waiting room
Federation Special Ops central command looked about like you would expect it to: immaculate, gleaming white corridors, lined with businesslike unmarked doors, and not a single person in sight. All busy, Nigredo imagined -- or else kept deliberately away, either for his and Rubedo's sake or the soldiers' own. There had been a young, secretarial man balancing a stack of files and paperwork at one distant end of the hallway some time earlier, and a pair of women had emerged from an airlock door and passed not long after that, chatting, the light darting off the myriad decorations on their uniforms, one of them noticing the two boys not-quite-hidden in the office's front alcove and smiling at Nigredo briefly so the tattoos along her cheekbones crinkled; but they had come and gone, and now the hall was silent except for the occasional muted sounds of a deep voice from behind the door they faced, and the distant whoosh of pneumatics and clattering of keys somewhere in other places.
They sat on a curving bench backed into the curving wall, Rubedo sprawled on Nigredo's shoulder so deeply he had almost slipped down to his chest, sound asleep with both Nigredo's arms curled around him. His breath was much nearer and more present than any of the peripheral office noise, coming in shallow regular waves into the shoulder of Nigredo's outsized, borrowed shirt. He'd been fidgeting and tense at first, staring around the command headquarters a little more wild-eyed than Nigredo would have liked, but no sooner had he gotten Rubedo to sit still for a minute or two than he'd dropped right off. It was no surprise, not really; Rubedo hadn't really slept the night before, or much of the whole week previous, Nigredo suspected. He'd been sedated before and couldn't know, but it had been the same the last two nights, Rubedo sobbing in the dark in huge, strangling, whooping gasps, and he had no reason to think it was anything new -- apart from the addition of himself, clambering up by the steel railings of his hospital bed, murmuring bleary comfort and missing the ability to do it without all the clumsiness of tongue and teeth and stringing words together, although he never would have said so. I was the leader, I was the leader, was what he could make out of what Rubedo couldn't stop choking, what was caught in Rubedo's throat as he hunched over doubled, his hands fisted in the sheet, his forehead just resting on the point where Nigredo's sprawling legs crossed at the shins, and he had rested his hand on Rubedo's hair and tried, tried.
Albedo might have known what to do, he had caught himself thinking, and the terrible misery had settled on him again like a stone, a weight he could only double by sharing, because right now they couldn't share it, not like they had, not like they should. There was no point anyway. If Albedo had been there, Rubedo wouldn't need to be calmed down in the first place.
The problem was, Rubedo had been. That much went without saying. Nigredo couldn't be the leader, not even with Rubedo so hurt and lost and maybe really needing it. It wasn't his directive. He didn't think he could even if it weren't for --
Well.
They'd ended up curled into the bed together, face to face like always, Rubedo's back now strangely unprotected. He was so vulnerable without Albedo, Nigredo thought -- something you would never expect, looking at the two of them, but once it became clear it seemed so obvious. You would think Albedo needed Rubedo more, was less able to manage without Rubedo, and maybe you were right; but then when you actually pulled them apart... Of course, on the other hand, who knew how Albedo was doing? More than possible he really was dead, regeneration or no, although that was the last thing Nigredo would ever say, and not just for the obvious reasons. More than possible, more than likely, and maybe more than could be reasonably expected. He'd never thought he would find himself hoping that he'd carried out his mission on one of his brothers, but for all his numbed horror he couldn't think of anything better to hope. That thing at the end, it hadn't even been Albedo. Not really.
He should have been the one to get away with you, Nigredo had let himself think, just that once, as they sat on the bed in the dark and Rubedo cried like he'd never stop. Secure in the knowledge that there was no way Rubedo could hear him do it, now. I should have been the one it got, and he should have been the one you saved. You would have been fine if it had been him.
Maybe. But it wasn't worth dwelling on. It was Nigredo and Rubedo who had escaped, Nigredo and Rubedo who had slept facing each other in a military hospital bed, Nigredo and Rubedo who each had to bear up alone under their respective and private unbearable knowledge, that not even death had been kind enough to come and spare them. Nigredo and Rubedo to whom the nurse had brought the Special Ops soldier this morning, who had told them he was there to escort them to central command to speak to Lieutenant General Helmer, just as soon as they were ready.
Rubedo's head dipped on a long exhale, and Nigredo shifted, pulling dead weight back up his shoulder as best he could. He was still a little sore, here and there.
The door hissed open, and Helmer stepped out. Nigredo thought Rubedo'd said they'd been taken to him first after being rescued, but he couldn't remember it -- just a long darkness lanced with pain and weight -- and he had only taken the slightest note the time the Lieutenant General had come to observe at the Institute. He stood now with his hands linked behind his back, his beret at a slight cocked angle, surveying the two of them with no smile, but a look of interest warm enough to make up for the lack. Nigredo looked back at him for a moment, then turned to his brother, giving the circle of his arms a gentle shake.
"Rubedo. Wake up."
"'M awake," Rubedo protested into Nigredo's shoulder, before even opening his eyes. He scrubbed his palm across them as he sat upright, and then looked up at Helmer blankly from the circle of Nigredo's arms, until a few seconds passed and his whole face started to take on a tight, narrow look. Nigredo looked up too. He could imagine how they must look to Helmer: two caught, startled animals, huddled together, maybe too ready to bite.
"Hello, boys," Lieutenant General Helmer said at last, and now he did smile; only slightly. He looked tired himself. "Sorry to keep you waiting. It's good to see you again." He gestured behind him, without ever looking away from them. "Please, come in. We need to talk."
His office wasn't quite cramped, but neither was it large; the rear wall was a window until about a foot above the floor, which helped add a sense of space, but all of it was subtracted again by the massive desk covered in paper, the cluster of wheeled office chairs in front of it, the large tables along every available wall covered with maps, handheld displays, one towering coffee thermos with a bit of a leak, sprawled over their tops. At one corner of the desk a digital frame cycled through its projections: one of a group of people on a green lawn, a family from old to young, laughing, Helmer in their midst with arms around two pairs of shoulders and in civilian dress, and reflected to some degree in most of their faces; another where a much younger Helmer -- probably less than a decade older than he and Rubedo were now, Nigredo thought -- grinned in a decoration-studded uniform, shaking the hand of a smiling man in the fancy dress of a Federation official; others, after and in between, of people and places Nigredo didn't know, and didn't expect he ever would. Helmer sat at the desk, and gestured to the chairs across, and they sat down. He didn't like Rubedo's body language, from what he saw out of the corner of his eye. It was too tense, poised, still spoke of biting. He wished he could reach out, calm him, and was at once annoyed with himself. Too much wishing, now. He was getting tired of it.
"What do you want from us?" Rubedo demanded, before Helmer could even say another word -- startling Nigredo, making him look sharply at his brother, then away. "I don't even care, I just want to know the truth. I'm sick of people lying to me." This last came out in a bitter spit, almost to the floor. Nigredo glanced at Helmer, reading the weather; he looked taken aback, but neither offended nor found out, and against his better judgement Nigredo began to foster a dim spark of hope.
"You have my word," Helmer said, after letting the issue stand for consideration over the space of a few seconds. "I'll be nothing but honest with you, Rubedo." He folded his hands on the desk in front of him, lacing their fingers together, leaning forward into them to enclose the two boys into his confidence. "I was the one who gave the order for you boys and your brothers to be retrieved. I won't lie to you: at the time, I made that decision out of a general concern for the safety and welfare of all of Miltia. But your well-being was also a major factor." He paused, and stood again, pacing over to one of the side tables. Nigredo was conscious of Rubedo tensing, and reached out to take his hand without thinking. "I've had... certain humanitarian concerns about Dmitri's -- your Dr. Yuriev's -- work for some time, which given the circumstances I haven't felt at liberty to voice. But I wasn't about to pass up any opportunity to lend you children a hand, especially in such a dangerous situation."
Rubedo made a low, but audible scoffing sound in his teeth -- tch! -- and Nigredo squeezed his hand briefly. It couldn't say all of what he wanted to be able to say (calm down, listen to the rest, I think I like him), but it could say some of it, at least.
"Some people might say we were as much a danger as we were in danger," Nigredo said, quietly. Helmer glanced at him, but Nigredo offered nothing else, and after a moment another half-smile touched Helmer's mouth as he inclined his head.
"That's very true, I'm sorry to say. But I'm not among them." He turned to pace back to the desk, resting his palms on its littered surface. "It's my feeling that you're as much victims of what's happened as is the civilian population of Miltia, and I feel just as personally responsible for seeing to it that you are well compensated, and fully protected."
"Meaning what?" Nigredo asked, before Rubedo had fully managed to open his mouth. His sidelong glance was half-troubled and half-relieved, but Nigredo opted to ignore it for the time being.
"Fair enough. Meaning, I won't let you be sent back to the Institute, and I won't see you stand trial for crimes that were none of your doing, either. That's a promise." Helmer paused, then added, "I'm not sure what I will be able to do for you in the meantime, but part of that's up to the two of you, of course. If you're ready to leave the hospital and you don't have any other plans, I'll take you home with me this evening. You're already on the books as being in my charge -- orphans of a soldier under my command who died on Miltia. There's enough paperwork there to hide you until you decide on some more permanent identities."
"That's very generous of you." Nigredo again, again catching it before Rubedo had a chance, but this time Rubedo didn't look so put out. He was staring at the floor, a little shrunken in on himself, worrying his thumb and forefinger along the base of Nigredo's thumb without looking. Nigredo watched him for a few seconds, then turned back to Helmer. "It seems a little too generous, honestly."
"Ah." Helmer smiled -- a more honest smile this time, chasing back some of the weariness from his face. "Well, I won't lie to you about this, either; the two of you are still very valuable people, from a military and intelligence standpoint. Which is why I brought you here, instead of just having one of my men create some identities for you and turn you loose. I was hoping we could make a deal."
"What do you mean, a deal?" And that was Rubedo, speaking without looking at either of them, with Nigredo's hand still caught in his. "You can make us do anything you want to. I know about that stuff. I know we don't have any rights."
That finally won an expression from Helmer's face that wasn't genial, somewhere on the spectrum of a smile: a darker look, tight in his brows and the corners of his mouth. "You do as far as I'm concerned," he said, with a quiet firmness that made him finally seem something like a soldier, and a great deal more like a friend. "For one thing, I want you to know without a doubt that even if you agree, anything in the future I may ask of you, you always have the right to say no. That means always. I wish more than anything I didn't feel like I actually had to say that to another living sentient being, but some of the things I've seen in this army under Life Recycling..." He shook his head, pressing his mouth closed against itself, and finally sat again. "Suffice it to say, what I'd want from you would mostly amount to some help. I've lost a lot of good men, and U-TIC is still out there. There's a lot to be worked out starting now." He shook his head a little again. "But I'm not about to let you be anyone's property ever again, particularly not mine."
Nigredo nodded. "You want us to promise general cooperation. And in return, you'll make us disappear."
Helmer raised his eyebrows, then smiled slightly. "In a manner of speaking, I suppose, yes."
"What if we say no right now?"
"Then we say goodbye." Helmer spread his hands, then one of them toward the door. "You walk out of here, I arrange for the new identities I mentioned before, and no harm done."
"And I guess either way, that's all completely legal, Lieutenant General?"
Helmer stared at him for another long, dumbstruck moment -- then rocked back in his chair and laughed. It was a rich, pleasant sound, easily filling the spaces between the clutter of his office. "Call me Helmer, Nigredo," he said, when the worst of it had passed, leaning on his desk now with a far more casual air. And Nigredo found himself smiling back, just slightly.
"I think we'll have to consider your offer," he said, and stood up, still holding on to Rubedo's hand. Rubedo, for his part, was openly staring up at Nigredo now, with an expression he couldn't quite read. Startled? Horrified? Baffled? Grateful? "But if you don't mind, we'll come home with you, like you said." He avoided Rubedo's eyes, adding, "Neither of us have been sleeping well in the hospital."
"Of course. I won't ask a commitment from you right away." He glanced between the two of them, then seemed to settle on Nigredo -- Nigredo, always calm against Rubedo's emotion, rational against Albedo's fear and instability, without those humanizing traits that had made the staff at the Institute treat the other variants more like children and him (and Citrine, he suspected, though he tried not to think about that) more like equipment -- or worse, something alien, a cyborg all pieced from metal and recycled meat. And he'd accepted that equably enough, too, but only now did it begin to dawn on him that maybe he didn't have to: maybe whatever job their father had wanted him to do didn't have to be who he was. Maybe, out in this world, the one that wasn't surrounded by walls or Encephalon space, there were advantages to everything, and men like Helmer would even talk to a loaded gun. Maybe especially a loaded gun, if it turned out to know the language they needed -- and maybe he did. Didn't that make a kind of sense, when you thought about it?
Maybe there was more than one kind of leader. And maybe with no Dmitri Yuriev around, you could come up with any directive you wanted to have. Nigredo considered this possibility, and at last decided to treat it the same way as he had already decided, in the painful new privacy of his mind, to treat Helmer's thus-far nebulous deal: with caution, respect, and just a little optimism. Like a spice, to make the rest a bit kinder on the palate.
"Then thank you," Nigredo said.
They spent the rest of the afternoon tucked up in the corner of Helmer's office, out of sight and hopefully out of mind, not really talking but just sitting together and clasping hands and being close enough to touch. Mostly, Nigredo found himself looking out the large window behind Helmer's desk, framing that whole wall of the office. It made the sky seem very wide, and very near.