ANATEXIS

PART 1 - Degrees Of Freedom

Now the World Nation Capital Building, it had once been the Hotel Bruxelles, and had the trappings of old world grandeur: chandeliers, the magnificent Grand Staircase, and mirrors all round the Marble Ballroom. Long tables had been laid out over the marble and parquet floors, and a raised platform constructed at the foot of the Grand Staircase, with a thronelike chair dominating it.

Preparations for the annual Triumph Celebration had been under way since November, co-organised with security and logistics, and now the day was here, Christmas of the seventh year of the World Nation Reckoning, 203 years after man had first colonised space.

"Seven years. That is half my life." The whispered words were powerful in the silence. "Perhaps this order will endure seven thousand more?" Standing at the top of the Grand Staircase, the Dictator looked down into the ballroom, resplendent in her midnight blue dress with gold embroidery. Mariemaia Barton Khushrenada's red hair had darkened slightly in the seven years since her ascension to power, and she had gained a slightly leaner look with her increase in height. But her voice was still childlike, and the contours of her face rounded.

Beside her, Relena Darlian's cream-coloured suit seemed drab in comparison, her dark blonde hair gathered up in a bun. She was shaking her head very slightly.

"My honorary adviser," said Mariemaia pleasantly. "You disagree?"

There was a sad smile from the young woman, and no direct answer. Instead, she turned back towards the doors, hearing the sounds of heavy booted feet marching down the corridor. "We can never escape the soldiers, can we?"

"They are here to protect me," said Mariemaia. "And you too, of course. Since there are no winged angels left to watch over you."

Relena's blue eyes widened at this cruel reference, and she shook her head again. Despite being taller and ten years older than the Dictator, there was no doubt as to the weighting of superiority between them. But unexpectedly, Mariemaia laughed, sounding schoolgirlish. "Christmas once more. Undoubtedly the best time of year."

"Your victory..."

"My victory."

"Your grandfather's death," added Relena. "And your father's." And also.... Heero's...

The Dictator closed her eyes, her lips still curved in a cherubic smile. "Yes, all those meaningful deaths." Then her eyes reopened. "This year I have wonderful gifts to distribute at the celebration, and I have chosen the best for yourself, Lady Relena, and for the Lieutenant Colonel."

Relena's hand tightened on the bannister. "Chang Wufei. I don't understand how you can endure being near him. He killed your father."

"Oh no, you are quite mistaken. My father was not killed. He sacrificed himself. And he chose the instrument of his personal sacrifice very carefully. My father was infinitely wise."

Relena shuddered. Why have I walked by this girl's side for seven years, to hear these distorted things? Even the small amount of influence I gain, the damage I try to reduce, these aren't worth losing my sanity.... "And Dekim Barton, your grandfather? Surely his death was not self-sacrifice?"

Mariemaia chuckled. "Have you been pondering these things all this time? Grandfather's ideals were less than noble. He put me on the correct path while deviating from it himself. It was necessary for him to be removed." She paused, enjoying the look of horror on her adviser's face. "It is not in Lieutenant Colonel Chang's nature to kill someone who does not put up suitable resistance. As a leader I know the strengths and weaknesses of those I command... So if you are curious, Lady Relena, you may take my word for it that my grandfather's untimely demise was executed by someone else."

Relena felt a wave of nausea, and walked unsteadily to the doors behind them. "Excuse me, I..."

"You never stay for the celebrations, Relena. Will you not stay this year?"

"You know I could not."

"I have only respect for your decision. I shall present your gift to you tomorrow, perhaps." Mariemaia's face glowed with enthusiasm.

"I fear I.... do not have a gift for you." Relena leaned against the doors, wishing only to escape sooner.

"It is your company I enjoy. Goodbye."

The blonde woman pushed against the heavy doors, but her sigh of relief died as she stared at the rows of silent soldiers lined up on either side of the corridor. Inspecting them was none other than the Lieutenant Colonel. Salutes were exchanged, and then he turned around. Blue eyes and black eyes met, and Chang Wufei gave Relena the curtest of nods before she fled. Then he passed through the doors, closing them behind him.

"Lieutenant Colonel." Mariemaia greeted him with a smile.

"Excellency." A quarter-bow, unsmiling, his expression blank.

"Walk down to the landing with me," said Mariemaia, beginning to descend the Grand Staircase that led to the platform. This was acknowledged with a nod, and soon the clicking of heels upon marble steps was mingled with the rustle of midnight blue chiffon.

"This is not your dress uniform," observed the Dictator.

The Lieutenant Colonel snorted expressively. "I am on active duty today."

The Dictator waved a hand. "You are never off duty. I suppose that dedication is to be admired."

They reached the landing, and stepped onto the platform. Wufei seemed to be absorbed with the thronelike chair; Mariemaia could tell he was in deep thought. Purposefully, she walked over to the chair, climbed the half-step, and seated herself in it. In subconscious response, Wufei's eyes swung to the far-end of the ballroom. In seven years he had grown a few inches, and the lines of his already lean figure had become more angular. His hair was still slicked back, but no longer ended in a tail; three years before it had been cut, and though there was undoubtedly some significance in it, Wufei had never explained why.

"I have a special gift for you this year," said Mariemaia, now completely serious. "But before I present it to you, I shall ask you the same questions I ask every year on this day."

As if it were some ritual, the Chinese man now turned to face her and tilted his head to one side, waiting.

"Will you continue your experiment? Or have you found your answers?"

"The experiment goes on. I find answers, but they are incomplete."

"So will you stay? Will you lead my men?"

Wufei endured her intense blue gaze for a few seconds, his mind taken back to events that had transpired nearly a decade ago. "Yes. There is much I can accomplish under your banner."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel." She had not doubted that he would stay on, but long ago his freedom had been part of the pact, and there was always the remote possibility that he might one day take it.

"It is now past 5 pm," he said suddenly. "We should leave, if you are satisfied with the preparations."

"Yes, so that I may make an official entrance at eight, ready to make speeches and toasts and promises. And there is the matter of your present."

"I do not need presents."

"Is there nothing you want?"

The black eyes almost seemed to ignite, and his lips parted as if he were about to name his hopes. Then the spark abruptly extinguished. "5:15. We are deviating from the schedule."

Mariemaia got off the chair. "Very well. You shall be surpri - "

The roar and the sudden pressure of the explosion came first knocking them to the ground, followed by a rolling wave of heat. Wufei knew at once that the explosion had been small, but closeby. "Mariemaia - " Formality died in the urgency of the moment. She was badly shaken, but attempting to regain her composure. He helped her up, and they both looked up at the Grand Staircase.

The heavy wooden doors had been blown inwards, one side splintered and dangling on one hinge. The explosion had evidently occurred in the corridor, which meant... all the guards... They were dead....

"It was timed, or we should not be alive." He drew his gun and paused to listen; there was silence. "We have to get out. This may only be the beginning. Can you walk?"

Mariemaia nodded, her breaths shallow. As they made their way to the doors at the far end of the ballroom Wufei's mind was hurtling through the possibilities and implications and self-recrimination. It must be an insider. Someone who knew the schedule. Someone who couldn't carry too much explosive in without being noticed. How could I have let this slip through the net?!

They reached the doors, and Wufei put his ear to them, listening. When satisfied that there was no-one approaching from the other side he opened them, his gun readied, and stepped through. Man and girl moved into the dimlit carpeted reception area. The champagne glasses arranged in pyramids on the long silk-covered tables had not been disturbed from the blast.

And why the corridor? Would it not be more certain if the explosives had been planted IN the ballroom itself, timed to go off in the celebrations? Was it someone due to be present in the celebration?

"Shouldn't you call for some kind of backup?" Mariemaia sounded calm, but there was a vulnerability in her voice Wufei picked up easily.

"If intercepted, they'll know we still live. Better that they think us dead, till we get out." He ignored the lifts, ushering the Dictator through the door to the fire escape. A cautious look down the stairwell, and then they descended.

Outside, ambulances and the military police had drawn up, sirens wailing in the winter darkness. Mariemaia shivered in the cold, but though the limousine was parked in full view they hurried away from it, suspecting that it too might be rigged with explosives.

"Excellency...!" The exclamation was full of surprise. "Come with us, you're in shock..." A paramedic came forward, draping a thick blanket round the Dictator's shoulders, guiding her toward the ambulance. A second paramedic held out a blanket to Wufei. It was refused.

"You will take us to the Palace," commanded Mariemaia as she stepped onto the back of the ambulance. Wufei took his seat opposite her, trying to think above the noise of the sirens. A quick glance out, and he saw the damaged side of the building, a wreck where the corridor had been located. He momentarily suppressed the guilt over the deaths of the guards - there would be ample time for that later.

The first paramedic took the driver's seat while the second placed himself beside the Lieutenant Colonel, and they started off. Wufei noted absently that the driver had an unsteady pedal leg, and that the paramedic sitting with them had noticed it too - he was frowning at the jerkiness of their journey.

With his martial arts background, Wufei automatically checked his joints for the damage that he might not have noticed in the stressed situation of the explosion. Experience told him that pain often kicked in much later, after the adrenalin rush. The most vulnerable areas are the wrists, the knees.... No - no injury when the blast knocked me to the ground. But I am surprised that the paramedics do not check us for injury. Something -

The gun went off, Mariemaia crying out as the bullet went through the thin wall of the ambulance only inches from her face. There was a scream of anguish as Wufei wrenched the paramedic's wrist backwards, making him drop the gun. In swift succession Wufei dealt blows to his ribs and throat, and the man slumped over, unconscious. The ambulance was already screeching to a halt, and the driver frantically flung the door open, desperate to get away in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt.

But in a second Wufei had leapt out after him, sprinting in a burst of pure speed. The would-be assassin turned and drew his gun too late; it was kicked from his hand. A blow to his solar plexus, and the man was down on the pavement, groaning and conscious.

"Who sent you?" Wufei snarled down at him, furious.

The man licked his lips fearfully, but did not reply.

There was a click, and a gun was levelled at his head. Mariemaia had left the ambulance and picked up his gun on the way. "Answer, or I'll kill you."

The man closed his eyes and muttered a prayer.

Mariemaia shot him.

No-one spoke for several minutes. Then: "That was - unnecessary."

"We still have the other man to question."

At eight o' clock the Dictator appeared to the world from her office, her speech broadcast in spite of the cancelled celebration in Brussels. She was elegant in her blue dress against the mahogany backdrop, referred to the explosion as 'an unforeseen turn of events' and sweetly wished everyone a Merry Christmas.

At eight o' clock, Chang Wufei was in level B4 of the Dictatorial Palace, the surviving assassin in front of him. They had already gone through two stages of interrogation - in the first the man had simply been blindfolded and questioned. Nothing much had resulted from this, more than anything it was to give him a chance to avoid pain. Or to make the following stages seem all the worse if he were steeling himself for torture. In the second stage they had applied light force, the assisting sergeant punctuating his questions with light blows of the cane.

Stage three and four loomed before them. Wufei rubbed his temples while the sergeant awaited his decision. The blood test had indeed confirmed that the man was anaphylactic; truth drugs would send him into shock and quick death. So...

"Sergeant Rhone. I will be out for eighty minutes. When I return I will check the progress you have made." This was the indirect go-ahead, Wufei picked up his jacket, and left the room.

He was called back to the interrogation room precisely forty-three minutes later, by a female officer who was undisguisedly pale with nausea. The prisoner was covered from the neck downwards with a linen cloth, presumably to spare Wufei the sight of just how damaged he was. No longer blindfolded, his eyes were glazed over with pain.

"He'll answer anything now," said the sergeant.

"What is your name?"

"Edward Chase." The words were almost inaudible.

"Someone get him some water."

Water was fetched, and the prisoner allowed one sip.

"Tell me the plans in detail."

"Two of us were to wait in the ambulance... Back-up... If the explosion didn't kill you we'd finish it... make sure... We expected you to be dead, or at least badly injured." A pause. "The explosion was due at 5:15. That's all we were told."

"You know who planted the bomb?"

"Someone infiltrated administration staff... junior member. That's all I know."

"And who orchestrated this?"

"... the leader." The prisoner licked his lips. "I need water...?"

Wufei picked up the glass. "The leader? What did he promise you for your services?"

"Not services!" Suddenly indignant, the prisoner began coughing. "Do it for freedom! Release.... from oppression!" More coughing. "A return to the way things were!"

"The way things were." Wufei's black eyes were cold. "Were they so wonderful before?" He put the glass back down on the table. "You fight for what you believe in, I see. That's the way things should be."

"We were to kill you. The Dictator's death was secondary. First.... Chang Wufei."

Wufei was too late to stop the surprise showing on his face. Relenting, he put the glass to the prisoner's mouth and let him drink briefly. "Who is your leader?"

The prisoner, perhaps given new strength with the water, looked up purposefully, his eyes now clear and menacing. "You want his name?"

Wufei's eyes narrowed, a growing sense of disquiet seeding in his chest.

"Treize Khushrenada," said the prisoner, smirking.

Before he could stop himself, Wufei had slapped the prisoner across the face, hard. He was intensely angry now, so angry that it had contracted to a pinpoint in his brain, leaving him brutally cold and calm. Ranting and raving was the way boys expressed their anger, and Wufei was no longer a boy. "Someone thinks to mock me," said Wufei. "Who IS your leader?"

The prisoner smirked, "Nataku."

Another slap, his hand cutting so fast through the air that a distinct whistle could be heard.

The prisoner spat blood, and began giggling obscenely. "He-He-He-Heero Yuy."

Wufei raised his hand, and then dropped it. The sergeant was now staring at him eerily. Wufei clenched his hand into a fist , stretching skin over knuckles. "The dead refuse to go away." He turned to the sergeant. "We will continue this later."

Outside the interrogation room, he looked at his hand. There was a streak of blood on it, not his own. The anger in him expanded, seethed, and then fell away to remorse. Suddenly overcome with disgust, he began running to the nearest basin. He did not leave the building till midnight.