When I reach Quatre’s room, his dean’s room luckily having escaped the raid, I hear soft, beautiful music. I knock on the door, and slowly open it. It’s a very rare moment that Quatre and Trowa play music together. They both own musical instruments- Quatre his violin, Trowa a flute. I slip inside the room, and carefully sit down on the floor in a corner to enjoy the music. Quatre notices me when my cane drops on the floor and rolls a few centimeters away.
“Duo!” he exclaims, visibly surprised. “You’re up! How do you feel?”
He is careful with his hug, avoiding pressure on my back. Trowa doesn’t hug, but I know that he is happy to see me too.
“I thought you were resting. How’s the leg?”
“I feel like I’ve been amputated,” I growl. Quatre motions me to the pile of soft cushions on the floor. Crazy Arabians. I smile.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he grins and to please me, he starts playing. It takes a while for Trowa to recognize the tune but he soon follows with his flute. I enjoy listening and it’s over all too soon. When the last tones drift away, the teakettle steams.
“Ah, it’s done.” Quatre puts down the violin in the appropriate case. Trowa lays down his flute, his fingers carefully wrapping the instrument in a cloth. He winks at me, and rises to help Quatre who is fussing over the proper choice of tea from his stash.
“How are our guests doing?”
“The more important question for me is how you are doing,” I say, accepting the cup. To my infinite pleasure I notice it is the cup I gave him for his birthday.
“It provoked a surge of memories I’d rather forget,” he admits. “Relena is lucky that only the picture of Darlian was shown on television. I saw it happening in front of me.”
I know. He told me all about it. I didn’t tell him about the things that happened to me. Sometimes I don’t tell everything, no matter how close the people are. This is my past. A past painted in blood, accompanied by Shinigami. And some freakin’ nightmares to go.
Trowa takes a sip. “Heero?”
“Subdued. He knew Darlian pretty well of course, the minister paid for his services and studies after his guardian died. I think he was also shocked by the possibility of the Alliance being behind the murder.”
They’re both silent, so I continue. “Relena was rambling about her father coming to rescue her.”
“The girl is in shock.” Trowa analyzes the situation, as usual. “She’s led a sheltered life, and within a week she has been kidnapped, threatened, attacked, and abandoned, and on top of it all, her father dies thanks to the people she probably trusted the most before. Give her a break.”
“She is strong,” Quatre chimes in. “She’ll get over it, given some time. Unless I am very wrong, this girl is going to make a difference for a lot of people.”
I don’t even bother to doubt Quatre’s words. If he sees something in the girl, the girl is going to be something. His empathic abilities work in more ways than one.
“We cannot stop our plans now.” He takes up the conversation. “We have come too far.”
“Quatre- it’s no use denying it. The plan has backfired, big time.”
He slumps his shoulders.
“Damn!”
We both are stunned. Quatre never swears. Trowa takes calmly a sip of his tea. I don’t have to wonder- they both know perfectly well that I am right. Our plan has backfired, like I said- with a twist of events that no one could ever have thought of.
“There is a lot more going on here than we ever imagined,” he says. His slender fingers caress the violin case.
“Why would the government do this? And why are they eager to get rid of Darlian?”
“Strategically seen, L2 is the first place where this could happen, if they wanted to get rid of Darlian.” Trowa speaks up. “This colony is known for its rebellious uprisings and violent outbreaks. Our own reputation works against us.”
“Why is the death of Darlian convenient for the Alliance, when he is assigned to improve the relations?” I have difficulty swallowing the chamomile tea. I thought I was used to it.
Trowa shakes his head, sending his auburn bangs from left to right.
“I didn’t follow Darlian’s politics, but my guess is he was far more progressive than the Alliance thought he was, or maybe he was too much of a defender of colony rights. I do know that he favored the three ‘C’-s as he called it: communication, collaboration and coalition.”
“He must have posed some threat,” Quatre agrees, “otherwise he wouldn’t have been killed. On the other hand, maybe he possessed some kind of information that could have put the Alliance in a negative light.”
“Maybe he already knew about the Gundams, and threatened to make it public?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Trowa frowns. “One thing’s for sure- Darlian was one of the most reliable politicians. I don’t see him threatening or blackmailing. I guess I can do some more research on the previous murder attempts on his life.”
Quatre switches off the heater. “I don’t see him as someone with a hidden agenda. I think we have to blame politics- somewhere they must have felt uncomfortable with his plans.”
“They aren’t going to get away with this.” I put my teacup on the floor. “The Alliance has announced Relena’s death, but they must know she is alive. When she continues her father’s work, she’ll be constantly in danger too.” But she’ll have Heero around.
“No.” Trowa objects. “They’ll assume we killed her, now she has no real use for us anymore. Even so, if we didn’t kill her, they’ll rely on the protective shell around her. Heero is her bodyguard, and they’ll hope she falls in love with him, marries him, and becomes a good little housewife somewhere, not caring for interstellar politics, and certainly not for Alliance politics.”
Quatre looks like he wants to say “Damn!” again. It doesn’t sound very well coming out of his mouth. Trowa has analyzed the situation as he is- efficient, cool and crystal clear. They are looking at me. I clench my fist.
“One way or another, we’re going to find a solution for this. We have to evaluate our options. We have to talk about this. First, we go to Heero.”
“You should really take it easy, Duo. You have already put miles on your leg. You cannot risk it having it weakened.” Quatre reaches for the teakettle.
“You’re right. Well, after dinner I...”
“Duo, Duo are you here?”
The knock on the door startles us all. After Quatre’s stern: “Come in!” the door creaks open, and a young boy sticks his head around the corner, searching the room.
“Duo? Prof G sends for ya,” he says when he sees me, “he’s in his room.”
“He wants to see me now?” I look at Quatre. The professor never sends for me, so it must be pretty important. Quatre senses it somehow, because he nods.
“We are not quite finished, but we’ll catch up after you’ve talked to G.”
I pick up the cane and rise. Trowa is swift to stand by to my side and whispers: “Remember what we said.”
“I will,” I smile, and follow the kid outside. He looks at me, and I show him my empty hands. “Sorry kiddo, I don’t have candy for you.”
“Issokay Duo,” he laughs, and takes off with the speed of light. Guess I’m the only one not freaked out by the professor. I have to think very hard to remember where the professor actually has his quarters. I have visited him only once or twice before. When I need to talk to him, I have plenty of opportunities, because I always see him in the conference room.
It suddenly dawns on me that he lives close to my new room. He didn’t have to relocate after the raid, otherwise Quatre would have told me. My university is big enough to house many people, even after all the damages. I deliberately move the cane to take a big step. No time to think about the raid. People will pay for what they have done.
It takes me a while, but I reach his room, and I knock firmly on the door.
“G?”
“Come in.”
I step inside. The professor whirls around in his chair and rises. The man is smaller than me; his mushroom shaped hair is thick and gray, sweeping over his right eye. I often marvel about the shape of his nose; it has a sharp, pointy angle, and casts such a large shadow that G’s other eye is barely visible. Normally, his room is messy and disorderly- tools, paper, and clutter everywhere. I notice his room is clean. The desk is cleared of all utensils and garbage. In the exact middle of the desk lies a small bundle of paper, neatly put in order. Two pencils with sharp points lie besides it.
“Ya wanted to talk to me?”
There is only one chair in the room, and G motions that I should take it. I grunt my thanks as I sit down. The cane slides down and hits the ground. My hip is killing me; I can’t thank whatever God enough that is not completely broken.
“There is something I have to tell you, Duo.” His voice sounds deadpan, void of emotion. The hairs on the back of my neck immediately start prickling. I really hate these opening lines. My hands grab the arm support of the chair, and I ignore the knuckles turning white.
“What is it?”
It could be something about those Gundams, something he discovered. But then again, in all those years I have known G, he has never, ever started a conversation like this. It makes my gut tighten... again.
“Yes, you should be nervous,” he sighs. “First of all, I want to ask you to allow me to tell you this story, without interruptions. Questions can be asked later.”
I snort. “Get on with it.”
Fear is coiling in me, and my mind provides with me with all kinds of possibilities. But what he tells me next certainly wasn’t one of them.
“I worked for the Alliance.”
“You worked for the Alliance?” Luckily for me I have a solid grip on the chair, otherwise I would have fallen off.
“Questions later, Duo, later.” He raises his hand as if to stop me, but I don’t move. I feel... betrayed of some sort.
“Listen to me carefully. There are four other men like me, four other scientists with the knowledge of mobile suits, and Gundams in particular. Fifteen years ago, things were different.” He doesn’t look directly at me. “We were employed by the Alliance to design and improve existing mobile suits for participation in battle. They already used our developed Leos, primarily assigned to heavy duty in outer space.”
“You designed mobile suits?”
He ignores me. “We were forced to work on a project of creating the ultimate mobile suit- the one that would give the Alliance total control over the colonies. We were known under codenames- just the first letter of our name. The others were doctor J, master O, instructor H and doctor S.”
“J?” I almost jump from my chair.
“Together we constructed, from titanium, our first mobile suit: the Tallgeese. We scared ourselves to death with it. The power it evoked... it was massive, unaccounted for. We used the Tallgeese for a test flight on L2, testing its beam cannon, its control. It was a disaster. Its motion capability was... is beyond ordinary human bounds. It failed massively, killing the pilot because of the strain, and it crashed on... something. The consequences were enormous.”
“That... Tallgeese thing is the same as the designs of the Gundams you showed us?”
The professor eyes me as if I have said something funny and he pauses. After a while, he continues.
“The Tallgeese project was abandoned, and other scientists concentrated on the mass production of the Leo. I continued with the other four, because we didn’t want to give up our research. We had recently discovered a new, experimental alloy that can only be refined in outer space, and called it ‘gundanium’. However, we couldn’t go on working for the Alliance, developing weapons of mass destruction. J in particular became involved in more political currents, and we decided to hide from the Alliance, and continue our research separately. We agreed to use the basics of the Tallgeese for our individual design of a Gundam. I recognize these blueprints, Duo. We maintained contact during the war, planning to get together once in awhile to follow up on our separate designs. We wanted to construct a Gundam for each colony to retaliate against the Alliance. J went even as far as to already search for a pilot.”
“Heero,” I fill in the blanks. “That why you were interested in him. You wanted to know if J had succeeded in training him.”
He ignores me again, his story coming out in a jumble of words.
“We planned Operation Meteor- five Gundams, each representing one of the five colony clusters. We never got very far. The Alliance caught on to us one way or another, and we had to move quickly, as we were the only ones with the knowledge of refining Gundanium. We didn’t want that knowledge to fall in the hands of the Alliance. It was the same time when Heero Yuy was assassinated, and an all-out war broke out sooner than we expected. We managed to run and hide in the chaos that ensued, but lost all means of contact in the process. I am so sorry, so very sorry. We thought at the time we were creating the proper means to reshape the world, but instead we created the destruction of the world.”
My mouth turns dry. “You designed the Gundams?” I risked my life to get the fucking plans for fucking machines of mass destruction that you helped design?
He puts his hands in his pockets. I have never seen him look so old.
“This raid could have been well directed to find me.” G leans against his desk, head dropped to his chest. “To use me for my knowledge, and force me to finish building the Gundams. I guess the Alliance has either found the lab with the Tallgeese prototype, or they have found one, or all, of the other scientists. The last thing I know of them is that O returned to the L5 colony, and was supposedly killed when it self-detonated. H was last spotted on Earth in some desert, but there has been no news from him ever since. S is also supposed to be dead, even though no one can confirm it, some accident in an asteroid belt. And J... I didn’t know where he was, until I learned from the Yuy boy that he also died- and pretty soon after our separation. He managed to give Heero an extensive training, but not nearly long and good enough.”
My mouth feels like I have been eating hay for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the last six fucking months.
“Like I already said,” his voice sounds hoarse, “if times were different, and if we were able to finish the Gundams.. I would have built the Deathscythe for you, Duo of Maxwell Church.”
Deathscythe. The Grim Reaper. The image of the pitch black Gundam with the scythe flashes for my eyes, and I feel strangely relieved. No other of the Gundams would have suited me better than the massive harbinger of death. It was somehow fitting.
“If times were different, you may not ever have met me at all.”
“I don’t think so. We were destined to come together, Death and Pestilence.”
He turns abruptly, and opens the top drawer of the desk. I watch him rummage inside, and gasp when I see him taking out a gun.
“I am so sorry, young Shinigami.”
I rise, cane completely forgotten, and the pain flares through my body. Despite the agonizing pain I back a few steps up, almost breaking my neck by tripping over the chair. But then he turns the gun; handle pointing towards me.
“This is for you.”
“Wh.. what?” I sway to regain my balance.
“I can not think of anything else, Duo of Maxwell Church. I have outlived my time long ago. There is nothing else I would welcome more than Shinigami taking my life.”
“Stop referring to me like that,” I protest weakly.
“In all the years we know each other, I have never asked you anything. I’ve always commanded you, bossed you, and ordered you. I am not asking you now either. Take it and kill me.”
“No.” My fists are clenched, knuckles turning white. “I will not kill you.”
He stands before me, arm stretched out with the handle of the gun pointing towards me.
“I am not going to beg you.”
“I won’t listen to this any longer.” I turn around and move towards the door. Something tugs at me in my mind, something G said. I dismiss it. I don’t want to kill the man just because he thinks he’s in some way responsible for the war. I almost moan from the continuous pain. I need to take it easy, but there is just so much that has to be done, and this confession of the professor doesn’t make things any easier. I need time to think.
He stretches out his other hand.
“Before you leave, promise me another thing.”
“I’m not going to...”
“Another thing, Duo.” He looks serious. “It must be destroyed.”
“We already talked about destroying the Gundams, G.”
His visible eye glitters with something left of his maniacal self.
“I am talking about the Tallgeese, Duo. This is the last mission I’ll plan for you. After this, you will kill me.”
“No.” I growl. “Stop asking that. You are not expendable. Strategy and mission planning...”
“Can by handled by Quatre,” he squashes my argument, “I hardly had anything to do with your last mission, I only planned the schedule of the explosives.”
“Figures,” I say. Hopefully Quatre has not such a millisecond count on schedules, or I’ll really burn my ass one of these days. I manage to pick up my cane from the floor without falling.
“What do you mean about the Tallgeese?”
“It’s here. On L2.”
“What the hell...?”
“It was verified by the last disk you retrieved. Besides access to all the files containing the data about the Gundams, it also contained the whereabouts of the Tallgeese. During the test run, the mobile suit crashed on the colony. We thought it was destroyed in the fire and so... we didn’t give it a second thought. We should have known that titanium would not be destroyed by simple fire. The data on the disk shows me that people are working to decipher the refining process of gundanium alloy. If they master the process, the Alliance gets ultimate domination handed on a silver platter.”
“You give us the coordinates, and we destroy it. What are you looking at me now?”
“Like I said, I outlived my time long ago. It has to end.”
“We don’t win a war by killing people.”
He stares at me. “We do by killing the people responsible for the war.”
“You are not responsible for the war!” I almost scream, the indignant tone altering my voice.
The way he averts his eyes makes my heart pound faster. I wonder if there is more to follow.
“G?”
“Just... just leave, Duo.”
I don’t answer. I move on some kind of autopilot, because I hold the doorknob and turn it. When I stumble outside, it strikes me that G has twice called me ‘Duo of Maxwell Church’. He also called me Shinigami twice. He’s never called me that before. My cane shudders as if it cannot bear my weight any longer. Tallgeese used for a test flight on L2, testing its beam control, its control. Test run was a disaster. Motion capability beyond ordinary human bounds. Failed. Crashed on... something. Thought it was destroyed in the fire.
I was around seven when the church was destroyed. I can smell the charred pieces of the burnt building in my nightmares. Did I... have I ever seen the mobile suits of the Alliance fire? Was their firepower enough to destroy all of the church? A vague memory of a blast that came out of nothing. G joining me... the look he sometimes gives me. The insinuations...
“Jesus God Christ!” I spin around, the cane bends, and snaps. As I fall to the ground, hands reaching out to grab the doorknob, I hear the gunshot, echoed by the scattering of the pieces of the cane, and I hit the ground, thoughts completely blank.
Quatre sits by my bed when I wake up. He smiles at me when he notices I’m awake. It’s a kind of smile I would like to see everyday when I wake up; it never ceases to amaze me that Quatre is able to genuinely smile, no matter what the circumstances.
“Good to see you again, Duo.”
“Hey, this is getting disturbingly familiar.” It comes out raspy as I try to sit up straight. I don’t miss the sad side to his smile. He rises to help me and after straightening me, he takes his own seat again.
“I don’t think I have to ask.”
He shakes his blond-haired head. “Nothing could be done.”
“I killed him,” I can’t help sounding beaten. Sometimes, I really want to give up. “I killed him, Quatre.”
“You did not.” He rises again, only to take a paper cup and put it to my lips. Clean water. I restrain myself not to gulp; years of suppression kick in and I sip cautiously, avoiding any spill of the precious liquid.
“I found the mission plans and details on his desk. I missed some pieces of the puzzle, but I think I get the gist of it.”
“We don’t have much time.”
I push away the blankets and try to swing my legs out of bed. He gently stops me by simply placing his hands on my legs.
“No, Duo. You have to rest.”
My face feels flushed, and I notice the mass off hair hanging in front of my eyes. My braid must have come undone.
“We have a lot of work to do.”
He increases the pressure of his hands, and with one swift movement he has me lying on my back, and tucks me in like a little kid.
“You have to rest,” he repeats, “don’t make me set up guards around your bed to watch you get some rest.”
“We don’t have time for this.” The same moment tears flow out of my eyes, over my cheeks, like a dam that succumbs under the pressure.
Without comment Quatre hugs me, arms comforting around me.
“Oh Duo.. poor, poor soul.”
“He killed himself, he just killed himself!” I wail. He killed himself after he asked Shinigami to do the job.
“Of course you are grieving about G, Duo. But I think these tears are not all about him.”
“Whaddaya mean?” I try to bat his hand away but fail. I ignore the wet stain on his shirt.
He pats me on the back. “Sometimes, all of this is too much for one person to bear, Duo. You really should consider taking on a partner. No, let me finish, and don’t start again with your crap. It’s crap, and you know it. We are not going to have these same discussions over and over again. I’ll just finish by stating that Trowa and Wufei are available as partners.”
“Well, maybe when Catherine has her baby, and she isn’t leaning on Trowa so much..” I can’t believe I’m really considering this.
“And did you ever think of a partner who listens to you? Not only watching your back?”
“You are, aren’t you?” I smirk.
He laughs, and flutters his hand through my bangs.
“You are irreplaceable, Duo.” He frowns, suddenly serious. “You know very well what I mean. And don’t give me that ‘I-kill-everybody-around-me’ crap either.”
“You read my mind.”
“I feel your emotions, Duo. That is something completely different.”
“Right...”
“Quit it. Do you want me to do your braid?”
“Sure.”
He gathers the chestnut strands of hair and braids it rather sloppily, but who am I to complain. I don’t want to strangle myself in my sleep with my hair unbound.
“Wufei?” I pick up our conversation.
“He is a very good partner on missions, but not the kind of partner I am talking about.”
I ponder until my brains cook.
“You?”
“Of course not.” He looks like he wants to smack my head but backs off. “Get some rest, Duo. We’ll talk about this later.”
I finally get it. “What the hell, Quatre, you are playing matchmaker or something?”
He avoids the pillow I throw at him.
“I’m just saying that being alone all the time is not...”
“Quit it,” I roar, and he refrains from any more comments. He picks up the pillow and stuffs it behind my back. I know he wants to say more about the subject matter, but I don’t want to. Damn Quatre and his emotional... his emotional commitment.
“Good night, Duo.”
I bid him goodnight, and the second he leaves the room I climb out of bed. As soon as I touch the floor, my knees buckle and I almost fall.
“Damn...” I change into my clothes, slowly, trembling. G. What was the man thinking? Was this... some kind of sign?
“We were hardly friends,” I speak out loud. The man was a fanatic in his fight against the Alliance, the organization he worked for. I can’t get my head around it. The designs of the Tallgeese, the Gundams. It was all his work. If times were different, I would have built the Deathscythe for you, Duo of Maxwell Church. The black Gundam with a scythe, capable of slashing a mobile suit in one movement. Death was appropriate. It has become like a weight on my shoulders.
Chapter 7 | Chapter 9