Appotropaic Apparatus
part fiveAt Dawns final twinkling light, the nightlife of Manifest came alive. All talk of the convention doubled this appointed hour as the streets were crowded with the suits and skirts of those who would attend. Even those who were opposed to what the Lady Kyldre stood for had joined those egger for the presentation. And then there were those whose purpose reached much further than curiosity, those with hell's fire in their eyes and Shinigami's cloak upon their shoulders. Those like the braided youth who stepped forth on the crimson carpet and looked though the mingled crowds with an air of indifference. But the eyes on an assassin are never blind to sight. He had seen the Lady upon entry, smiling at his discovery and taking it upon himself to float in her general direction, not to make his appearance too strange or calculated. Things must be dealt with casually; something Duo was a master of portraying. Casualness, like laughter and smiles, was an easily forced mask and just as difficult to see behind. Unless, like a fool, you thought casual was whistling a merry tune though obviously at fault or planning something.
The Lady Kyldre stood out among the common folk of the city like a stand of gold silk in a tapestry of raven wool. She dipped and bowed with grace though stood tall and mighty like a soldier or commanding officer. She wore about her a sophistication unmatched by few, Relena included. At a glance his first thoughts had been of General Treize and the smooth way the man had spoken and acted, defying any underlying purpose to his deals. Lady Kyldre certainly seemed to hold within her these qualities. Like Treize, her face was kind and beautiful. Her russet eyes were only shades from black and heavily lashed with gold lining adorning her almond eyes. Though rather prominent, her nose was neatly sloped which rounded downward at the end rather than rolling into a perky upturn as Duo's did. Her lips, though thin, seemed made to smile and she effortlessly proved it with each man or woman she came across. By the shade of her skin and he overall appearance, she was defiantly of oriental descent. Ebony tresses fell along her elliptical face with as much grace as she pushed them aside with. Duo could see why she was so well respected. Every man she met his hand she did take and welcome personally, her face never faltering in its smile. If Treize had been a woman, he would have been Lady Kyldre, in this he had no doubt.
Duo brushed through the tightly formed rings and groupings of friends and pushed forward towards the Lady. As if realizing she was being sought after, she paused in mid step and turned to him, taking him in as well as he had done her.
"My Lady." Duo said upon finally standing before her.
She extended her hand, a look of fascination on her face, "I don't believe I've ever had the honor of your acquaintance. Are you new in town?"
"Just came for the convention," Duo lied. "I don't suppose would could speak in private?"
The Lady laughed in a good-natured chuckle, "If you want me to reveal my plans then you'll have to wait with everyone else."
"Lady Kyldre, I need to speak with you on terms a little more important, to me anyway, than whatever anti-technological scheme you've devised."
"Scheme?" she frowned, "Sir, I can assure you what I reveal here is of the utmost importance." She cocked her head to the side slightly, "I know I've seen your face before. What is your name?"
"Duo. Duo Maxwell." As a second thought, he added, "I'm a friend of Heero Yuy's."
At this the Lady's face brightened, "Yuy-san? Isn't it a small world? Is he here this evening? I've meant to ask him about my most resent message."
"You mean the diskette?"
She froze, "How do you know about it? Heero promised me he'd keep it a secret." She looked about to make sure no one was listening in. "Hold on for just one minute." She turned and left Duo standing in the middle of the room. She shortly returned, looking more flustered than she had at her departure, "Follow me."
Duo nodded and walked at her heals as she lead the way to a black doored room at the other end of a silent hallway. She opened it wide and allowed his entrance before closing it behind them.
"How much did he tell you?" she asked in a hushed tone.
"He didn't tell me anything. Heero vanished the night your disk was received and the disk is the only clue to his disappearance we have."
"Vanished?" she turned and sat in a crimson upholstered chair, "Yuy-san has vanished?"
Duo nodded, taking a seat on the love seat across from her, "Do you think you could identify the disk if I showed it to you?"
She nodded and Duo slipped the black case from the pocket of his 'borrowed' suit. She took it in her hand, turned it over and gave a precise nod. "This is the one I sent him. I'm sure of it. I made this indentation on the side so that if it somehow came into someone else's hands they couldn't claim ownership of the program themselves."
"Program?"
Lady Kyldre pocketed the disk, "Yes. My scheme as you so put it. I've devised the perfect machine. An organic technology."
"Organic technology?" Duo repeated incredulously, "That's impossible. How could something like that exist? And even if it did, how could one maintain it? Not everyone has a green thumb."
The Lady shook her head, "It can and does exist. It is still very much a self-sufficient organism. By replacing artificial intelligence with organic composed apparatuses not only can one detect problems earlier but are easier to fix. And since the organic compounds needed to produce the technology are found only on Earth, preservation for our planet will once again come into perspective."
"So you want to turn technology into plants." Duo asked, "No wonder you have so many opposed to your ideals. What happens to these machines if they contract a virus? Circuitry doesn't die but plants and other living things do."
Lady Kyldre nodded solemnly, "That was a problem before. Essentially, this technology has been available for centuries but by organisizing our technology, we would organisize any viral codes within them. There was no way to purge a system of these diseases and most test machines did, in fact, die. But that threat is gone now. Thanks to the Apotropaic Apparatus."
Duo blinked back his confusion, "The what?"
"Apotropaic Apparatus." She repeated, "It's a system devised to seek out viral strands in the organisized material and destroy it. In essence, the fact that organic life dies works in our favor here. Today, viruses can be deflected but not all are easily destroyed or done so completely for that mater."
Duo's brow knitted in an unfriendly manner, "So your saying the information in that disk is able to turn viruses into living things?"
"Nothing sentient I assure you." She almost laughed, "Simply harmless clustered of waste material."
Duo closed his eyes, "If I show you something, do you promise to tell me the truth?"
She nodded, "Yes. Of course."
Duo unbuttoned his shirt and threw the black jacket and white blouse over the arm of the sofa. He carefully untied the strings to his blue-violet sleeve coat and pulled off the left one, "Did any of the test you ran on your organic machines turn up anything that looked remotely like this?"
Lady Kyldre was off her chair in moments, kneeling before him with her thin fingers tracing the blotches on his skin. They now had spread up most of his upper arm. "How did this happen?" she asked, bewildered.
"I hacked into that disk and was jolted by a serge. This is what was left by it."
Lady Kyldre shook her head and let it hang low, "When we tested the AA, all viral codes were programmed to be distinguishable by color. A dark indigo. Like the marks on your arm."
"Then this is actually a computer virus?"
"The AA has the ability to morph technology into a living organism. I never thought it would be able to develop something like this. I didn't think it would be possible to download any of the information into the human apparatus." She explained, "Maxwell-san, I'm truly sorry. I can not express in enough words the amount of sympathy I feel towards you."
Duo shook his head, "I don't want your sympathy. I just want to know what this will do. It's a virus, right? Will there be any adverse affects?"
She nodded.
"Is there a way to reverse them?"
She shook her head.
"Is it anything serious?"
With a heaving breath, she look up at him, "You'll die."
Two words, simplistic, common and heavily loaded with all the burdens of the universe.
Lady Kyldre stood and sat back in her chair, "I'll confess that such a problem was discussed once. We thought it improbable," she explained, "But we were sure of one thing. If a human body was exposed to a technological virus, there could be no cure. I'm sorry, Maxwell-san. We never dreamed it could actually happen."
Duo nodded, pushing back his fears and inner voice that wished to both materialize and kick the woman's ass for creating the damned program responsible. "You'll call off the convention then?"
"Never." She shook her head violently, "I've worked to hard."
"How many people have to die before you'll realize the danger your AA is to man kind?"
"It's a fluke. It can be fixed in time for production!" she snapped. "What do a few mortal lives mean anyway? The Earth is our mother. Without it we all die. The end justifies the means. The end always justifies the means!" she nearly screamed.
Duo took it all back. This woman was nothing like General Treize. Treize at least believed in the importance of people.
"Lady Kyldre, I came here to learn of your enemies. I was sure they had something to do with Heero's disappearance. I see now that any enemy of yours is but an ally to me. I do however want to know one more thing before I go." Duo stood, pulling the sleeve coat back on, "What was it that you and Heero spoke about in your letters? Why Heero in the first place? Why not someone else?"
"Cause Yuy-san loves the Earth." She stated simply, "And it is a shared belief that that which ones loves should be protected by any means."
"Pardon me for being critical but love is not even a word I believe the guy possesses in his vocabulary." Duo picked his jacket and blouse from the sofa's arm and opened the door.
"Maxwell-san."
"Hm?"
Lady Kyldre put her hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry. You were once a fighter too though, I believe. It's in your eyes. You must know what it is to know what you are doing is for the greater good only to be stubbornly brushed into the shadows." She nodded at her own words, as if assured by their meaning, "Yes, I can see you now. A great fighter. Perhaps even a Gundam pilot. Is that how you met him?"
"Shut up," Duo spat venomously.
"You're looking for him. Why?"
"It's no longer of your concern."
"My concern lies with all of humanity." She kept her face emotionless, "Or I wouldn't be doing this."
Duo slammed the door shut and marched over to her, leaning down till his nose was inches from hers, "Is that what you call this? Concern for humanity? Your ready to fucking kill everybody and that's supposed to be out of concern?"
"Your perspective is far too small."
"So is yours, Lady!" he shouted, "So is yours! Your damn right I was a soldier in the war and like hell I'm going to let everything I risked my life for perish cause of your misguided concern! Heero couldn't have known what was really going on here. He'd have never worked with someone as corrupted as you."
"Corruption is in the eye of the beholder."
"So is all that is justified." Duo opened the door again and left this time, his words hanging in the air like a lead pendulum. But his thoughts weight far more.
As if to prove him wrong, his arm began to spasm as it had in the hotel and alley. "No.. not now. Please no.."
He heard screaming and for a moment feared it was his own. But when one scream multiplied into a dozen and then from that to hundreds, he was quickly assured something else was wrong entirely. With heavy steps he stumbled into the audience hall. People were shrieking in near hysteria, running to the sides of the room like the waters of the Dead Sea. And Moses walked in the valley left behind. Only Moses walked not with a staff or the grace of god upon him. He wore black spandex shorts, unattended moss green hair and odd metal gadgets and wires attached to his arms and legs. Heero. The blue markings shone as brightly in the lit room as they had in the night only now, Duo found he had clear voidance enough to identify the strange marks. Circuitry. Heero's skin was overlaid with circuitry. Duo gasped at realization.
"Heero!"
The said teen looked in his direction, eyes narrowing, "Duo."
"Heero.. what happened to you?" Duo asked, stepping forward thought sweating profusely at the strain caused by fighting his infection. He wouldn't scream and he wouldn't faint. Not this time. He'd hold his ground in front of Heero. He always had and he wasn't about to appear weak in those cobalt gems now.
"Yuy-san!"
Both turned to see Lady Kyldre step out of the black room.
What happened next moved too quickly for anyone to truly remember most of the details. On minute, Lady Kyldre had been standing in the hall, the next she was lying on the floor a few feet away from where she had been standing, Duo lying on the ground in a motionless heap. Blood seeped from the exposed flesh of his abdomen from a circular wound penetrating deep within. A bullet shot. And Heero was holding the gun.
Lady Kyldre was speechless. How could the fair Yuy-san shoot at her? And why had the one who only moment before said he'd ally himself with her enemies push her aside when the bullet sailed her way?
If her face was a sea of confusion, Heero's was an ocean. He dropped the gun from his hand and watched it fall to the ground with a thick thump. "...Duo...?"
But Duo could not answer him.
Lady Kyldre stood, balancing herself against a wall, "You killed him..."
"He's not dead." Heero said aloud, stooping down to confirm his beliefs. Duo had a pulse, thready as it was. And he was breathing though labored and in suffered heaves.
"If he's not dead then it's best to let him die." She spat.
Heero paid her no heed. He wrapped his arms around the inert form and stood, carrying Duo as a knight would carry his damsel.
"Leave him!" the Lady shouted.
Heero cast her a dangerous glair, "Optima quaeque ies mireris mortalibus aevi prima fugit; subeunt morbid tristisque serectus et labor et durae repit inclementai mortis."
Though completely confused as to what any of it meant, the tone of which he said it and the steady flames in his eyes left only one image in mind. That of fear. Immense, foreboding fear.
And he left. No one stopped him. Too many were afraid. He walked up the crimson carpet, not caring that mortal red was running down his legs and pooling at the floor. He seemed to care about nothing at all. A machine.
In the far reached of Duo's consciousness, a single thought replayed.
Heero Yuy had become part machine. Perhaps the best part of him had been sacrificed for such a change, his heart and soul.
Heero had lost his humanity.
The light of hope for love dwindled to a spark upon the candle of chance.