Mannequin | By : Crystalwren Category: Hellsing > General Views: 1593 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
There were a lot of things that Walter wanted and couldn’t
have. Consistent weather and functioning indoor climate control were two of these
things.
He was standing in front of Sir Integra’s desk, alternately
clenching and unclenching his toes in a futile attempt to get some circulation
going. He’d even stooped so low as to shrug a jacket on, something he usually
loathed because it restricted the movement of his shoulders and upper arms. For
Sir Integra’s part, there were several layers of blankets tucked about her
thighs as she sat uncomfortably in her wheelchair, her cravat was cashmere
instead of silk, there was a mug of hot chocolate sitting neatly on a coaster
in front of her and when a particularly icy gust of air came from the stricken
air vents she paused to shiver and sneeze discretely into a handkerchief.
“What are those imbeciles doing now?” she muttered in reference to the service technicians who were
apparently incapable of keeping the inducted climate control system within any
sort of spitting distance of functioning.
“If you like, marm, I could go
talk to them-”
“No.”
“But surely-”
“Not after what happened the last time.”
“It was an accident-”
“And I’m the Queen of France.” She drummed her fingers on
the table and frowned. Finally she said, “We got this today,” and tossed a slim
manila folder across the desk for Walter to read.
It was a slim report from a Swiss agent that technically
worked for Sir Irons but was not adverse to occasional side work for Sir Hellsing. The phrase “Biologically Interfacing AI Microchip
Technology” caught his eye. Freak chip. He looked up at Integra.
“It could be a form of freak chip,” she said, “But information
suggests that these chips directly interface with and possibly
control the living, human brain. If you look at the schematics,” Walter
obediently flipped through the folder again, “You’ll see that as scanty as our
information is there are striking similarities between this chip and the freak
chip. Undoubtedly the same creators worked on both at some point but it’s
impossible to tell if they’re being produced by the same manufacturer.” She
took a sip from her mug and waited for Walter to digest all this. He read and
reread the papers and finally shut the folder, setting it back on the table.
“There’s a lot of information missing out of this,” he said,
“For example, how do these chips interface with the brain? Are they receivers
transmitting instructions from a third party, or are the some form of
information storage?”
“Precisely,” said Integra, and sneezed. She blew her nose
and tucked the hankie back into her sleeve. With reddened nose, blurry eyes,
blankets on her lap and marshmallows in her hot chocolate she looked vulnerable
and depressingly human. Decidedly unsexy, Walter mused to himself, but
strangely approachable. He wondered how long he’d live if he went in for a
cuddle. “The schematics aren’t complete either; there’s just enough detail to make
them convincing but not enough to know how the damn things work.” She sipped
again from her mug and added, “The seller is offering them to the highest
bidder. We are going to be one of those bidders. Anonymously,
of course.”
“Who will be our agent? We usually leave these sorts of
operations to Sir Irons.”
“You will, Walter,” Integra smiled sweetly. “There’s no one
I trust more than you.”
There was a long silence. Walter clenched and unclenched his
toes, reflecting on Integra’s uncanny ability to know exactly what he was
thinking, and just how much of a poisonous bitch she could be if he was thinking
inappropriate thoughts.
She continued. “You will be using the persona we set up when
we were having so much trouble sourcing ammunition legally. You’re already a
known buyer on the black market so there’s no point constructing another
persona.”
“Do any of the other members of the Round Table know what
we’re doing?”
“I haven’t told them,” Integra confessed, looking slightly
uneasy. “As far as I’m aware they don’t know about this particular chip at all.
But if one or more have their own agents working on this, I’m counting on you
and your bodyguard being recognisable enough that you won’t be in an immediate
danger.”
“Bodyguard?”
Walter’s mouth twitched. If anything, he would be the one protecting said
bodyguard, but it was part of his persona after all. “Who?”
Integra narrowed her eyes and folded her hands into a
steeple. “Seras Victoria.”
Another long silence. Finally,
Walter said, “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“May I ask why?”
“Because you two will be on your own. There won’t be anyone
backing you up. If there are only two agents in the field, then they must be
the strongest ones, the ones who are most able to rescue themselves if
something should go wrong.”
“I wasn’t aware Ms Victoria had done any covert work.”
“She used to be a police officer. At the very least she
knows how to take orders and keep quiet and keep watch. Do you have any strong
objections?”
Walter, to his credit, thought hard. There were moral
objections and in addition a huge amount of jealousy that he would never
actually admit to having, but his professionalism took over and he grudgingly
said, “No, Sir Integra.”
“Good. Start getting ready. You’ll be leaving in forty two hours.”And
then, after he’d bowed and turned away he heard her voice calling him back.
“Walter...”
He stopped, looked back over his shoulder. “Yes, Sir
Integra?”
A long, hard stare, those blue eyes he loved as warm and
merciful as pack ice drifting into a major shipping lane. “If anything untoward
should happen to Ms Victoria, I shall be most vexed. Understand?”
He nodded once in acknowledgement. “Understood,” he said
curtly, and shut the door behind him. A shrill beeping from his watch told him
that it was feeding time for the freak show and he sighed.
**
It was freezing, literally, tiny ice crystals shattering
under his fingertips when he touched the walls. He cursed that he hadn’t
thought to get an overcoat, but he was here now and Alucard
would never let him leave without delivering.
Walter rounded the corner, the packets of donor blood in a
discreet carry bag, and stepped into Alucard’s
basement domain.
“You have got to be shitting me,” he spat, forgetting
himself.
Hawaii.
It was Hawaii. Alucard was sitting
in a deckchair driven into the sand, waves lapping gently at the beach, sun
shining, palm fronds swaying gently in the breeze. The vampire was grinning
from ear to ear as a hula dancer wearing a grass skirt and a smile sashayed up
to Walter, dropping a lei around his neck with a soft ‘Aloha’ and sashayed off again. The
illusion was picture perfect, lifted straight from a postcard with two glaring
inconsistencies. Number one was that Alucard was
dressed in his customary overcoat, suit, boots and hat despite the beach
setting. Number two was that Walter was still freezing his balls off.
“Here,” snapped the old man, tossing the carry bag in Alucard’s direction. “What are you doing, for the love of
God?”
“I thought you might like it,” replied the vampire,
rummaging through the bag. “I thought you might like it with it being so cold
and all. Warm thoughts, etcetera. Ah, B+, my
favourite. Walter, you’re such a considerate boy.”
Walter shuddered as a particularly icy draft slid down the
back of his shirt. “You are insane.”
“Oh yes,” agreed Alucard, “Quite.”
He bit into the bag with an obscene slurp as the hula girl offered Walter a
cocktail glass. A Bloody Mary by the looks of it, which had
not been made by mixing a metaphor. He waved her away irritably.
“I have to ask, are you behind the malfunctioning air
conditioning?”
“Walter, Walter. What a thing to say.”
“Just answer the damned question, Alucard.”
“No, as it happens. Arthur bought a substandard system to
begin with and Integra is too cheap to have the decrepit thing ripped out and a
new one installed.”
“We’re worried about spy devices,” Walter muttered, “We’d
have to bring outsiders in to install a new system.”
“Ah. Have a seat.” A second deckchair materialised by his side.
“Thank you, but I am busy-”
A hint of steel in the deep voice.
“I insist.” Walter reluctantly sat. “It seems so long since we last spoke
properly. It pains me to see our friendship so strained. You haven’t even shown
me your new necklace.”
Walter hadn’t shown anyone his new necklace. He grudgingly
pulled the chain out from under his shirt, unclasped it and tossed it at Alucard. It was small rose gold medallion, Saint George on
his horse, slaying the dragon. The tip of the lance was picked out with a tiny
fleck of ivory.
“How pretty. I take it this white
bit here is the piece of Carmila’s tooth that the good Doctor Trevallyn dug out
of Integra’s neck?”
“Yes,” said Walter through his teeth.
“Very sentimental of you,” the vampire noted, mouthing at
the edge until a thin plume of smoke began to rise from his lips. He tossed the
medallion back to Walter, who caught it one handed and put it straight back on.
“The workmanship is excellent, even if the subject is hackneyed, and you’ve
obviously had the wits to have it blessed. The question arises as to the
significance; you’ve never been a one for Catholic Saints before.”
“Alucard.
Don’t you know it’s rude to pry?”
“Manners have never interested me very much.” He tossed an
empty blood packet aside and started on another. “I hear you’re to take the
Police Girl on an outing.”
“It’s also rude to listen into private conversations.”
“So? You and Integra are the only ones who ever visit me.
I’m bored.”
“Ask for a television.”
“She won’t give me one. Says it’ll give me
too many ideas.” The hula girl pouted on Alucard’s
behalf as the vampire made an obscene noise and did something equally obscene
with his tongue and the plastic. There was a gloop and the blood bag deflated. He tossed it aside and wiped his
mouth with the back of his hand. “So you and the Police Girl are off on a
mission. Alooooooone.” The vampire
grinned broadly, and a second hula girl joined the first. Dark hair lightened,
became ash blonde and strawberry blonde, skin paled to honey and milk. Integra
and Seras, in grass skirts and smiles and Walter
slapped his hand over his eyes and wondered what he’d ever done to deserve
this.
“What are you trying to say, Alucard?”
“I worry for the innocence for my protégé,” and the old man
made the mistake of looking up. Seras smiled broadly
and jiggled. There was a lot to
jiggle. “She is such a pure girl.”
“I’m sure,” replied Walter, his voice thick with irony. “She
and Integra, all wrapped up cosy and private together
three times a week, being pure. A likely story.”
“What? Jealous, my dear Reaper?” Seras
and Integra shimmered, and then multiplied. They formed themselves into a conga
line and began to dance, kicking enthusiastically.
“One, two, three, kick! One, two, three, kick!” The line of Seras’
and Integras began wind themselves in a figure eight
around the two deck chairs, with a lot of giggling and jiggling, kicking up the
sand. The illusion was good enough to make Walter’s eyes water when some hit
his face.
“If you have nothing sensible to say,” he
said evenly, “Then I must be going. There is work to be done.”
The Seras’ and Integras
all pouted and twittered disapprovingly. Alucard’s
grin only got broader. “You’re no fun.”
Walter got up and stormed off as politely as he could. The illusion
shimmered and vanished as he rounded the corner, but Alucard’s
voice followed him. “She’ll be of use to you, don’t doubt that.”
Walter didn’t bother to reply.
**
She was waiting for him at the weapons range, that little
skirt of hers riding up her thighs and it occurred to him that Seras Victoria was walking soft porn, a living doll of
Barbie proportions. Her uniform made so much more sense now he knew where
Integra’s inclinations lay. Walter sighed and rearranged his facial features to
something pleasant. “May I help you, Miss Victoria?”
“Oh!” she squeaked, “I wondered if I might talk to you about
the mission.”
Walter smiled thinly and produced a tiny key from a vest
pocket. He unlocked a massively constructed cabinet and said, “Miss Victoria,
while you are here, if you would be so kind as to help me with this?”
She blinked at him, those wide eyes and fangs peeking out
from under her lip reminding him as always of a constipated kitten. “That looks
like one of Master’s guns.”
“Prototype. I usually use an
automated mount to test them, but since you’re here, my dear Miss Victoria...”
Her narrow shoulders slumped and she held out her hand for
the weapon. “’Hyena 42 F,’” she muttered, running her gloved fingers over the
engraving.
“All of Alucard’s prototype
weapons are called ‘Hyena’. If they’re successful, they’re renamed.”
“Hyena,” Seras muttered again,
turning the gun over in her hands. “It’s strangely appropriate. So there have
been forty two weapons made for Master?”
“Rather more than that,” Walter tapped at the cursive ‘F’.
“The letter refers to how many trial models are made of a particular design.
The number refers to how many different designs have been trialled to reach
this point. Not many work. No matter how well they’re planned,” He produced a
handful of ammunition and offered it to her. “The combination of the stresses
of a barrel this long and the special ammunition we much use is often difficult
to calculate. Many of these end up exploding when they’re test fired.”
Seras’ eyes widened, and then
narrowed. “So you’re planning to use me as your experimental test subject?”
“This is model F,” Walter pointed out with a charming smile,
“Most of them don’t reach this far if there are fundamental flaws in design.
The chances of this one exploding are very low.”
She gave him a long, level look. He felt his spine prickle
at those unnatural red eyes and he realised that he was flexing his hands to
feel his rings. He quickly crossed his wrists behind his back and gave her his
most harmless old man look.
“Did you make this, Walter? Design it?”
“I design most of the specialised weapons Hellsing uses. I only make particular ones, though.”
“You know,” she murmured, “Some people build model airplanes
or little ships in bottles.”
“I like guns,” said Walter flatly.
Seras hefted the Hyena, and she
met his eyes again. It took him several heartbeats to realise that she was
trying to stare him down. The gun looked obscenely huge in her little hands and
she seemed to realise that too.
“Walter, I can’t help but wonder...” she trailed off,
blinked uncomfortably, and then tried again: “I can’t help but wonder if
there’s something, well, Freudian going
on here.”
There was a deafening silence. Walter swum in the warm
waters of mingled horror, embarrassment, and sheer blinding rage. He was so
astonished it simply didn’t occur to him to reply. She gently pushed the Hyena
back into his hands.
“Walter, I wanted to talk to you, to see if we could come to
some sort of understanding. I know you don’t...don’t approve of Sir Integra and
I, but I hoped we could at least learn to accept each other as teammates. I now
know that I, personally, cannot do it. I don’t think I could ever trust a
teammate who knowingly hands me a damaged, dangerous weapon.”
The vampire turned and stalked off, hips swinging in that
little skirt of hers. Walter watched her go, and looked down at the Hyena. The
light glinting off the barrel made the stress fractures in the metal glitter in
a way that was almost pretty.
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