03 Threshold Fever

Threshold Fever

"Hey, look at this," called Relena. She motioned the group over to a window. Hilde, Duo, Relena and Heero were exploring the outer ring of the station. They had found several small shuttle bays, like the one they had docked in, and several laboratories. Most of the labs looked useless. The majority of the experiments seemed to have been incinerated in special chambers at some point. Others looked like the room they were currently staring at: demolished. Through the reinforced glass plate, the group could see the inside of a lab, but the back wall had been blown outward, sucking the contents into space. The stars twinkled at them through the open metal, and a partial view of the planet was visible. Relena pointed at the view of Earth. "Is that Australia?" she asked.

Duo cocked his head sideways, staring at the sight a moment. "What the heck happened to the planet? It looks like Libra used Australia for skeet shooting." 

Heero shook his head. "Who knows? Maybe it's the aftermath of the New Horizon exploding so close to Earth. Maybe it blew us into an alternate reality. We won't know for sure until we get a complete file downloaded from the station's mainframe." He looked at Duo. "How long did it have left?"

Duo shrugged. "It was passing quite a bit by. Evidently the security encryptions were advanced enough to give our programs hell. It's going to take an active hack to get more than superficial files out of that thing."

Heero scowled. "I know what my next shift will be," he muttered.

"Ooh, guys," Hilde chimed in, "come look at this." Hilde was standing in front of a window and door into another lab marked 'PokeGirl R&D Lab #4'. Everything inside seemed to be intact and the power was evidently still on. It looked like a couple of cryo-tanks were lining the back wall. Their control panels were lit up and seemed to be in working order. At least, nothing looked like it was flashing error or warning messages. Hilde looked at the rest of them. "What do you think? Should we explore it?"

Everyone looked at Heero, waiting for his opinion. Finally, he shrugged and motioned to the door. "Duo, do you think you can pick that panel?" There appeared to be computers in there that were in working order and he hoped that they might finally find something that would explain what 'PokeGirl' meant. They had seen the term several times now, but nothing had been explanatory enough for his liking.

Duo grinned and held up a little black box only slightly smaller than a box of matches. "With this? I think so. I've been working on the cracking program. I've upgraded it about six times since the war and I think I've just about got it as good as it's going to get."

Heero nodded. "Do it." Duo was the best electronics cracker in their group. If he couldn't do it, it generally couldn't be cracked. 

Duo bent down to be eye to eye with the numerical keypad beside the door. The door was actually an airlock of sorts. It had two doors, one inside and one outside. The keypad was on the right side of the outside door. Presumably, you needed a code to get into the room because it was marked research and development. The second door on the inside was marked with a large 'One Minute Please' placard that denoted the need for decontamination. There were no notices about special precautions, so Heero figured whatever was in the lab couldn't be too harmful. Point in fact, he really didn't see any protective equipment in the room either, beyond an odd pair of goggles, so he highly doubted they'd even find anything worth much.

Duo got the black cracker box hooked up to the keypad and hit a button. A red light started blinking slowly. "There," he said, "now we wait."

"What happens if you can't find the right code?" asked Relena.

Duo shook his head. "It's not really a question of finding the right code. It's a question of how many times the security system lets an incorrect code try the system before it locks us out. Given enough time, there's no question we could find the code. That's why there's usually a set number of times the system will let you try it."

Relena arched an eyebrow. "So, what happens if we don't get the correct code quickly enough?"

Duo shrugged. "That depends on the system. Most likely, we'll get locked out for a while. How long depends on the system. I'm betting we can probably try once a day, as most systems will reboot at least once a day. If we really want in and we get locked out, I'll try to bypass the security all together. I just wanted to try getting in this way first because it's easier." He shrugged and gave the girls a cute smile, obviously enjoying the chance to play with one of his toys. It made him seem younger than he was. 

"Hopefully, we won't have to wait that long," said Hilde.

"We won't," said Heero. "We don't have that kind of time. If we can't get into this room by tomorrow, we leave it be. We need everything we can get, but we're not going to waste time coming back to a room we can't access."

Duo cocked his head to the side, thinking."You know, if I tinker with it a little, I can probably put a code cracker together that I can leave here and let it cycle on its own. After it gets a working code, it will stop and retain the code for us."

Heero thought a moment and nodded. "If we can't get in, do it. We'll come back to this room later." 

A minute later, Heero opened his mouth to say something, when the code cracker showed a green light instead of red. Duo smiled as the door slid open. "Great! All that talk was a moot point." He quickly collected the box from the panel and waved the group into the decon chamber, falling in behind them. A moment later, the outer door closed and a yellow light came on to indicate decon had begun. 

"I wonder how long this takes," said Hilde, just before the light turned green and the inner door opened.

Duo chuckled. "Evidently, not long."

The group entered the room and started cautiously looking around. There were the normal things you would expect to see in a lab: tables lined with beakers, computer monitors built into the wall above stations on one side of the room, and cabinets lining the opposite wall from the monitors. Two of the four tables lined up in the middle of the room had the normal lab items on them, but the other two had what Heero found to be highly calibrated microscopes and other items that looked more at home in a bio-engineering lab. It gave Heero the creeps to remember some of the experiments that the scientists had conducted on him and the other pilots. It definitely made Heero wonder what they had been doing in this lab. Heero moved over and opened one of the cabinets and looked at the hooks and shelves lining the inside. There wasn't anything hanging on the side with hooks, but there was a heavy layer of dust lining the bottom of that side. The other half of the cabinet had shelves holding dilapidated boxes. Heero prodded one box with the end of his gun. It literally fell apart, disintegrating into dust. He pulled his head back and waved the dust out of the air in front of his face. "I think I know what happened to all the protective gear."

Duo came over to inspect the cabinet with him. He frowned at the dust swirling around. "Those boxes don't just look dusty, do they?" he asked. Heero shook his head. "Figures," said Duo. "We finally find a lab with working equipment and all the protective gear has mummified."

"Hey, Duo, come look at this," said Hilde. She was standing next to what looked like a chest freezer big enough to hide a body in. It was also hooked up to the same type of hoses and monitoring equipment as the cryotanks. When Duo joined her, Hilde motioned to the top mounted door. "It doesn't appear to be locked. I think we can just open it."

Heero and Relena had also joined the first two at the freezer-like device. Heero looked thoughtful while Relena asked, "Are you sure? We don't even know what's in there and all the protective equipment is in mothballs."

"What does the monitor on the front say?" asked Heero as he set Relena to the side and slightly behind him.

Duo looked at the display as Heero joined him. "It looks like whatever is in this thing is holding steady at 38 degrees Fahrenheit. It's not frozen, just awfully cold."

Heero nodded. "Ok, then we open it, slowly. Hilde, make sure Relena doesn't get closer than ten feet until we're certain what we're dealing with here."

Hilde looked mildly put out, but nodded. "Yes, sir." She turned to Relena. "Why don't we see if we can pull anything up on the monitors over there?" She pointed at the other side of the room. "Maybe we can find something useful."

Relena looked rather annoyed, but finally ground out, "Fine. Whatever you want." She turned on her heel and headed for the nearest monitor, which was about twenty feet away, thankfully.

Duo shook his head. "You better watch it, 'Ro. That look just screams trouble."

Heero nodded. "I know, but I have to look out for her. It's my job. I take it seriously."

Duo looked at his best friend skeptically. "You know, you can lie to yourself all you want to, 'Ro, just don't lie to me." Heero shot Duo a flat eyed glare which didn't faze him a bit. "I mean it. If you don't make a move soon, Relena's gonna do something drastic."

Heero's eyes narrowed sharply. "What do you mean, Duo? I thought we had worked through that slightly unstable phase of her's. Has she done something I should know about?"

Duo shook his head again. "No, nothing like that. But I know she's resisted every attempt Dorothy and Sally have tried to get her to go out with someone else. Sally's actually afraid Relena's going to pine away for you like she did back when you disappeared during that mission you took for six months."

Heero grimaced. He remembered what she was like when he returned. Cold, depressed, she'd reminded him of a slightly darker skinned Dorothy Catalonia. Only without the crazy part. He had no clue how Quatre could've dated Dorothy for a year. He shivered at the memory. He in no way wanted that to happen again. He looked at Duo and did something he rarely even thought of. "What do you suggest?" he asked.

Duo looked surprised, but pleased. "Well, for starters, you could sit down and talk things out with her. See where your relationship with her stands and make it something permanent. I think she'd really like that. Then, just see how things go."

Heero frowned. "We already came to the conclusion that she's not allowed to have a public relationship. Too many people have fits over it. Not to mention all the increased threats she receives. No, public relationships are out while she's in office."

"I don't know if you've noticed, 'Ro, but we're not in Kansas anymore," said Duo. "Either we're in some sort of hell caused by the New Horizon or we're just someplace altogether different. Whichever the case may be, I think her career is all but a moot point right now."

Heero nodded. "I agree. Survival is paramount for the moment. I'll make it a point to talk with her."

Duo smiled. "Good. Just make it soon. That way, Hilde will leave me be!" he chuckled.

"Hey, you two!" growled Hilde, "You're supposed to be working, not goofing off. Get to it!"

Duo chuckled. "Ok, together?" he asked as they both grasped the handle to open the lid.

Heero nodded. "3..2..1..Go." 

They pulled the lid open to have a cold fog roll out of the interior. They both waved the smoke away, trying to get a glimpse of the container's contents. A minute later, the fog had dissipated enough that they could see the interior of the container. It was separated into several different compartments. Each one held different colored, flat stones about the size of a person's palm. Duo was the first to reach into the mist and pull out a somewhat bluish stone with a green leaf embedded into the face and back. Heero reached in and pulled out a white stone with a pair of blue wings emblazoned across it.

"What are these things?" asked Duo.

"They're called Evolution Stones, I think," said Relena from right behind them. It was enough to make Duo jump. 

He narrowed his eyes at her, though it was playfully he said, "You're getting too damn good at that."

Relena just chuckled. "We were able to access one of the computers. Evidently, the computers in here log on to the network to correspond to whomever’s code came through the door. At least, that what Hilde thinks."

Duo nodded. "It makes sense. Nice job," he told Hilde as she came over to join them.

"Thanks, I think," she said. She held up her palm-top computer. "I downloaded a bunch of files on the experiments being conducted in this lab. It will take a while before I can sift through them all."

"I'll help you with that once we get back to base camp," Heero said. He looked at Duo. "Let's take these two stones with us. We can use them as references during our research." Duo nodded and wrapped each stone separately from the other and stored them in his backpack, along with Hilde's palm-top. "Right," said Heero, "Let's move on to the next room. We only have about an hour left before we check in and head back to camp. Let's make the most of that time." Everyone nodded and headed back into the decon chamber. 

After they were in the small decon area, which barely held the four of them comfortably, the door shut again and the yellow light came back on, only this time a screen on the left side of the outer door lit up and asked for a pass code.

"Another one?" asked Relena. "I've never heard of having to have a code to get out of somewhere."

Duo shrugged as he set about hooking up his black box again. "Don't sweat it. Usually codes to get out are the easier ones. It's the getting in that's a pain in the ass. This shouldn't take long." Five minutes later, the look on Duo's face said he wasn't so sure about that anymore.

Another minute later, Relena asked, "Do you guys smell that?"

Duo shot to his feet and pulled his sidearm at the same time as Heero. "I can't crack it. It's in override. It completely shut me out of the terminal."

Heero looked at the two women. "Duck and cover your heads." When Hilde and Relena had turned to face back into the lab and ducked down, Heero and Duo both took aim at the glass on the door and fired three shots a piece into it. Unfortunately, their ammo pinged harmlessly off the glass in little shards of ceramic. "Dammit!" said Heero. "Space safety rounds. They won't go through any of this."

Duo put his gun away and started trying to pry the seals away from the window portion of the door with his combat knife. Heero followed suit to help him. Relena had been watching the inside of the lab while the guys worked and noticed one of the cryo tanks had lit up. She nudged Hilde and pointed at the tank. Hilde looked at it a moment and watched as a phosphorescent liquid began to very slowly seep into one of the hoses. She traced the hose with her eyes and almost stopped breathing. "Guys," she started, "whatever you're doing, do it faster. It's getting harder to breathe in here and something nastier looks like it's about to be pumped in here with us."

Duo took a quick moment to look at the glowing stuff in the tube and re-doubled his efforts on the door and window seals. Heero didn't even look at them, but said, "Relena, I'm sorry, but we need your skirt. Hilde, start cutting strips off of her dress and tie them around your heads to protect your nose and mouth. When you two are covered, let us have a few." Hilde nodded and bent to the task, Relena helping the whole way.

Seconds slipped by as everyone did their jobs. No one interrupted anyone else, until the screen lit up again, this time with the face of a man on it. He looked like a middle-aged, somewhat Asian man. He looked like a scientist, if the lab coat was anything to judge by. He smiled an evil smile as he looked at them all with glee. "First, I think congratulations are in order. If you were good enough to get this far into the station with being caught by one of my security girls, then you are indeed exceptional. Of course, if you've managed to wrest loyalty away from of one of my girls, that deserves a whole new level of kudos. Bravo. Too bad you won't have much time to enjoy it." He chuckled, an evil sound that escaped him. It made the hair of the back of Heero's neck stand on end. 

Duo looked at Heero. "I thought there weren't any other people aboard the station..."

Heero shook his head. "I don't think there are. I think this is a recording from much earlier. We just sprung some kind of trap." Duo's eyes widened and then narrowed as he turned back to the seals again.

An acrid smell assaulted Heero's nose as the man in the recording started to speak again. "I don't know which group sent you, but I can tell you this: You will forever remember the day you crossed paths with Jim Sukebe!" He started chuckling that evil sound again, and Heero idly wondered about the man's state of mental health. "I have to thank you, however, as you will be helping me test one of my newest creations. I call it 'Threshold Fever'. Humanity wants to know so much about my PokeGirls, and you are going to find out far more than you ever wanted." 

Heero had heard enough. He pulled his comm off his belt. "Group One to Basecamp. Come in Basecamp. We've become trapped in a lab and need evac. Over." He waited a second No one came back over the comm. "Group One to Basecamp, come in." Another moment of silence went by. "If anyone can hear us, we're trapped in a lab marked PokeGirl R&D 4." Heero's attention was drawn to the sound of a rustling thud behind him. The acrid smell had grown stronger during the recorded man's diatribe and Relena had finally succumbed to the gas, collapsing against the inner door to the lab. Hilde was kneeling beside her, pulling her head up to rest on her lap. Heero knelt beside her to check Relena's pulse. "She's still breathing," he told the others. "Put another layer of fabric over your mouths." Hilde pulled one of the layers of her uniform over her mouth and nose.

Heero stood back up and went back to helping Duo try to get the door open. No matter how hard they tried, neither of the guys were getting any headway into opening the door. Another minute went by before Heero checked on Hilde. Her body was leaned back against the wall, and her head was slumped sideways, having succumbed to the gas as well. In truth, Heero could feel the gas starting to affect his own senses. His vision was starting to blur. He shook his head hard, trying to clear it of the cobwebs threatening to rob him of consciousness. He dug his knife into the seal of the window again and tried hard to pry a leak into the line of metal. His knife slipped from his grasp as Duo fell into him, knocking him over. Heero looked at Duo's form slumped over on the floor. He couldn't give up. He had to try again. Heero tried to gain his feet again, but his head swam and he ended up looking up at the ceiling as a purple mist started drifting down toward them. The last thought that swam through Heero's mind was, 'I failed them,' before he finally succumbed to the darkness.

~*~

Trowa and WuFei met up in the corridor on the way to the lounge the group had been using for meals. "So, did you find anything of use today?" he asked WuFei.

WuFei made a disgusted sound. "Are you kidding? This place looks like it's been in mothballs for so long, the metal ought to be crumbling. I'm actually surprised we've found as many useful items as we have in the last few days."

Trowa nodded. "All things considered, I think we've done pretty well. We got really lucky when we found that stash of vacuum sealed blankets. It gets cold here at night."

"I know," agreed WuFei. "I just wish we could've found something a little more useful, like a bunch of freeze dried meat. As much as I hate to agree with Duo, living on the rations is like subsisting on cardboard." He glared at Trowa as he heard the European snicker at him. "Don't you dare let Duo know I said that."

"I won't," Trowa said through a snicker. "He'd never believe me anyway."

Five minutes later, WuFei looked at Trowa questioningly. "Have you heard from Heero and the others? Matter of fact, where's Quatre?"

Trowa shrugged and reached for his comm. "Group One, come in." A solid minute went by with no answer. Trowa tried again. "Group One? Heero, come in."

When no one answered this time, WuFei tried his comm. "Heero? Quatre? Is anyone getting this?" He didn't look any more pleased with the silence than Trowa did. He stood up. "Come on. We'll see if we can find Quatre first, then Heero's group. I don't like the fact that we're not getting anyone back over the comm. Even if Heero's group ran into interference, Quatre ought to be picking us up."

Trowa joined him on the way toward their rooms. "I agree. While Quatre has a few quirks, he'd never be late without telling us."

WuFei scowled. "I know. Let's start with his room and then the bathroom. If he's not in either place, then we start worrying." Trowa nodded.

WuFei and Trowa walked up to Quatre's door to find it closed. Nothing new to them. Quatre was notoriously fastidious about being neat. From closing doors to keeping a perfect gig line, whether in uniform or not, nothing was too little to escape his notice. WuFei reached up and knocked loudly on the door to Quatre's room. "Winner! Are you in there?"

Trowa opened the door to stick his head inside. Whatever he had been about to say, died on his lips at the sight before his eyes. Quatre was looking at Trowa through bleary eyes, having dozed off. The part that had Trowa gaping was the blue head resting on the blonde's chest. Trowa couldn't put together more than a questioning look. 

Quatre blinked as he looked at his long time best friend. He had no intention of falling asleep. He could only imagine what this scene must look like. He could hear WuFei's voice outside the door asking Trowa what was wrong. Quatre gave his friend a pleading look. "I know this must look odd. Could you fend off WuFei long enough for us to get presentable?"

Trowa nodded. "Hurry. We haven't heard from Heero yet. We think something's wrong."

Quatre's eyes widened. "We'll be out in five."

As Trowa retreated from the room and closed the door, WuFei looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "Was that his ghost girl in there with him?"

"You seen that?" asked Trowa.

"I caught a glimpse over your shoulder. That mirror on the wall makes for great reflections. Stop changing the subject. That sheet hid very little," said WuFei.

"Well, at least we now know why he didn't answer the comm," said Trowa, a small smile flickering around the edges of his lips.

WuFei huffed. "So help me, if that's the reason the others aren't in contact, I'll wring their horny little necks..."

~*~

Quatre's head flopped back onto his pillow as the door closed. He pinched the bridge of his nose as his mind tried to bring everything into focus.

Pale yellow eyes looked up at Quatre from under blue bangs. "Is everything ok, Master?"

Quatre looked at the beautiful girl perched on his chest. He caressed her cheek. "I don't know. Many of my friends are missing. We need to get up and help find them. Beyond that, I don't have a clue how to explain you to any of them." He uncovered them and shifted her off of him so he could sit up on the side of the bed.

The blue haired girl watched Quatre as he got up and started to quickly wash and dress. She decided to wash and materialize her virtual dress again. "You still haven't given me a name, Master."

Quatre looked up at her from where he was making sure his gig was straight. "I know what you said about why you call me that, but it still doesn't set well with me. As for a name, I think I'll call you Scherazade. She was a woman who saved her own life by telling extraordinary tales to her master. You certainly spin an interesting tale."

She mulled the name over in her mind before nodding. "I think it fits."

~*~

At five minutes exact, the door to Quatre's room opened with the blonde man coming out ahead of the blue haired ghost that had been stalking him for the last several days. Trowa and WuFei looked at each other before looking at Quatre expectantly. Quatre sighed. "I know this looks...interesting, to say the least, but Trowa said we were in a hurry. So, let me introduce you to Scherazade," he motioned to his companion, "and let's ask questions later."

Trowa arched an eyebrow under his bangs, but said, "Alright. Later then. The important thing is we couldn't get in contact with anyone, and the two hour check in came and went fifteen minutes ago."

Quatre's eyebrows drew together. "You can't raise them on the comm?"

WuFei shook his head. "No. We couldn't reach them or you. I don't know if it's just a fluke, or if something is wrong with the comms."

Scherazade piped up from where she'd been hiding behind Quatre's right shoulder. "I shut off Master’s comm, earlier, but I didn’t do anything to the others comms. Though, I might be able to help, Master."

Eyebrows shot up at the word 'Master', but Quatre tried to ignore them as he looked at Scherazade. "What can you do, Schera?"

"If you'll allow me, I can go back to the central command room and re-insert myself into the mainframe. I can find anyone within the central hub that way."

"They're not in the central hub," said WuFei. "They're in the outer ring."

Schera grimaced. "I can't do much there. I have a few rooms I can still access, and I can use any of the holo-emitters I can link up to, but there are many of the labs in the outer ring that are on a secured server I don't have access to."

Quatre nodded. "Go ahead. See if you can find out anything. And Schera," he grasped her arm gently as she started to walk away. She looked back at him expectantly. "I would appreciate it if you would manifest nearby as soon as you could." He smiled at her gently. She returned the smile and kissed him softly before pulling away and heading down the corridor. 'She has a nice walk,' he thought. He shook his head at himself. He couldn't believe he was acting like horny teenager. "Too much, too fast," he muttered under his breath. He turned back to the other two pilots and noticed that underneath the obvious tension, they both looked vaguely amused.

WuFei was the first to crack. He sighed and said, "Just tell me she isn't some kami or oni here to steal your soul, ok?"

Quatre laughed. "She's no demoness, 'Fei. She's a pokegirl. Though there are those that would question the difference, from everything I've heard. We have a huge learning curve here. We need to find the others and then I'll have Schera bring us all up to speed together."

~*~

Scherazade materialized next to Quatre as he came through the connecting corridor into the outer ring. She didn't even blink as the other two pilots jumped and WuFei pointed his gun at her head. A heartbeat later, WuFei cursed and re-holstered his gun. "Don't do that! A person could get shot like that!"

She looked at WuFei. "I'll try to remember that. Unfortunately, that thing won't do much to me." She pointed at the ceiling. "I'm just a hologram right now. You'd shoot right through me."

WuFei rolled his eyes as Quatre turned toward her. "Schera, just a note, most of us are extremely jumpy. Heero and Duo are way worse than 'Fei will ever be."

Schera nodded again. "Speaking of the others, I couldn't find them in the central hub, but I did find a note in the security logs for a lab in the outer ring. It registered a security breach and flagged the main system for instructions. When the main system didn't respond, it moved on to the security server and requested a security detail to go to R & D Lab #4. Almost fifteen minutes later, another security flag went up to both the main and security servers requesting a security detail again. Five minutes after that, the lab went into security lockdown and initiated emergency protocols."

"What constitutes 'Emergency Protocols'?" asked Trowa.

Schera shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing else was logged by the Lab security monitor after the last update."

"What did the last update say?" asked Quatre.

Schera looked at her master hesitantly. "It said that the intruders had been neutralized and requested a haz-mat detail. That was forty minutes ago." 

"Can you lead us to the lab they were in?" asked WuFei.

Schera nodded. "I think I can, yes. Not all the holo-emitters are functional in the ring though, so you'll have to watch for me as I disappear and reappear."

"That's fine," said Trowa. "Let's go."

Schera looked at Quatre questioningly, and at his affirmative, started down the corridor. No one spoke as the group spent the next fifteen minutes making their way through the wreckage of the outer ring. Finally, Schera broke the silence as they crossed into another section of the ring. "We're almost there. This is the section of the ring that handles all the evolution research."

"What do you mean by 'evolution research'?" asked Trowa.

Schera ducked under a fallen beam and disappeared. When she reappeared, she was twenty feet further down the corridor. "It's what most pokegirls do; we evolve. Jim made sure of it. He said that if humanity wouldn't evolve on its own, he'd help it along."

"Who is 'Jim'?" asked Trowa. 

"Jim Sukebe," said Quatre. "He's the creator of the pokegirls."

Trowa looked like he had another question, but Scherazade cut him short. "There it is." She was pointing toward a room fifty feet down the corridor. It was clearly marked as the lab they were looking for. She looked at Quatre. "I'm sorry, Master, but I can't continue any further. I am currently at the extent of the closet emitter."

"Very well, we go on alone from here," said Quatre. 

The three pilots continued toward the lab. No one could be seen through the large plate glass window or the top glass half of the security door. Everything about the lab looked abandoned...until they got within five feet of the door and the top of Hilde's head became visible. They rushed to the door. WuFei started on the keypad, trying to get the door to open. Quatre banged on the glass, trying to get any type of response. 

Trowa said, “They’re still breathing. We need to get these doors open.”

WuFei growled and thumped the wall next to the keypad. “This thing is in complete lockdown. There isn’t even power going to it at present.”

Quatre nodded as he pointed inside the decon unit. “Duo’s hacker box is hooked up on the inside of the same panel. Apparently, it didn’t do them much good either.”

“Master?” came Schera’s voice from right behind the group. Quatre turned to find Schera still standing where they left her, though her voice came from closer again as she continued, “I re-routed my voice through a closer speaker. Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to them, to little avail, but I have managed to access their life signs through a backdoor in the security server. They all appear to be stable, but they are fluctuating a bit. It doesn’t appear to be anything life threatening at present, though.”

Quatre latched onto a small part of what she said. “You can access the security server through a backdoor?”

Schera nodded. “It’s the only way I can get access to some things. It’s how I found out what was happening here. I found out how to override the security server’s databank so I could keep tabs on the portions of the outer ring that have been damaged over time.”

“Can you use a similar override to take control of the security for this area?” he asked.

She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then shook her head. “It keeps telling me that my clearance isn’t high enough, even with my administrative codes.” 

Quatre sighed and turned back to the doors. He and Trowa started looking for metal scraps they could jam into the door seal and use to pry it open. Several minutes later, the pilots were getting very frustrated. The door seal was magna-locked and, unlike several of the other rooms they had found previously, these doors seemed to be in fully functioning order. 

Quatre was facing the door, trying to figure out what to do next when he was tapped on the shoulder. He looked at the person, only to be confused to find Schera standing there. “I thought you couldn’t materialize fully in your holographic mode.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I came down here while you three have been working.”

He nodded. “I see. Did you find out anything more useful in the security server?”

She sighed. “Yes, but you’re not going to like it.” Quatre faced her fully and waited. “I can gain entry into the lab, I found a code that should work, but I don’t think it’s a good idea, Master.”

Quatre’s brows furrowed. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because I think they’ve been infected with a bio-agent, and quite frankly, they could be contagious.”

Quatre thought that over. “Do you know what they’ve been infected with?”

Schera shook her head. “I can’t even tell you for certain they’ve been infected. I just have the suspicion that they have.”

WuFei joined the conversation. “So, what are our options?”

Schera sighed. “You’ll like most of those even less.”

“We’re not leaving them behind,” said Trowa evenly.

Schera looked at the three young men. “I don’t think you realize exactly what kind of danger you could be in. That’s an evolution lab they’re trapped in. Sukebe booby-trapped those things and set weird security protocols on them. Likely, that’s why they were allowed admittance in the first place.” She looked directly at Quatre. “I’m willing to bet they tried to hack the access codes and got them wrong. The security here is set up to allow entry after the third wrong try.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Trowa.

“Yes, it does,” she said, still looking at Quatre. “These labs were created to hold experimental pokegirls, and we can be extremely strong, aggressive and violent under the right circumstances. Any humans that were crazy enough to break into one of them, would be easily trapped inside it until a security detail could arrive, in essence, making the lab into a make shift holding cell.”

“Rather clever,” said WuFei, though he didn’t sound like he liked the idea much.

Schera glanced at him briefly. “Jim was very clever, not to mention paranoid and sadistic.” She looked back to Quatre. “He also took pleasure in creating what he called ‘Poetic Justice’. He enjoyed making pokegirls, and he enjoyed making them out of humans even more.” She motioned toward the captive quartet. “They don’t look like they’ve been turned into Dolls, but I won’t be sure of anything until I can get them into the sick bay and scan them. Unfortunately, that means if they are contagious, then you three could be infected by then.”

Quatre looked through the window and then turned back to Schera. “You told me that when a human became a pokegirl, they turned female, right?” At Schera’s nod, he continued, “Heero and Duo still obviously look male. If they are infected with something, how long do you think it will be until they’re safe?”

“Three, maybe four days, at least,” she answered.

Quatre shook his head. “They’ll never last that long without food and water, and they’re all lying in odd angles. I want to make sure they didn’t break something when they passed out. If they have, they could be in shock already.”

“You may be right about the shock part, Quat,” said Trowa as he looked through the glass. “Hilde and Relena are shivering mildly, and they look to be the least uncomfortable.”

Quatre mulled the situation over in his head. Finally, he sighed. “It’s a chance we’re going to have to take. I don’t think we can risk leaving them in there any longer than we absolutely have to and I’m not leaving them in there indefinitely.” He looked at Schera directly. “Get us into that chamber.”

Schera looked like she might argue, but then walked over to the keypad and knelt beside it. She held up her arm and a set of cables popped through her skin and attached to the entry port under the numeric keys. “I found an entry on housekeeping while I was looking for some sort of universal access code. It appears that no one likes to take out their own trash.” A moment later, the lights that backlit the keys started glowing again. Another minute after that, the magna locks released and the door to the decon chamber slid open.

Trowa and WuFei were the first inside the chamber, taking hold of Heero and Duo and pulling them out in a fireman’s carry. Quatre pulled Hilde up and into a similar carry over his shoulder. Schera followed suite, picking up Relena and following the others back through the corridor toward the central hub.

~*~

After they got back to the central hub, Schera led the group down an adjacent corridor from the living quarters. The sick bay was already lit up and prepped for them. “I figured you wouldn’t leave them in the lab, though I had to try,” said Schera. There were four beds ready for occupants. Soon enough, they were filled and Schera turned to the guys. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll take care of the ladies. They seem to be attached to the other two victims and I highly doubt they’ll appreciate being stripped by anyone else.” No one fought her on that point.

Twenty minutes passed in silence as the four rescuees were dressed in medical gowns and the beds were activated by Scherazade. She explained that all the monitoring equipment was contained in their surface and no wires were required this way. “Unfortunately, I’ll still have to give them an old fashioned IV line if they don’t wake up by tomorrow. They don’t need to wake up dehydrated.”

“You’re not sticking anything in me,” came a scratchy voice from one bed.

“Heero!” Quatre was the first to his side, with everyone else lining either side of the bed. Schera stayed behind Quatre. Heero looked like he’d just woke up with a hangover after a three day drunk. His eyes were watery and puffy, and his voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in a week. He managed to focus on Quatre after a minute, blinking against the bright light. “Did we all make it?” he asked.

Quatre nodded. “Everyone made it out alive and in one piece. What happened, Heero?”

Heero’s eyes closed and his head sank into the pillow in relief at the news that no one had died. “We found a lab that looked intact. It had functioning computer equipment in it and I thought we might finally figure out where, or when, we were, and maybe something about this PokeGirl thing we keep seeing references to.” He opened his eyes to look at Quatre again. “We found a few things of interest, but decided to move on before we had to head back for dinner. When we tried to exit the lab, we became trapped in the decon entry and gassed.” The look in Heero’s eyes hardened and focused. “Some crazy sounding man came over the screen in the decon unit and berated us for breaking into his facility, though I think it was a recording. He talked like this place was fully staffed and under full guard.”

“Did he say who he was?” asked Schera.

Heero looked at her quizzically, and then back to Quatre. “Is that…?”

Quatre held up a hand. “It’s a long story, but yes, this is the supposed ‘ghost’, Scherazade.” She smiled and gave him a half hearted wave as she slid closer to Quatre’s back, like she was trying to crawl inside him. 

It took a second for Heero to realize she was hiding from him. He focused on her question and answered, “He never directly said his name, though he implied his name was Jim Sukebe. Does that mean anything to you?”

Schera nodded. “He was my creator."

"Creator?" asked Heero.