everyone present pauses whatever they are doing, even if they are busy tuning a nuclear core, and looks toward the person who’d just been (unofficially) awarded the Idiot of the Year award.
“You’re in for a shock,” Kougaji said eventually. His girlfriend gave him a scathing glare.
“What I meant is, it’s a whole another level of illegal. Thievery and smuggling is one thing, but do you expect anyone to just ignore the knowledge that someone can gain access into their system just like that?”
“Heero’s good at not leaving traces of being there. And even if they knew it was him, finding us won’t be easy now. Besides, Heero would know if they tried. Bureaucracy, you see. Won’t go a step without making ten thousand mentions in the system.”
“Information isn’t hard to track. If your clients have a terminal with a fixed terrestrial address, finding them is easy. And from them it’s a matter of hacking the logs, waiting for transmission and tracing the data path back to the source,” Goku said, letting Kouryuu paw at his hair.
“See the kinda shit we’ve gotta put up with?” Gojyo said, pointing an accusing finger at the monkey. “And he does it all the time. Ask him how long till you’re turning blue in the face if your oxygen-whazzit blows up, that one’s my personal favourite.”
“He didn’t actually hurt no one this time. Be grateful,” Sanzo said.
“Hurt no one?”
Sanzo spared a moment to glance at Heero. “He doesn’t fight,” he said shortly. His voice was very quiet. “He kills.”
Down on the floor Goku froze. “I don’t feel so good,” he said, laying a hand across his stomach. His face was growing pale. Hakkai sprang from his seat and knelt by his side.
“Does anything hurt?” he asked, checking Goku’s pulse.
Goku shook his head and shivered violently. “Just. Just not feeling good.”
Sanzo was willing to bet the fever was making an appearance yet again. Goku’s eyes were glazed over and out of focus.
The silence was broken by Jien ambling over with a drink. “What, he’s a junkie too?” he asked, watching the proceedings.
The doctor blinked at him in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“He looks like he’s gone too long without a fix, if you ask me.”
“Oh. Of course.” The proverbial light bulb flashed over Hakkai’s head and flickered merrily. The doctor gave Goku a very calculating look. “That would explain a lot. Please excuse me,” he added in the direction of the general public, helped Goku up and led him back to West. Sanzo stared after them with his brows raised.
“He a competent doctor?” Heero asked, following Sanzo’s gaze.
“Don’t know, didn’t ask for his credentials,” Sanzo replied. He didn’t add that he strongly suspected, and most likely was right in assuming, that Hakkai was a brilliant doctor.
“One thing does bother me, though.”
Sanzo spared Heero a look. “Yeah?”
“Twenty, Genjo?”
“Fuck you.”
Sometime later Sanzo, to nobody’s surprise, found himself back on board West, seemingly intent on monitoring the infirmary. Goku was curled on the bench, asleep. Sanzo forced himself not to stare. On the other side of the small room Hakkai was flipping through pages of medical data, too fast to make out anything coherent, or so it seemed to Sanzo.
“What’s wrong with him?” the captain asked walking in.
“I’m not quite sure. The symptoms he’s experiencing can be attributed to withdrawal, I’m almost positive they are some form of withdrawal, but I can’t seem to find anything specific. There’re mentions of several types of drug he’d been injected with and addicted to throughout his life. There’s just as many withdrawal and detoxification treatments though. Here,” he said pointing to a long name that meant absolutely nothing to Sanzo, “This is the only thing he is addicted to now. Quite rare, quite expensive, hard to come by, for an average addict. Usually not worth the effort. Very difficult to substitute.”
Sanzo said nothing.
“However, it still doesn’t make sense. It’s addictive, yes, but withdrawal usually manifests itself by minor headaches, nausea practically never. Given his resilience, he should shrug it off without the slightest trouble. It doesn’t explain his condition.”
“Summarise that in English.”
Hakkai sighed. “Fluctuating fever and bouts of nausea are very taxing on the system. He’d lost consciousness when we were walking. His pulse is dangerously high. There’s a possibility of a myocardial infraction.”
Sanzo didn’t so much as blink, neither at the words, not Gojyo’s appearance. “A heart attack? But he’s just a kid.”
“The symptoms induce stress, which he had in abundance for most of his life. Combined with blood pressure, well. I’ll have to run some tests on his blood, but I daresay the possibility is there, if this keeps up.”
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” the companion said.
“Well, it is quite fascinating, from a medical perspective.”
“I don’t want medical perspective,” Sanzo said sharply. “I want you to fix him.”
“Believe me when I say I’m trying, captain,” Hakkai said, and for a moment Sanzo was inclined to believe him. Try as he might though, he couldn’t get over the cold, academic interest flickering in his green eyes. He left the infirmary without a word.
“You won’t get far around here, pissing his highness off,” Gojyo said, looking after the irate captain. “He likes to think he’s an evil bastard, but people actually like him, for reasons I have yet to understand.”
Hakkai allowed himself a smile. “Don’t you?”
“Please. He’s antisocial, rude and a lowlife thief.” As if to contradict the words, Gojyo’s mouth curved in a little smile, not exactly one of his winsome companion of the year repertoire.
“Why, I could almost say there’s genuine affection,” Hakkai said, smiling in response.
“The only genuine affection that man feels is for his gun.” Gojyo paused over the sleeping Goku. “Which is quite poetic, I suppose,” he added, patting the unruly brown hair awkwardly. Goku shifted and opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound emerged. Hakkai watched the two of them, his expression unreadable.
“You know, I have a really good memory,” Gojyo said suddenly. “I rarely forget names or personal details.”
“I suspect it must be useful.”
“You bet. Ladies love a guy who remembers their pet’s birthdays.” He paused. “Which is why I have so much trouble getting used to Hakkai.” The doctor froze. “Is my memory failing, Gonou?”
There was silence. Gojyo walked around the examination table and rested his hand against the counter, next to Hakkai’s hip. “Hakkai?” he asked, leaning forward.
“My sister was a newtype,” the doctor said, averting his eyes. His voice was very quiet. “What you might call a psychic. An empath. Nothing particularly obvious, nothing that would hinder her social life. Quite the opposite.” Hakkai paused. “She had an abundance of friends, as you may recall.”
“Yeah. Gregarious lady, Kanan.”
“The interesting thing about newtype empaths, is that with stripping certain parts of the frontal lobe you can increase the ability to a level that is quite frankly astonishing.”
Gojyo blinked. “Alright, but what’s the point of doing that?” Dumb question, he realised as soon as it left his mouth. Scientists would perform a full vivisection, just to record the patient’s reaction.
“The neural surgery and subsequent conditioning performed on Goku left his psyche somewhat unstable. Whilst triggered, he would display unparalleled levels of uncontrollable aggression. Other times he was prone to depression and self-destructive behaviour. No medication helped.”
“He doesn’t have many scars, though. How bad was it?” Gojyo recalled watching the kid strip off his shirt and he was certain that scars weren’t in the picture.
“Scars would be identifying features, Gojyo. A hindrance, considering his purpose. Physical enhancements were kept to a minimum, but obviously an increased healing ability was administered. Given appropriate care, I don’t think he wouldn’t scar much, if at all. Nevertheless, the damage he could inflict on himself could be – and on several occasion was – life-threatening. So someone came up with a solution: get a psychic to stabilise him.”
“How would they find one? I mean, it’s not something that goes into the ‘special features’ box on a birth certificate, is it?”
“Gojyo, you underestimate the amount of data a sufficiently covert governmental facility can acquire about any individual, including those born in the slums of the furthest moons. Me and Kanan – we were what you call privileged citizens of a central planet. Which means a social security number, detailed medical charts and school records, and that’s before we were even born.”
“I’m rather surprised you agreed.” Hakkai didn’t answer. Gojyo waited for a few seconds, before the truth dawned on him. “You didn’t agree. She didn’t agree.”
“You sound surprised. We’re talking about people who have no moral qualms about manipulating a child’s brain to create a professional killer.”
“Point taken. Fuck.” Another pause. “What happened?”
“I was away for a period of time, for research. They took Kanan to the clinic and performed the surgery.” He fell silent. “It worked,” he continued. “Her abilities went beyond mind-reading. I don’t know the details, but I heard that the plan was ‘a fabulous success’. Of course, eventually it backfired on them.”
“Kanan wasn’t conditioned, was she. They couldn’t control her.”
“They could, to an extent. But of course you’re right. She was too strong willed to submit to simple brainwashing. And considering that brain is an extremely sensitive organ and her usefulness depended on it, they couldn’t very well administer the same treatment Goku was subjected to. As I gathered, her main task was influencing Goku while he was in a battle mode, to limit his aggression.”
“Huh. Now that doesn’t make much sense.”
“I assure you, the word aggressive is a severe understatement here. However, they didn’t so much mind the aggressiveness of his fighting, as the lack of control. He would attack any target, without any discrimination whatsoever, which, as you can imagine, was a problem.”
“I’ll say.” Gojyo stared at the ceiling. “Did Goku kill her?” he asked. Hakkai closed his eyes and smiled. Gojyo didn’t like that smile.
“No. As I said, the experiment with Kanan proved to be a success. She managed to calm him down, make him more of a human being, so to speak. But the downside was, she had a free will. And under her influence, Goku could oppose the conditioning to an extent.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“In a way, your guess was correct. They ordered him to kill her, but he refused to.” Hakkai fell silent. Gojyo waited for the punch line. “I don’t know what happened, exactly. I think she was trying to escape, with Goku. The guards shot them both. She didn’t survive.”
On the other side of the infirmary Goku stirred. Both the doctor and the companion looked at him for a while. “He isn’t showing signs of having been hurt recently,” Gojyo ventured finally, more to say anything than because he was curious. He suspected he knew why Goku was in prime condition. Hakkai was a remarkably patient man, he’d found out.
“He heals abnormally fast.” Hakkai looked Gojyo in the eye. “As for the name, I was requested to pick a pseudonym for administrative purposes, whilst in the facility. Just so my actual name didn’t show on the payroll, or anywhere else. It allowed us some anonymity, in case we were discovered or shut down. Since my duties hardly changed, I kept it.”
“Very poetic,” Gojyo agreed. He realised belatedly that he was still crowding Hakkai in the corner of the room. Hakkai, however, didn’t seem to mind.
“Do you think I’m a bad person?” the doctor asked, looking at the computer screen.
“Yes,” Gojyo replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He grinned when Hakkai gave him a look that bordered on incredulity. “Well, no offence, but mass murder and kidnapping ain’t exactly good guy modus operandi, you know?”
“I suppose not.” Hakkai said, smiling. “I wonder, what does that make you?” he murmured into Gojyo’s neck.
“I’m a whore. Morality isn’t my forte.” And it wasn’t.
