Metal rang against metal as the shuttle docked on L2- V08895. Trowa listened to the familiar noises and tried not to think about actually having to don an environmental suit again.
"Airlock is opening, sir."
He glanced over at Lieutenant Crowley. "I can see that."
"Um... yes sir," The Lieutenant winced, and Trowa sighed.
"Sorry. It's been a long few days," Trowa offered quietly. "How far are we from the inner ring seals?"
"We docked at the nearest free port, maybe two kilometers." The agent winced again. "Did the rebels really sabotage the control rooms during the war?"
"Not the control rooms themselves." Trowa hefted his gear over one shoulder. "Just all the exterior airlocks leading to them. The only way to reach any of the L2 control rooms now is from the inside, through the core."
"But..." The two agents on his team hastily grabbed their own gear, starting after Trowa at a trot. "Why?"
Why...? Trowa stopped, turning to stare out the thick windows at the hangar bay. Despite the fact that only a third of the shuttle berths were filled, all around them was the normal activities of cargo ships arriving. Watching the bustle, it was hard to believe that anyone had ever conceived of Operation Meteor. The weight of memories he would rather have lost forever pressed against the insides of his eyelids, threatening to return the moment he let down his guard.
"They were afraid someone might take over the control rooms." Turning away, he headed for customs. "It would have really sucked if some psychopath had tried to drop a colony on the earth."
"What?" Lieutenant Hawes yelped. "But... that's insane..."
"That was war." Trowa glanced over his shoulder. "It's also not why we're here. Let's go. I want to get this over with." Trowa Barton... rest in Hell, you son of a bitch. But thanks for the name.
One of the local Preventer agents waved them past the customs line. "Captain Barton! We've got a car waiting for you. Lady Une said you would need full environmental suits, they're waiting at the inner ring seal for you. This way, please."
"Thank you."
Lowell slipped into the observation room, not surprised to see Sally, Dorothy and Duo watching the interrogation through the one way glass. Duo glanced over his shoulder to wave distractedly, then turned back to the scene though the window.
"You're late, man. Missing the show...."
"The briefing with Winner ran long," Lowell shook his head. "You may be right about him being a brilliant strategist... but damn is he anal over the details." Finding an empty chair, he dragged it over to the window and sat down to watch.
The room on the other side of the window was small, bare and white, and furnished with nothing but an incredibly uncomfortable looking chair and a scratched table. Zechs was leaning over the table, hands braced as he glared down at the woman he was questioning. His back was to the window, but Lowell could read the tension and anger in his stance. He didn't have to guess at Zechs' expression; the outright terror in the woman's face was enough of an indication.
"How long has he been at this?"
"This is the second one. Most of them have not recovered enough to face questioning yet. But we have enough right now to hold them all in custody just on the grounds of attempted murder of Preventers' agents... and entrapment...and being caught at the scene of the crime."
"I think we should just hold them all on the grounds of them being bugfuck nuts..." Dorothy growled. "This is unbelievable..."
"'Bugfuck nuts' isn't exactly a legal cause to hold someone," Sally muttered. "And I wouldn't throw a lot of stones with that one...."
"Yeah, yeah," Dorothy shrugged. "We may be nuts, but we didn't go around handcuffing good Samaritans to a chainlink fence and torturing them to death."
"True," Sally sighed.
On the other side of the glass, Zechs straightened to his full height and glared down at his victim, who flinched back. Now that he'd taken a closer look, Lowell recognized her as the woman who'd screamed to lure him into the alley in the first place.
"Let's go over this again, shall we?" Zechs sighed. "Why exactly were you in the alley?"
"Fuck you..."
"Wrong answer."
"I don't have to talk to you... you're one of them."
"One of them?"
"The heroes, riding in on their white horses...."
"And that's a reason for murder?"
"You fuck up... you fuck it all up... and you have to die, because you break the rules...."
"Why do you hate heroes?" Zechs murmured thoughtfully. "Is it because we try to help others? Or is it because no one showed up to play Hero when you needed them to?"
"You shall see no evil... you shall hear no evil... you shall speak no evil...For that way lies temptation to act ... you shall see no evil...." The woman's eyes took on a fanatic's gleam as she began chanting softly. Zechs threw up his hands and turned away in disgust.
"We won't get anything more out of her," Sally sighed, then glanced at Lowell. "That's all the first one he questioned would say, over and over."
"Brainwashed?" Lowell frowned, watching as the woman began rocking in rhythm with her words.
"It's a cult. What do you think?" Sally sighed. "But these are small fry anyway. The big fish... that one's up next."
"Oh?"
"Dr. Andrei Ustinov." She spat the words out. "The so called leader of this movement."
"Great." They watched as the woman was removed from the room.
"So has forensics found anything else?" Duo asked quietly, though his eyes never left Zechs as the other man paced restlessly in the otherwise empty interrogation room.
"Some. The analysis came back on that slime you guys were rolling in," Sally grimaced. "It was mud... sort of. Apparently the area was saturated with blood from the victims. Most of it had dried onto the walls and pavement, which explains why no one outside the area had complained too much about the smell. Everyone assumed it was just from the trash getting dumped there...but with the recent rainfall... well..."
"Ugh," Duo groaned. "That's just disgusting."
"That's about what the Forensics' team had to say." Sally shook her head. "They're still trying to sort through all the crap on the other side of the fence as well. Apparently, the debris was what kept the blood from getting washed out into the harbor."
"Can the blood be typed?" Lowell asked thoughtfully. "Enough to prove that that's the site of the murders?"
"Not from the mud... it's too mixed and there is too much contamination."
"Dammit..." Dorothy moved to lean against the glass, her eyes following Zechs as he paced the room on the other side. "This is stupid. They can't get off just because we can't prove that they murdered a bunch of people there. And our word alone isn't going to cut it...."
"I didn't say they were getting off." Sally snapped. "The presence of that much blood by itself is pretty damning. And I said we couldn't type the mud. However, they have discovered several patches of dried blood that were sheltered from the rain. Those have been positively ID'd to the last four victims." She sighed, and slumped back in her chair. "And from that... you guys were right so far. The fence was the murder site."
"Told you," Dorothy muttered under her breath.
"Now, we just need a confession from at least one of these psychos, an eye witness that is willing to testify, or to find the murder weapons and enough evidence to link them to each murder."
"That's going to be... really unpleasant." Duo shook his head. "Maybe Zechs will have better luck with Ustinov."
"Whether he does or not... we still have to find those murder weapons."
"Dr. Ustinov." They all turned towards the window, to see two guards manhandling the next suspect into the chair. He was smiling calmly as Zechs turned to watch him coldly. Lowell stiffened, recognizing the man as the one he and Duo had chased through the maze; the one that had taunted them from the center of the courtyard.
"Preventer." The doctor crossed his legs, looking for all the world as though they were in his own office, not an interrogation room. Zechs didn't appear to be phased by the man's nonchalance, as he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "Milliardo Peacecraft, isn't it?"
"I prefer the name Zechs Merquise."
"I'm surprised they are letting you do this interrogation."
"Oh?" Zechs raised one pale eyebrow curiously. "Why would that be?"
"I would think that letting someone with a known personality disorder question suspects would... be considered as tainting any sort of confession you might get from me."
"Ah... but changing one's name is hardly considered a personality disorder. I can assure you that I do not have multiple personalities... and my mental state is not the one at stake here."
"Come now... you attempted to destroy the earth. Surely anything you think that I might have done pales next to that."
"What a fucking scum-maggot," Duo growled softly. "Zechs..."
"Perhaps," Zechs shrugged. "But that's beside the point, and for others to decide, not you. So perhaps we should talk about last night instead."
"I have nothing to say about last night."
Zechs nodded. "Fair enough. Then let's talk about your wife, instead."
"My... wife?" Dr. Ustinov blinked, looking off balance for the first time.
"His wife?" Sally frowned. "Merquise, what the hell are you doing?"
"Meriel . She was very pretty. It must have been hard for you, when she was raped and murdered three years ago."
"Meriel..." The doctors eyes closed for a moment. "She's nothing to do with this."
"No?" Zechs straightened. "How odd then, that you not only continued your psychiatric practice, but switched to counseling rape victims almost exclusively. We've done checks on the other suspects picked up last night. All of them were patients of yours, were they not?"
"Doctor-Patient confidentiality prevents me from answering that question."
"It wasn't really a question, Dr. Ustinov. We have identified all of the members of your little... therapy group... that were involved in the attempted murder of two Preventers agents last night. "
"And where were your agents three years ago? When Meriel was the victim?"
"Preventers did not exist three years ago, Doctor. As I'm sure you are aware. But someone did try to help Meriel... didn't they? A Good Samaritan, dropping everything to rush to the rescue of a pretty woman?"
"Zechs... what the hell are you doing?" Sally stood up, but Dorothy caught her wrist.
"Sally, he knows what he's doing..."
"But... where the hell did he find this information? It's not in any of the reports, this line of questioning is completely out of..."
"Sally... the doctor hasn't denied any of it either," Duo sighed. "Trust us, trust him.... He has no intention of letting this nut off on a technicality. You wanted a confession. I think you're about to get one..."
"He was a fool!" Any semblance of calm was lost as the Doctor surged out of his chair. Zechs stepped back to keep the table between them, waving off the two guards as they started to open the door. "Blundering in...he had no right....!"
"He was trying to save her life."
"He got her killed!" Ustinov began pacing, the chains linking his manacled hands jingling. "She died... and he lived... the fool. They might not have killed her, they would have let her go... but he startled them... and my Meriel...pretty Meriel..." The doctor turned on Zechs again. "She took a bullet to the stomach... and bled to death... slowly."
"He lived, yes," Zechs said quietly. "For two weeks, he lived with the guilt that he couldn't save her... and then you found him. In the alley where she died. Didn't you?"
"He was a fool... he had to die. If he hadn't seen, if he hadn't heard her screams for help...."
"If he hadn't yelled and startled them?" Zechs finished, his voice like ice. "You underwent counseling, and were allowed to continue your practice after you had convinced everyone you were healed. That helping others was your penance. But you weren't helping them, were you? Instead, you were twisting their grief, and their guilt, and their anger that no one stepped into to save them, or their wives, or their daughters. Or their sons... and you convinced them that it was those heroes, the good Samaritans, those were the ones who had to pay. Not the animals who committed the rapes...."
"I was helping them heal!"
"How is committing twenty four murders helping anyone heal?"
Dr Ustinov slumped back into his chair, sobbing into his hands. "Meriel..."
"Well, Doctor?" Zechs leaned over the table, his hands braced. Lowell had the feeling it was more to keep him from hitting the doctor than for balance.
"Don't you see? It was for her... they had to pay. You all have to pay for taking her away from me..."
"Now see, that's why I refuse to undergo counseling," Duo muttered under his breath. "I think I can be crazy just fine on my own...."
"I...my...God..." Sally swayed as all the blood rushed from her face. "A doctor...using...his patients...." Pulling away from Dorothy, she headed quickly for the door, one hand cupped over her mouth.
Dorothy swore softly and followed her out of the room.
"I think reality just hit our good doctor," Duo sighed, rubbing one hand across his eyes wearily. "It's one thing to know that the members of that cult were his patients... it's quite another to hear him refer to that... nightmare... as....healing."
"Yeah," Lowell sighed; watching quietly as Zechs moved back to lean against the wall, his shoulders sagging wearily. The doctor was talking now, rambling softly as he tried to justify becoming a mass murderer. They let the monitoring equipment record it, no longer wanting to know what could drive a man over the edge of sanity.
Duo looked up as Zechs slumped heavily against the door, his pale face strained.
"Zechs? You okay, man?" Moving over to his partner, Duo put a hand on his shoulder. Zechs shivered under his fingers, as he tugged him away from the door. "Come on, talk to me..."
"Duo..." The word was more of a moan than anything else. Before Duo knew quite what was happening, he had been pulled fully into the taller man's arms and was being held tightly enough to set all of his bruises to throbbing life.
"Hey... it's okay. You did good in there."
"I almost... that monster would have...."
"I'm here. I'm fine." Duo wormed free with difficulty; then half dragged the taller man across the office to the couch. "You really think I would have let some bunch of freaks tie me to a fence...?"
"You're not superhuman." Zechs turned his head to look at him. "And if they'd gotten you against that fence...."
"But they didn't... it's over. We got them. And they won't do this to anyone else."
"Where's Doro?"
"She... took Sally home. Po kind of lost it there, watching that creep."
"I nearly lost it there, talking to him." Zechs shuddered again, then dragged Duo bodily into his arms again. Resigning himself to being a teddy bear for the next few hours, Duo forced himself to relax against the older man's chest.
"But you didn't. Though I think all of us are gonna have nightmares from this one." Resting his head against Zechs' shoulder, Duo let his fingers tangle in fine blond hair and watched the lights twinkle on the tiny Christmas tree they had set up in the center of the conference table.
"Yeah..."
There was silence then; both of them lost in thought as they waited for Dorothy to return. The nightmares can't last forever though, can they?
tbc