(no subject)
"Did the boss say why he wanted this little punk?"
"Nope. I'm thinking it's pretty need to know, and we don't need to know."
"I sure as hell don't want to know why Marius had to go to the dentist after his jaunt to pick this kid up."
"Then keep it to yourself. Pretty sure the boss wants everyone to think this guy's kicked the bucket. And thus our destination."
"'And thus'. You're a real trip sometimes."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a regular comedian. Christ, I think he's waking up again-"
The impact of hitting the ground (metal deck plating, ouch) barely registered, compared to the pounding somewhere in his skull. Duo dimly heard the goons' retreating footsteps, and then the door slid shut behind them.
Silence, for a moment. And then came cautious movement next to him, and a rough but gentle hand brushed the bangs out of his face.
"Huh. C'est un petit garçon." The same hands turned him over, and touched the lump on his temple, which made him groan in wordless protest. "Merde. Mal a la tête, gamin? Pas de suprise. Bâtards."
He twitched. Hey, he could twitch. A step up, really.
"Bon. Réveille-toi."
Duo groaned again and blinked, slowly. "Ugh. Stop the world, I want to get off."
"Tu n'est pas mort. Comment t'appeles-tu?"
"Tell me this is a dream and you're not speaking French. Nah. That'd be too much luck for me. Uh, parlez-vous anglais?"
"Non. Si je pouvais parler, je voudrais parler."
"Great. 日本語?"
"Non, désolée. Deutsche?"
"I think we might be cursed. I doubt you speak Mandarin if you don't speak Japanese. ¿Hablas español?"
"Un poco. Mais pas beaucoup."
"Yeah, same here. Your turn."
"Je kuzungumza Kiswahili?"
"Well, that's Swahili, but unless you want me to say 'fucking landmines', no good. بتكلمي العربي؟" She snorted in reply. "Eh, well. I figure we can understand each other well enough. How about we shed some light on this situation?" Duo carefully propped himself up on one elbow and dug into his pockets. They had taken most of his stuff, gun case, everything official. But they hadn't found all of his pockets. He pulled out a glow stick and cracked it. The gloom slowly coalesced into a small room, and a woman leaning over him.
"Hey, there you are!" Her smile was bright white against her dark skin, and she was wearing a cloth hat over her short cropped hair.
"Bonjour," she said.
"You were asking my name earlier. I'm Duo. What's yours?"
"Marie. Enchantée." They shook hands, and she carefully pulled him to his feet, steadying him as he stumbled.
"You been in here a long time?" Duo asked, glancing around the makeshift cell. Seemed like it. He gestured at his watch to clarify his meaning. He took a deep breath. The sweet smell of recycled air. Still in space, then.
"Une semaine au moins." At his frown, she held up seven fingers. "Peut-être sept jours. Quel jour est-il?"
"Last I knew, it was December 25th." He shook his head. "Not sure how long I was out." Every time he showed signs of waking up, they'd clout him again.
"Décembre vingt-cinquième. Noël. Christmas," she added with a quick flash of humor aimed at Duo.
"Yeah, that one I had figured out on my own, thanks. Who's that?" He pointed to the dim corner of the room, where another form was curled up on a narrow bunk and covered up with a sweater.
"Annette," Marie supplied, and then walked over to shake the other woman's shoulder. Duo's jaw dropped as she sat up. Annette had to be eight months pregnant.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Marie's teeth flashed again in a brief, sardonic smile. "Annette, je te presente à Duo. Aussi, il pense que c'est Noël aujourd'hui."
"Enchanté," Duo mumbled from behind the hand slapped over his face. "What the hell are they trying to pull here?"
"Nous sommes otages," Marie said. "Pour les travailleurs."
"If they've been keeping you this long, I don't like my chances of being let loose either." Duo had understood 'hostages' out of that, but little else. He stepped up to investigate the door, holding the glow stick close.
"Ils ont coupé la porte de cette chambre. Il ne marche pas." Annette shook her head.
"Maybe you couldn't, but I have one advantage. They didn't search me well enough." Duo reached into his braid, and pulled out a tiny knife, and an even smaller bit of circuitry.
Marie was standing over his shoulder at this point, watching with interest. Her eyes widened. "Tu as un détonateur dans tes cheveux? Tu es fou!"
"Hey, it's worked before." With Duo's knife, Marie's fingernails, and a hairpin from Annette, they pried the control panel open a crack. "See, you can never really completely deactivate this model," Duo said. "And shorting it out cuts the power, which makes it possible to open for safety reasons. And that's why you use something else on airlocks and actual prisons..."
They huddled against the far corner, and the cap exploded with a bang and the pop of sparks skittering across the floor. "We gotta be quick," Duo said, already straining at the door, blinking spots from his eyes. "They're gonna have heard that, or notice we're gone before long. Can you-"
But Marie had already helped Annette to her feet, and was supporting her carefully. "Je l'ai. Allons-y!" They hurried down the hall; speed was more important than stealth, at this point.
Duo was glancing around as they went, both to keep watch, and to find out where the hell he actually was. It looked a little like one of the small resource satellites on the fringes of most of the colonies. But what the hell was he doing here?
"Attends," Marie said, stopping at one door and adjusting her arm around Annette. "Ils gardent les armes ici."
"What? Seriously- oh," he said, wide-eyed at the sight as she opened the door. The storage closet had been turned into a makeshift armory, with fully automatic rifles hanging neatly from the walls, with boxes of ammo and what he swore were grenades on the floor. "Shit."
"Oui."
Duo snatched a duffel bag off the boxes and started loading it up. "No sense in leaving it for them," he said. "Grab something."
"Non."
"We don't have time to be picky, here!"
"Non. Tu prends quoi tu veut, mais je ne ferai pas."
"Geez, okay. Lead on." There wasn't time to argue. They made it outside, where Duo confirmed his suspicions that this was probably a mining satellite near the colonies. Of course, just as they thought they were clear, someone started yelling behind them. Duo and Marie exchanged a glance. He pulled a pistol out of the bag, and she picked up Annette, who squeaked in surprise.
"Là," Marie said, pointing at one of the service tunnel entrances that often peppered these types of satellite.
"Now you're the one who's crazy," Duo said. "We'll get lost and trapped down there." He slid the clip into his pistol and followed her all the same. A bullet winged off the wall next to them, and Duo spun around to cover them, shielding them with his own body, and firing almost blindly back. But the code she punched in worked. Now all on their feet again, they crammed themselves into the narrow access tunnel and Marie locked it behind them.
They made their way carefully through the wandering tunnels, with only the emergency lighting to guide their way. Annette and Marie obviously knew where they were going, and they stopped at a cargo lift, where Marie keyed in another code. Nothing happened. They held a brief, hushed conversation, then turned to Duo.
"Nos amis ont changé le code."
"I kinda figured. Now what?" Marie wrenched open another hatch near the elevator, revealing a ladder that went up and down from their level. "Okay, no offense. But Annette, you are not gonna fit well down there. And I don't really want you hauling yourself around, either." He shook his head.
"Ça m'égale," Annette said, looking relieved. She sat herself down carefully, which of course was when Marie and Duo noticed the stain on her skirt.
They both started talking at once. Duo quit first, just because no one else could understand him. He briefly considered banging his head against the wall. Marie sounded like she was chewing Annette out but good for not saying something, but Annette stood (well, sat) firm in that she had done the right thing in just letting them help her out of that place.
"Restes ici," Marie told him, and made for the ladder.
"What?! Look, I'm an okay field medic, but a midwife I'm not!"
"Ils ne te connaissent pas," Marie said, gesturing down the ladder. "Il faut que je vais. Et elle a besoin d'assistance."
"Dammit," Duo said, realizing she was right. The only reason these two were helping him out was because he'd helped them out, and no one else would know or trust him here. Also, you couldn't leave pregnant and probably in labor ladies alone, even if you weren't a doctor. "Hurry up, then! Allez!" Marie squeezed Annette's hand once, and was gone.
Duo crouched at Annette's side and smiled helplessly. "Okay, ma'am. Let's see if we can get you a little more comfortable, huh?"
Some time later, the lift rose to the 'surface' level of the satellite, bringing Marie and two others. When the door creaked open, they were faced with the sight of Annette, sweaty and exhausted, but triumphant. She was holding her red and squalling baby, who had a tuft of orange hair the same color as his mother's. Duo was there too, blood stained and a little wild-eyed.
"Thank everything," he said. "What took you so long?"
Marie and the other woman stepped up to help Annette while the man turned to Duo. "Marie brought me because I speak English," he said. "My name is Etienne. Come with us, boy. We will tell you what you have stumbled into."