Part 3
by Shinigami Liss
Disclaimer: you know the drill... I don't own any of the characters from Gundam Wing all GW stuff belongs to their respective owners... ***HOWEVER***, Commander Deisana, Lieutenant Eko, Captain Noku, and Cadets Lerin, Fen, and Ardin are my creations. ***PLEASE*** don't use them in your fics. If you want to use them in one of your fics, just email me and the fic idea, and I'll probably let you. And don't go using them without asking!! My friends and I read **LOTS** of fan fics, and if you use my characters, we'll find out!!! ...... anyways... on with the fic! ^___^
"It's only for a short while," Quatre said, knowing that even though Duo would rather find Heero, he would go on the mission as he was asked to do. "Besides, Heero'll hold up against OZ. No one has ever gotten him to say anything."
"That's what I'm worried about! Exactly how much torture will he have to go through while I'm on this damned mission?!?!" Duo said with self loathing as he looked down at his lap, his wings fluttering in anger. He no longer hid them under his shirt, there was no need to hide them from his friends.
"I don't know Shinigami, I don't know." Trowa said, speaking in place of his lover. The words stunned Duo, still not accustomed to being called his formal title by his friends. Quatre was the only one that still called him 'Duo', and the other two pilots now showed him an extremely wary kind of respect.
"I guess that I'll have to go. I mean, that's what he would do. The mission always comes first..." Shinigami said sullenly, "Hang in there, Koibito."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Heero didn�t really know where he was, other than in a cell inside an OZ base. His cell was small- 3x4 ft. was his guess. Although, it wasn�t the size of the cell that bothered him, it was its lighting. The lights inside the cell came from every wall, the ceiling, and even the floor. They were on all the time and they blinded him. When Heero tried to darken them by closing his eyes, the light merle shone through his eyelids.
Heero hadn�t eaten or had anything to drink in days, and it was beginning to wear on him. Normally he would be fine with the lack of nutrition, but OZ did nothing to heal his wounds from the battle. Therefore all nutrients went to healing himself.
//I shouldn�t have let myself be captured alive�// He thought. //even if I was captured alive, I should�ve killed myself a *long* time ago�.// but every time he was about to break his leg in a way that would sever his femoral artery[1], he would see a pair of lovely violet eyes. He knew that if he committed suicide those eyes would shed tears. Heero couldn�t kill himself, knowing that he caused the eyes of his beloved to cry.
So Heero sat, and waited, and slept, and sat again. A seemingly endless cycle that would drive him insane unless something was done to stop it.
///And you call yourself a soldier� pa!/// a voice in side his head admonished him. ///You can�t even complete a mission! Tie up all lose ends, remember? A soldier who can�t even let himself die for the war� how weak!///
//But� Duo�// Heero said back to the voice. Heero wrapped his arms around his raised knees, for all the world looking like a lost child. His parched lips moved, forming words that he wasn�t even aware of uttering.
"Shi-chan. . . . . . Duo. . . . . . Shinigami. . . . . . Koibito. . . . . ."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So� the prisoner finally spoke�" Deisana responded to the news that Lieutenant Eko brought her. "Duo� the name of the pilot of Gundam 02. The pilot that calls himself the God of Death -Shinigami- and the endearment used signifies that they�re more than just friends�" The commander stopped her thoughts and smirked knowingly at Lieutenant Eko.
"Tell me, has the prisoner�s time sense been disrupted yet?" Deisana asked, leaning forward to place her elbows on her desktop and folding her hands.
"Yes, but after a week it�s only differed by an hour."
"And has he tried suicide yet?"
"A few times soon after arriving he started to, but stopped before any damage was done." Eko told her while shifting in his chair, making sure that the malicious gleam in her eyes wasn�t for him.
"I see. I believe it�s time to take greater measures. We are going to transfer to the Maine base."
"But that base is under Lady Une�s command�" Eko reminded her, not wishing to deal with both commanders.
"I am fully aware of that, and that she is at the colonies at this time, which leaves the base open to other commanders. Have the prisoner transferred to cell 103 in block QC there. I believe that cell is in the center of the questioning block." Eko nodded his head and remained neutral in expression, but was mentally scowling at how the prisoner would have to hear the screams of the other prisoners that were undergoing tremendous amounts of torture. "Also, feed him. If he�s going to work for us we don�t want him to starve because it took a while to break him. However, don�t treat his wounds. They ought to hinder him from fighting against us at this point."
"Understood, Commander Deisana." Eko said, standing from his chair and walking towards the door, trying to figure out how he could help the prisoner.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Something was wrong. The lights in Heero�s cell flickered, burning out afterward. Rays of light shone from the edges of the door and Heero�s eyes had to readjust to the lack of the burning light. An odd odor wafted through the air in Heero�s cramped cell. Heero identified it as a sleeping gas.
//What are they going to do to me?// he thought. //They already have me tired, wounded, malnourished, and unable to fight.//
Heero knew that the sleeping gas that he identified wouldn�t do anything to him, he had been trained so that he didn�t respond to gases of this nature. Then he smelled a subtle difference in the gas and realized that this one was new and he wasn�t prepared for it. His limbs became limp and his last thought before succumbing to unconsciousness was of Duo screaming his name as he was captured what seemed to be years ago.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Damn," Ardin muttered as he helped Fen carry the prisoner from the transport. "He's so scrawny that you wouldn�t think he weighs as much as he does."
"It must be all the muscle." Fen replied, even though he knew it was a rhetorical statement.
"Hmph." Ardin vocalized, his mind wondering how strong someone would have to be to hold the prisoner down. Deisana said he could have his fun with the prisoner, when it suited her purposes of course, which it hadn�t yet. Yet. He smiled maliciously at the thought of what would happen when the commander would let him do what he wanted with the boy.
Ardin watched as Fen tried to keep the boy�s wounded and now bleeding right knee from dragging on the pavement. Fen was too humane to serve under Deisana, and Ardin wondered how long it would be before he was transferred to someone else�s command. It would be a nice reprieve not to have a goodie-two-shoes yelling at him whenever he was starting to have some fun.
They arrived at the door of the prisoner�s new cell, and Ardin dropped his half of the prisoner so he could open the door. Ardin punched in the code on the keypad and picked up the prisoner�s arm to carry him inside the cell. Ardin dropped the boy once he was inside the cell, but Fen stopped his fall and gently laid him down on the floor.
"Do you want me to bring in his food, or do you want to?" Fen asked him.
"No, you go ahead and do it."
"Are we supposed to bandage his wounds?" Fen asked him as they walked out of the cell and the door closed behind them.
"No, you heard what the commander said."
"Hn." Ardin looked over at the other cadet, who seemed to resolve something. Maybe he wouldn�t have to wait till Fen was transferred after all�
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The cell was dark. That was the first thing that Heero realized. His wounds still hurt, but this time he was stretched out on the floor with a lot of extra room. Then he heard the sounds from the other chambers near his. They were screaming, groaning, and moaning in pain, and the sounds were enough to cause him a headache. He had been transferred to a questioning block.
//So� they�re finally going to do something with me.// Heero thought. Before he could think of what OZ might do with him, he heard the code being entered into the keypad. If he had been able to, he might have tried to escape, but he was in no condition to try for anything like that. So instead, he propped himself against the nearest wall, wincing as pain shot through his right leg. He looked down at it and saw that it was bleeding again. The door opened, and Heero had to squint his eyes to see properly. It wasn�t an interrogator and guards as he�d thought, but a lone officer.
"Oh� you�re awake. Well, that�ll make things easier." The officer said as the door slid back into place behind him. "I�m Cadet Fen, I hope you�re not too badly injured."
"Hn." Heero didn�t mention that he could barely stand on his right leg and his muscles were cramped from being in the smaller cell for� a week, was it? It had seemed much longer than that.
"Oh, well, I brought you some food." The cadet said, holding out the tray as though he just remembered it. "You eat your lunch, okay? The Commander doesn�t want you to die of starvation just because you�re stubborn." Fen said, putting the tray down next to him. The Cadet straitened and reached inside his pocket for something. "Oh, here, these might help you wake up from the effects of the gas." Heero looked at the stim pills that Fen held out to him. Heero took the pills and nodded his head in thanks. "Well, I�m off then. I�ll be delivering your food for the next few days, so I�ll see you at dinnertime." Fen left the cell with one last look at the prisoner that was full of empathy.
After the officer�s exit, Heero looked to his right and at the food tray. So this was lunch. It was more than likely that the food was drugged, but he was going to need some sustenance if he was going to be able to do anything. Heero moved his right hand and poked at the food to see what was there. Most of the meal consisted of nutrition bars and citrus juice drinks. He picked up a bar and started to eat at it.
//Where is Duo??// was the one thought raging through his brain as he chewed on the bland food bar. Where is he now? Duo was most likely looking for him, and for all he knew, he could have been transferred to another base while he was unconscious. What could Duo have been doing during the week that would cause Duo to not find him? He remembered that during his transit after capture there was a while that they stopped completely before they went at a greater velocity to the base than they were flying at before. Had Duo attacked the Mobile SUITs when they were taking him away? It was likely, but then what had happened to him?
Heero finished the first bar and took another one off the tray. When he grasped the second bar, he felt cool metal. He looked down to see a healing salve.
The officer seemed to be going against his superiors. He had hidden healing salve in his food and told him what time it was- negating what the week of confinement did. Perhaps he could get the officer to help him escape and find Duo.
Just as these thoughts crossed Heero�s mind, the lights came on- the same bright lights as in the other cell.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Hello pilot of Gundam 01, code name: Heero Yuy. Do you remember me? I am Commander Victoria Deisana." The boy stoically looked at the woman that introduced herself while the door behind him closed. Deisana signaled to the two cadets that brought the prisoner to this room and they started to move him towards a torture device. He started to struggle with the two cadets, but his struggling didn�t do anything as the boy was soon securely placed in the device�s restraints.
The device was flat, bed-sized, and it had computer monitors at both the 'head' and the 'foot' of the device. The pilot was restrained so that he lay on his back, his arms were at his side, hands laid palm up- rolled into fists.
"How are you doing today, Heero?" Deisana asked the Gundam pilot as she sat down in a chair placed to the right of the machine. Lt. Eko, cadet Ardin, and cadet Fen stood next to the wall, five feet away from the foot of the device. The boy merle stared at the ceiling. He stared as though she wasn't there, as though he wasn't a terrorist in enemy hands. He stared as though he wasn't restrained to a machine of torture, and as though he didn't know that it was going to be used on him.
When she got no response, Commander Deisana continued. "How much longer do you expect to be here?" She paused, "Or do you think that one of the other Gundam pilots will come here to keep you from talking? Perhaps Quatre Winner- the pilot of Gundam 04? Or Chang Wufei- pilot of Gundam 05?" Deisana paused again for effect. Nothing showed on the boy's face, nothing to show if he believed this little suggestion or not. Deisana continued again, about to strike with words that would surely receive a reaction.
"Or perhaps your little lover, Duo Maxwell - pilot of Gundam 02- will come to silence you."
It was either the words, or the nonchalant way that Commander Deisana said them, or perhaps the combination of both that caused the Gundam pilot to stop staring at the ceiling. He had turned his head to stare at Deisana instead, and in that stare lay the worst angered glare that the boy had ever showed anyone in his life.
"Eh eh eh." Deisana said, waving her right pointer finger back and forth in a gesture of him doing something bad. Just then, the boy convulsed in pain, as 120 volts of electricity shook him for ten seconds.[2] "You shouldn't have done that." Deisana told the pilot as though talking to a disobedient dog. The boy returned his glare to the ceiling, not really hurt by the electricity that just poured through him, as he was trained, but not wishing any more of it just the same.
"Here's another question: Where would the other pilots be coming from? An otherwise simple question- Where is their current base?" Deisana asked, and the boy continued to stare at the ceiling. He convulsed again as 240 volts poured through his body.[3]
"For each question left unanswered, or for every time you do something incorrectly --like that glare-- the electric shock will increase by 120 volts. Knowing your record, you will soon reach 2,000 volts. That's the point at which the human body gives up in less than 3 minutes."[4] Deisana informed the boy. He seemingly ignored her, but Deisana could tell that he had absorbed the information.
"Let us begin again. Where is the base for the other Gundam pilots?"
Silence.
360 volts of electricity pulsed through the body of Gundam pilot 01.
"What are the other pilots' current missions?"
Silence.
480 volts of electricity struck the boy.
"Do the other pilots have code names?"
Silence.
600 volts jolted the prisoner, his teeth rattling with the jostling.
"Do you have any other code names?"
Silence.
720 volts of electricity shook the boy, his fists starting to unclench.
"Do you know your real name? Does your Duo-chan know it?"
Silence filled the room.
960 volts vibrated the boy, leaving him devoid of breath and his eyes wide from the convulsion. The teen-aged pilot's body pulsated even after the electrical pulsation stopped.
"Shi-chan. Little death. Do you know where he is right now?"
At this point, the Gundam pilot was incapable of speech, unable to utter some sort of answer that would save him from further electrocution.
1080 volts raked him with pain.
"Do you know why your Shi-chan has left you here, leaving you with nothing but pain and suffering?"
1200 volts caused the boy to twitch helplessly- unaware of everything except the excruciating pain and the voice of his tormentor.
"Why would you try to regain something -get back to someone- that doesn't care for you enough to save you?"
1320 volts caused a violent spasm that shook the boy's entire body.
"Commander, I do not mean insubordination, but his vital signs show that if he goes through much more of this, he will die." Lt. Eko said, trying to save the boy, trying to give the boy another chance.
1440 volts sent the boy into a violent seizure.
"Noted. Stop the session." Deisana told the officer at the controls of the device.
The electric shocks stopped and the pilot's seizure slowed down until he was only twitching slightly. His eyes were rolled back into his head and his muscles still moved uncontrollably.
"Cadets, take the prisoner back to his cell."
"Yes ma'am!" Fen and Ardin said simultaneously. They took the prisoner out of the restraints and carried the limp body out of the room.
"Pardon me for asking Commander, but what was achieved by that?" Eko asked.
"The prisoner believes that his lover, another Gundam pilot, will come to rescue him from here. This form of torture lets an idea be placed in the brain, and because of the pain, it is the only thing that the subject can think of for an extended period of time. If I tell him that he's wrong and that the only thing that will save him is cooperation with us, then he will be easier to deal with. Understand?"
"Yes."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pain.
Pure, unadulterated, pain.
It was the only thing that Heero could feel. No hunger, no tiredness, no desire, could break through the pain that incapacitated him.
Heero had been through five more of Commander Deisana's electrical torture sessions in three days. With each session, his aptitude in dealing with the electrical shocks grew. In the last one, she had to use 2,240 volts before Heero fell into comforting unconsciousness.
When unconscious, Heero couldn't think about anything. He couldn't think about his pain, he couldn't think about the colonies. He couldn't think about Duo, and he couldn't think about what Commander Deisana said about Duo.
What she said about Duo was what he didn't want to think about the most. It wasn't that she was saying things about the boy that Heero knew could never happen, in fact that's what bothered him. What Commander Deisana told him about his lover was realistic enough that it _could_ be believed.
The only thing that kept Heero from believing in the stories that she wove was one little detail that she and everyone else didn't know. The 'nickname' that Duo loved to call himself was no nickname at all, and being the god of Death entailed a lot. It entailed that he was immortal and could not die -as Deisana said that he had in trying to save him. It also entailed that Duo would not leave him just because he had not been strong enough to keep from being captured. From what Heero knew, he was the first love of Shinigami's multiple millennium life, and Shinigami would have no reason to leave the love of his life because of one little mistake.
However, these stories caused slight doubts, which caused him to think about it, which made it more likely that he would believe in the stories.
Thinking could do dangerous things.
If Duo loved him so much, why hadn't he tried to save him from the pain that consumed his life now? Why hadn't he communicated with him? Duo is a god after all. The scariest idea of all was, since Duo is a god, why hasn't he used his powers to free him? A god is supposed to be omnipotent, and if he couldn't even save his love, then what kind of god is he?
Where is Duo? What is taking him so long? There was most likely a reason for his tardiness -possibly a mission, Heero himself would perform the mission first-, but what excuse was that for the psychological and physical pain that he was experiencing now?
The only thing that Heero could think of now was a single question that played like a broken record in his mind.
Why hasn't Duo saved me yet?
Author�s Notes: Okay, I know that one took a while to be put up, but I had no clue how to do the torture scene for the longest time. Plus, I was originally only going to have seven parts. (The number of completion ^_^) Alas, the downfall of Heero will take more writing than I originally thought. I hope that you Heero haters out there are loving this, and that you fellow 1x2 addicts love this too! ^_^
BTW - I don't own GW or much of anything else. Like a lot of fanfiction writers out there, I'm too poor for suing... right now the only money I have is the little bit I've scrounged up for Otakon... which will be gone in the first few hours of the convention� ^^*
[1] - Femoral artery- this artery is located next to the femur or thigh bone. If this artery were to be severed, the person would die in 5 minutes time from the blood loss. (I learned this in Biology class. Isn't it amazing, the things that can be applied to fan fics?)
[2] - 120 volts - This is the voltage coming out of a power outlet in the United States and Japan. I assumed that resistance to electrical output was part of Heero's training- that's why he wasn't bothered by the voltage at first.
[3] - 240 volts - This is the voltage output of a power outlet in Australia and double that of one in the US and Japan. I'm unsure as to what the voltage output is in Europe and other Asiatic countries, but these footnotes are just to compare what the voltage Heero went through is equivalent to.
[4] - 2,000 volts kills a person in less than 3 minutes - to quote Groiler Encyclopedia version 1998,
I assume that in the GW universe, torture and killing devices of all kinds are more advanced than ours, which is why I didn't bother with attaching electrodes to Heero.
I was guessing with a lot of the reactions to the voltage - don't know if 1440 volts will cause a person trained to handle 120 volts go into a seizure or not. Please don't flame me about that. If you want to be real technical about it, tell me what the correct reaction would be and some sort of proof.
So anyways� **PLEASE** tell me what you think. E-mail me!!
Part Five is not yet up.... try again later
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