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"The Darkest Reflection"Written By: Impish Rating: strong R Pairings: main 1+2+1, background 2+3, OFC+5 and
4+3 Category: Duo POV with angst, action, drama and
politics. Warnings: creepiness, more graphic images and
gore Summery: The earth sphere has moved on into an
age of peace, but Duo is fighting battles of his own. He has reluctantly
joined the Preventers, and is surprised to see Heero sign up as well.
With an assassin on the loose and an increase in suspicious activity,
he’s beginning to realize the fine line between genius and insanity,
and how easily it can be erased. Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. Surprise!
And none of the songs or titles belong to me, either.
Chapter 4: Scream of the Butterfly "Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness
is."
For me… that place was Guatemala. Heero and I stepped out of the jeep to make a stop for gas in the last village of any notable size before we got to the base. The car was an old model of a nondescript and more than slightly faded blue. Heero pumped it full of gas while I walked over to a fruit stand that stood squat beside the station, buying a couple of coconuts for the road. There can’t be anything cooler to a kid who grew up in a place where fresh fruit was very, very scarce than drinking milk straight out of a coconut with a straw. I mean milk… out of a fuzzy rock. That was a fruit. Crazy. I struck up a light conversation with the vendor, a young Indian woman wearing the intricate hand-woven garb of the region. Luckily for me, she spoke K’iche’ and not Kaqchikel or one of the other thirty or so regional dialects, which all descended from an ancient Mayan tongue. My Kaqchikel was sketchy at best. “That wasn’t Spanish.” Heero, who was casually leaning on the side of the jeep, remarked upon my return. I offered him a fruit, which he took tentatively. “No, it wasn’t. It was K’iche’.” “I didn’t realize there were still provincial languages that hadn’t been rendered obsolete. When did you learn kitch- whatever it’s called?” He hung up the pump and closed the gas cap, one hand comically cradling the coconut I had handed him. “The beginning of Operation Meteor. One of my first missions after I dropped out of the sky, before we met up. I had just attacked a fleet of ships and was looking for a place to hide our for a couple of days before hitting my next target on shore, an Alliance base. I stayed here for two weeks. Well, not here here, but in the same country. A little further inland, closer to the Capitol, actually.” One of the first places on earth I had ever been. And it was so beautiful. I couldn’t believe a place could be so beautiful. “You learned an indigenous language in two weeks?” His voice wasn’t incredulous or skeptical… wasn’t anything really. Which made me think he was both. “So, how much Spanish can you speak?” I asked instead of replying, and we both got in the jeep and shut the doors. “Not much,” Heero, who was driving, replied as I slurped happily out of my straw, “…but enough as to wonder why that kid called you a piece of fruit.” I choked on the sweet milk and blushed furiously. I had heard the passing comment one of the younger guys hanging out in front of the vendor had made, but I hadn’t thought that Heero had. “Uh… that’s slang. Mango means… um, handsome, kinda. Good looking? Hot? Something along those lines…” I trailed off, trying to just cut off the rambling. Heero seemed amused by my agitation on the issue. “Probably just the exotic thing, y’know?” I mumbled, and another look washed over Heero’s face, one I couldn’t place. The red had flooded my face by this point, so I turned and looked away from him out the open window at the cobbled streets of the main square. We stopped for a moment to let the traffic entering the market place, and I looked to the center of the plaza at a stone fountain with a statue of a woman in the center. Someone had taken black spray paint to her face, leaving a shadowy black mask over her eyes. A trail of paint had dried as it dribbled down her cheek, like a dark tear that had escaped the blindfold. I tried to read the plaque below, but we were already moving away from the fountain, through avenue between brightly painted buildings. All I caught in the small print was “Las Massacres…” Rain began to fall in select drops for a few moments before opening up and multiplying its rhythm on the windshield. It was our constant company on our path to the sea. The road was windy and somewhat treacherous, as there was nothing between us and the drop. Nothing is more disturbing when driving on the edge of a mountain than flowers and crosses every twenty yards and the remains of school busses and cars gutted in the ravine below. It was quite a while before we drove out of the mountains and the forest around us leveled out, and it was hours before we drew near the base, just approaching dusk when a faint outline immerged in the middle of the road before us. Heero slammed on the brakes and the jeep skidded to a halt just before slamming into the figure in the headlights. More shadows appeared on the edge of the road, out of the darkness that was the forest. Heero twitched unsettlingly, and his hand slowly came to rest on his weapon. I had my left on my gun and my right on a knife. The figure in the lights was armed, a vintage piece from the looks of it… not one of those fru-fru pretty guns the Oz and Alliance officers were always brandishing around, but something along the lines of an AK-47. He rounded my side of the car, as his comrades were on the other, and tapped his piece on the glass. Yeah. Definitely an Ak-47. I rolled down the window and found a light flooding my eyes. I winced as they adjusted, spotting another man on Heero’s side, and two more who had melted out of the shadows behind the one at my window. These guys weren’t wearing uniforms, and their weapons were outdated, but usable and well-maintained. Not from the base, and not kidnapers, then. I looked them over until… there. A younger guy in the back of the group was wearing a black armband. How very lucky for us. The one currently attempting to blind me spoke Spanish in an accent that was purely Guatemalan. “¿Quien sos, y que hacés aquí?” “Soy Shinigami.” They looked startled, and one of the men behind the speaker whispered something harshly to the other. “La ultima ves que vine me dijieron que yo podría regresar cuándo yo quisiera.” The men stirred nervously. “¿Quien le dijo eso?” The speaker demanded. I pulled the collar of my shirt down and away from my neck. A thick, raised white dash just to the right of my heart spoke of a bayonet wound that had healed over remarkably well, for not having had much in the way of proper medical supplies. “Miguel Guzmán Ceto, antes que muriera.” The edgy muttering instantly transformed into whispered exclamations of amazement and respect. The rifle was pulled away just as quickly and replaced with a hand. “Perdón. Yo soy Álvaro Vilanova. Debiera venirse con nosotros- si manejan más cerca al base, los soldados se darán cuento que están aqui.” I shook the offered hand and nodded. “Gracias. Llámeme Duo, y mi compadre es Heero.” He signaled the others back in the direction they had appeared, catching one by his shirt sleeve. “Esconde el auto.” He told him, motioning for Heero and me to follow. Heero looked at me dubiously, but got out, his gun stashed away on his person. I smiled broadly back at him and slammed the door shut behind me. We both brought our packs of supplies from the car. Vilanova took us off the road and onto a well-hidden path through the trees. He walked beside me, and gestured to Heero, who was a stride behind us. “¿Tu amigo…habla espanol?” I looked back at Heero and shrugged. “No mucho, no.” It was better that they only spoke to me. I wasn’t sure how much Heero could understand, but it was probably best if they thought he couldn’t understand at all. “Regresamos, con dos.” Vilanova called. A couple of young men who I hesitated to call boys, despite their ages, popped out of the foliage, armed with machetes and guns. The taller of the two had a tattoo on his cheek, just below the eye. It was an intricate black butterfly, and if someone had taken a black-and-white pohtograph of him, I would have thought a real one had landed on his cheek. He looked to be about seventeen, and it was he who recognized me. “¡Hijueputa! ¿Duo?” He grinned and gave me a warm hug. The belt of bullets crossing his chest was cold against me, but I returned the gesture with enthusiasm. “Quiubo, Ramiro. Meet my buddy, Heero.” I switched back to English for Heero’s benefit, as well as signaling to Ramiro the language barrier. “Welcome, Heero.” Ramiro said, nodding his head, then turning back to me. “What brings you back, Duo?” His accent was thick, but his English was rather good despite it. “The base by the ocean. We heard it wasn’t unoccupied anymore.” I said honestly. “We came to check it out. What can you tell me about it?” He nodded, probably having anticipated my reply. “Something not good, for certain. We see the soldiers bringing supplies from the sea, bringing crates from a boat. The flag changes every few times. They use a dock not far from the base and trucks to drive the crates back to the base. We stole one last week.” “Did you open it?” “Sí. Guns.” “Do you know where they came from?” He shook his head. “Not really. We think that they bring them from up and down the coast. Guns from the war, they take them here so las chontas don’t take them away.” “Preventers.” I said for Heero’s benefit, and turned back to Ramiro. “You have any idea who they are or who they do this for?” “Not for sure. But not for Guatemala, we know. So, we watch them for now. We do not want the past again.” “Us either Rami. That’s why we’re here. Now, do they look like soldiers? Do they wear uniforms or anything?” “No uniforms. But some act like soldiers. Take orders. Salute. Stand guard, use military time and code words.” “Some?” He nodded. “Some just act like normal aviadores.” “Flyers. Drug runners.” I said to Heero, then turned back again. “All right. One more question… know any good ways in? He grinned. Ramiro led us back to their hide out, a temporary center of operations close enough to keep an eye on the base. It was a small clearing at the foot of an enormous tree. Trees in the rainforest are of impressive size, but this one in particular was mammoth. Most trees in this place did not wasting time growing outward in order to grow tall, so that they could break the canopy and reach the sunlight. This one was very wide, however, its roots expanded outward, grasping the rich soil like some kind of twisted hand. Ramiro caught me looking at it. “Es un mausoleo.” He pointed at the roots around the other side that I hadn’t been able to see when we first approached. There, half carved into the wood, half grown over by the tree, was a small stone crypt. I shivered. I turned back to the camp. It was a typical setup, campfire, logs, tents, and war-worn ex-guerillas eyeing us warily. Their looks turned to surprise and maybe a little respect when the returning group began to explain our presence. We sat down by the fire with Ramiro and the other men, while the rest either stood to listen in, or went about camp activity. Between all of us, we soon had a planned route into and out of the base, with a few extra exit strategies. “Duo… these men… they… people are being Disappeared again.” Ramiro shook his head, his black hair falling over his dark eyes. “I know you don’t have your Gundam anymore, but… you have to destroy it. You have to stop them before they tear our country open again. We are still healing from the last time, and the time before, and the time before then. We will never have peace, if you do not stop them.” I looked him in the eyes. “I promise, Rami. I may not have Deathscythe, but there’s more than one way to blow up a base. I’ll find a way.” Heero looked a little disturbed that these people knew I had piloted a Gundam. “Duo… we don’t have authorization to destroy the base, we don’t even know what they’re doing.” I knew that was coming. He had never been one to stick to the rules either, so he was just covering our asses to make sure I had thought this through. “Hey man, this is what we were sent here to do. We know they’re stockpiling arms and they’re killing locals. That’s exactly what happened the last time the Alliance was here. These guys are bad news, and Une is just going to send us back again after we report, but by then they will have disappeared more people. I’m not going to let that happen again. And Une won’t mind anyways… we’re not really expected to follow procedure in a case like this.” He wasted no time with consideration, a small smile on his face. “We’re going to need explosives.” I grinned back. “Heero, I can make a bomb out of household cleaners and bubblegum if necessary. I’m sure we can find something explosive on a military base.” “You should go now.” Ramiro cut in. “They only go to the sea one time a week, and the trucks left two hours ago. This is the best time to get in.” “Right then. Lead the way, man. Lets get this dog and pony show on the road.” We weren’t supposed to follow protocol, Heero and I. We were Special Agents. I’m pretty sure it was italicized in our official files. Une had been just burning to fill that vacant post, and here we were, two Gundam Pilots, crazy, reckless, and skilled enough to take the job. It was my guess as to why she bothered to pin me to Heero and promote me again. We would take the ops no one else could. The hardest jobs, the furthest, the longest, the most dangerous. The most secretive jobs. We were allowed to not follow the rules, so long as it stayed out of the media. Even then, things were negotiable. So when we arrived at the base we didn’t stroll up to the door with a neat little warrant and ask to be invited in for tea and crumpets. Ramiro had his little brother, Carlito lead us to the road used to get the crates back to the base from the sea. The buildings were perched on a cliff over the ocean, but the road to get down below where the docks were was roundabout and long. We were about a mile from the base itself, Heero and me in the cover of the foliage and rocks and Carlito up a tree on the roadside waiting for the military transport vehicles to pass. It was maybe twenty minutes before we spotted dust over the slope of the road. A short caravan of military jeeps and trucks appeared over the ridge, and the three of us stilled in our hiding spots. When the convoy drew near enough, Carlito threw something down from his perch, the projectile shattering the second vehicle’s windshield. They stopped abruptly, causing the short train to shut down chaotically, and Heero and I made our move, dashing down and under the last few cars while the men got out and tried to figure out what was going on, and where the hell that coconut had come from. It didn’t take them long to decide it was just a random accident, a tree dropping its fruit on the road, and they started back up on their way. It was by far the most uncomfortable journey I have ever made, especially since my ribs felt like they were trying to burst from my body the entire way. I honestly don’t know what Heero sees in this method of transportation. Undercarriages get hot if you didn’t know. And it was difficult to maintain a grasp on the underside of the truck and my braid simultaneously. I was more than ready to let go when we finally stopped, but had to wait until everything was unloaded to drop down and roll out from under the cage. My muscles were screaming in agony from holding myself suspended, and I was panting from the combination of the exertion and the heat. Damned if Heero didn’t look like he had gone for no more than a stroll in the park. I glared at him while I caught my breath. “What?” “Never again, Yuy. You hear me? Never. Again.” He had the audacity to laugh at me. I growled. We took off, running past the rest of the parked vehicles, and when we came across the car that had a cracked windshield, I raised my eyebrow at Heero as we ran by. “A coconut? You told him to throw a coconut?” He shrugged. “It was effective.” This time I laughed, and we came to the door in the hanger we were looking for. Most of the men would be sorting through the new shipment, so we were fairly confident the way would be clear. As a pair, we took off down the corridor, Heero taking the rear position as I cleared the way up front. We fell into an old rhythm, one that had originated and been perfected in an older time, a time when we had been fighting a war instead of fighting to prevent it. The layout of the building seemed equally familiar, though that was because a lot of the old Alliance bases had the same general blueprints. We found the weapons bay set aside for explosives, and were woefully disappointed. They had grenades- a very small number of grenades, but not much else. We could do some damage, but would have to be in the base to do it… not to mention how long it would take two people to go around a base of this size and destroy it with grenades. “Fuck.” I growled in a whisper. I could see Heero running through contingency plans, some of which involved household cleaners and bubblegum, I was sure, when a thought struck me. “Heero… this base, the layout… it’s the same as that base, New Edwards, wasn’t it?” He looked at me sharply, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “Duo… the self detonation of that base would have eradicated a massive radius. If this one has something even similar in size, we would be destroying half this country.” “But you know how to disarm it… and I think I can rig it to make the blast smaller. Maybe just take out the core of the structure and let the aftershock take down the rest.” We stared into each others eyes until he broke the silence. “Duo, this is incredibly risky.” I had already won him though. “Just take me there. Just let me look at it. I know I can make it work.” I reached out and touched his shoulder. He looked intently back at me in the dark, and only then did I realize how close we were. “Fine. There’s a couple of smaller explosives here, though. We should set them to distract the personnel when we get out.” “Deal.” I said, and we went to work. We hit them right under their noses as they operated- we laid bombs out in the hangers, and the weapons bay. There was more than I had originally thought, enough to bring down those buildings, but still not enough to take the whole place down. “We should hack the central control before detonation. To make sure they aren’t a part of something bigger.” Heero said, and I agreed, rather perturbed that I hadn’t thought of it myself. “It’s gotta go fast. Bombs are ticking.” I reminded, without having really needed to. The control center was located under the tower. I pulled out a little packet of beef jerky and sat in front of a computer to nibble at it while Heero manipulated and stole the base records. I booted up the computer in front of me and revived security cameras that had probably been out of use for about three years. I got enough running that we would have a good warning before anyone got too close to us. Gnawing away at the dried protein, I suddenly needed Heero to understand about the statue with the mask, the boy with the butterfly tattoo. “Did you know that the average house cat on earth eats more beef than the average colonist on L2?” I asked. Heero looked up at me, startled, but went quickly back to work as I carried the comparison further. “The average cat in the United States eats beef, but the average family in Guatemala does not. Can you believe that?” He didn’t answer, and I hadn’t expected him to. I knew full well he could easily listen to me while working, but talking back wasn’t something he would ever do. “While the alliance was in control, there was one soldier for every 215 Guatemalans, and one medical doctor for every 2,600.”The tapping continued beside me, but I knew he was paying attention. “Before the Sanq Kingdom fell, before the rest of the world realized that the Alliance had become tyrannical, Guatemala had already begun to fight back. No one else knew what was happening, but they did. Oh, yeah. They’d seen it before.” I chuckled darkly and trailed off, figuring Heero should be about done now. “Finished.” He said within a couple of seconds, and our eyes connected. There was the beginning of comprehension in his. The story wasn’t finished, though. We made our way to the core of the building where the self-detonation device was located. The space was narrow, and though we weren’t fifteen anymore, we were both barely small enough to make it through the shaft one at a time. Heero went first, bending the bars back for me with that inhuman strength he possesses. I pulled myself up next, hoping that the electrical tape and switchblade I had in my pocket would be enough to manipulate this thing. I seriously need to think about preparing better for missions. A self-detonation device isn’t much different from a “normal” bomb, where if you fuck up and clip the wrong wire, or connect something bad to something worse, things go boom. Explosives are still explosives, and therefore just as dangerous. And I didn’t want to accidentally start the countdown. I began to speak again as I worked. “Outer Space was slowly being smothered, but the powerful nations of the world didn’t notice, too caught up in their own struggles for power, and the convenience of their control over the colonies and their economies. But here, they knew what it meant when the shadows of airplanes crossed the cities, spilling leaflets into the streets. They knew why people began to Disappear. And they weren’t about to let it happen again.” I looked at the mess of wires in front of me, mentally tracing their connections before touching anything. Then I prodded at it, moving things around so I could see their inner workings better. “The Alliance hadn’t expected such resistance from a small country. They stamped the rebellion out before it started. Or so they thought.” If I was careful… if I could cut that without touching that I could seriously reduce the blast radius. “They killed hundreds. Some Disappeared in the night, or even in the view of day. Most were tortured.” The hangers would collapse with the bombs we set, and the ones in the outer corridors would bring down the east wing. So if I just took out the control center, the tower, and the foundation, the barracks and the west wing would also cave in. If we were lucky, it might even rip down more of the outer buildings without turning the road into a cloud of dust. “But they didn’t expect the people to fight back as hard as they did. And then… a man named Miguel Guzmán Ceto formed a resistance. Guerilla soldiers. Outnumbered and with very little in the way of weaponry, they attacked the Alliance.” I pursed my lips as I worked with the wires. That still left some of the outer buildings… but it didn’t look like they were in use… and Ramiro’s men could take care of anyone who came back if they decided to… the main thing was just to get rid of the weapons. “When I came, they helped me hide. And I helped
them beat back the Alliance once and for all. By the time Oz took
over, there wasn’t a stronghold in My internal clock was giving me a good indication that we were running out of time, and that things were about to start blowing up. “Almost done!” I called, sweat sliding down my temples. My fingers worked deftly in the small space, very carefully not touching certain things as they were plugged in to other things that would turn me into something black and crispy you wouldn’t want to eat. “Ramiro and Carlos are Miguel’s sons. He died fighting the Alliance.” I reconnected the last wire and punched the detonator. We had fifteen minutes to get the fuck out of there. I backtracked as quick as I could in such a tight space, finally dropping down beside Heero. “Go!” I yelled mid-fall. We took the same positions, and we had just burst into the main corridor when the bombs in the hangers started going off. “Fuck!” I yelled in alarm. Getting those records had taken way too much time. As the bombs started going of and triggering each other, our escape routes were quickly collapsing. All of them. I had effectively trapped us in a building that was going to explode in fourteen minutes and counting. “The west wing!” Heero yelled, and we took the next turn in that direction. My mind raced. I had gotten us into this, and I damn well had to get us out. Which is really too bad, because I’m not very good at saving people. It’s just one of those things I have a habit of fucking up. The enemy was well aware that they had intruders at this point, so we took them out as we came across them in our escape. I felt the adrenaline working its way through my system, until the all the noise of the guns and explosions around me were nothing more than a constant buzz. I worked sharp and quick, with Heero’s familiar presence a heartbeat behind me, making the same sweetly practiced movements. Suddenly, there was the instantly familiar and wholly undeniable burning pain of a bullet. A trail of fire burned down my left side. The impact neatly spun me around to face Heero, who, a mere moment before, had been half a step behind me. I hit the ground with an awkward but brutal thud. What must have been his hands roughly grabbed and dragged me. For a few seconds, all I could see was Heero’s shirt. The view before me abruptly shifted and blurred, and I realized I was on the ground again, and Heero was leaned over me, talking at me. My arm was burning, and I could feel the dampness of the blood soaking into my shirt. Dumbly, I realized there was no noise. I made an effort to focus and was rewarded with the return of sound, and my partner’s voice. I ignored his words and shoved him out of the way with my injured arm, lifted my weapon, and fired on the man behind Heero who had shot me. He dropped like a stone, the bullet ripping through his neck. “Let’s go.” I rasped. My arm was dead at my side, the previous motion having split the bullet hole wide, sparking a screaming pain down that entire side and a whimper I could barely contain. He covered me while I ripped the bottom of my shirt and held one end of the scrap in my mouth as I tied off the cloth above my bicep, a rather awkward position mid-run. “Heero! The pipes!” I yelled over the noise when I was done. “What?!” “The drain system, the pipes!” I repeated. “They dump into the ocean!” “Are you fucking crazy?” He screamed back. We had gotten a glimpse of said pipes earlier, and they ended a chilling distance above the water, which was why that exit hadn’t even come up before, but it was our only shot and we had less than four minutes. We reached the entry to the waterway at the end of the west wing, and Heero ripped the opening off, going down first. I jumped down after him and hoped it wasn’t too far down, because my arm was completely useless against a ladder at this point. The water was waist deep, and no sooner had I landed than Heero was pulling me forward. It was pitch black, so we struggled through with Heero hauling me, his other hand tracing the rounded wall of the pipe. I was counting down mere seconds now, and there was the beginning variety of grey and black I hoped was the light at the end of the tunnel and not my eyes becoming accustomed to the dark. Then, the base exploded. The blast rocked my feet out from under me, ripping me from Heero’s grasp simultaneously. I struggled to my feet, calling for Heero’s position in time to hear, behind the crashing boom of the explosion, the shriek of something metal giving way, and roaring sound. A wall of water hit me, and, not even having time to hold my breath, I realized a tank had ripped open. The water shot through the pipes, jetting us through like a bullet traveling the barrel of a gun. I had water in my lungs and a searing pain in my chest, which abruptly became nothing along with everything else when the force of the water slammed me headfirst against the wall of the pipe. I really suck at saving people. Lucky for me, Heero is very good at it. When I regained consciousness, it was in the very awkward position of spitting water out, almost in Heero’s face, which was very, very close to mine, having just administered, I assume, CPR. I tried to sit up, sucking in air, but Heero’s hand on my chest kept me on my back. My vision was spotty from the lack of oxygen, but from my slowly awakening senses, I gathered I was lying on the beach. The gritty feel of sand was under me, and I was hoping the roaring in my ears was the sound of the ocean, but I couldn’t be sure. The sky was beginning to lighten in the pale wash of morning above, smeared with heavy black smoke. Heero stared at me with a understated look of what was either relief, fear, or fury. Considering what a mess of things I had just made, I was guessing the latter. My head tilted back to try and get a better sense of where we were and our situation. We were at the base of the cliff, with huge chunks of rock and metal that were scattered around us from the blast. Seriously? We’re still alive? I mean, seriously. “Damn. Didn’t see that one coming.” My voice was weak at best. Heero looked confused, gently but firmly taking hold of the back of my head, just above the neck, to restrain me. He didn’t seem to notice that his old stitches had burst, and the wound there had reopened wider than before, and that the blood from the cut was now smeared down the left side of my face. “Lie still. Look into my eyes, I need to check your pupils.” I obeyed, and where I would normally have just looked at him, I was taking stock of the other pains which so courteously made themselves known at this point. My left arm was in throbbing agony, and I twitched my fingers, just to make sure I could, before the fiery pain erupted anew thanks to the slight movement. The ribs that had been aching continuously before were now pulsing with a sharp pain, and my sprained ankle spasmed disturbingly. My head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and I was pretty sure that thin sticky trickle down the right side of my face was blood from the head wound. “Concussion.” He determined. “But not as bad as it could be.” This time, when I struggled to sit upright, he helped me. I took stock of his injuries, which were quite minimal compared to mine. Besides his arm, he was pretty much just wet. Indestructible bastard. I looked down at myself. The ocean hadn’t done a very good job washing away the blood. In fact, my entire sleeve was a washed out red, which had leached into the left side of my shirt as well. Most of the bottom half was being sliced away, and Heero helped me bandage the wound up better than I had managed on the run. The missing half of my shirt wasn’t too much a robber of modesty, as the binding around my ribs had stood up pretty well against everything. “The bullet looks like it entered your arm and ricocheted off the bone. The exit wound is fairly clean, but you might have chipped the bone.” He sighed. “No getting out of a hospital this time. Now come one, we have to get up to the road where one of Ramiro’s guys can pick us up.” Oh, good. The road was still there. I had managed to cut the bomb down to size. The trip to the road was a painful one, mostly because my sprained ankle had swelled back up and was refusing to bend properly. The ribs and the blood loss weren’t helping much, either. And light was a sensitive thing at the moment. About halfway up Heero muttered something about irrational obstinacy, knelt over and swept me up over his shoulders in a move so swift and smooth I was left dizzy from it. “You don’t weigh enough.” He grunted and shifted me more comfortably across his shoulders. I was caught somewhere between the indignity that I was being carried around like a sack of feed, the relief that I wasn’t being carried around like some kind of damsel in distress, and the much more pressing vertigo that told me I shouldn’t give a damn how I was being carried. Thankfully, all our exit strategies had ended with someone meeting us back at the road. The jeep was something of a welcome sight. The man in the driver’s seat had been one of those we had met on the road with Vilanova, and he didn’t speak a lick of English. Which was good, because when faced with things like blood loss and a concussion, I tend to blather away in an attempt to keep myself awake. Heero helped me into the back of the jeep for the ride back, where we would drop the man off, bid our farewells, and get back to Guatemala City to meet up with our transport as quickly as possible. I tried to remain upright, but kept sliding down onto Heero’s shoulder. Finally I gave up and lay down, my head resting against his leg. Wasn’t very comfortable considering the injuries, but it was better than falling all over him. My eyes began to drift shut, and I started back awake. I started talking, lowly. I wasn’t even sure if Heero could hear me. And then I realized it probably didn’t matter, because I was switching intermittently between French and Russian. I let my thoughts wash out of me, and I’m pretty sure Heero was thinking that this head injury was worse than he’d thought. But it kept me conscious, so I kept talking. “When the kidnappings began… there was a time when you couldn't even walk around after dark, because the army daily... daily there were kidnappings. I don’t remember not knowing what torture was. I knew, because me and Solo and the others, all the time we’d find them. Strangled and suffocated with barbed wire, tongues cut out, hands and feet burned, sometimes hacked off. And sometimes, there were just bits and pieces cut out, or they weren’t dead yet. Still twitching. That was the first time I killed someone. I felt bad for them, jumping around like that…” I trailed off. “We couldn’t bury them, because if you buried them, you were one of them. So they rotted there, in the street. “Stealing was hard then, ‘cause there wasn’t anyone to take from but the army. The women couldn’t shop for food or anything, because the soldiers would stop them and take what they’d bought. They messed with them all the time. And we had to sit in the middle of it all… all this massacre and pain, and torture, as if there were no solution.” I realized that last bit had come out in English, and switched back to French. “And when I came here, it was the same. He had talked about it. ‘The day they carry me off, I will die. It won’t be quiet, I know. I am going to suffer.’ he said. We saw him die that way. They killed him when we came down from the mountains. They came and got him and tortured him. An eye and a hand, then they cut him to pieces. They hacked his legs. They shot him in one of the fields. That’s where he died. They hacked him afterward, and left him there, with his guts spilling all out over his legs, tied to that post. They hacked him in front of his kids. They left him, and two days later, we went to pick him up. The kids stayed with their mother. A day later, they took her too. And then the daughter, Magdalena, who was pregnant. They took her, and opened her with a machete. They tore the baby out, and played with it, and laid the baby on her as if to nurse, but she was dead.” I couldn’t tell what language I was speaking anymore, and I stopped talking altogether. The buzz of the engine and the dry rolling of the jeep driving over rough unpaved roads served to keep me awake in place of my voice. I had stopped speaking, but not remembering. There are some things that you just can’t forget. Some places you cherish even while they haunt you. Some memories you cling to, even as they kill you. Some brilliant mistakes.
~A creature made of sunshine Spanish- ~ * ~ |
