reikah
in
inmyvortex
Fic: Not Quite Paradise [1 /?], R.
Title: Not Quite Paradise [1/?; ongoing]
Fandom: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Fai/Kurogane/Yuui
Author: Co-write between mikkeneko & reikah
Rating: R
Word count: 12,016 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]
Part One: Earth
the path of least resistance
Perhaps the migration of humans into space was what triggered it, the vast and cold new environment prompting old mechanisms of adaptation to stir themselves. Perhaps it was the unprecedented exposure to radiation that accelerated the mutation cycle of ten billion human souls giving birth to the next generation. Or perhaps the potential had always been there, hidden in old superstitions and derided at myths. Whatever the source, humans were quick the sense the potential, and to seize upon it.
The age of space had begun; the age of psionics followed hard on its heels.
Telepathy was the first talent to be discovered and cultivated. When such vast distances stretched between one human settlement and another that even the speed of light was strained - at best a few minutes or hours, at worst a response time of years - human thought could breach the distances in the blink of an eye. Before long each new colony expedition was fitted with a telepath - or more, if they could spare them - to keep a tenuous thread of contact with the mother planet. Even if no man or ship could cross the vast interstellar distances in time to be of any aid, it made all the difference for the colonists to know that they were not alone.
The next talent that flourished was telekineses, and it did so for unforeseen reasons. Abilities that would have been scorned as worthless in the gravity well of a planet - why sweat and strain to lift a single spoon off a table surface, after all, when you could just walk over and pick it up? - proved invaluable in environments centering around zero-G. As their cousins the 'paths ignored the laws of space and time, the telekinetic scorned the restrictions of momentum; they could move themselves without needing a solid platform to launch from, or any other item they wished without fearing the backlash of momentum.
The potential of the kinetics quickly became apparent. Their unmatchable precision and control in low-gravity environments, combined with the extra force they could add to their strength, made them ideal recruits for the new, close-combat style of melee fighting that the fragile environment of space stations and habitats required; and soon those who had been tools were made into weapons.
Telepaths and telekinetics were highly sought, by private and public enterprises alike; the demand quickly outstripped the supply. Even with science's best efforts to duplicate and boost the genes responsible, the rapidly expanding infrastructure of space travel and habitation required more. Ethics and morals were soon shunted aside in terms of practical considerations, and rumors - well quashed - circulated about kidnappings, coercion and raids on households for suspected telepaths, forced into work in technological servitude.
And there were whispers, rumors too, of a third talent - a diamond so rare and valuable it would make the others look like common pebbles. The genetic mutation, almost unheard of, that would allow human pilots to see and manipulate the folds of space itself - who could turn sideways through the fabric of reality and bring a body or a ship across the fathomless light-years of space in the blink of a human eye. Who could do in an instant what the massive colony-ships had taken hundreds, even thousands of years to do, carrying their sleeping human cargoes to new worlds across the stars.
Teleporters.
It was only a rumor, of course.
Yuui and Fai, on the other hand, were only nine years old and knew nothing of colony ships, or genetic manipulation, or kidnapping and coercion. They only knew that they were hungry and desperate, because their parents didn't quite seem to remember they existed, and stealing could only get them so far.
They found work after a few weeks of searching at one of the smaller more niche space ports in the city, owned by a shady man with an impressive mustache who eyed them both up and down, judged them the right height for decom rats, threw them anti-radiation suits that didn't quite fit properly and promised them both a dollar fifty an hour if they made sure they weren't seen by the health and safety inspectors.
"Done," Fai said immediately, and Yuui echoed him a little reluctantly a half-second later. He couldn't say he was excited about the job, but it did have a lower immediate mortality rate than the job in the abattoir had, and a buck and a half an hour was a buck and a half an hour. "Remember," Fai said to him in the locker room, as they pinned the radiation badges to their chests, "you can't let dad know we're working, he'd take away the money."
"I know," Yuui said quietly. He still remembered the beating he'd gotten over the library book incident, and the things his father had said in his rage. Fai reached over and linked their fingers; his palm was warm and Yuui squeezed it, grateful to have his twin beside him, and then let go in order to do up the suit.
It wasn't as bad as he had thought, initially. Lugging the big heavy canisters across the hangar floor was hard work - he was nine, and underfed; decom rats were usually thirteen or fourteen - but the adults were nice enough in a distant sort of way, and Fai was there to share the weight if it was too heavy. They were sent right into the belly of the spaceships to clean the tiny exterior hatches and chutes, and it was tiring and monotonous but definitely not as scary as clearing the blood and gristle out of the slaughterhouse machines had been, nor as messy.
They worked the full ten hour shift with no sign of those health and safety inspectors they'd been warned about, and even had time for lunch, or would have if they'd been able to afford any. One of the adults even gave them an apple from his, and Fai split it pretty evenly between them; they ate it in the breakroom on the windowsill, pressed close together with their backs to the glass. Fai's left hand held Yuui's right tightly in their laps as they nibbled, and he finished his apple half first. "Tomorrow we can buy lunch," Fai said, pleased.
Yuui hummed agreement, popping the last of it into his mouth and licking the juice from his fingers. It tasted wonderful, and it took a tiny sliver off the hunger that had been a part of his life as long as he'd known. "We could get food tonight, too," he added, his thoughts already there as his stomach growled for more, and Fai grinned at him, his eyes blue and brilliant.
"We'll eat out," he said, and Yuui stared at him; that was expensive. They would have thirty dollars, even a bowl of ramen to split cost ten. Fai took his chin in his hand, still sticky with apple juice, and sighed as he ran his thumb along the line of Yuui's jaw. "You need something hot. It's getting colder."
"You were the one who caught pneumonia last year," Yuui said, numbly. In truth he had been planning to put most of their money towards heating and maybe some extra blankets, since the library had banned them after the incident with their father, and he didn't think he could go through Fai's sickness again. He still woke up sometimes crying from nightmares in which he didn't go to their landlady in time and Fai died.
"I know not to do that this time, then," Fai replied dismissively, and Yuui looked away, his throat closing. Fai let his hand drop and instead curled it around Yuui's wrist, the one he still held in his lap. "You're too thin," he said quietly. "It'll be your turn next."
"I can steal food still," Yuui said. "I've - I've been practicing with my luck, see?" He pointed across the room to an empty chair and pushed; it toppled backward, landing on the concrete floor with a bang. The people sitting on either side of it stopped their conversations and looked over their shoulders at it in surprise; one of them got up and pulled it upright, muttering something about its wonky legs.
"Your luck won't stop you from being cold," Fai said urgently, and Yuui swallowed. It was true. He had outgrown his last winter coat - they both had - and the weather was turning ugly. Fai tugged on his hand and Yuui went willingly, letting his twin wrap an arm around his shoulders and press a kiss to his temple. "Thirty dollars a day for two weeks," Fai said, his lips ticklish against Yuui's skin. "Fine. We'll get coats and blankets and put some aside for heating. If you're confident stealing dinner."
"I'm sure I can," Yuui murmured, and might have said more if the klaxon hadn't gone off, signaling them back to work. Fai sighed and jumped off the windowsill, keeping his hand clasped to Yuui's to help him down too. Some of the adults gave them odd looks and it made Yuui feel oddly angry and defensive, like he'd been caught doing something wrong, only he didn't know what it was. Zipping up the front of the suit and grabbing the helmet, he followed Fai back into the hangar.
The second half of their shift seemed a lot longer somehow, and by the time the day was done he was so exhausted he felt like passing out. Fai wasn't much better; even his brother's characteristic flighty nature seemed subdued, and when the space port owner handed them their credit chip payments Fai actually skittered away from him. It was odd enough Yuui questioned it as they stowed their suits in the locker room, checking the radiation badges and relieved to find no change. Fai was leaning heavily against the lockers, his eyes closed, and Yuui checked his twin's temperature by pressing his wrist to his forehead.
"I'm fine," Fai said, slurring slightly. "Just tired. Too many people, I - I'm fine. Just tired."
"That's what you said last time," Yuui replied, allowing a hint of accusation to creep into his tone.
"I'm fine," Fai said dreamily, his eyes sliding shut. "Just tired. Too many people, I - I'm fine. Just tired. Too many people, I -"
"Fai," Yuui said sharply.
"I'm fine. Just tired. Too many people, I -"
"Fai," Yuui said again louder, frightened, and curled his fingers into Fai's shirt, shaking him. Fai jerked in his grip like a doll, but then he opened his eyes and blinked a few times, the litany stopping. Yuui's heart was thudding in his chest.
"Yuui," he said, slowly, like he was remembering. "What's wrong?"
"You," Yuui said shortly, and pressed their heads together. His throat felt dry. They couldn't afford it if Fai fell sick again; last time had been so bad, their dad had been so angry he'd gotten the hospital involved, even though neither him nor mom had been there the whole three days Fai's fever had been eating him up, when he was sweating and crying nonsense words from the sofa that served as their bed. Three days they'd been gone before Yuui finally got scared enough to go looking for an adult to help and found their landlady, who had been the one to call the ambulance even though he told her their father said not to.
The things he'd said and done in his fever sounded scarily like now, but Fai's skin was cool against his; he huffed out a shaky sigh of relief and Fai wound his arms around his shoulders, offering comfort wordlessly. Yuui hugged him back.
They stayed that way until one of their coworkers stuck his head in the locker room and reminded them to hurry and get the fuck out unless they wanted to be locked in, and then Yuui had to let Fai go to finish undressing. His hands shook on the zipper, and he ended up using his luck to help out, tugging on his pants with his mind while he shrugged his shirt on over his head at the same time. Fai stayed leaning on the locker next to him, turning the credit chips over in his hands, admiring them; it was the first time they'd seen any for denominations over five, and they'd thought the five dollar chips were special.
"We'll go through the market on the way home," Fai decided. "There's loads of stalls there we can snatch food from. If you're still up for it?"
"Yeah," Yuui said. He was tired, bone tired, but Fai had decided and he liked to follow, so he would. "What are we going to do with those when we get home?"
"Hide them in the sofa. You know dad never looks under the cushions for his booze money."
"No, but mom does," Yuui said, worried, and Fai snorted.
"She's not gonna be leaving their bedroom for at least a week," he said, holding up the purple twenty dollar chip to the striplight running between the lockers. Yuui finished doing up his pants and buckling the huge belt that kept them on his hips and stamped hastily into his boots. "Her dealer gave her a bag of something, I saw her come in with it."
"You did?"
"You were asleep. I didn't want to get you up just for that," Fai said, with that soft look on his face that made Yuui feel self-conscious and cherished at once.
It was dark outside when they emerged, and cold; the wind was fierce, a living thing trying to get into their thin coats. They walked next to each other, shoulders knocking, arms crossed over their chests. Yuui wanted to go home and curl up on the sofa with Fai, but he needed food, too, desperately, and there was never any at home. What their dad left they had already gnawed on a long time ago, and what edible scraps they could find in the trash had gone the same way.
Yuui remembered the glossy images in the cookbooks he had read, spread out across the library floor, his chin in his palm and his mouth literally watering, his daydreams of a distant time when he might be able to follow those recipes, eat those foods. For now he'd settle for anything hot that might fill his hollow stomach, Fai too. Fai had never approved of those cookbooks, thinking Yuui was torturing himself by looking at them, and Yuui hadn't ever really known how to say that it was a good kind of torture, a wish he had that he hoped one day to achieve.
The market was a bad kind of torture, hot smells of hundreds of different kinds of food ripe on the air. The stallholders eyed them both distrustfully as they entered; they had stolen from here hundreds of times, and the stallholders knew it, and they also knew what their appearance meant. Fai wandered from stall to stall, sniffing the merchandise and giving Yuui quizzical looks.
"Don't even think about it, kid," said the expansive woman behind a stall selling fried and breaded poultry.
"Fuck off, thieves," said the bald man selling hot meat pies.
"I'm watching you two," growled the tall woman selling fresh fruit that didn't look quite so fresh this late at night.
"What did you swipe?" Fai asked as they rounded the corner, and Yuui's eyes flitted above them to the air; Fai held out a hand and a pie landed in it neatly. He grinned triumphantly, tossing it from palm to palm as it cooled. "You're getting really good at the fine control," he said proudly, and Yuui flushed with pleasure at his praise.
They ate the stolen goods together over the river, sitting on the edge of the bridge. The water below them was so dark it was invisible, only the lights of the barges that still floated atop the water giving it definition. The food was hot and sweet in Yuui's mouth, and soothed the rumbling ache of his stomach.
"I don't want to go home," Yuui said abruptly, and Fai glanced at him sharply. "I'm tired, Fai."
"There's a bed back home," Fai pointed out, and Yuui shook his head, unable to articulate what he meant: that he was tired of doing this, of being cold and hungry and scared most of the time. He was nine years old. He saw other nine-year-olds around, occasionally, during the weekend when they weren't in school, and none of them seemed to have lives like his and Fai's. "We can't stay here," Fai said gently, still misunderstanding. "We're getting too big to share a doorway now."
"We're getting too big to share the sofa at home, but we do," Yuui said, and Fai breathed out. Suddenly Yuui was sorry he'd brought it up; it wasn't Fai's fault they were getting too old to beg for food by pulling the waif act on the storekeepers, it wasn't Fai's fault they were outgrowing the sofa they had shared in their natty one-bed apartment since they were born, and Fai couldn't change it. "I'm sorry," he said, and Fai took his hand again, the simple reminder of his presence that normally made Yuui feel better.
"I love you," he said, simple and unreserved, and Yuui turned and buried his face in Fai's shoulder. That at least made him feel better.
At twenty-standard years old Yuui Flowright wasn't a child by anyone's standards any more; not to drive, not to drink, not to carry a gun. He reminded himself of this sharply as he approached the military base, his heart thumping so hard that he wasn't sure he'd be able to talk past it. This was no backend posting with a token security force, but instead the primary military R&D headquarters of Eurasia's Sector Seven, Earth government. It was locked tight and fiercely guarded around the clock, with some of the best defense systems ever developed.
He'd have to be insane to think of trying to break in. But someone had to do it, and if it wasn't him, who else would?
The guard in the security booth slid his window down when Yuui approached, eyeing him distrustfully; pedestrians very rarely ventured this way. "Government property," he said. "ID or no entry."
"I know," Yuui replied, smiling, and handed over the thin slip of plastic, crowding up close to the booth. The air was cold here, and he wrapped his trench coat around him and held it close with one arm across his chest, his fingers digging into his bicep. The guard gave him a final once over before lifting the ID card to his face and turning his gaze to it; he narrowed his eyes to better decipher the text, at which point Yuui mentally slid his blaster out of its holster and shot him in the throat.
He felt only marginally guilty. Military training at its finest.
He'd taken the cameras out before entry, of course, shattering the lenses with stray flicks of his gift, and although he could have ripped up the steel barrier blocking the road with his mind he preferred not to when the button was right there. He leaned through the window as the guard gurgled and choked and died, grabbing the blaster out of the air as he did so, and rammed the butt of the weapon against the gate release button; the obstruction hissed as it retracted smoothly into the wall.
Yuui's fingers flexed around the blaster barrel, and he could feel the adrenaline, antsy tingles in his fingers and toes. He took a deep breath to ground himself, just the one, and then he was moving, loping through the exposed entrance into the heart of the facility itself.
He'd memorized a map of the place before he came, how could he do anything else? He knew exactly how many guards there were, exactly where the cameras were and where each stainless steel corridor led. He knew where his target was. He knew that the complex had been built to withstand everything from a nuclear strike to a biological agent and still keep its inmates safe.
And he also knew he could be in and out in under an hour.
The blaster was a government model, mass-produced and utilitarian; he had three of his own flash grenades to go with it, but they were cheap and unreliable. He'd wanted to keep most of his illegally-earned cash for emergencies, and besides, he'd always known his mind was his strongest asset.
Yuui followed the spiraling corridors, designed to bend and twist back on themselves, and when he encountered humans he killed them. There wasn't much blood; the plasma bolts from the blaster sealed wounds shut even as it made them, but the scent of cooking flesh never would be an appetizing one.
He used up his first flash grenade on the room designated as a break room, ripping the door open with his telekinesis and tossing the small hallucinogenic device in while the inhabitants began to cry out, and when the blinding light went off three seconds later he was prepared. He followed it in, ending the men and women inside quickly and cleanly, one shot each to the head. He was no torturer, not like their employers.
As he went on he found some of his anger beginning to bleed through, and he became rougher and rougher with the complex itself; he tore down a door with such force it hit the steel wall of the corridor and wedged itself there, three tons of metal impaled clean through the wall. Men and women ran to meet him and he threw them across the room too, pinning them there with his teeth gritted not with effort but with rage. His instructors had warned him of this, but it seemed distant and irrelevant, everything they had said drowned out by what they had done.
It was nothing to him to 'catch' the guards' plasma bolts in midair, or redirect them. Their shocked pale faces when they realized what they were dealing with would haunt him later in nightmares, but he had known this going in, and he killed them just the same. He had to.
Someone was waiting for him.
It took him thirty-five minutes to find the room he was looking for, the door barred on the outside and marked with a circular peephole and the words 'Lab 3' stuck just underneath it. His heart hammered as he pressed his palm against the surface, and then he closed his eyes and pushed and the door took its frame and some of the wall with it when it fell inward. It landed with a boom that seemed to shake the floor, and the air was filled with dust and the scent of old fear.
His free hand, the one not curled loosely around the blaster, curled into a fist as he looked within, at the shining glint of tools strewn across spotless surfaces, the hum of computers, the things left lying sharp and dormant next to surgical gloves and swabs. Nobody was inside. The great glass wall that neatly bisected the room in two had shattered inward with the impact of the door, but the figure curled in the corner hadn't so much as stirred.
As Yuui looked at him - bent, hurt, thin, frail, stick-like arms wrapped around fragile knees - and his heartbeat picked up even as his palms prickled in anger. Without conscious effort the shards of glass littered across the floor began to vibrate, the cruel sharp implements began to quiver to attention; one of the great strip lights marching across the ceiling exploded, more glass shards raining, harmlessly, to the floor. He forced himself to stop it by breathing out and pushing his power away, forcing it back down. He coaxed a smile to his face, one that felt rusted and alien, and stepped inside; he shoved as he did so and the glass slithered out of the way, clearing a path.
He tossed the blaster aside with disdain; he didn't need it now. He crouched down, opposite the pale wasted figure, and resisted the urge to touch. Instead he rested his hands lightly on his knees and said, in the strange half-formed tongue they had made up in their youth, "Hey, you. It's me."
The emaciated creature twitched and stirred, one blue eye looking at him from behind his curtain of tangled hair, and Yuui reached out now, brushing it aside. "It's me," he said again, gently. "Fai."
His twin's lips formed, shaping his name with no sound, and Yuui gently held out a hand, palm up. Fai only looked at it for ten seconds before uncurling one arm from around his knees; instead of taking the hand straight away he touched Yuui's inner elbow, a lost, dazed expression on his face, and then ran his fingers up like a blind man, following the seams of Yuui's coat to his throat and chin and then his face. Yuui didn't blink as Fai traced his lips with the pad of his thumb, the sweep of his cheekbones, the line of his eyebrow. He still didn't hear anything in the way of pursuit.
Fai breathed out shakily, and said in a halting, lost voice, "Sector sixty nine point two zero. Four billion and eight and and and sixty nine point two zero. The colors aren't - I thought I saw - I - I - Sector - I -"
Without thinking Yuui captured his twin's palm, tangling their fingers together, and lifted it to press his lips to Fai's wrist, the pale skin and purple threads of veins so different from the last time they had seen each other. Fai's pupils were a little distorted; his bare wrist was dotted with needle marks. His eyes looked puffy, as though he has been crying recently, and the bags underneath them made him look racoonish in the harsh cell lighting. "Ssssh," he said, and Fai did, staring at him with a wild-eyed pleading expression. His throat worked and Yuui pulled, gently. "Shall we get out of here?" he said.
"Four billion and eight and I - Yuui, please," Fai said.
Yuui slid his coat off and wrapped it around Fai's shoulders; Fai was wearing a flimsy hospital-style gown and he shivered helplessly as Yuui helped him into the sleeves, but it seemed more fear than cold. His bare feet were very pink against the shiny gray floor; Yuui went to give him his boots, too, but Fai danced away and Yuui had to push the glass away from the area he moved into. "Fai -"
"No," Fai said, although he was shaking. "I. I need to feel. The ground. Underneath." He wriggled his toes as if for emphasis, and Yuui just nodded. He didn't think he could speak around the lump in his throat anyway.
"Let's go," he said, turning away, and Fai came to him then and pressed close against his side, his forehead bent and touched to the dip of Yuui's shoulder, and fingers buried in Yuui's clothing.
"Please don't let go," he said in a small voice. "It hurts less," and Yuui took his hand and squeezed it, and despite his best efforts there were tears in his eyes, blurring his vision, clouding the world. He had never coped well with Fai being sick.
"I'm here," he whispered, "I'm not going away. I swear, Fai."
"That's - the stars go away when you reach a velocity of - the angle of entry determines the exit velocity and I. I need to get away," Fai said, and his voice was high and breathy, frightened. Yuui nodded slowly, reminded of all that time ago, Fai sick and pale in the hospital bed, his fingers hooked in Yuui's.
"Come on," he said, pulling lightly at his twin's hand, and breathed a sigh of relief when Fai began to move, his bare feet leaving hesitant stumbling footprints in the dust. They had a long way to go, but Yuui squeezed his twin's fingers, pressed against his side.
They didn't see any more guards on their escape, but he stayed by Fai all the way out, supporting his twin toward daylight as he had all his life, and only hoped he could do more.
chapter 2 →
-tbc
Fandom: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Pairing: Fai/Kurogane/Yuui
Author: Co-write between mikkeneko & reikah
Rating: R
Word count: 12,016 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]
Part One: Earth
the path of least resistance
Perhaps the migration of humans into space was what triggered it, the vast and cold new environment prompting old mechanisms of adaptation to stir themselves. Perhaps it was the unprecedented exposure to radiation that accelerated the mutation cycle of ten billion human souls giving birth to the next generation. Or perhaps the potential had always been there, hidden in old superstitions and derided at myths. Whatever the source, humans were quick the sense the potential, and to seize upon it.
The age of space had begun; the age of psionics followed hard on its heels.
Telepathy was the first talent to be discovered and cultivated. When such vast distances stretched between one human settlement and another that even the speed of light was strained - at best a few minutes or hours, at worst a response time of years - human thought could breach the distances in the blink of an eye. Before long each new colony expedition was fitted with a telepath - or more, if they could spare them - to keep a tenuous thread of contact with the mother planet. Even if no man or ship could cross the vast interstellar distances in time to be of any aid, it made all the difference for the colonists to know that they were not alone.
The next talent that flourished was telekineses, and it did so for unforeseen reasons. Abilities that would have been scorned as worthless in the gravity well of a planet - why sweat and strain to lift a single spoon off a table surface, after all, when you could just walk over and pick it up? - proved invaluable in environments centering around zero-G. As their cousins the 'paths ignored the laws of space and time, the telekinetic scorned the restrictions of momentum; they could move themselves without needing a solid platform to launch from, or any other item they wished without fearing the backlash of momentum.
The potential of the kinetics quickly became apparent. Their unmatchable precision and control in low-gravity environments, combined with the extra force they could add to their strength, made them ideal recruits for the new, close-combat style of melee fighting that the fragile environment of space stations and habitats required; and soon those who had been tools were made into weapons.
Telepaths and telekinetics were highly sought, by private and public enterprises alike; the demand quickly outstripped the supply. Even with science's best efforts to duplicate and boost the genes responsible, the rapidly expanding infrastructure of space travel and habitation required more. Ethics and morals were soon shunted aside in terms of practical considerations, and rumors - well quashed - circulated about kidnappings, coercion and raids on households for suspected telepaths, forced into work in technological servitude.
And there were whispers, rumors too, of a third talent - a diamond so rare and valuable it would make the others look like common pebbles. The genetic mutation, almost unheard of, that would allow human pilots to see and manipulate the folds of space itself - who could turn sideways through the fabric of reality and bring a body or a ship across the fathomless light-years of space in the blink of a human eye. Who could do in an instant what the massive colony-ships had taken hundreds, even thousands of years to do, carrying their sleeping human cargoes to new worlds across the stars.
Teleporters.
It was only a rumor, of course.
Yuui and Fai, on the other hand, were only nine years old and knew nothing of colony ships, or genetic manipulation, or kidnapping and coercion. They only knew that they were hungry and desperate, because their parents didn't quite seem to remember they existed, and stealing could only get them so far.
They found work after a few weeks of searching at one of the smaller more niche space ports in the city, owned by a shady man with an impressive mustache who eyed them both up and down, judged them the right height for decom rats, threw them anti-radiation suits that didn't quite fit properly and promised them both a dollar fifty an hour if they made sure they weren't seen by the health and safety inspectors.
"Done," Fai said immediately, and Yuui echoed him a little reluctantly a half-second later. He couldn't say he was excited about the job, but it did have a lower immediate mortality rate than the job in the abattoir had, and a buck and a half an hour was a buck and a half an hour. "Remember," Fai said to him in the locker room, as they pinned the radiation badges to their chests, "you can't let dad know we're working, he'd take away the money."
"I know," Yuui said quietly. He still remembered the beating he'd gotten over the library book incident, and the things his father had said in his rage. Fai reached over and linked their fingers; his palm was warm and Yuui squeezed it, grateful to have his twin beside him, and then let go in order to do up the suit.
It wasn't as bad as he had thought, initially. Lugging the big heavy canisters across the hangar floor was hard work - he was nine, and underfed; decom rats were usually thirteen or fourteen - but the adults were nice enough in a distant sort of way, and Fai was there to share the weight if it was too heavy. They were sent right into the belly of the spaceships to clean the tiny exterior hatches and chutes, and it was tiring and monotonous but definitely not as scary as clearing the blood and gristle out of the slaughterhouse machines had been, nor as messy.
They worked the full ten hour shift with no sign of those health and safety inspectors they'd been warned about, and even had time for lunch, or would have if they'd been able to afford any. One of the adults even gave them an apple from his, and Fai split it pretty evenly between them; they ate it in the breakroom on the windowsill, pressed close together with their backs to the glass. Fai's left hand held Yuui's right tightly in their laps as they nibbled, and he finished his apple half first. "Tomorrow we can buy lunch," Fai said, pleased.
Yuui hummed agreement, popping the last of it into his mouth and licking the juice from his fingers. It tasted wonderful, and it took a tiny sliver off the hunger that had been a part of his life as long as he'd known. "We could get food tonight, too," he added, his thoughts already there as his stomach growled for more, and Fai grinned at him, his eyes blue and brilliant.
"We'll eat out," he said, and Yuui stared at him; that was expensive. They would have thirty dollars, even a bowl of ramen to split cost ten. Fai took his chin in his hand, still sticky with apple juice, and sighed as he ran his thumb along the line of Yuui's jaw. "You need something hot. It's getting colder."
"You were the one who caught pneumonia last year," Yuui said, numbly. In truth he had been planning to put most of their money towards heating and maybe some extra blankets, since the library had banned them after the incident with their father, and he didn't think he could go through Fai's sickness again. He still woke up sometimes crying from nightmares in which he didn't go to their landlady in time and Fai died.
"I know not to do that this time, then," Fai replied dismissively, and Yuui looked away, his throat closing. Fai let his hand drop and instead curled it around Yuui's wrist, the one he still held in his lap. "You're too thin," he said quietly. "It'll be your turn next."
"I can steal food still," Yuui said. "I've - I've been practicing with my luck, see?" He pointed across the room to an empty chair and pushed; it toppled backward, landing on the concrete floor with a bang. The people sitting on either side of it stopped their conversations and looked over their shoulders at it in surprise; one of them got up and pulled it upright, muttering something about its wonky legs.
"Your luck won't stop you from being cold," Fai said urgently, and Yuui swallowed. It was true. He had outgrown his last winter coat - they both had - and the weather was turning ugly. Fai tugged on his hand and Yuui went willingly, letting his twin wrap an arm around his shoulders and press a kiss to his temple. "Thirty dollars a day for two weeks," Fai said, his lips ticklish against Yuui's skin. "Fine. We'll get coats and blankets and put some aside for heating. If you're confident stealing dinner."
"I'm sure I can," Yuui murmured, and might have said more if the klaxon hadn't gone off, signaling them back to work. Fai sighed and jumped off the windowsill, keeping his hand clasped to Yuui's to help him down too. Some of the adults gave them odd looks and it made Yuui feel oddly angry and defensive, like he'd been caught doing something wrong, only he didn't know what it was. Zipping up the front of the suit and grabbing the helmet, he followed Fai back into the hangar.
The second half of their shift seemed a lot longer somehow, and by the time the day was done he was so exhausted he felt like passing out. Fai wasn't much better; even his brother's characteristic flighty nature seemed subdued, and when the space port owner handed them their credit chip payments Fai actually skittered away from him. It was odd enough Yuui questioned it as they stowed their suits in the locker room, checking the radiation badges and relieved to find no change. Fai was leaning heavily against the lockers, his eyes closed, and Yuui checked his twin's temperature by pressing his wrist to his forehead.
"I'm fine," Fai said, slurring slightly. "Just tired. Too many people, I - I'm fine. Just tired."
"That's what you said last time," Yuui replied, allowing a hint of accusation to creep into his tone.
"I'm fine," Fai said dreamily, his eyes sliding shut. "Just tired. Too many people, I - I'm fine. Just tired. Too many people, I -"
"Fai," Yuui said sharply.
"I'm fine. Just tired. Too many people, I -"
"Fai," Yuui said again louder, frightened, and curled his fingers into Fai's shirt, shaking him. Fai jerked in his grip like a doll, but then he opened his eyes and blinked a few times, the litany stopping. Yuui's heart was thudding in his chest.
"Yuui," he said, slowly, like he was remembering. "What's wrong?"
"You," Yuui said shortly, and pressed their heads together. His throat felt dry. They couldn't afford it if Fai fell sick again; last time had been so bad, their dad had been so angry he'd gotten the hospital involved, even though neither him nor mom had been there the whole three days Fai's fever had been eating him up, when he was sweating and crying nonsense words from the sofa that served as their bed. Three days they'd been gone before Yuui finally got scared enough to go looking for an adult to help and found their landlady, who had been the one to call the ambulance even though he told her their father said not to.
The things he'd said and done in his fever sounded scarily like now, but Fai's skin was cool against his; he huffed out a shaky sigh of relief and Fai wound his arms around his shoulders, offering comfort wordlessly. Yuui hugged him back.
They stayed that way until one of their coworkers stuck his head in the locker room and reminded them to hurry and get the fuck out unless they wanted to be locked in, and then Yuui had to let Fai go to finish undressing. His hands shook on the zipper, and he ended up using his luck to help out, tugging on his pants with his mind while he shrugged his shirt on over his head at the same time. Fai stayed leaning on the locker next to him, turning the credit chips over in his hands, admiring them; it was the first time they'd seen any for denominations over five, and they'd thought the five dollar chips were special.
"We'll go through the market on the way home," Fai decided. "There's loads of stalls there we can snatch food from. If you're still up for it?"
"Yeah," Yuui said. He was tired, bone tired, but Fai had decided and he liked to follow, so he would. "What are we going to do with those when we get home?"
"Hide them in the sofa. You know dad never looks under the cushions for his booze money."
"No, but mom does," Yuui said, worried, and Fai snorted.
"She's not gonna be leaving their bedroom for at least a week," he said, holding up the purple twenty dollar chip to the striplight running between the lockers. Yuui finished doing up his pants and buckling the huge belt that kept them on his hips and stamped hastily into his boots. "Her dealer gave her a bag of something, I saw her come in with it."
"You did?"
"You were asleep. I didn't want to get you up just for that," Fai said, with that soft look on his face that made Yuui feel self-conscious and cherished at once.
It was dark outside when they emerged, and cold; the wind was fierce, a living thing trying to get into their thin coats. They walked next to each other, shoulders knocking, arms crossed over their chests. Yuui wanted to go home and curl up on the sofa with Fai, but he needed food, too, desperately, and there was never any at home. What their dad left they had already gnawed on a long time ago, and what edible scraps they could find in the trash had gone the same way.
Yuui remembered the glossy images in the cookbooks he had read, spread out across the library floor, his chin in his palm and his mouth literally watering, his daydreams of a distant time when he might be able to follow those recipes, eat those foods. For now he'd settle for anything hot that might fill his hollow stomach, Fai too. Fai had never approved of those cookbooks, thinking Yuui was torturing himself by looking at them, and Yuui hadn't ever really known how to say that it was a good kind of torture, a wish he had that he hoped one day to achieve.
The market was a bad kind of torture, hot smells of hundreds of different kinds of food ripe on the air. The stallholders eyed them both distrustfully as they entered; they had stolen from here hundreds of times, and the stallholders knew it, and they also knew what their appearance meant. Fai wandered from stall to stall, sniffing the merchandise and giving Yuui quizzical looks.
"Don't even think about it, kid," said the expansive woman behind a stall selling fried and breaded poultry.
"Fuck off, thieves," said the bald man selling hot meat pies.
"I'm watching you two," growled the tall woman selling fresh fruit that didn't look quite so fresh this late at night.
"What did you swipe?" Fai asked as they rounded the corner, and Yuui's eyes flitted above them to the air; Fai held out a hand and a pie landed in it neatly. He grinned triumphantly, tossing it from palm to palm as it cooled. "You're getting really good at the fine control," he said proudly, and Yuui flushed with pleasure at his praise.
They ate the stolen goods together over the river, sitting on the edge of the bridge. The water below them was so dark it was invisible, only the lights of the barges that still floated atop the water giving it definition. The food was hot and sweet in Yuui's mouth, and soothed the rumbling ache of his stomach.
"I don't want to go home," Yuui said abruptly, and Fai glanced at him sharply. "I'm tired, Fai."
"There's a bed back home," Fai pointed out, and Yuui shook his head, unable to articulate what he meant: that he was tired of doing this, of being cold and hungry and scared most of the time. He was nine years old. He saw other nine-year-olds around, occasionally, during the weekend when they weren't in school, and none of them seemed to have lives like his and Fai's. "We can't stay here," Fai said gently, still misunderstanding. "We're getting too big to share a doorway now."
"We're getting too big to share the sofa at home, but we do," Yuui said, and Fai breathed out. Suddenly Yuui was sorry he'd brought it up; it wasn't Fai's fault they were getting too old to beg for food by pulling the waif act on the storekeepers, it wasn't Fai's fault they were outgrowing the sofa they had shared in their natty one-bed apartment since they were born, and Fai couldn't change it. "I'm sorry," he said, and Fai took his hand again, the simple reminder of his presence that normally made Yuui feel better.
"I love you," he said, simple and unreserved, and Yuui turned and buried his face in Fai's shoulder. That at least made him feel better.
At twenty-standard years old Yuui Flowright wasn't a child by anyone's standards any more; not to drive, not to drink, not to carry a gun. He reminded himself of this sharply as he approached the military base, his heart thumping so hard that he wasn't sure he'd be able to talk past it. This was no backend posting with a token security force, but instead the primary military R&D headquarters of Eurasia's Sector Seven, Earth government. It was locked tight and fiercely guarded around the clock, with some of the best defense systems ever developed.
He'd have to be insane to think of trying to break in. But someone had to do it, and if it wasn't him, who else would?
The guard in the security booth slid his window down when Yuui approached, eyeing him distrustfully; pedestrians very rarely ventured this way. "Government property," he said. "ID or no entry."
"I know," Yuui replied, smiling, and handed over the thin slip of plastic, crowding up close to the booth. The air was cold here, and he wrapped his trench coat around him and held it close with one arm across his chest, his fingers digging into his bicep. The guard gave him a final once over before lifting the ID card to his face and turning his gaze to it; he narrowed his eyes to better decipher the text, at which point Yuui mentally slid his blaster out of its holster and shot him in the throat.
He felt only marginally guilty. Military training at its finest.
He'd taken the cameras out before entry, of course, shattering the lenses with stray flicks of his gift, and although he could have ripped up the steel barrier blocking the road with his mind he preferred not to when the button was right there. He leaned through the window as the guard gurgled and choked and died, grabbing the blaster out of the air as he did so, and rammed the butt of the weapon against the gate release button; the obstruction hissed as it retracted smoothly into the wall.
Yuui's fingers flexed around the blaster barrel, and he could feel the adrenaline, antsy tingles in his fingers and toes. He took a deep breath to ground himself, just the one, and then he was moving, loping through the exposed entrance into the heart of the facility itself.
He'd memorized a map of the place before he came, how could he do anything else? He knew exactly how many guards there were, exactly where the cameras were and where each stainless steel corridor led. He knew where his target was. He knew that the complex had been built to withstand everything from a nuclear strike to a biological agent and still keep its inmates safe.
And he also knew he could be in and out in under an hour.
The blaster was a government model, mass-produced and utilitarian; he had three of his own flash grenades to go with it, but they were cheap and unreliable. He'd wanted to keep most of his illegally-earned cash for emergencies, and besides, he'd always known his mind was his strongest asset.
Yuui followed the spiraling corridors, designed to bend and twist back on themselves, and when he encountered humans he killed them. There wasn't much blood; the plasma bolts from the blaster sealed wounds shut even as it made them, but the scent of cooking flesh never would be an appetizing one.
He used up his first flash grenade on the room designated as a break room, ripping the door open with his telekinesis and tossing the small hallucinogenic device in while the inhabitants began to cry out, and when the blinding light went off three seconds later he was prepared. He followed it in, ending the men and women inside quickly and cleanly, one shot each to the head. He was no torturer, not like their employers.
As he went on he found some of his anger beginning to bleed through, and he became rougher and rougher with the complex itself; he tore down a door with such force it hit the steel wall of the corridor and wedged itself there, three tons of metal impaled clean through the wall. Men and women ran to meet him and he threw them across the room too, pinning them there with his teeth gritted not with effort but with rage. His instructors had warned him of this, but it seemed distant and irrelevant, everything they had said drowned out by what they had done.
It was nothing to him to 'catch' the guards' plasma bolts in midair, or redirect them. Their shocked pale faces when they realized what they were dealing with would haunt him later in nightmares, but he had known this going in, and he killed them just the same. He had to.
Someone was waiting for him.
It took him thirty-five minutes to find the room he was looking for, the door barred on the outside and marked with a circular peephole and the words 'Lab 3' stuck just underneath it. His heart hammered as he pressed his palm against the surface, and then he closed his eyes and pushed and the door took its frame and some of the wall with it when it fell inward. It landed with a boom that seemed to shake the floor, and the air was filled with dust and the scent of old fear.
His free hand, the one not curled loosely around the blaster, curled into a fist as he looked within, at the shining glint of tools strewn across spotless surfaces, the hum of computers, the things left lying sharp and dormant next to surgical gloves and swabs. Nobody was inside. The great glass wall that neatly bisected the room in two had shattered inward with the impact of the door, but the figure curled in the corner hadn't so much as stirred.
As Yuui looked at him - bent, hurt, thin, frail, stick-like arms wrapped around fragile knees - and his heartbeat picked up even as his palms prickled in anger. Without conscious effort the shards of glass littered across the floor began to vibrate, the cruel sharp implements began to quiver to attention; one of the great strip lights marching across the ceiling exploded, more glass shards raining, harmlessly, to the floor. He forced himself to stop it by breathing out and pushing his power away, forcing it back down. He coaxed a smile to his face, one that felt rusted and alien, and stepped inside; he shoved as he did so and the glass slithered out of the way, clearing a path.
He tossed the blaster aside with disdain; he didn't need it now. He crouched down, opposite the pale wasted figure, and resisted the urge to touch. Instead he rested his hands lightly on his knees and said, in the strange half-formed tongue they had made up in their youth, "Hey, you. It's me."
The emaciated creature twitched and stirred, one blue eye looking at him from behind his curtain of tangled hair, and Yuui reached out now, brushing it aside. "It's me," he said again, gently. "Fai."
His twin's lips formed, shaping his name with no sound, and Yuui gently held out a hand, palm up. Fai only looked at it for ten seconds before uncurling one arm from around his knees; instead of taking the hand straight away he touched Yuui's inner elbow, a lost, dazed expression on his face, and then ran his fingers up like a blind man, following the seams of Yuui's coat to his throat and chin and then his face. Yuui didn't blink as Fai traced his lips with the pad of his thumb, the sweep of his cheekbones, the line of his eyebrow. He still didn't hear anything in the way of pursuit.
Fai breathed out shakily, and said in a halting, lost voice, "Sector sixty nine point two zero. Four billion and eight and and and sixty nine point two zero. The colors aren't - I thought I saw - I - I - Sector - I -"
Without thinking Yuui captured his twin's palm, tangling their fingers together, and lifted it to press his lips to Fai's wrist, the pale skin and purple threads of veins so different from the last time they had seen each other. Fai's pupils were a little distorted; his bare wrist was dotted with needle marks. His eyes looked puffy, as though he has been crying recently, and the bags underneath them made him look racoonish in the harsh cell lighting. "Ssssh," he said, and Fai did, staring at him with a wild-eyed pleading expression. His throat worked and Yuui pulled, gently. "Shall we get out of here?" he said.
"Four billion and eight and I - Yuui, please," Fai said.
Yuui slid his coat off and wrapped it around Fai's shoulders; Fai was wearing a flimsy hospital-style gown and he shivered helplessly as Yuui helped him into the sleeves, but it seemed more fear than cold. His bare feet were very pink against the shiny gray floor; Yuui went to give him his boots, too, but Fai danced away and Yuui had to push the glass away from the area he moved into. "Fai -"
"No," Fai said, although he was shaking. "I. I need to feel. The ground. Underneath." He wriggled his toes as if for emphasis, and Yuui just nodded. He didn't think he could speak around the lump in his throat anyway.
"Let's go," he said, turning away, and Fai came to him then and pressed close against his side, his forehead bent and touched to the dip of Yuui's shoulder, and fingers buried in Yuui's clothing.
"Please don't let go," he said in a small voice. "It hurts less," and Yuui took his hand and squeezed it, and despite his best efforts there were tears in his eyes, blurring his vision, clouding the world. He had never coped well with Fai being sick.
"I'm here," he whispered, "I'm not going away. I swear, Fai."
"That's - the stars go away when you reach a velocity of - the angle of entry determines the exit velocity and I. I need to get away," Fai said, and his voice was high and breathy, frightened. Yuui nodded slowly, reminded of all that time ago, Fai sick and pale in the hospital bed, his fingers hooked in Yuui's.
"Come on," he said, pulling lightly at his twin's hand, and breathed a sigh of relief when Fai began to move, his bare feet leaving hesitant stumbling footprints in the dust. They had a long way to go, but Yuui squeezed his twin's fingers, pressed against his side.
They didn't see any more guards on their escape, but he stayed by Fai all the way out, supporting his twin toward daylight as he had all his life, and only hoped he could do more.
chapter 2 →
-tbc