reikah
in
inmyvortex
Fic: Not Quite Paradise [4 /?], R.
Title: Not Quite Paradise [4/?; ongoing]
Fandom: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Fai/Kurogane/Yuui
Author: Co-write between mikkeneko & reikah
Rating: R
Word count: 5,597 this chapter (25,147 so far)
Notes: "In a future where science and psionics rule the skies, and both are controlled by the iron fist of the Earth government, two young men make a desperate leap into the unknown in order to evade capture and slavery. AU, Kurogane/Yuui/Fai."
Part One - Earth: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Part Two - Mars: [8] [9] [10] [11]
← back to chapter three
Part One: Earth
it's right before your eyes
Yuui felt the passage of time like a physical thing, as though each passing second were a drop of water falling into his skin like some ancient Chinese torture. Every minute was a trial, every delay was excruciating; all made worse by the fact that he was no longer sure exactly how long it had been. How long since he broke into the base and mowed a path through human bodies towards his goal? How long since he had carried Fai up the side of the hospital building? How long since he had met with the sharp-edged, dark-haired smuggler in the bar? He couldn't even tell for sure any more, and the slipping away of his sense of time brought on a threatening sense of panic.
One thing he was sure of: he had waited too long.
The alarms had gone up long ago, and the military higher-ups had gotten their story straightened out enough to put the word out to the civilians. The broadcast he had seen so briefly on Saiga's TV was proof of that. He doubted the civilian authorities had any idea exactly what they were looking for or why, but every transportation authority had gone into Orange status as the hunt for the "terrorist" went on.
He could no longer rely on the confusion of his enemies and his own luck to get them through to safety. All he had to rely on was his own wits, and the pocket full of stolen cash that he didn't dare use without being traced.
Getting up the space elevator wasn't the problem. The constant, massive flow of tourism provided a revenue for the spaceport facilities that their masters were reluctant to mess with; hundreds of people every hour riding up in the glorified cable-car to the massive observation decks that hung above the atmosphere. All so that they could look out the window, and coo excitedly, and eat over-priced "astronaut food" at the bars, and ride back down to earth in smug safety to tell all their friends and family they had been in space.
No doubt there were cameras trained on the tourist crowd from every angle, but Yuui had avoided the highly-populated, highly-scrutinized tourist cars. Instead he'd ridden up in one of the ballast cars, the counterweights that made the space elevators run on a minimum of fuel. They were nothing more than undecorated, airtight boxes filled with blocks of weights, with blocks added or removed to counterbalance each load of people or shipping goods that went up or down. Yuui had merely crawled into the open space and sealed himself in; and hope that he had enough oxygen with him to last him the five-hour trip into orbit. The air had been getting unpleasantly close by the time he'd arrived, as he tried not to think about the vast airlessness of vacuum pressing in from all directions.
But that was only the first step. All the real security lay in the screen between the observation decks and car loading platforms, and the station itself. It made sense, in a way; unlike the chaotic, open-air groundside spaceport - where one could merely jump a fence in the right place to get into the facility - in the hermetically sealed environment of a space installation not an ant could walk down the brightly-lit corridors without being seen. Let alone a man. Let alone two men, one of them obviously ill… or one man and a man-sized crate.
Yuui kept his hair tucked into his hat and his head down, going along with the ebb and flow of the crowd and trying not to draw attention to himself. Under the brim of his hat he watched the line of businessmen and travelers being chivvied through the security checkpoint, and wanted to whimper. The security was tighter now than he had ever seen it. Usually the security checkpoint involved no more than processing of documents and a simple body scan for weapons, explosives, or viral electronic; with the occasional traveler being pulled aside for a random check.
Now, though, the line backed up and wound along the corridor as each and every passenger was subject to a fingerprints and retina scan. The scanning of tickets and passports which should have been instantaneous now took long seconds, as the computers verified each and every byte of data with a security database on Earth rather than merely certifying that the credentials' formula was valid. Saiga's fake ID and credentials would never pass here; even if they had, the Earth government already had his prints and retina on file.
Yuui pressed his palms against his pants to dry them, and swallowed against a feeling of sickness. For a wild moment he was tempted to just give up this idea, to crawl back down to Earth and find some safe bolt-hole to hide in until this had all blown over. But it was too late; he was committed now... and there was no going back without Fai.
Deep breaths. Yuui forced himself to think. They hadn't spotted him yet; they didn't know he was here, or else they would just lock down the terminal and hunt through the crowd until they found him. This scrutiny was no more than the standard procedure for an elevated security alert, the government locking down all possibility of escape while they combed the city below for him.
And that meant that for all the show of force, the security officers were still doing things by the books; they had no particular reason to think anything else was wrong. And that meant…
Yuui let the crowd carry him away from the checkpoint, not changing his gait or raising his head until they moved towards the more thinly populated end of the concourse. There was less decoration here, less attempt to make the Earth tourists feel welcomed and at home; just a row of steel doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.
Yuui ducked into the last bathroom on the tourist side of the concourse, and once inside he quickly went to work changing his clothes. A pair of coveralls came out of his duffle bag and he yanked them on over his nondescript civilian clothes; he transferred his credit chit and the shipping receipt from the bottom of the duffle to his pocket with exquisite care. He stuffed the empty duffle bag into a trash chute - it marked him too obviously as a tourist - turned his jacket inside out, and when he walked out of the bathroom he was as nondescript and unremarkable as any of the other janitorial or maintenance personnel who inhabited the back ends of the station.
A burly older man in a set of coveralls just like his was buzzing into the NO ADMIT doors as he came out of the bathroom. He carefully timed his gait so that he arrived at the door just before it swung closed behind the other man; reached out and held it almost closed for a minute while he pretended to tap the keypad, then eased himself through the door. From the camera's perspective, it looked just like two men going through the door one after another; from the lock's perspective, it had only been opened once, with perfectly valid authorization.
Once he was in the maintenance corridors he allowed himself to take a breath, but not too much of one. There were fewer cameras back here, but the area was crawling with station personnel who all knew each other and wouldn't be fooled by his disguise for a minute. As soon as they found out he had no official reason to be here, the jig would all be up.
Fortunately, there were others in this labyrinth of steel and disinfectant who had no official reason to be here.
The elevator cars went once an hour, a carefully ordered progression in the slow and stately dance that brought five going up and five going down. There were actually twelve cars total; two of them were always pulled out of the line for maintenance and cleaning. In such a fast-paced, demanding environment, Yuui was willing to bet that even the Earth-regulated Allied Spaceports would cut corners.
Decom rats - decontamination was the proper name, running the scrubbers over the elaborate mechanical pistons again and again and again to keep friction from slowing the parts, or the dangerous contaminants from building until they would pose a danger to humans. Normal employee humans, of course. The decom rats themselves didn't count.
Kids were best because they were smaller, they could get in and out of tight spaces and needed less disinfectant to rinse down afterwards. There were machines that could do the same thing, but they were expensive to buy and expensive to run, and people in all times and places found it easier to resort to cheap labor instead of pricey technologies. And in all times and places there were kids that, for one reason or another, no one was taking care of; kids who would do anything for a couple of extra yenbucks, kids whom nobody would miss if something bad happened.
Memories assaulted Yuui as he walked down the steel grate overlaying the thrumming pipes beneath. He and Fai had spent too much time as children, scampering through hallways like these, climbing in and out of processing tanks just like those. It was strange to be on the other side of things for the first time, to be one of the towering adults who'd always held the power of pay or no pay - and of life and death - over them.
It was hair-raising work, ducking the attention of the other employees without being too obvious that he was doing so; several times he had to quickly pretend to be working on something, and memories of his old jobs came swarming back to him as he found himself doing old, too-familiar tasks. Finally though, he saw what he'd been looking for; a short, suit-clad figure scampered across one of the empty holding bays.
Yuui quickly altered his course to intercept, but the kid was fast - they all had to be fast. He nearly disappeared behind another door before Yuui caught up with him, and he had to use a little bit of telekineses to aid his grab.
"Hey!" the kid squawked, but there was no one immediately within range to come to his aid. Yuui let the door slam shut and pushed the kid up against it, blocking his exit routes. "What was that for?"
The kid's eyes widened, and narrowed, and his first look of indignant outrage sharpened into interest. "Who are you? You're not one of the guys who works here."
"No," Yuui agreed; there was no point in pretending to be a new worker or anything like that, all the personnel would be intimately familiar with staff changes on their shift. "I'm just passing through. I need to get over to the station side."
"Why?" The interest stiffened into wariness. "You're not trying to steal stuff, are you? 'Cos if you are, I'm gonna yell and call the boss here right away. Or else you're not trying to break stuff, are you?"
"No and no," Yuui said with an emphatic headshake. "I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble." Well, that was sure the truth. "I just need a route over into the south wing of the station without passing through security. Do you know a way?"
The kid frowned at him, evidently mistrusting his motives. "Why would I know something like that?" he said in a not-quite innocent tone. "I'm just a temp worker they hired to work out on the shells. I don't have access to the dockside stuff."
By which he meant, he wasn't registered and he didn't have an entry badge. Right. "But you must have some way to get into the station, don't you?" he pressed. "The other guys, they send you on errands sometimes - pick up laundry, get coffee, bring them lunch, for a couple extra yen. Don't they?"
He and Fai had often been sent on similar harmless, mundane errands while they were working in the same job - most likely, he now realized, because the other guys felt sorry for them. And he could tell by the kid's expression that he'd hit a mark. "I - there's a door I go through," he admitted. He took a step back, looking Fai up and down, and frowned. "But I don't think I ought to take you there."
"Why not?" Yuui's heart was beating double-time in his chest, and he stretched his face into a charming smile. People will do so much more for you if you smile, baby. "It's a little favor I'm asking, nothing more. I'll pay you. A hundred yenbucks if you get me through the door and don't say anything to anyone."
He realized a moment later that he'd misstepped; he should have offered five or ten at the most. The kid's face lit up in amazed greed at the thought of that much money; and then, moments later, clouded over in uncertain doubt. Because with that amount of money this couldn't possibly be a simple favor; there had to be a catch.
"No," the kid said, his voice shaking a little and then firming up. "No, I don't think I oughta do that. I'm not gonna let you get in trouble."
"Please, I really need to -" Yuui started, but the kid shook his head firmly.
"I said no!" he said in a louder voice. "Whatever you're part of, I don't want to be part of it! So piss off before I call the boss, and he'll call security on you!"
Yuui froze momentarily in panic, before angry reason kicked in. No, it was a bluff. No decom rat would ever risk getting tangled up with security, because - The kid tried to push past him and Yuui grabbed his shoulder, throwing him back against the doorway and pressing him there. "No," he growled. "I don't think you will."
The kid looked at him in mixed terror and outrage, thin ribcage expanding as he took a breath to yell. Before he could, Yuui plunged his hand into his jacket and pulled out the fake health and safety inspector's badge that Saiga had provided him with and flashed it in the kid's face. He froze, eyes going wide with the same terror that Yuui felt just a moment ago: the paralyzing fear of getting caught.
"You're not a member of registered maintenance or decontamination crew," Yuui snapped, "and you've got no clearance to be working on high-sensitivity machines like these. Your suit isn't rated for heavy vacuum work and you're under height, weight and age requirements for an S-class radiation environment." All of which were crimes, or at least negligences, being committed by his 'bosses' and not by the kid himself. But the kid wouldn't see it that way; Yuui never had until it was all over.
"I think security would report that you've got no more right to be in here than any other random passerby off the street, and what would they do if they found out you've been taking money from a federal payroll?" Escort him home, probably - maybe look into minor delinquent correctional services if they were feeling paranoid enough. But it would mean the end of this job and the end of his income, and that was a threat enough.
"No, don't!" the kid cried out in panic. "Please! You don't understand… I need this money! My mom's sick and my dad spends all her health dole money on booze and there's nobody else on the station who'll hire me, okay? I need - I just need - "
"I need to get to the station side," Yuui interrupted him, not interested in hearing the whole sordid story of his life. It brought back too many painful memories. "Show me how you get there."
Without another word, the kid led him through the maze of steel and titanium corridors to another section, one that seemed even older - Yuui wondered if it hadn't been part of the original space station, before the elevator and docks had been built around it. There was a door here that didn't have a badge scanner; instead it had only a keypad, and the kid tapped out an access code quickly and without hesitation.
They came out the other side of the hatch in almost complete darkness. Yuui followed his guide's shuffling footsteps until they came out into a cross corridor and heard voices echoing from further on.
"That way," the kid said, pointing a hand in the dimness. "This comes out between a couple of businesses - a deli and a copy shop. There's a door at the end of the hallway, but it opens outwards and the alarm is turned off. Just - just don't tell anyone else, okay?"
"I won't," Yuui promised him fervently. He hesitated for another moment - a part of him wanted to follow up on his earlier offer, give the kid some money, maybe enough to get out of this killer job and into a better life - but the decom rat had already turned and fled his presence, back into the belly of the space station with an echoing crash.
Yuui had a moment's debate with himself as to whether he should change clothes again or not before rejoining the crowd. Eventually he just kicked off the canvas work overalls and stashed them in a dark corner; the rest of his clothes were drab enough to pass unremarked. With any luck the civilians would assume he was on some vague unspecified business errand, for the Station or for one of the half-dozen shipping companies who did a brisk business through the space lanes.
When he stepped out of the door into the civilian concourse, the return of light and noise after the cool dim utility tunnels made him stagger. An enticing smell of pastries and coffee wafted over from the promised deli and his stomach growled loudly, reminding himself that he hadn't eaten in far too long. Soon, he promised his stomach. Once we get on the ship - the smuggler will feed us. Or at least Yuui hoped he would; surely he wouldn't expect Yuui to provide his own meals. Most likely he'd just charge Yuui an arm and a leg extra for the privilege of feeding him.
He began walking down the terminal, reluctantly bypassing the rows of restaurants and shops; he cast a longing look at the rows of vending machines decorating the grey walls, but they wouldn't take credit chits and he did not dare deal with any more human vendors than he had to. Who knew how many of them watched the news?
He found a directory and oriented himself; the south lockers were a fair hike away, but fortunately his other destination was on the way. His heart rose in his chest for the first time today and he took a long steady breath, straightened his shoulders, and set off down the concourse. Nobody noticed him; nobody challenged him. After all, he couldn't be here unless he'd gone through security once already… so he must belong here.
At least that was what he thought until he caught sight of one of the TV monitors hanging above the archways. The volume was muted, but the images running across the display were unmistakably a continuation of the story he'd seen on Saiga's television earlier… this time accompanied by his own face.
Pulse pounding, he kept his head down and the brim of his hat pulled over his face as he strode down the friction-matted corridor past the rows of businesses. At last the one he was looking for popped up in the row; the bright blue FEXIS logo blazed in the corner of his eye. He eased himself out of the concourse and the depot, and yes - thank god! - they had a row of automated teller kiosks in addition to the one harassed-looking woman at the counter. He'd hoped they would - any full-time employee on a space station was so expensive to house and pay for that every business who could automate their service did - but he couldn't have been sure.
He slipped to the kiosk at the end of the row, glancing involuntarily at the large glass doors at the end of the bay. All he could see was stacks and stacks of boxes. ENTER CODE OR SCAN QRC TO BEGIN, it prompted him in English, Chinese, and Japanese. His hands were shaking as he pulled his shipping receipt out of his pocket and held it up to the scanner.
This had to work. Had to…
The kiosk hummed crankily for a moment, then blipped up a large confirmation window. Shipping outlet, weight, dimensions, tracking code. IS THIS YOUR PACKAGE? the display asked him. The tracking display confirmed it was waiting for him at this very depot, on the other side of the glass wall. Fai was waiting for him. Yuui blew out a shaky breath, and hit "Yes - Claim my package now."
He had to have been crazy to try this, but it was all he could think of. There was no way, no possible way that he could have smuggled the triage chamber through spaceport security, nor gotten Fai past the guards with the state he was in. As a last, desperate gamble, he'd turned to an alternate route - put the chamber into minimum internal power mode, taken it to the automated freight center nearest to the hospital, and ordered it shipped to the station to await pickup.
He'd only dared it because he'd been sure - and so far, it looked like he'd been right - that the government's manhunt wouldn't extend as far as the mail and freighting system, at least not yet. With their highest level of clearance they had access to any institution or business they wanted to invade and search, and at least theoretically they were tapped into every electronic database in the Earth sphere.
But Yuui knew that for all their supposedly infinite power, they had only limited manpower and resources; they could not possibly process every piece of data in the cybersphere at once. And they were still looking for a person; they had no way of knowing, yet, that he had run off with a portable triage chamber. No doubt any correspondence addressed to or by him would raise a red flag, but he had used one of Saiga's fake IDs to input the shipping label, and set the payment options to cash on pickup so his credit chit would not be traced until the last minute.
Indeed, the computer was now informing him in bright red letters that this parcel had not yet been paid for. CASH, CREDIT OR DEBIT? It demanded, and Yuui hurriedly punched in his chit's information. They could track it eventually, no doubt, but Yuui meant to be long gone from here before they got this far.
The system cranked some more, and then a red window flashed up. CONFIRMATION FAILED, Yuui's breath froze in his chest. Could they have found him already? They were so close, Fai was so close, just on the other side of that door… could he tear this place apart as he had the facility, rip down the wall, find Fai's box among the thousands piled there? He would never make it…
Then he made his blurry eyes actually read the text on the screen. PACKAGE WEIGHT AND DIMENSIONS EXCEED LIMITS FOR PERSONAL PICKUP, it read irately. AN ADDITIONAL FEE WILL BE LEVIED TO CHANGE THIS PACKAGE RATE TO HEAVY FREIGHT. APPROVE FEE Y/N?
Y, he punched and breathed again, feeling dizzy from adrenaline overload. The kiosk hummed some more, and then blanked out. NO SUCH PACKAGE NUMBER FOUND IN HEAVY FREIGHT DATABASE, it told him. ENTER NAME OR SCAN QRC TO BEGIN.
"No!" he burst out, clutching at the side of the kiosk screens. "No, dammit, no!"
"Having trouble, sir?" a female voice asked at his elbow. He nearly jumped out of his skin and turned to see the mail clerk standing next to him, smiling brightly.
"No! Uh," he stuttered around for a lie, then a charming smile slid over his face and his tongue seemed to take on a life of his own. "Sorry about that. My stupid cousin asked me to come and pick up his package for him, but then the son-of-a - excuse me, the idiot made it cash on delivery!"
"Oh, dear," the clerk's expression turned sympathetic and concerned. "Well, if you really don't want to pay for it, you can reject the delivery… it'll be sent back to your cousin and he'll have to pay shipping both ways, but…"
"No!" he said hastily, blocking the clerk as she reached for the kiosk. "Uh, it's not worth getting into a fight with him," he said. "I'll just pick up the darn box and make him pay me back later. But, um, the system is giving me some trouble. It said it was too large for personal pickup, but then it couldn't find it in heavy freight…"
"Yeah, it does that," she said, and reached past him to tap at the keypad. The cutesy animations vanished, displaying white text on black screen, as she entered some kind of authorization code. "What's your pickup number?"
He handed over her receipt and stood back, fiddling nervously with his cuffs as she pulled up his order. His eyes flickered up to the TV screen on the wall above the counter; it was showing his story again, but the clerk didn't seem to be paying attention. Didn't watch TV on duty, perhaps? He was suddenly very thankful it had been a busy morning for her.
"Do you want me to try to waive the heavy freight fee?" she asked him suddenly, and he jumped again. "You're going to have to pay for the shipping either way, but it seems unfair that you should have to pay the surcharge…"
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he didn't care about the money, just give him his package - but that had been what had alerted the decom rat, earlier, this desperate willingness to throw money in his path. "Um, if you can I'd be really grateful," he said with another charming smile; she flushed slightly, and threw her hair back before turning back to the kiosk. "Let me see what I can do!"
After an interminable delay, the kiosk beeped loudly and printed out a flimsy receipt. "Let me just run in the back and get this for you," she said. "Here, keep the receipt - you want to know how much your cousin owes you, after all."
She disappeared into the back, and Yuui waited anxiously, pretending to be interested in a magazine in order to keep his face low and hidden. At last she returned with a long, large crate on an antigrav trolley; she pulled it up in front of him and threw the switch.
"Here you go," she announced. "I'm afraid all of our dollies are in use right now; all we've got is the hand trucks used for loading smaller freight. But if you want to wait until we get one back…"
"No, that's fine," he said hastily. He pulled out a hand truck and laid his hands on the box, using a subtle bit of telekinesis to transfer the package onto the truck. It was even bigger than he was - naturally - and he had to continue using his talent to keep it balanced and steady. "I'm in a hurry."
"Are you sure?" she said, giving him a weird look. "It must be heavy…"
"It's not heavy at all - just bulky," he insisted, using his power to lift the package a short distance in proof. "I think he packed the smaller box in the bigger box and filled it with peanuts just to mess with me - he does that sometimes."
She giggled, and the suspicion disappeared from her face as he grinned back at her. "Okay, well, is there anything else I can do for you?" she asked.
"No," he said, "and if you'll excuse me - I have to catch a ship."
After that, all thoughts of maintaining appearances, or keeping a low profile, fled from Yuui's mind - he had to concentrate entirely on keeping the crate moving with him as he hurried through the increasingly narrow courseway. Here at the south end of the station - relatively, of course; it didn't actually correspond to any polar directions - he had passed out of the large commercial liners and into the berths containing the smaller, privately owned ships.
He rounded the final corner, skidding across the thin carpet as he dragged the hand trolley with him, and stopped abruptly as he faced a large, open bay. Rows of metal cabinets lined two sides, a third was filled with wide-spaced portholes, and the last one had imposing-looking metal doors. Airlocks, Yuui realized after a giddy moment. The whole place was painted in an odd shade of rusty brown.
This was the south lockers - at least, the map had said it was. But where was the smuggler?
His gaze swept the room; there were a few people here, but the looming, spikey-haired captain was not among them. His heart sank in dismay. What could have happened? Was he lost, late, discovered? Had the smuggler decided he wasn't coming and left without him, or had he just not arrived yet? Or had he seen the APB and been scared off, or -
There was no going back. Yuui swallowed heavily and approached one of the people in the locker - a teenager with messy brown hair and tan skin. By far the youngest and smallest of everyone in the lockers, he was methodically pulling lengths of tubing from a hose dispenser in the wall and coiling it neatly over his shoulder. Yuui wondered if he was a decom rat, and if so, whether he could be bullied for information or aid. "Excuse me," he said as he approached, "I wonder if…"
The boy looked up and his brown eyes widened. "Oh, yes?" he said in a polite tone. "Are you our passenger?"
Yuui hesitated, torn. "I - I don't know. Am I? The - the tall man told me to meet him here…"
"Yes! He told me you would be coming, with your cargo." The boy hoisted the tubing over his shoulder and stuck out his arm. "I'm Syaoran - nice to meet you. What's your name?"
"I'm…" He hesitated, unsure by what name he should introduce himself. For some reason he couldn't call any of the false IDs Saiga had given him to his lips; his mind was a total blank. But his own name had been plastered all over the TVs… He pasted a smile back on his lips, and said the one name he would not ever forget. "I'm Fai. Nice to meet you too."
"We'll get you all loaded up in just a minute," Syaoran was saying, and reached down to pick up his load. "We're almost done reconditioning for our trip to Mars, so we can leave within an hour or so. Did the Captain tell you the name of the ship?"
"No," Yuui said with some confusion. "He - he didn't even tell me his own name."
"Oh." Syaoran rolled his eyes. "He's like that sometimes. It's Kurogane by the way, or at least that's what he goes by, and this is his ship. Welcome aboard the Mokona!"
Syaoran darted away inside the hatch, calling "Hey, Captain! Our passenger's here!" Yuui drifted over to the port nearest to the airlock he'd gone through, looking out into the spaceyard. The absolute blackness of space - shot through with diamond-hard pinpricks of light - made him faintly queasy, but he was fascinated by his first sight of the spaceship he would be traveling on.
A pair of footsteps stomped through the hatch, and he looked up in time to see the smuggler emerging from the airlock. The big man glanced his way, his blood-red eyes sweeping over Yuui and the crate sitting next to him, and his expression hardened.
"You showed up," was all the man said, and his voice was as cold and unfathomable as his expression. He shoved an antigrav doily in Yuui's directions. "Your cabin's the first one on the left, up through the hatch. Get in and get loaded up, and then stay out of the way of the crew."
"Yes, Mister Kurogane," Yuui said, summoning up another bright grin. "My, what cheerful hospitality you have towards your guests!"
"That's Captain to you," Kurogane snarled at him, and turned around and stomped back into the ship.
"Yes, Captain Mister," Yuui called after him, but got no reply.
It was awkward navigating the big crate through the narrow confines of the tiny ship, let alone through the narrow hatch overhead; someone without telekineses could never have done it alone. Yuui wondered why the big man hadn't stayed to help him load the cargo, big and heavy as it was. Not that he minded - it was easier not to have to hide his power, but it just drove home how unfriendly he was. Well, sweet or sour it didn't matter; he was getting Yuui and Fai out of this mess, and that was all that mattered.
He finally got himself and Fai stowed in their cabin - more of a cabinet or a small closet, really, and with the crate in the middle of the floor there was barely enough room to edge between the bed and the window. But none of that mattered either.
Yuui pulled himself onto the bunk bed, drawing his legs up onto the mattress in front of him; wrapped his arms around his torso, and finally let the shakes of terror overtake him.
chapter five →
-tbc
Fandom: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Fai/Kurogane/Yuui
Author: Co-write between mikkeneko & reikah
Rating: R
Word count: 5,597 this chapter (25,147 so far)
Notes: "In a future where science and psionics rule the skies, and both are controlled by the iron fist of the Earth government, two young men make a desperate leap into the unknown in order to evade capture and slavery. AU, Kurogane/Yuui/Fai."
Part One - Earth: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Part Two - Mars: [8] [9] [10] [11]
← back to chapter three
Part One: Earth
it's right before your eyes
Yuui felt the passage of time like a physical thing, as though each passing second were a drop of water falling into his skin like some ancient Chinese torture. Every minute was a trial, every delay was excruciating; all made worse by the fact that he was no longer sure exactly how long it had been. How long since he broke into the base and mowed a path through human bodies towards his goal? How long since he had carried Fai up the side of the hospital building? How long since he had met with the sharp-edged, dark-haired smuggler in the bar? He couldn't even tell for sure any more, and the slipping away of his sense of time brought on a threatening sense of panic.
One thing he was sure of: he had waited too long.
The alarms had gone up long ago, and the military higher-ups had gotten their story straightened out enough to put the word out to the civilians. The broadcast he had seen so briefly on Saiga's TV was proof of that. He doubted the civilian authorities had any idea exactly what they were looking for or why, but every transportation authority had gone into Orange status as the hunt for the "terrorist" went on.
He could no longer rely on the confusion of his enemies and his own luck to get them through to safety. All he had to rely on was his own wits, and the pocket full of stolen cash that he didn't dare use without being traced.
Getting up the space elevator wasn't the problem. The constant, massive flow of tourism provided a revenue for the spaceport facilities that their masters were reluctant to mess with; hundreds of people every hour riding up in the glorified cable-car to the massive observation decks that hung above the atmosphere. All so that they could look out the window, and coo excitedly, and eat over-priced "astronaut food" at the bars, and ride back down to earth in smug safety to tell all their friends and family they had been in space.
No doubt there were cameras trained on the tourist crowd from every angle, but Yuui had avoided the highly-populated, highly-scrutinized tourist cars. Instead he'd ridden up in one of the ballast cars, the counterweights that made the space elevators run on a minimum of fuel. They were nothing more than undecorated, airtight boxes filled with blocks of weights, with blocks added or removed to counterbalance each load of people or shipping goods that went up or down. Yuui had merely crawled into the open space and sealed himself in; and hope that he had enough oxygen with him to last him the five-hour trip into orbit. The air had been getting unpleasantly close by the time he'd arrived, as he tried not to think about the vast airlessness of vacuum pressing in from all directions.
But that was only the first step. All the real security lay in the screen between the observation decks and car loading platforms, and the station itself. It made sense, in a way; unlike the chaotic, open-air groundside spaceport - where one could merely jump a fence in the right place to get into the facility - in the hermetically sealed environment of a space installation not an ant could walk down the brightly-lit corridors without being seen. Let alone a man. Let alone two men, one of them obviously ill… or one man and a man-sized crate.
Yuui kept his hair tucked into his hat and his head down, going along with the ebb and flow of the crowd and trying not to draw attention to himself. Under the brim of his hat he watched the line of businessmen and travelers being chivvied through the security checkpoint, and wanted to whimper. The security was tighter now than he had ever seen it. Usually the security checkpoint involved no more than processing of documents and a simple body scan for weapons, explosives, or viral electronic; with the occasional traveler being pulled aside for a random check.
Now, though, the line backed up and wound along the corridor as each and every passenger was subject to a fingerprints and retina scan. The scanning of tickets and passports which should have been instantaneous now took long seconds, as the computers verified each and every byte of data with a security database on Earth rather than merely certifying that the credentials' formula was valid. Saiga's fake ID and credentials would never pass here; even if they had, the Earth government already had his prints and retina on file.
Yuui pressed his palms against his pants to dry them, and swallowed against a feeling of sickness. For a wild moment he was tempted to just give up this idea, to crawl back down to Earth and find some safe bolt-hole to hide in until this had all blown over. But it was too late; he was committed now... and there was no going back without Fai.
Deep breaths. Yuui forced himself to think. They hadn't spotted him yet; they didn't know he was here, or else they would just lock down the terminal and hunt through the crowd until they found him. This scrutiny was no more than the standard procedure for an elevated security alert, the government locking down all possibility of escape while they combed the city below for him.
And that meant that for all the show of force, the security officers were still doing things by the books; they had no particular reason to think anything else was wrong. And that meant…
Yuui let the crowd carry him away from the checkpoint, not changing his gait or raising his head until they moved towards the more thinly populated end of the concourse. There was less decoration here, less attempt to make the Earth tourists feel welcomed and at home; just a row of steel doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.
Yuui ducked into the last bathroom on the tourist side of the concourse, and once inside he quickly went to work changing his clothes. A pair of coveralls came out of his duffle bag and he yanked them on over his nondescript civilian clothes; he transferred his credit chit and the shipping receipt from the bottom of the duffle to his pocket with exquisite care. He stuffed the empty duffle bag into a trash chute - it marked him too obviously as a tourist - turned his jacket inside out, and when he walked out of the bathroom he was as nondescript and unremarkable as any of the other janitorial or maintenance personnel who inhabited the back ends of the station.
A burly older man in a set of coveralls just like his was buzzing into the NO ADMIT doors as he came out of the bathroom. He carefully timed his gait so that he arrived at the door just before it swung closed behind the other man; reached out and held it almost closed for a minute while he pretended to tap the keypad, then eased himself through the door. From the camera's perspective, it looked just like two men going through the door one after another; from the lock's perspective, it had only been opened once, with perfectly valid authorization.
Once he was in the maintenance corridors he allowed himself to take a breath, but not too much of one. There were fewer cameras back here, but the area was crawling with station personnel who all knew each other and wouldn't be fooled by his disguise for a minute. As soon as they found out he had no official reason to be here, the jig would all be up.
Fortunately, there were others in this labyrinth of steel and disinfectant who had no official reason to be here.
The elevator cars went once an hour, a carefully ordered progression in the slow and stately dance that brought five going up and five going down. There were actually twelve cars total; two of them were always pulled out of the line for maintenance and cleaning. In such a fast-paced, demanding environment, Yuui was willing to bet that even the Earth-regulated Allied Spaceports would cut corners.
Decom rats - decontamination was the proper name, running the scrubbers over the elaborate mechanical pistons again and again and again to keep friction from slowing the parts, or the dangerous contaminants from building until they would pose a danger to humans. Normal employee humans, of course. The decom rats themselves didn't count.
Kids were best because they were smaller, they could get in and out of tight spaces and needed less disinfectant to rinse down afterwards. There were machines that could do the same thing, but they were expensive to buy and expensive to run, and people in all times and places found it easier to resort to cheap labor instead of pricey technologies. And in all times and places there were kids that, for one reason or another, no one was taking care of; kids who would do anything for a couple of extra yenbucks, kids whom nobody would miss if something bad happened.
Memories assaulted Yuui as he walked down the steel grate overlaying the thrumming pipes beneath. He and Fai had spent too much time as children, scampering through hallways like these, climbing in and out of processing tanks just like those. It was strange to be on the other side of things for the first time, to be one of the towering adults who'd always held the power of pay or no pay - and of life and death - over them.
It was hair-raising work, ducking the attention of the other employees without being too obvious that he was doing so; several times he had to quickly pretend to be working on something, and memories of his old jobs came swarming back to him as he found himself doing old, too-familiar tasks. Finally though, he saw what he'd been looking for; a short, suit-clad figure scampered across one of the empty holding bays.
Yuui quickly altered his course to intercept, but the kid was fast - they all had to be fast. He nearly disappeared behind another door before Yuui caught up with him, and he had to use a little bit of telekineses to aid his grab.
"Hey!" the kid squawked, but there was no one immediately within range to come to his aid. Yuui let the door slam shut and pushed the kid up against it, blocking his exit routes. "What was that for?"
The kid's eyes widened, and narrowed, and his first look of indignant outrage sharpened into interest. "Who are you? You're not one of the guys who works here."
"No," Yuui agreed; there was no point in pretending to be a new worker or anything like that, all the personnel would be intimately familiar with staff changes on their shift. "I'm just passing through. I need to get over to the station side."
"Why?" The interest stiffened into wariness. "You're not trying to steal stuff, are you? 'Cos if you are, I'm gonna yell and call the boss here right away. Or else you're not trying to break stuff, are you?"
"No and no," Yuui said with an emphatic headshake. "I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble." Well, that was sure the truth. "I just need a route over into the south wing of the station without passing through security. Do you know a way?"
The kid frowned at him, evidently mistrusting his motives. "Why would I know something like that?" he said in a not-quite innocent tone. "I'm just a temp worker they hired to work out on the shells. I don't have access to the dockside stuff."
By which he meant, he wasn't registered and he didn't have an entry badge. Right. "But you must have some way to get into the station, don't you?" he pressed. "The other guys, they send you on errands sometimes - pick up laundry, get coffee, bring them lunch, for a couple extra yen. Don't they?"
He and Fai had often been sent on similar harmless, mundane errands while they were working in the same job - most likely, he now realized, because the other guys felt sorry for them. And he could tell by the kid's expression that he'd hit a mark. "I - there's a door I go through," he admitted. He took a step back, looking Fai up and down, and frowned. "But I don't think I ought to take you there."
"Why not?" Yuui's heart was beating double-time in his chest, and he stretched his face into a charming smile. People will do so much more for you if you smile, baby. "It's a little favor I'm asking, nothing more. I'll pay you. A hundred yenbucks if you get me through the door and don't say anything to anyone."
He realized a moment later that he'd misstepped; he should have offered five or ten at the most. The kid's face lit up in amazed greed at the thought of that much money; and then, moments later, clouded over in uncertain doubt. Because with that amount of money this couldn't possibly be a simple favor; there had to be a catch.
"No," the kid said, his voice shaking a little and then firming up. "No, I don't think I oughta do that. I'm not gonna let you get in trouble."
"Please, I really need to -" Yuui started, but the kid shook his head firmly.
"I said no!" he said in a louder voice. "Whatever you're part of, I don't want to be part of it! So piss off before I call the boss, and he'll call security on you!"
Yuui froze momentarily in panic, before angry reason kicked in. No, it was a bluff. No decom rat would ever risk getting tangled up with security, because - The kid tried to push past him and Yuui grabbed his shoulder, throwing him back against the doorway and pressing him there. "No," he growled. "I don't think you will."
The kid looked at him in mixed terror and outrage, thin ribcage expanding as he took a breath to yell. Before he could, Yuui plunged his hand into his jacket and pulled out the fake health and safety inspector's badge that Saiga had provided him with and flashed it in the kid's face. He froze, eyes going wide with the same terror that Yuui felt just a moment ago: the paralyzing fear of getting caught.
"You're not a member of registered maintenance or decontamination crew," Yuui snapped, "and you've got no clearance to be working on high-sensitivity machines like these. Your suit isn't rated for heavy vacuum work and you're under height, weight and age requirements for an S-class radiation environment." All of which were crimes, or at least negligences, being committed by his 'bosses' and not by the kid himself. But the kid wouldn't see it that way; Yuui never had until it was all over.
"I think security would report that you've got no more right to be in here than any other random passerby off the street, and what would they do if they found out you've been taking money from a federal payroll?" Escort him home, probably - maybe look into minor delinquent correctional services if they were feeling paranoid enough. But it would mean the end of this job and the end of his income, and that was a threat enough.
"No, don't!" the kid cried out in panic. "Please! You don't understand… I need this money! My mom's sick and my dad spends all her health dole money on booze and there's nobody else on the station who'll hire me, okay? I need - I just need - "
"I need to get to the station side," Yuui interrupted him, not interested in hearing the whole sordid story of his life. It brought back too many painful memories. "Show me how you get there."
Without another word, the kid led him through the maze of steel and titanium corridors to another section, one that seemed even older - Yuui wondered if it hadn't been part of the original space station, before the elevator and docks had been built around it. There was a door here that didn't have a badge scanner; instead it had only a keypad, and the kid tapped out an access code quickly and without hesitation.
They came out the other side of the hatch in almost complete darkness. Yuui followed his guide's shuffling footsteps until they came out into a cross corridor and heard voices echoing from further on.
"That way," the kid said, pointing a hand in the dimness. "This comes out between a couple of businesses - a deli and a copy shop. There's a door at the end of the hallway, but it opens outwards and the alarm is turned off. Just - just don't tell anyone else, okay?"
"I won't," Yuui promised him fervently. He hesitated for another moment - a part of him wanted to follow up on his earlier offer, give the kid some money, maybe enough to get out of this killer job and into a better life - but the decom rat had already turned and fled his presence, back into the belly of the space station with an echoing crash.
Yuui had a moment's debate with himself as to whether he should change clothes again or not before rejoining the crowd. Eventually he just kicked off the canvas work overalls and stashed them in a dark corner; the rest of his clothes were drab enough to pass unremarked. With any luck the civilians would assume he was on some vague unspecified business errand, for the Station or for one of the half-dozen shipping companies who did a brisk business through the space lanes.
When he stepped out of the door into the civilian concourse, the return of light and noise after the cool dim utility tunnels made him stagger. An enticing smell of pastries and coffee wafted over from the promised deli and his stomach growled loudly, reminding himself that he hadn't eaten in far too long. Soon, he promised his stomach. Once we get on the ship - the smuggler will feed us. Or at least Yuui hoped he would; surely he wouldn't expect Yuui to provide his own meals. Most likely he'd just charge Yuui an arm and a leg extra for the privilege of feeding him.
He began walking down the terminal, reluctantly bypassing the rows of restaurants and shops; he cast a longing look at the rows of vending machines decorating the grey walls, but they wouldn't take credit chits and he did not dare deal with any more human vendors than he had to. Who knew how many of them watched the news?
He found a directory and oriented himself; the south lockers were a fair hike away, but fortunately his other destination was on the way. His heart rose in his chest for the first time today and he took a long steady breath, straightened his shoulders, and set off down the concourse. Nobody noticed him; nobody challenged him. After all, he couldn't be here unless he'd gone through security once already… so he must belong here.
At least that was what he thought until he caught sight of one of the TV monitors hanging above the archways. The volume was muted, but the images running across the display were unmistakably a continuation of the story he'd seen on Saiga's television earlier… this time accompanied by his own face.
Pulse pounding, he kept his head down and the brim of his hat pulled over his face as he strode down the friction-matted corridor past the rows of businesses. At last the one he was looking for popped up in the row; the bright blue FEXIS logo blazed in the corner of his eye. He eased himself out of the concourse and the depot, and yes - thank god! - they had a row of automated teller kiosks in addition to the one harassed-looking woman at the counter. He'd hoped they would - any full-time employee on a space station was so expensive to house and pay for that every business who could automate their service did - but he couldn't have been sure.
He slipped to the kiosk at the end of the row, glancing involuntarily at the large glass doors at the end of the bay. All he could see was stacks and stacks of boxes. ENTER CODE OR SCAN QRC TO BEGIN, it prompted him in English, Chinese, and Japanese. His hands were shaking as he pulled his shipping receipt out of his pocket and held it up to the scanner.
This had to work. Had to…
The kiosk hummed crankily for a moment, then blipped up a large confirmation window. Shipping outlet, weight, dimensions, tracking code. IS THIS YOUR PACKAGE? the display asked him. The tracking display confirmed it was waiting for him at this very depot, on the other side of the glass wall. Fai was waiting for him. Yuui blew out a shaky breath, and hit "Yes - Claim my package now."
He had to have been crazy to try this, but it was all he could think of. There was no way, no possible way that he could have smuggled the triage chamber through spaceport security, nor gotten Fai past the guards with the state he was in. As a last, desperate gamble, he'd turned to an alternate route - put the chamber into minimum internal power mode, taken it to the automated freight center nearest to the hospital, and ordered it shipped to the station to await pickup.
He'd only dared it because he'd been sure - and so far, it looked like he'd been right - that the government's manhunt wouldn't extend as far as the mail and freighting system, at least not yet. With their highest level of clearance they had access to any institution or business they wanted to invade and search, and at least theoretically they were tapped into every electronic database in the Earth sphere.
But Yuui knew that for all their supposedly infinite power, they had only limited manpower and resources; they could not possibly process every piece of data in the cybersphere at once. And they were still looking for a person; they had no way of knowing, yet, that he had run off with a portable triage chamber. No doubt any correspondence addressed to or by him would raise a red flag, but he had used one of Saiga's fake IDs to input the shipping label, and set the payment options to cash on pickup so his credit chit would not be traced until the last minute.
Indeed, the computer was now informing him in bright red letters that this parcel had not yet been paid for. CASH, CREDIT OR DEBIT? It demanded, and Yuui hurriedly punched in his chit's information. They could track it eventually, no doubt, but Yuui meant to be long gone from here before they got this far.
The system cranked some more, and then a red window flashed up. CONFIRMATION FAILED, Yuui's breath froze in his chest. Could they have found him already? They were so close, Fai was so close, just on the other side of that door… could he tear this place apart as he had the facility, rip down the wall, find Fai's box among the thousands piled there? He would never make it…
Then he made his blurry eyes actually read the text on the screen. PACKAGE WEIGHT AND DIMENSIONS EXCEED LIMITS FOR PERSONAL PICKUP, it read irately. AN ADDITIONAL FEE WILL BE LEVIED TO CHANGE THIS PACKAGE RATE TO HEAVY FREIGHT. APPROVE FEE Y/N?
Y, he punched and breathed again, feeling dizzy from adrenaline overload. The kiosk hummed some more, and then blanked out. NO SUCH PACKAGE NUMBER FOUND IN HEAVY FREIGHT DATABASE, it told him. ENTER NAME OR SCAN QRC TO BEGIN.
"No!" he burst out, clutching at the side of the kiosk screens. "No, dammit, no!"
"Having trouble, sir?" a female voice asked at his elbow. He nearly jumped out of his skin and turned to see the mail clerk standing next to him, smiling brightly.
"No! Uh," he stuttered around for a lie, then a charming smile slid over his face and his tongue seemed to take on a life of his own. "Sorry about that. My stupid cousin asked me to come and pick up his package for him, but then the son-of-a - excuse me, the idiot made it cash on delivery!"
"Oh, dear," the clerk's expression turned sympathetic and concerned. "Well, if you really don't want to pay for it, you can reject the delivery… it'll be sent back to your cousin and he'll have to pay shipping both ways, but…"
"No!" he said hastily, blocking the clerk as she reached for the kiosk. "Uh, it's not worth getting into a fight with him," he said. "I'll just pick up the darn box and make him pay me back later. But, um, the system is giving me some trouble. It said it was too large for personal pickup, but then it couldn't find it in heavy freight…"
"Yeah, it does that," she said, and reached past him to tap at the keypad. The cutesy animations vanished, displaying white text on black screen, as she entered some kind of authorization code. "What's your pickup number?"
He handed over her receipt and stood back, fiddling nervously with his cuffs as she pulled up his order. His eyes flickered up to the TV screen on the wall above the counter; it was showing his story again, but the clerk didn't seem to be paying attention. Didn't watch TV on duty, perhaps? He was suddenly very thankful it had been a busy morning for her.
"Do you want me to try to waive the heavy freight fee?" she asked him suddenly, and he jumped again. "You're going to have to pay for the shipping either way, but it seems unfair that you should have to pay the surcharge…"
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he didn't care about the money, just give him his package - but that had been what had alerted the decom rat, earlier, this desperate willingness to throw money in his path. "Um, if you can I'd be really grateful," he said with another charming smile; she flushed slightly, and threw her hair back before turning back to the kiosk. "Let me see what I can do!"
After an interminable delay, the kiosk beeped loudly and printed out a flimsy receipt. "Let me just run in the back and get this for you," she said. "Here, keep the receipt - you want to know how much your cousin owes you, after all."
She disappeared into the back, and Yuui waited anxiously, pretending to be interested in a magazine in order to keep his face low and hidden. At last she returned with a long, large crate on an antigrav trolley; she pulled it up in front of him and threw the switch.
"Here you go," she announced. "I'm afraid all of our dollies are in use right now; all we've got is the hand trucks used for loading smaller freight. But if you want to wait until we get one back…"
"No, that's fine," he said hastily. He pulled out a hand truck and laid his hands on the box, using a subtle bit of telekinesis to transfer the package onto the truck. It was even bigger than he was - naturally - and he had to continue using his talent to keep it balanced and steady. "I'm in a hurry."
"Are you sure?" she said, giving him a weird look. "It must be heavy…"
"It's not heavy at all - just bulky," he insisted, using his power to lift the package a short distance in proof. "I think he packed the smaller box in the bigger box and filled it with peanuts just to mess with me - he does that sometimes."
She giggled, and the suspicion disappeared from her face as he grinned back at her. "Okay, well, is there anything else I can do for you?" she asked.
"No," he said, "and if you'll excuse me - I have to catch a ship."
After that, all thoughts of maintaining appearances, or keeping a low profile, fled from Yuui's mind - he had to concentrate entirely on keeping the crate moving with him as he hurried through the increasingly narrow courseway. Here at the south end of the station - relatively, of course; it didn't actually correspond to any polar directions - he had passed out of the large commercial liners and into the berths containing the smaller, privately owned ships.
He rounded the final corner, skidding across the thin carpet as he dragged the hand trolley with him, and stopped abruptly as he faced a large, open bay. Rows of metal cabinets lined two sides, a third was filled with wide-spaced portholes, and the last one had imposing-looking metal doors. Airlocks, Yuui realized after a giddy moment. The whole place was painted in an odd shade of rusty brown.
This was the south lockers - at least, the map had said it was. But where was the smuggler?
His gaze swept the room; there were a few people here, but the looming, spikey-haired captain was not among them. His heart sank in dismay. What could have happened? Was he lost, late, discovered? Had the smuggler decided he wasn't coming and left without him, or had he just not arrived yet? Or had he seen the APB and been scared off, or -
There was no going back. Yuui swallowed heavily and approached one of the people in the locker - a teenager with messy brown hair and tan skin. By far the youngest and smallest of everyone in the lockers, he was methodically pulling lengths of tubing from a hose dispenser in the wall and coiling it neatly over his shoulder. Yuui wondered if he was a decom rat, and if so, whether he could be bullied for information or aid. "Excuse me," he said as he approached, "I wonder if…"
The boy looked up and his brown eyes widened. "Oh, yes?" he said in a polite tone. "Are you our passenger?"
Yuui hesitated, torn. "I - I don't know. Am I? The - the tall man told me to meet him here…"
"Yes! He told me you would be coming, with your cargo." The boy hoisted the tubing over his shoulder and stuck out his arm. "I'm Syaoran - nice to meet you. What's your name?"
"I'm…" He hesitated, unsure by what name he should introduce himself. For some reason he couldn't call any of the false IDs Saiga had given him to his lips; his mind was a total blank. But his own name had been plastered all over the TVs… He pasted a smile back on his lips, and said the one name he would not ever forget. "I'm Fai. Nice to meet you too."
"We'll get you all loaded up in just a minute," Syaoran was saying, and reached down to pick up his load. "We're almost done reconditioning for our trip to Mars, so we can leave within an hour or so. Did the Captain tell you the name of the ship?"
"No," Yuui said with some confusion. "He - he didn't even tell me his own name."
"Oh." Syaoran rolled his eyes. "He's like that sometimes. It's Kurogane by the way, or at least that's what he goes by, and this is his ship. Welcome aboard the Mokona!"
Syaoran darted away inside the hatch, calling "Hey, Captain! Our passenger's here!" Yuui drifted over to the port nearest to the airlock he'd gone through, looking out into the spaceyard. The absolute blackness of space - shot through with diamond-hard pinpricks of light - made him faintly queasy, but he was fascinated by his first sight of the spaceship he would be traveling on.
A pair of footsteps stomped through the hatch, and he looked up in time to see the smuggler emerging from the airlock. The big man glanced his way, his blood-red eyes sweeping over Yuui and the crate sitting next to him, and his expression hardened.
"You showed up," was all the man said, and his voice was as cold and unfathomable as his expression. He shoved an antigrav doily in Yuui's directions. "Your cabin's the first one on the left, up through the hatch. Get in and get loaded up, and then stay out of the way of the crew."
"Yes, Mister Kurogane," Yuui said, summoning up another bright grin. "My, what cheerful hospitality you have towards your guests!"
"That's Captain to you," Kurogane snarled at him, and turned around and stomped back into the ship.
"Yes, Captain Mister," Yuui called after him, but got no reply.
It was awkward navigating the big crate through the narrow confines of the tiny ship, let alone through the narrow hatch overhead; someone without telekineses could never have done it alone. Yuui wondered why the big man hadn't stayed to help him load the cargo, big and heavy as it was. Not that he minded - it was easier not to have to hide his power, but it just drove home how unfriendly he was. Well, sweet or sour it didn't matter; he was getting Yuui and Fai out of this mess, and that was all that mattered.
He finally got himself and Fai stowed in their cabin - more of a cabinet or a small closet, really, and with the crate in the middle of the floor there was barely enough room to edge between the bed and the window. But none of that mattered either.
Yuui pulled himself onto the bunk bed, drawing his legs up onto the mattress in front of him; wrapped his arms around his torso, and finally let the shakes of terror overtake him.
chapter five →
-tbc