ANATEXIS

PART 4 - Regression

It was maddening. For the past seven days he had been jolted to wakefulness by something like a school bell. And the room that was his prison was itself a parody of a boarding school dorm, with its twin bunks and eggshell-hued walls. That desk with its little study lamp made Duo shudder, but not as much as the window did. It was a joke, surely, framed by coffee-coloured felt curtains and plated with four inches of shockproof plexiglass. It offered a view of a playing field; a view where the sky was always the same shade of blue, the shadows never moved, the clouds never drifted, the treeleaves never shivered in the breeze. When his back was turned it would suddenly alter as they changed the projected image, as if that would fool him into thinking it was more than a static picture...

Duo tore his eyes from the window and looked at the unoccupied bed. As with every other morning four fresh cans of that damned Feori dry were lying next to a change of clothes, but today the clothes were special. Scaled up version of the black minister's suit he had not worn in nine years. How considerate they were, the sick twisted animals, to cater to his need for drink like that, and dress him like a fifteen-year-old while they were at it.

But he was helpless. He knew that around noon the walls would make a tiny exhaling sound, and he would fall asleep again, and when he awoke an hour later there would be a tray of authentic junk food on the desk. The same thing would happen at around seven, the drowsiness, the second tray of nutritionless edibles, and darkness would fall on the window projection lie and then the cycle would go on and on and

No, he would go crazy today instead, and this was how it would start: with the thoughts of how they had caught him gnawing away inside.

There were Martian mineworkers, and even some regulars who shuttled from other colonies. After all, the less-than-aboveboard Bar Dingo was a place for the things they could not get anywhere else, with the widespread strict controls in force.

The infamous 'Ghost Dingo' glowed in the corner, its blue neon light reflecting off the pile of empty cans. Draped over this wreckage was Bar Dingo's favourite customer and supplier of contraband, his crumpled wad of money carelessly lying to one side. He put thumb and forefinger together, squinted, and flicked a can away from himself, laughing hysterically as it carromed to the edge of the table and struck the floor. "Sssshhhhhhhwwwwwwwuuuuuuunnnngggg!" Then he raised himself out of the slouch. "Hey.... Dingo man! Anuh - another rounda BEER, yeah?" Emphasis on BEER, since it was one of the few words easy to enunciate when drunk.

No response, for no-one heard him over the mind-bashingly loud music.

Darkening the setting sun

Don't strike me with your gaze before I say my prayer

And suddenly... there he was, a flicker at the corner of his bleared vision. Pale arms glowed under the neon lights, and a dark head nodded ever so slightly to the beat of the music. Duo stared, transfixed. His eyes refused to focus, blue blending into green blending into black.

Give me happiness, just one

More wish to end it all: That would be pure joy

What could you make me say what could you do?

Just leave me to scratch my words onto the air

Lie-lie-lies

Duo rose from the cheap plastic chair, not noticing as it toppled over. Beer pooled on the floor, the slickness of it under his shoe sending him into a slide. Everything warped.

Single out the weakest will

The cinders as it burns may come to light my dreams

Push another coin into the slot

And let the vision run into me

There on the velvet lining of the screen

Showing me all the evils you would have me do -

It couldn't be. But beyond intoxication, on the edge of flying and falling, there was uncertain certainty. The figure was pushing his way to the exit now, determined, purposeful. That was so very right. When his shoulders shifted it was like a shrug, and the way the folds of the loose green vest reformed on his his back was so familiar... It had to be. It had to be him; no matter that there had been no change in seven years, no matter that he wore the body of a boy and not a young man's. For memory made no allowances for the passing of time.

"Wait - " The hoarse entreaty was drowned in sweet electric guitar.

True love - and a pitiful suicide

The angels sing their requiem

The same old bitter melody

This late love - does a name come to your mind?

Oh baby don't you grieve for me

'Cos death is just a fantasy -

The doors swung open, and for a moment there he was in silhouette, like totality in a solar eclipse. Duo stumbled forward after the apparition, the cheap bead curtain flicking into his face. As he lurched into the narrow walkway the music was cut off abruptly, leaving him with a fuzzed silence in his ears. This, together with the rolling warmth of alcohol in his veins, made him feel as if he were wrapped in sponge.

An immense effort sent him careering into the back of the retreating figure. He lunged out, catching an ankle, and they both went down, sprawled out on the ground.

"Wait, Heero," he muttered, and it was almost a command. But the startled face that regarded him was not Heero's. Close up the eyes proved to be a muddy brown, and the boy's hair was too reddish, not nearly as dark as it had appeared in the bar. Now he was jerking his ankle and scrabbling free from Duo, flattening himself against the wall to make way for four waiting strangers.

In the next moment Duo felt like he was being smeared across the ground. His arms were locked behind him, jerked high upwards such that his shoulderblades were scraping each other, but the alcohol in his bloodstream mercifully dulled the pain. Someone tugged his braid out from inside his jacket, and was examining it.

"Conclusive evidence. This was the correct bait to use after all - Marja's profiling has always been accurate." A large hand patted Duo's head almost affectionately. "Soaked with drink, this one. But I'm sure he can be made useful again."

As a confused and angry Duo was half-lifted, half-dragged away, he stared at his captors and the imposter.

"This has gone well." But the General's satisfaction was interrupted by an insistent tug on his sleeve.

"Oi," the brown-eyed boy was saying. "These shorts are killing me. Can I have my money now?"

General Galvez was a portly man, but Davison knew there was more than enough muscle in the sumo-wrestler-like body, despite the protruding belly. "Rourke says the disk is full of gaps." It was obvious he was just repeating the words without knowing what they represented.

Davison took the tiny 2-incher from Galvez, an undisguised hunger in his eyes. The computer scientist then produced the Silvercard he always carried, unfolded it, and inserted the disk. At once boxes flashed across the tiny screen, and lines of code scrolled, a few highlighted in red.

"I don't know how you control that thing," grumbled General Galvez. "It's as tricky as hell to hit those microscopic keys on a Silvercard."

Davison's lips quirked up, his eyes still focused on the screen. "Keys, ha. If you train yourself to use the control signals, General, the sensor pad can just read off the electric signals in the skin of your index finger. Slower than a direct port into the brain, but infinitely faster than keys." He suddenly frowned. "The code's messy. Lots of unnecessary lines, repetitive, unclean. And the gaps, yes. But of course it's unfinished."

Galvez, bored by Davison's techtalk, moved to the output of the surveillance camera, showing the captive pilot pacing his room. "Chang Wufei has only just begun constructing the shell of his new Gundam. But Rourke seems to think that this half-finished ANATEXIS system is the real danger. Is he right?"

"We'll just have to see, won't we?" Davison joined Galvez in watching Duo Maxwell. He had already removed the disk and had shut the Silvercard.

The General took the hint. With a flick of his large hand, he summoned his nearby assistants. "Prepare the linked simulators. Get me a pilot - someone good, but not too good."

"I'll get O'Hanlon, sir!"

The General then crooked a finger at the woman with wavy black hair standing in the corner. She approached almost reluctantly.

"Get Duo Maxwell out and prepare him for the simulator."

"He's not ready. Stage 3 percolation hasn't even been carried out! He's far from peak performance."

"You said he'd been 'regressed' far enough to recover his skills, Marja."

"I did, but..." Abruptly she stopped arguing. "I'll prepare him."

The visit to the school had lifted Relena's spirits, and she sat in the back if the limousine, smiling at the posy of flowers a shy seven-year-old had presented her. Then she noticed the cream-coloured card poking out from under a spray of golden shower, her breath catching in her throat. The exact shade of cream, the same neat script. But the message was different this time.

Relena, don't be afraid. Slip away from the party tonight and meet me in the Summer Pavilion at eleven pm.

"Miss Darlian, are you alright?" asked the chauffeur.

"I'm fine, thank you. Please drive on. "Her heart was thudding in her chest as she said this. She had not wanted to attend the party, thrown by one of the other advisors. For one thing, General Rourke would be there. But if she could meet this mysterious entity...

When Duo woke up, he was in Deathscythe's cockpit, the lights on the panel winking up at him. The dark expanse of space was outside, flecked with stars. Dry laughter made its way up his throat. "No, it can't be. Do you hear me, bastards? This isn't real!"

"Shut up." The voice over the unit jarred Duo's senses. "There's an OZ-marked mobile suit approaching you."

"Heero - ?"

No reply.

"Heero! Answer me! Answer me! You can't, can you? You're not real either! Just a voice on playback!" Silence, and Duo's unsteady breathing filled the cockpit.

"I repeat: There's an OZ-marked mobile suit approaching you."

Duo's hand crept to the panel, and he switched the viewers and scanners on. At once a dark green speck was visible, its unfamiliar design growing larger as it sped towards him. If this were some cruel game, there was no choice but to play it. But if somehow, he had been given the chance to start over -

The newcomer attacked without preamble, firing its beam cannon in a lethal pulse. Shinigami dodged rather stiffly, then blocked with the stem of its scythe the blade which roared to life close after it. A short testing of strengths, then the two mobile suits separated.

"So you're real, at least." Duo was warming to the confrontation, the controls no longer so foreign to him. "Deal with you first, then..."

In a brief acceleration Deathscythe's form blurred, and the scythe swung; the beam bit into metal and beyond. An unrepressed sound of triumph issued from Duo as a mecha limb floated away from the enemy suit. He sped forward again, preparing to crosscut the MS with the finishing stroke.

The finishing stroke was never executed. Three shocks arrived in rapid succession, all the more forceful with Deathscythe's momentum behind it. Duo was flung to one side of the cockpit like a rag doll, the safety harness squeezing the air out of his lungs. The pain in his chest throbbed once, twice, in synchrony with his heart, but he hung onto consciousness, ready to bring the thermal scythe onto the enemy's head.

Three shocks again, and the constellations whirled round in a tight circle. Fighting against the centrifugal forces, Duo's hands sought their way back to the controls, and did not reach them. A massive impact shook the cockpit, and nausea closed in a second before the inexorable blackness.

Amazing!" O'Hanlon was babbling like a kid fresh off his first ride on the rollercoaster. He had felt the natural high of reaching the peak of his skills, and then exceeding them. Galvez and Davison watched him jump off the top rung of the ladder leading up to the simulator, then turned their gaze on the opposite simulator. A soldier was bearing Duo Maxwell on his back as he climbed down from it. The braid limply trailed on the rungs, a dead thing.

"I understand some of the code now," said Davison, his voice muted with grudging respect. "It's a filter. O'Hanlon's input went in, got processed, and was re-timed. When the moves came out again they were the perfect counterattack for the other suit."

Galvez scowled. "It's clever. Too clever."

"Actually it's a simple concept," said Davison. "To coordinate your existing abilities to fit against your enemy's moves. Minimum change, maximum effect. Timing really is everything." His arms were folded, and he looked sullen.

The General scratched his chin. "You're jealous, aren't you?"

"What?"

"That you didn't write that simple program yourself. You're sick to your guts to think that Little Girl Barton has a programmer who's better than you are."

Davison ground his teeth at the general's impolitic, but entirely accurate comment. "I can try to take the system apart, find a solution. But remember your other problems. General Rourke had better get his hands on the new Gundam as well, or your happy little coup will be a failure. Excuse me now, I have work to do."

You're my subject, no-one else's.

Marja wiped away the clear acid liquid which Maxwell had purged from his empty stomach.

I know all about you, Duo Maxwell; your life, your loves, your hates, everything. And how great a pilot you are - if only you hadn't turned to the alcohol. You're a textbook case, Duo, not so far gone that you can't be saved, but the years of soaking have slowed you down. I'm going to return you to your true state, Duo. I can bring you back, regress you to when you were the best.

"For Chrissakes don't get obsessed with him, Marja." Davison was standing in the doorway, the Silvercard's screen making his pale face glow.

"Don't tell me that. You yourself were obsessed with modifying the ZERO system for Galvez. And now ANATEXIS has come along, and it's better. Aren't you sad that your work's wasted?" Davison's forced smile did not fool her. "That's the way I worked on my subject, thinking he'd be ressurrected as something fine. Not as a victim for ANATEXIS to humiliate, abuse." Suddenly her face twisted in apprehension. "Galvez isn't going to get rid of him, is he? I'll tell him anything if - "

Davison stalked over and shook her till she was quiet. Then he looked down at the unconscious pilot. "You know Galvez is a collector. He doesn't get rid of pilots, he hoards them. Might have something to do with not being able to fit into a cockpit himself."

Both of them laughed at this, but there was no mirth, only a twinge of repulsion.

"What you do have to wonder," continued the computer scientist, "is how he'll keep this one. It's better to be alive and suffering than stored as a trophy in Galvez's cupboard."

"So you've heard that rumour too," whispered Marja.

A soldier passed outside in the corridor, and they were silent till his footsteps had faded.

"He has relics. From World War One, maybe even before that. Only God knows where he keeps them... I have to admit I'm curious. Very, very curious."

Marja stroked Duo's cheek, as if to ward away evils, and he stirred. "It's time to send him back to the dorm."

Zechs waited about ten metres away from the weathered marble pavilion, the trees hiding him easily. The garden shears he carried were a passable excuse for those convinced that he was one of the faceless underling staff populating the Dictatorial Palace. For those unconvinced, there was a gun. But he was sure of being undisturbed. This portion of the garden was being relandscaped, and few would venture here.

A glance at the luminous dials of his watch - ten minutes to go. And then he would come face to face with his sister for the first time in so many years. After two deaths, two returns from the grave... The second death had nearly been permanent. He should have been left to die on the battlefield of Brussels; there was no reason to operate on a renegade pilot with a shard of glass embedded behind his ear and a shattered ribcage.

"You don't know... who I am?" He had been genuinely surprised when he came to in the hospital bed.

"I don't want to know," the surgeon had said quickly. "Though I have a vague idea." His bushy moustache and greying hair reminded Zechs of a certain royal physician of long-gone Cinq. But that elderly doctor with his boyish laugh had passed away years ago, and the resemblance was just a coincidence.

"Thank you, then," said Zechs. "For saving this nameless stranger."

The surgeon flashed a cheerful smile. "Four titanium ribs welded to a plate sternum. It was a near thing, a very near thing. Oh, and um..." He coughed apologetically. "Stitches behind your ear, of course."

The nurses had shaved a sizeable area on the left side of his head, Zechs noted ruefully. He winced, but said nothing, and the doctor suppressed the urge to make jokes about mange.

"It'll grow back, son, it'll grow." He watched his patient take the painkillers. "By the way, I took the extreme liberty of signing a death certificate three days ago."

Zechs closed his eyes and smiled. "Then I should leave soon. Before I am discovered."

"Give yourself a few weeks, if possible. You are too delicate to start running now."

"Days at most, but not weeks. My presence here is a threat to your own safety, and I could not endanger the person to whom I owe my life."

The doctor's face softened. "Perhaps you reminded me of my son. He was a casualty in the Eve Wars of 195." Then he turned away, evidently absorbed by the charts. "The hospital regularly sends consignments of biochemical waste into space, and there is a batch leaving ten days from now. The canisters are stored in crates seven feet long, so if you don't mind being transported to a colony that way, then - "

Made drowsy by the painkillers Zechs murmured, "I have no objections at all. When one has escaped death twice, there is a very selfish urge to live on..."

And live on he had, lying low on a series of cargo transports where he could be lost in the meniality. The ships occasionally docked next to military bases, and gaining a few useful articles was not difficult with the new regime being as complacent as it was.

It seems I am not above stealing, am I? The only consolation is that I steal from other thieves... Not really theft at all...

Relena's untrained step, though light, was clearly audible, and Zechs' mind returned to the present. To his slight annoyance, there was another set of footsteps, even softer, following hers - had she been distrustful enough to bring a guard? A distant chime on the hour, and Relena walked into the pavilion, her white dress making her look like a bride on a wedding cake.

"I'm here. Please show yourself."

Zechs moved only a fraction closer, waiting to see the hidden third party. Relena's movements were nervous, but made him realise that she had developed a fragile beauty since her teenage years.

"Please, I want to see you. You sent me the little porcelain figure too, didn't you? I feel you're here, so please speak to me."

"There's no-one here, Miss Darlian." Hands encircled her waist. "Your secret love seems to have been scared away." It was Rourke.

Relena struggled, half-breaking free, and tried to twist away from her captor. She wanted to scream, but had not enough breath in her lungs.

"Who were you meeting, Relena?" demanded the General, no longer using the teasingly formal 'Miss Darlian'. "An old flame? Some new fling? And I thought you were so prim and respectable, my dear." His chuckle became a thin, venomous laugh. "There's a young under-gardener I've often seen in the grounds... I wonder if that's the servant - "

The heavy handles of the shears struck Rourke at the base of his neck, felling him without a sound. "You have your answer." Relena's eyes went wide at the sight of who had spoken, and she involuntarily took a step backward, as frightened as before.

"I should have shot him on sight." Zechs nudged the General's body with his foot; not particularly gently. Then he turned to Relena, and smiled wryly, an eyebrow arching into his fringe. "Were you expecting Heero Yuy? I've failed my duty before, Relena, but perhaps I can be a better brother to you now."

Relena moistened her dry lips, and skirted the unconscious General. Approaching her unexpected rescuer, she touched his arm, as if to determine if he were tangible. Then slowly, she hugged him, and he returned the embrace. It was a reunion laced with sweetness and sorrow.

"I should take you from here."

"You know that wouldn't be possible."

Zechs regarded the dull glint of his gun. "That is so. There are no safe havens till this regime is destroyed. Relena, you will invite Mariemaia to the War Museum tomorrow. It would be best if you persuaded Chang Wufei to be there as well."

"Milliard?" Relena's tone was apprehensive. "You mean to kill them, don't you?"

Her brother was silent.

"Under this regime there is still a form of peace, stability. There will always be minor rebellions, even against the most enlightened rulers. Who is to say that Mariemaia will not mellow as she grows?"

"You are too naive, Relena."

"I'm not. If you kill her, someone like Rourke will take her place. There'll be another season of paranoia and persecution and suffering. Did... did you plant the bomb on Christmas Day?"

Zechs stared over her head into the darkness, and sighed. "If that had been successful... but no, I did not."

Rourke was showing some movement, and Relena looked away as Zechs negligently knelt and struck him unconscious again. "In a few days someone is putting me in contact with a rebel leader," said Zechs. "If he proves trustworthy I shall join with him to end this nightmare, and I'll take you with me. In the meantime, be well, Relena." He kissed her forehead. "You are my best hope."

"And you are mine, now."

3 am. The observation room was quiet, with only one nominal technician watching Duo Maxwell's fitful sleep. Breaking off his tuneless humming, the technician sipped his coffee. When he looked up again, the captive pilot was awake, and was doing something strange...

He had filled the washstand with water, and had pulled the chair over from the desk such that he could sit in it before the basin. Now his hands rested on the rim of the washstand, and almost ceremoniously, he lowered his face. The water sloshed over the side as his head was submerged, and a stream of bubbles surfaced as he exhaled. He stayed like that for a minute. Then another minute ticked by, and another...

Duo's body shuddered briefly, and his hands dropped away from the sides of the basin.

The technician started up, spilling coffee everywhere, and broke into a run towards the cell. As he ran he comm'd the one person who lived onsite, Dr Marja Milankova.

"What - ?" Her groggy voice filled with alarm. "I'll be there at once!" She dashed out of her room without even pulling on a dressing gown, her feet pattering on cold metal flooring. No, Duo could NOT be doing this, surely he would cling stubbornly to life, surely she had not made a mistake in her analysis!

She reached the pseudo dormitory panting harshly, and nearly tripped over the unconscious body of the technician. Then before she could open her mouth to scream, Duo clamped a hand over it. His hair was dripping, his eyes were wild, and a lime green plastic straw - a remnant of the junk food meals they had fed him - dangled from his mouth in a parody of a cigarette.

"Sorry," he said, delivering her into the same type of slumber as he had the technician. Somewhere in this base, there had to be a getaway vehicle, and guns waiting for a new owner.