Part 6

Wufei eased the door to their safehouse open just enough to allow himself to slip through and closed it behind him noiselessly. He stole across the entranceway, headed for the bathroom. His shirt had stuck to his back as the blood dried, and since the skin and muscle of his back still hadn't figured out that it was healed, he wasn't looking forward to peeling his clothes off.

*The shower will make it worth it, though,* he thought, repressing a shudder as he thought of what he'd let that man *do* to him.

No matter.

He reached the hallway and had his hand on the knob to the bathroom door when a soft sound reached his ears. He turned slowly, and caught sight of Heero slipping out of his room and turning in the direction of Duo's door. Even in the almost pitch-blackness, Wufei's hypersensitive vision allowed him to see the malevolent expression of anticipation on Heero's face before the pilot turned away.

Wufei removed his hand from the knob and moved over to Heero. Though the other pilot was a good 30 feet down the hall, Wufei was behind him in an instant, his hand coming down to rest on Heero's shoulder.

Heero gave a surprised yelp and whirled, his cobalt eyes almost bugging out in shock.

"W-Wufei!" he stuttered, then he blinked rapidly, trying to regain his composure. Within moments, his usual inscrutable mask was back in place. "I didn't hear you."

"That was on purpose," Wufei said quietly.

Heero's nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. "You smell like blood."

"Very good," Wufei replied, smiling sardonically. "Should I give you a prize?" He took a step back and turned slowly in a circle, raising his arms sinuously above his head. The crop-top raised up with the motion and came unglued from his back with a sickening sucking sound. Heero made a sound, low in his throat.

When Wufei had turned to face him again, he dropped his arms and cocked his head. "Well, Heero, just where were you going, tonight?"

There was a long pause. Wufei could practically see the wheels turning as Heero tried to decide what to say. Finally, he seemed to decide that the truth would be safest. "I was going to Duo's room," he said defiantly.

Wufei tut-tutted, then the sarcasm drained away. "Heero, you promised," he said seriously. "Am I going to have to send you away?"

"Send me away?" Heero echoed, his eyes widening.

Wufei took a step back towards him, so close they were almost touching. "If I can't trust you to stay away from Duo, then I'll have to send you away. You'll be alone, without even me to keep you company. You don't want that, do you?"

Heero's face twisted with anger. "But-" he began, but was silenced by Wufei's fingers on his lips.

"Shhhhh," Wufei admonished. "Come this way." He grabbed Heero's forearm and walked back to Heero's room. He heard Heero gasp in shock and pain as his fingers closed over the other pilot's arm and he let up on the pressure. *I guess I don't know my own strength,* he reflected idly. He pushed Heero's door open with his free arm and dragged him inside, then released him to close the door.

When Wufei turned to look at him again, Heero was examining a livid bruise that was already forming on his arm. Wufei could see the indentations of his fingers, outlined in angry red, where he'd touched him.

"You're stronger than I am," Heero observed.

"Sometimes," Wufei replied. "Now, what were you going to say?"

Heero dropped his arm and met Wufei's eyes, anger flaring on his face again. "I was going to say," he said. "That you also promised to return, and you never did!"

Wufei was unmoved. "I told you I'd come back when *I* felt like it. What makes you think I've felt like sleeping with you any time in the last few months."

"What kind of an incentive is that?" Heero growled.

Wufei shrugged. "You seemed to like it well enough at the time."

"I would never have agreed to something like that!"

The Chinese pilot had been leaning casually against the door while they argued. Now he levered himself straight again and began walking slowly towards Heero, who began retreating from him as though unable to stop himself. "Begin Program, Heero Two," he said clearly, and, ignoring the look of confusion on Heero's face, he grinned ferally, feeling his canines lengthen and teeth sharpen. He continued to move forward, altering his stride to a glide as his muscles and bones shifted and realigned. "It seems you've forgotten why you agreed to it, Heero. It seems I *have* been lax in my duty."

Duo was startled awake by the sound of a strangled yelp just outside his door. *What the hell was that?* he thought, his heart pounding. He leapt out of bed and pressed his ear to the door.

Though he strained to hear, all he could make out was that there were two voices, and one of them was Heero's. The liquid silver tones of the other was unrecognizable, which, Duo had to admit, could mean the other speaker was Wufei.

When the voices suddenly fell silent, and Duo heard the faint sounds of a door opening and closing, he straightened and glared at the door as though it was its fault that he didn't know what was going on.

*If that's Wufei, then Heero probably just went to his own room,* he thought. *He always stays out of Wu's way. And if it's not Wufei, then it's none of my business. It's better just to wait here for Wu to get back,* he decided.

Then the first scream split the air.

Before he'd even consciously decided to investigate, Duo found himself standing outside of Heero's bedroom door, his hand on the knob. The Japanese pilot screamed again, his voice breaking at the end.

*God, what is going on?!*

*Even if it *is* Heero, he doesn't deserve *this*!* he thought, then threw open the door before he could change his mind.

Duo stared at the scene for a few moments, his jaw slack, as his mind refused to process what he was seeing.

Wufei's head raised up from where it had been buried at the nape of Heero's neck and swivelled to look at Duo. Sharp teeth protruded from his mouth and a mixture of blood and spittle dripped slowly from his chin. Both boys were naked and Heero was bent over the edge of his bed, Wufei's cock buried inside him to the hilt. Blood ran in rivulets from a deep slash in the hard muscle where his neck met his shoulder.

As Duo stood, still unable to move, Heero moaned. "No....don't stop."

The added horror of Duo's realization that Heero had actually been *enjoying* this finally cut through his paralysis. "Wu! What are you doing?" he asked, feeling stupid, but unable to think of anything else to say.

The teeth in Wufei's mouth shrank and reformed back to normal in moments. "Protecting you," the Chinese pilot said in a small voice. He withdrew from Heero, who crawled onto the bed to curl up in a shuddering ball, and edged meekly towards Duo. "I'm sorry if you're mad, Duo. I didn't want to tell you, but it's okay, see? Heero enjoyed himself, and I'm fine, and it worked, didn't it?"

Duo felt a weight of sorrow settle on him and he fought hard against the tears filling his eyes. "Oh, Wufei..."

"D-Duo?" Wufei questioned hopefully.

Duo held his hand out and Wufei took it gratefully. "Come on," he said sadly. "Let's get you cleaned up." They exited Heero's bedroom and headed for the bathroom, still holding hands. *It's because of his programming. It's all he knows how to do,* Duo thought to himself. *And he isn't just becoming distant from me, he's forgetting all of the things he used to know about how to act. This programming is taking him over.*

*I've got to do something about this, but I don't know what!*

In Wufei's bedroom, the beeping of a pager began to sound from deep within his desk drawer.

At a light tap at his window, Treize looked up from the book he'd been reading to see a dark form crouching low on the veranda. He put down the book and crossed the room.

"Dragon, what are you-" he began as he opened the French doors, then cut himself off as he realized who his guest was. "Oh, Duo. I'm sorry, I was expecting Wufei."

"He's asleep," Duo said quietly, straightening up and entering the room at Treize's gesture. "At least, I hope he is."

"There's something wrong?" Treize said, not quite a question. Duo nodded.

"I, uh, don't suppose you've found anything else out, have you?" he questioned hopefully.

Treize sighed and lowered himself back into the armchair. "Actually, that's one of the reasons why I paged you. I managed to get a few of my people into L5 about a month ago, and they just recently returned with the information I had requested." At Duo's betrayed and angry glare, he held up a hand. "Just a minute, before you get upset. They didn't know why I was looking for that information, and I was careful to ask only for things I thought would be reasonable for me to want to know about a Gundam pilot. Unfortunately, that may mean that I've limited my usefulness to Wufei, but I judged it important to keep his privacy."

Duo nodded and swallowed convulsively, then sat down in the other armchair "All right, that's fine. Gomen."

Treize smiled. "Quite all right. Now, as to what they discovered. They managed to locate Wufei's birth records and quite a bit of information about his education and recent life. He was born in a crèche, as most of the young people of rank are on L5. When he was 7 years old, he was put into the care of Laoshi O, one of the professors who worked on TallGeese, and, I'm assuming, the scientist who built Wufei's Gundam." He paused. Duo glared at him, then, reluctantly, nodded confirmation. Treize took a breath and continued. "He was extensively trained in martial arts, terrorism, and piloting, and married at the age of 14." Duo started at this, but Treize didn't pause in his narration. "Chang Meiran died in a Federation action shortly before the completion of ShenLong Gundam and Wufei was sent to Earth in Operation: Meteor, without the partner that had been planned for him. That's all they were able to discover."

Duo let out a long breath. "'That's all?' That's a hell of a lot more than *I* know about him! I didn't know Wu'd been *married*!"

Treize chuckled. "Believe me, that came as quite a shock to me as well."

Duo laughed. "I'll bet!" Then a thought occurred to him and he sobered. "Hey, wait a minute. You said he got together with Laoshi O when he was 7, but what happened before that?"

Treize shrugged. "I'm sorry, Duo, I don't know. I would assume that that is when most of his programming occurred, since he would have been young and impressionable. The crèche he was born in was somewhat unusual, in that it was owned by a private company - one of the few with ties outside of L5, but there's no hint of what sort of genetic manipulation was done to his fetus, nor where he went after birth. His parents were unremarkable, and didn't have ties to the company, and I have no information that there was a search performed after he disappeared from the crèche. It's very odd."

"What was the private company?"

Treize pursed his lips, thinking. "I believe it was the Barton Foundation, actually," he said slowly, then started in surprise at Duo's gasp. "What is it?"

"Barton! But they, uh," he stumbled to a halt, suddenly remembering who he was talking to. "Oh shit, why do you have to be Treize, anyway!" he said, throwing his hands up in frustration and jumping up to pace.

Treize watched his frantic motion with frustration he was unable to hide. "Duo, if it will help, I don't intend to use anything I learn here against you. This is for Wufei."

Duo glared at him. "You can't promise that. What if something happens and it would mean hundreds of lives if you knew. You can't promise not to use that information. Wufei doesn't mean that much to you. He can't!"

Treize sighed. "I understand. I'm sure it doesn't matter if you tell me this information, anyway. If you know, and that helps Wufei, that's enough for me."

Duo flopped back down into the chair. "Damnit, I want to tell you everything, believe me, but I think it's classified."

"It's all right," Treize soothed. "Let's turn our attention to something else for now. Why don't you tell me what's happened that has you so agitated?"

Duo groaned and raked his hands through his unruly bangs. "It's Wufei. A little while ago, he got some kind of coded transmission. I don't know what it was, but he's been acting...weird...ever since. He keeps being sent on these missions that he won't tell me about and he comes back covered in blood, and-" he cut himself off at Treize's indrawn breath. "What?"

"So it *was* Wufei," Treize said, mostly to himself. He mentally shook himself and met Duo's indigo eyes. "Someone has been slaughtering Romafellers and people who are closely associated with the Romafeller Foundation. The person has been getting them alone, usually in hotel rooms, and kills them in fairly horrific ways. I heard shortly before you arrived that the secretary of one of the Romafellers was found in a hotel room, with his throat torn out. He had obviously been engaged in some sort of sexual activity, but no one remembers seeing him enter the hotel, let alone saw who he was with."

Duo swore. "That jives with what I've seen of Wufei." He thought for a moment, then looked up. "Hey, could it be that the people Wu's killed are enemies of the Barton Foundation? Can we find that out?"

"It would take a few days to gather that kind of intelligence, but it would be possible."

"OK, you find that out, and let me know what you learn. I'll do my best to keep Wufei stable in the mean time, and I'll try to trace those transmissions. Maybe if we can find out who had been sending them, we can find out how to stop them, and even repair the damage-" He was cut off as the doors from Treize's veranda opened and Wufei slunk into the room, a look of horrible guilt on his face.

"T-Treize, Duo, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to listen."

"Wufei!" Duo exclaimed. "I thought you were asleep, what are you doing?"

Wufei ducked his head and stared at the floor between his feet. "I, uh, followed you, Duo. You didn't think you could leave without me noticing, did you?" Duo let out a strangled chuckle.

"I guess not."

Treize crossed the room swiftly and gathered Wufei into a hug. "Dragon," he said. "Don't worry, I don't mind that you listened. Are you all right?"

"You were right, Treize," Wufei said, his voice muffled from his face being pressed against Treize's chest. "I did kill those people. But I don't know who told me to do it, or why. I always just remember going into the room where the computer is, and then the next thing I know I'm standing over someone's dead body." He pushed Treize away, and the larger man stumbled a bit before regaining his balance. Wufei didn't miss it and a stricken expression crossed his face as he reached out to help his lover. "I'm sorry, Treize!" he exclaimed. "I can't control it! I'm too strong, and too fast, I don't know my own abilities, and I can't stop it!"

"Wu, why didn't you tell me?" Duo asked miserably. "I might have been able to help you before it got to this point."

"I, I didn't want you to worry," Wufei said lamely. "When I'm between missions, it's hard for me to think about them. It hurts," he said, wincing and raising a hand to his head even as he spoke. "It even hurts now, but I *have* to tell you. And when I'm on missions, I'm not myself. I forget that I love you, I forget everything, except what I have to do. I'm sorry."

Treize was sitting in his armchair again, and he gestured for Wufei to come over to him. "Dragon, come here, sit on my lap. I'm not going to let this happen to you again."

Wufei approached obediently and sat, wrapping his arms around Treize's neck and burying his face in his ginger hair. Duo regarded the touching scene with trepidation.

"What are you going to do?"

"*We* are going to try to combat some of this programming, with programming of our own." Treize replied, emphasizing the first word. "I'm not going to let this bastard have Wufei anymore."

Duo looked doubtful. "I dunno if that's the best solution. Maybe you don't feel the way I do, but I think it's wrong to fuck Wufei up any more than he already is, to try to help him. We're just going to make things worse."

"It's all right, Duo," Wufei said peacefully without looking up. "You and Treize wouldn't do anything to hurt me."

"Not on purpose," Duo retorted.

Treize raised a calming hand. "I'm not proposing anything too deep, just to try to make it easier for Wufei to resist the commands he's given through these transmissions, and to help him to tell us if something goes wrong."

Duo frowned. "What if that just creates some kind of conflict and makes things worse."

Wufei raised his head, a defiant fire burning in his dark eyes. "Your commands *will* supersede his," he pronounced. "I just know it. I hate him, and I love you. You have greater authority."

Duo sighed. "All right, fine. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it. I just hope it works."

Wufei looked up as Trowa emerged from the room with the mission computer and nodded towards him.

"Wufei, another transmission has come through for you," he said. The Chinese pilot exchanged a glance with Duo, who gave him a wan smile. It had been three days since he and Treize had altered his programming, and it was now finally to be put to the test.

"Arigatou, Trowa," Wufei replied, heading for the room. As they passed each other, Wufei sensed Trowa's concern and suspicion like a black cloud around the boy. If all of this went on much longer, they would have to tell the other two Gundam Pilots. They had been keeping Quatre and Trowa in the dark too long, and they were beginning to suspect something was strange about these transmissions.

Then again, hopefully, in a few minutes, it wouldn't matter anymore.

He closed the door to the room and stood for a moment, breathing the stiflingly close air and centring himself. He pushed the terror aside and pictured Duo and Treize's faces strongly.

*My loves, keep me safe, please,* he prayed silently, then sat in the chair in front of the computer, pressing the button to accept the transmission.

Numbers and random characters scrolled across the screen, and Wufei fought their mesmerizing effect with everything he had. Something was in his mind, like a demon with sharp scrabbling claws, trying to pull him down into the darkness. Pain knifed through his head and he threw his head back, his mouth opened in a soundless scream. The arms of the chair broke simultaneously with a crack like a gunshot, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen.

Then the symbols resolved into the picture of a slender, red-haired man, and the pain abruptly ceased as though a switch had been flipped. Wufei stared at the man, his breathing heavy and rapid, his eyes stinging as sweat ran in rivulets down his face. The man's benign expression twisted into a look of concern.

"Wufei, what is wrong?" he asked. "Are you injured?"

"Yes," Wufei hissed. "You injured me."

The man's eyes widened in shock. "A-activate program Barton Alpha Double Oh Niner!" he snapped, though his composure was clearly shaken.

Wufei closed his eyes as pain stabbed through him again. In his mind, repeating like a litany, the voices of Duo and Treize echoed. He couldn't understand what they said, but the sound buffered him from the darkness. A moment later, as the agony diminished, he opened his eyes and met the dark blue eyes of his nemesis.

"Fuck. You. Barton," he said through gritted teeth.

The man let out a strangled sound. "You are disobeying me! You can't do that, I *own* you!" He made a movement of his hand outside of the field of the screen as though pressing a button. A howling shriek issued from the computer's speakers and dinned in Wufei's ears, even as the nonsense characters captured his eyes again. Wufei howled in agony, and even as his consciousness surrendered, he heard the man's voice speaking again.

"Activate emergency program two seven seven zero! Return to L5 for reprogramming!"

*I'm sorry, Duo, Trieze, I failed.*

Duo nearly leapt over the kitchen table in his haste to get to the door of the computer room as he heard Wufei begin to scream. He slammed his shoulder into the door as he turned the knob, flinging himself into the room.

Wufei sat in the chair in front of the computer screen, his eyes rolled up in his head, unconscious, but still screaming. Duo took one look at the characters streaming across the screen and smashed the button to switch off the monitor. It died with a final flash and click, but Wufei's screams didn't diminish.

Half-blinded by a film of tears, Duo drew his gun and fired into the computer tower. He continued to fire, pulling the trigger over and over until it clicked empty, totally unaware that he was screaming almost as loudly as Wufei.

He was jolted back to himself as Quatre spun him around and shook him violently, shouting into his face. "Duo! It's okay! Stop!!"

Duo blinked and slowly became aware that even the whirr of the computer equipment had ceased. Wufei sagged in Trowa's arms, his face now slack, rather than twisted in agony. He glanced behind him and saw the sparking ruin that the computer had become. Heero stood just outside the doorway, a look of blank shock and dismay on his face.

"Uh, sorry Heero," Duo mumbled. "I'll buy you a new one, okay?"

Heero's eyes grew cold. "Don't bother. I have another one."

"Duo," Quatre said worriedly. "What happened? Is Wufei going to be all right?"

Duo shook his head. "I dunno. Let's put him to bed and see what happens when he wakes up, I guess."

"Uh, all right, Duo," Quatre replied.

Their procession of five trouped down the hallway towards Wufei's room. Heero disappeared into his room and reappeared seconds later with his laptop, then headed for the mission room to hook it up. Trowa carried the unconscious Wufei as though he weighed nothing, and Quatre tried to be nonchalant about holding Duo's elbow. Duo's whole body was beginning to shake in reaction, and he was secretly grateful to the other two pilots, both for helping, and for not asking questions.

Trowa laid Wufei on his bed and Duo curled up next to him, his arm wrapping around the other pilot and clutching at him convulsively.

"Duo," Quatre began tentatively. "If there's anything you need, please let us know."

"Thanks, Quatre," Duo said quietly. "For everything."

There was an awkward pause, then Trowa gently drew Quatre out of the room, closing the door with a soft click. Duo buried his face against Wufei's shoulder and did something he had never done.

He prayed.

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