Poisoned Rationality

The rooftop was freezing cold, an icy breeze whistling across the manicured garden and around the brick outhouse. Matt typed into the keyboard of his laptop as if it was a musical instrument, diverting code and sending torrents into the ether. A rectangle on his toolbar flashed and he restored it. What he read there solicited a little smile and he responded into the messenger.



Mariomatt: Bubbles! 8D It\'s awfully nice to have you on board.

Bubbles: Mario, sweetie, mmmmmmmmmmwwwwah. Where am I pointing?

Mariomatt: Wherever you like. I\'ve got to keep moving so I might not always be here. Do your worst.

Bubbles: On a scale of 1-10, how much trouble are you in, Mario?

Mariomatt: Tbh, I\'m not expecting to get out of this alive.



Across the rooftop, a door opened and Matt pulled his laptop into a crouch behind the wall. Another door was only ten steps away and if he ran now, he would have the element of surprise. Matt listened. Just one set of footsteps. He held his breath and peeped through the groove made by the cement between the bricks. Despite his annoyance, the smile which crept across his face was of relief. Matt stood, his hands above his head. "Mello."



Mello turned sharply to look in his direction, his eyes narrowing. Then he ran, covering the ground between them in seconds. Before Mello could either hug or hit him though, the door banged open again. Too compromised to move, Matt initially bent to retrieve his laptop, but Mello pressed him from behind against the wall. Covering him with his own body, Mello pulled the semi-automatic from his waistband. Matt reached into the back of his jacket collar and dislodged an identical gun from there. With Mello\'s arm around Matt\'s waist, they were synchronised in both extending their arms and pointing their weapons in perfectly straight lines towards the door.



There was no-one there. It banged open revealing the empty landing at the top of the stairwell within. Neither man moved. Nothing stirred. Matt whispered. "Did you close the door behind you?"



"I don\'t think so." Mello growled back. "Are you hurt?"



"Yes."



"Badly?"



Matt leaned back and kissed his lover. "Why the fuck are you still in the city? You are supposed to be miles away."



"Why do you think?" Mello released him and ran across to inspect the landing, then to peer down the stairwell. It was deserted. He clicked the door shut behind him and jogged back to the redhead\'s side. Matt was already typing into a messenger, then restoring a programme to make some selections. "I came back for you."



Matt twitched. "Very commendable, but I\'m doing my best to stop them being able to find you and you\'re walking back into the lion\'s den." He kept his head bent over the keyboard. "If you get killed, we\'re fucked. You and Near are our best hope against Kira. I\'m dispensable."



Mello turned from looking at the darkened city and glared at him. "You are not dispensable!" He watched Matt flinch. "I\'m so sorry I brought you into this. When I saw the car chase on the television, then heard the reports on Hal\'s radio..." Mello shuddered. "How badly are you hurt?"



"Nothing that can\'t be fixed. Now come and look at this." Matt had a map on the monitor of his screen. "And please keep under this overhang. If they have helicopters or satellites monitoring the rooftops, this might help a little."



Mello wrapped his arms around the redhead and kissed his cheek. Only then did he look properly at the monitor. "Water pipes?"



"This is a city, the underground world is wriggled with passages. Sewage pipes, water pipes, underground transport, you name it and it\'s there." He jabbed a gloved finger at the screen. "These pipes here can be accessed from the next street along, though it will involve a manhole cover. It empties into an underground river. Very low in places, perhaps only two feet, Crash reckons. But it comes out beyond the highway." He pointed in the general direction. "Close enough to run above ground back to the warehouse."



"Two feet and underwater?"



"Yes."



Mello committed the map to memory. "You\'ll get your cigarettes and laptop wet."



"I won\'t be going." Matt leaned back into the embrace and lit a cigarette. "I\'ll be in the city, covering your arse for as long as it takes for you call me to say you\'re safe."



"Dream on." Mello had been slowly running his ungloved hand across his lover\'s body. He found what he was looking for. His fingers emerged dark red and sticky. "You\'ve been shot. Let me look."



Matt sighed, blinking rapidly. "Mello, we\'ve got to go now. They\'ll be tracing my signal. Come on." He whipped up the laptop, closed the lid and tried to break out of the arms of his lover. Mello held on. They ran together through the second door and into another stairway. "None of the lifts in the city should be working. We actually have thirty hackers now working for us, six of whom are probably the best in the world. They are shutting down everything that they can, military, police, civil utilities, government and local authorities." He paused, breathless. "This has never happened on this scale before ever."



"How much blood have you lost?"



"It doesn\'t matter!" Matt snapped back. "For fuck\'s sake, Mello! Will you please see the bigger picture?" He gritted his teeth in pain and exertion. "I\'m very sorry for shouting at you, but I am trying really..."



Mello pushed him up against the magnolia painted wall and touched a newly gloved finger to Matt\'s mouth. Mello\'s eyes flashed fire. "Let me get one thing absolutely clear in your head. Your idea of the bigger picture is utterly screwed up. But I am back now and you will do as I say. Is that understood?" There was a chink of uncertainty amidst the defiant determination in Matt\'s gaze. Mello shouted into his face. "Is that understood?"



"Yes." Matt\'s gaze swivelled in fear at the echo bouncing around the stairwell. "But they are going to trace the signal."



"And we will hear them before they get close." Mello\'s whole visage bespoke danger. "First of all, I want to see for myself how badly you are hurt. Secondly, I want to know precisely what you and your friends have done. Then I want an appraisee of the state of the city. Now sit the fuck down!"



Matt did as he was told, depositing the laptop on the step beside him and immediately opening it. Mello unzipped the redhead\'s jacket, pausing for Matt to retrieve his gun before it fell, then bent to inspect the blood covering Matt\'s shirt. "Ouch." Matt winced as the fabric was pulled away, but he carried on clicking anyway. "It\'s just a flesh wound."



"Pretty deep one." Mello turned him to look at his back. "It has an exit. That\'s not a flesh wound, you have actually been shot. Fuck, Matty!" He reached out to turned his lover\'s face back towards him, took out the cigarette and kissed him hard on the lips. "I never intended for you to get hurt."



Matt smiled weakly, "Makes a change." He nodded towards the laptop. "CrashnBurn and Force10 are both fighting the utilities people. Turning things off as soon as they can get them back up. Bubbles is doing what she does best and fucking with the military. If we don\'t get out of here soon, knowing her Japan will soon be at war with Finland or something. Firebomb is taking down the police, scrambling communications. H4x0r6 is co-ordinating a trail of misinformation on official and non-official channels. I\'m working on diverting Near."



"I thought you couldn\'t hack into Watari anymore, because of your new firewalls there. Or are you just e-mailing Roger and asking him to call Near off the scent?"



Matt prickled, "I don\'t ask you how you get your guns." He turned away, typing into the messenger, before speaking again. "Go Crash! He\'s got into their satellite! Now this is why he\'s the best in the world!" Matt tried to shift away as Mello pressed cloth against the wound on his back, but a heavy hand on his shoulder kept him in place. "He\'s got another route."



"Oh good." Mello sounded pensive. "Who is this Crash and why is he the best in the world? Where are you in this ranking?"



"Third." Matt replied airily. "Right I\'ve got the map coming through."



Mello stared at him, eyes narrowed into slits, then used his own belt to hold the makeshift bandaging in place. "How do we know that we can trust Crash?"



"He\'s never let me down and he hates Kira." Matt moved the laptop so that Mello could see the new map. "Firebomb has located a garage on this route. How are you at hotwiring motorbikes?"



Mello grinned suddenly. "Show me the map and wait for me at pavement level." He stood, frowning as Matt rose with him, closing his laptop and pushing it under his arm. "You\'ve got a few minutes before you need to come down."



Matt gave him a withering look and spoke as if to an idiot, "My signal is going to be traced. I have to keep moving." His jaw was set, his face ashen, but he took the step down before Mello could react and started running down the concrete staircase. The blond took after him, catching him at the next landing and keeping pace. When Matt slipped near the bottom, it was into Mello that he fell and was held. There was a gasp and he spluttered, "Sorry."



"Give me the laptop." Mello didn\'t await argument, but pulled it from under Matt\'s arm and ran like the Furies were after him out of the door.



Matt\'s hands came to his head and he just stared in horror at the door slamming in the wake of his lover. He was in far more pain than he would ever have let Mello know and was now effectively disarmed, but for the semi-automatic. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He looked wildly around for escape routes. There were three doors on this level, plus the stairs above. If anyone should walk through either, he would be seen and that would be the end. Dread dripped through him, Matt was starting to shiver, though he had already looked himself and the blood loss was not so great. He ducked under the staircase and waited. He would just have to trust Mello. It came out like a litany. "Mello isn\'t stupid. Mello isn\'t stupid. Mello isn\'t stupid. Trust Mello." Then Matt slumped against a shadowed wall, lit a cigarette. He waited with his heart in his mouth and his hand clutching his side.



Five minutes later, the main door crashed open and the shouts and screams from the street sounded loudly immediate. There were many people crowding in here, footsteps thundering up the stairs above him. Matt started to press himself back, but stiffened. He should make no noise. A suited Japanese man ran right past him without glancing to the side, his gun raised. He went right on by, out of the back door. Police or Kira supporters? Either way they were searching this building and Matt weighed up his options. Stay put or risk nipping out into the street and finding Mello later. If the man who had rushed by him came back, there would be no shelter. They would be gazing into each other\'s eyes. Matt slid down and crouched behind his gun. Not for the first time today, he wished he had a religion, because someone to pray to right now would have been very lovely. Long minutes dragged by and no-one appeared at that back door, while the shouts from above faded with distance.



Half an hour passed before the phone in his jeans pocket vibrated a message alert. It was from Mello, \'Outside the door in one minute.\' Matt\'s heart thundered, he knew it was sheer adrenaline keeping him coiled like a cat, wanting to pace, wanting to stay still. He pushed away from the shadows and the wall, peered around the rising staircase and dashed across to the door. He could already hear the roar of an approaching motorcycle. He eased the door open and peeped outside. Never had his leather-clad friend and lover looked more powerful, more welcome. It was a black bike, purring horsepower and capacity, as it came to a stop two feet away from him. Mello unhooked a helmet and handed it to him, as Matt straddled the machine behind him. Before it was even properly strapped on under his chin, Mello released the throttle and they were sailing away down streets and alleyways, bypassing roadblocks via the suburbs and finally turning onto the main highway. They were out.



The warehouse flew into view, Mello spinning them around into a stop inches from the shutter\'s edge. Matt eased his shaking legs off and ran to open it, holding it while Mello drove underneath, then shutting and locking it behind them. The building was so quiet, when the engine was switched off. It felt like home and safety, though it couldn\'t possibly be. With a cascade of blond hair, Mello\'s helmet came off and Matt mirrored his actions, until they faced each other with alternate expressions of dread, wonder, shock and concern. Adrenaline was still pumping through the pair of them though, so when Mello approached, it was at a run, while Matt sprang to search the motorcycle\'s storage containers for his laptop. He didn\'t dare switch it on and Mello was at his side, fussing with his jacket again.



"Stop!" Matt tried brushing him away. "I need to alert the forum to the fact we\'re out." He jogged towards the staircase leading up to their living area, mind racing faster than his body could move. "God! I need a cup of tea."



"Slow down, Matt, it\'s ok now." Mello leaned against the stolen motorcycle surveying him with his face half in shadow. "We\'ve made it. H4x0r6 countermanded an order for a roadblock, so it wasn\'t built. Your friends have been watching our route via satellite and someone\'s splicing the footage, or something like that. The last thing your friend, CrashnBurn, was doing was diverting your signal to the airport. He thinks he can make them think you are there." He watched Matt stop a few steps up and sit heavily, one hand still up on the rail, the other clutching his laptop. "Now, I\'m not going to chase you around the warehouse. Have you settled now?" The redhead nodded slowly, his expression looking as though he\'d been punched. "I\'m sorry I took so long. I went somewhere else first to use your laptop, so there would be a new location for a trace. I could see what you\'d been doing, so I pressed enter. Was that right?" Across the distance, Matt nodded. "The garage was locked, so I had to break the lock. I came back for you as quickly as I could."



"Don\'t!" Matt screamed back. It was so unexpected that Mello jumped. Matt was back on his feet and scrambling up the stairs into the living space above. Mello took off after him, thoughts battling for priority in his mind. There was a clatter of laptop on table and a thumping sound. Mello cleared the top and looked wildly around. He couldn\'t initially see his lover, but then spotted the top of his red hair over the other side of the bed. Matt was hiding behind it. Mello circled the bed and found him. His knees drawn up, his arms wrapped around them, his face hidden in his thighs. He looked like a terrified child transformed utterly from the hyperactive, self-destructive adult in evidence thus far. As Mello approached, a word ripped from the mess of Matt. It was in Spanish and it was \'sorry\'.



Mello exhaled and sat on the bed above him, hand sneaking down to stroke the red hair and to caress the back of his neck. "You were brilliant out there." Mello whispered. "From all the stuff I heard and saw, you were the cockiest son of a bitch who ever caused havoc in that city or any other. You took being shot in your stride. You out-thought the opposition and took responsibility for an international team of world-class hackers." Matt leaned in against Mello\'s knee. It was progress. "I know that you go hyper in aftermaths, so I was just trying to slow you down so you will actually pay attention to the fact that you\'re injured. You never go to pieces like this." Mello was silently reviewing the conversation in his head. He finished in Spanish. "I will always come back for you. Always."



An animalistic wail started in the back of Matt\'s throat and erupted into deep sobbing. He did not uncurl, wrapped so tightly into himself that Mello doubted he could unfurl him for a hug. Six months ago, he would have laughed in the face of anyone who claimed to have seen Matt cry. Two months ago, Mello would never have openly acknowledged that there had been tears on Matt\'s face. Mello wondered precisely how long concussion could unsettle the emotions, or if that episode of Matt being so indisposed had opened the floodgates to feeling. All Mello knew to do now was to bend over his distraught lover and rock him, whilst trying to ascertain in his own mind whether it was true to say that they were safe now.



After an age, the sobbing gave way to tiny sniffs and involuntary whimpers. Matt\'s head popped up like a tortoise from its shell, hair clamped over his face. Mello was ready, having eased the packet out of Matt\'s pocket a few minutes ago. He lit a cigarette and pushed it between his lover\'s lips. Next he reached for a tissue from the bedside drawer and held it out. Matt\'s arms rose from his knees and he took it, blowing his nose noisily. "I\'m sorry."



"No, I\'m sorry. I put you through a lot." Mello sucked on a square of chocolate, wiping the hair away from Matt\'s steamed up goggles. "I put you in mortal danger and that is inexcusable."



Matt gestured as if it was nothing. "No, that was fun. We owned them."



Mello blinked in surprise, watching as Matt switched personality on him again. His knees going down, legs sprawling in the gap between the bed and the wall. Leaning back against the bedside cabinet, as he unzipped his jacket again and inspected the makeshift bandaging of Mello\'s belt and socks. Ash fell onto Matt\'s stomach beside it and so he removed the cigarette from his mouth to flick it properly. Mello\'s mouth was dry, but he had to say it. "I\'m sorry I left Wammy\'s without you. I always meant to come back for you."



"Don\'t." Matt spoke without emotion. "It doesn\'t matter."



"It matters." Mello traced a line down Matt\'s cheek. His stomach was in knots and it was taking all of his effort not to race around their warehouse like something demented. "But it\'s deeper than that isn\'t it?" He watched the clues in Matt\'s face. "Someone in Spain didn\'t come back for you."



Matt stood with difficulty, wincing, and swayed a little once he was on his feet. "I\'m going to make a cuppa before we have the post-match analysis and work out why we\'re still both alive."



Sensing that this wasn\'t the time to impose his will, Mello let him go.