Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ 19 ( Chapter 19 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Lethanon 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Sci-fi / Thriller | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 05.27.2011 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.5K | Visits: 295 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Sci-fi / Thriller | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 05.27.2011 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.5K | Visits: 295 | Status: Work In Progress
19:
“Trowa…” Giles staggered off the Pad and gaped at the cage of unconscious prisoners but Trowa ignored him, Hatty holding a plate down for him while he welded it into place. He could hear Giles shifting around behind him and then the man was at his side, rubbing his stomach and staring at the completed desk with wide eyes.
“You’re nearly done…” Trowa didn’t bother replying, because that was obvious. Giles inspected it, leaning down to peer through the back of the casing and shaking his head at the amount of work Trowa had completed before pointing to the cage.
“You’ve been busy…” Again, that was obvious. Trowa was getting really tired of the man stating the obvious but he finished welding the last piece and put it aside before looking at Giles sternly, a little jealous the man looked so well rested.
“You have prisoners,” Giles pointed out softly. Trowa just glared at him and Giles winced, rubbing the back of his neck while he struggled to think of something to say that wasn’t going to make Trowa think killing him was a good idea, not that Trowa intended to but the look on his face left Trowa feeling only vaguely annoyed at himself for taking his anger out on the man. He doubted it was a good thing when unprovoked rage toward your friends became normal.
“Frank got Wufei,” Trowa admitted softly and Giles had the sense to swear, looking about the room and Trowa wondered why it seemed prisoners were the logical response. It had seemed like a good idea at the time? Unlikely that would stand up in court.
“I would have expected you to kill them. You were going to kill me…” And Giles hadn’t done half what those men had done. But they hadn’t disturbed Trowa’s plans either, they’d just pissed him off for the last time.
“I’m stealing time. Like they stole mine.” Years of it, with loved ones and friends. Time to dream and hope and think of a future he’d thought he wasn’t going to get when he should have been living it. All of it their fault. So he was stealing the time back, and taking some of theirs. And he wasn’t even making them clean dirt out of elephant toes, so really they should have been thanking him.
Giles was quiet, just studying him and Trowa could see him throwing up the likelihood of surviving pointing out that Trowa was a little insane right now, but he didn’t care. If he was crazy, then it felt good to be crazy. He wanted revenge, but more importantly he wanted it over, with Wufei safe and getting the care he needed. Even if that meant going back to the Circus to alleviate his boredom and handing his licenses back over to Preventers for ‘safe keeping.’ You know, just in case he really lost it and decided taking over the world would be a good idea.
“Alright,” Giles finally sighed. “I’m assuming you have a plan?”
“I do,” Trowa admitted, but he didn’t divulge it immediately, sating his own masochism by keeping it close to his heart a little longer, focusing instead on completing the control desk, relieved when Giles didn’t try to get any more out of him but instead reached in to help.
Three sets of hands made fast work of what remained and Trowa pulled away while Hatty and Giles went about clipping the back onto it, finally completing the monstrosity. They stood around it and pride swelled Trowa’s chest as he reached up to give Hatty a high five. Giles didn’t seem impressed by their camaraderie.
“So, this plan of yours?”
“I’m going to load a virus into Hatty, and then Molecularize Nataku out of the capsule upstairs, and at the same time Molecularize Hatty into it. The virus will delete a lot of the directives Frank is following as well as establish a human controller as the decision maker, through the console here.”
Giles went to the laptop immediately, examining the virus Trowa had made and sitting down heavily in the chair. He looked at Trowa and Hatty, shook his head and scrolled down the seemingly endless page.
“You think it’ll work?”
“Frank has to connect with the Origen, and has to take the information it feeds him. It’ll work.” It had to, because if it didn’t Hatty couldn’t be a substitute for the Origen, incomplete as she was, and Frank would end up conscienceless, and that would be that. There would be no way to stop him short of blowing up the station, which Trowa had to admit at this point wasn’t seeming as horrible an idea as it had been. He knew he wasn’t in the sanest frame of mind, but he didn’t care. His anger at what had been done to Wufei had finally consumed him, and if that same anger could help get Wufei help sooner, then he’d embrace it a hundred times over.
“What do you need me to do?”
Trowa thought about it seriously, trying to sort out everything that had to happen and the timing of it, but really there was only one place for Giles and Trowa just rolled the chair Giles was sitting in over to the control desk.
“Be ready to take control. It’ll be obvious when it happens, there’ll be an endless information stream coming in.”
“And Hatty will be gone,” Giles said softly, looking up at her sadly.
“I’ll be gone?” Hatty frowned, looking at Trowa for confirmation. He just sighed and shook his head.
“Not gone, Hatty, just...in hiding. You’ll be special, like Nataku. You’ll be the Origen.”
“And you’ll love me?”
How did she always blindside him with questions she shouldn’t have even thought to ask? Her preoccupation with amorous desire annoyed him most of the time, but in the last few hours it had changed to a reckless ache in his chest. What if she really did know what love was? What if she was capable of being the Origen, if somehow she’d altered her own state between the time Harry had turned her off and he had switched her back on? What if she could feel? What if she knew what love really meant? If she felt the same hole eating its way through her chest as he felt in his own?
A deep breath helped to clear his head and he nodded to her. She was just a machine. Just a tool to get what he needed. Right.
“I’m going to check on Wufei. I’ll send a message to the board when we’re ready to execute. We’ll set up the replica Pad there, and if we’re successful installing Hatty and the virus, we should be able to move between My Room and Hanger101 easily afterward.”
Giles just nodded and waved him off and Trowa headed to the Pad, giving Hatty the signal and bracing himself as he blinked and appeared in the shower, stepping out and ignoring the way his body protested the movement. Nataku was right, it got easier to just ignore it when you had the right attitude toward it. The right attitude being that nothing else mattered except getting back to Wufei and ending this madness.
“Tro...” Duo hesitated as he came out of the bathroom, but Trowa ignored it, going to the bed and sitting beside Wufei, taking his hand and squeezing gently.
Wufei opened his eyes but they took far too long to track to his face and his smile was forced as he stroked the inside of Wufei’s wrist.
“Hey.” He looked terrible. Thin and worn and in pain. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin shone with a fine layer of sweat and Trowa cursed the withdrawals.
“He’s too weak to drink the tea,” Heero noted softly. “We’ve been giving him small amounts, but it’s taking a while since he’s not getting a decent dose in one go.”
Trowa didn’t want to hear it and just shook his head, leaning down to rest his forehead against Wufei’s, closing his eyes and letting it sink in that Wufei was at least awake. He could deal with awake. Awake was one step closer to home and safe.
He turned to Duo and Heero, still holding Wufei’s hand in his own, taking a deep breath and trying to explain what he had planned. They listened with matching frowns, sharing a look when he was done and then shrugging.
“Better than anything we came up with,” Duo admitted. And just like that they were moving, packing up everything they’d brought with them, shoving things back into bags and hauling out the Pad they’d finished assembling overnight and Trowa inspected it while they got their things together.
They’d done an excellent job, following his instructions perfectly but it still felt odd not having tested it so he grabbed a jar of jam and put it on the Pad, hooking it all up to Heero’s laptop and sending it through to Giles, waiting patiently for something to show up on the message board.
“Any bread to go with that?” It finally asked him and Trowa grinned.
“Not right now.”
“Okay, it works,” Duo rolled his eyes. “But the magnetic field is still on, so I’m not testing it on myself until it’s turned off. Trowa had to agree, testing it on a human now would be unwise, which was why he hadn’t bothered finishing it off before now. Besides, he’d thought he would only need it to get them out of Frank, now it was fast becoming a second port of call for getting around Frank. Changing its use altered what he needed it to do, so he was fine tuning. And sending jam. Everyone liked jam, right?
“Triton?” He blinked, looking up at the message board because Giles didn’t call him Triton and wondering what Hatty wanted now. He didn’t have time to deal with her having another tantrum about him not spending enough time with her, or sleeping with her, or whatever it was she wanted now. Especially not if she was going to start doing it in front of Heero and Duo.
“There are ships outside.”
“Quatre,” Heero breathed immediately and Trowa hoped he was right, but frowned at the plural.
“How many?”
“It’s hard to say, they’re still arriving, but at least thirty so far.”
What, had Une sent a Preventers armada? Trowa looked to Heero, trying to see what he thought of it all, but Heero just shrugged. They should go through with their plan. Preventers being there just meant they had a way to get out as soon as they needed it. Provided Frank didn’t pull his disappearing trick.
“You can’t communicate with them?”
“No. All external signals are being jammed.” Trowa had suspected as much but it was good to confirm. He wasted no time, helping Heero and Duo pack everything up and scanning it all on the Pad, making sure it had all their details.
“Okay. Are we ready to do this?”
“I think we should get Wufei out first,” Duo put in suddenly. “I’ll take him. You don’t need me here, and I can explain what’s going on to the others.” Whoever the others were. Trowa just nodded and helped Heero load as much of their gear onto the Pad as possible before going to the bed and picking up Wufei.
“Don’t,” Wufei muttered, but his voice was so strained Trowa barely heard it.
“I need you out,” Trowa murmured back to him, screaming with relief inside that Wufei would finally get some medical attention and be where Frank couldn’t touch him. He ran the scanner for the Pad on Heero’s laptop before contacting Hatty once more.
“Hatty. Can you get coordinates for the largest ship outside and send them to me so we can send some things over? We need a place on the ship that’s likely to be empty!”
“I can.” But would she? Trowa waited impatiently and jumped when the information came through on the Computer, typing it in to the Pad program and looking to Duo to make sure he was ready. He had Wufei slumped wearily against his side and a grim look on his face that left butterflies in Trowa’s stomach but he nodded.
And then they were gone and Heero was strapping on a belt and holster, shoving in a gun and tossing the rest of his belongings into a bag in the corner. Trowa hurriedly did the same, making sure there was nothing forgotten before going back to the message board and contacting Giles.
“We’re ready. You?”
“Ready. Hatty is sending through Nataku’s profile to load.”
Trowa waited for it, surprised by the complexity compared to his own but not having time to consider what it meant. He looked at Heero and saw nothing but cold determination there. It helped steel Trowa’s own nerves and felt oddly like old times. Heero suddenly grinned and Trowa knew they were on the same page.
“Okay. We’re good to go,” Trowa sent to Giles. “Count down when you’re ready and we’ll activate on your count.”
Heero came closer, as if he could help by merely staring at the laptop, but Trowa just waited patiently until the countdown came through the Computer.
Five. This had really better work, because he’d come up with this plan and if it didn’t work Heero was standing right there with a gun on his hip and he might just snap and kill him. Which would suck, since Wufei was now back with Preventers finally getting some help and would be okay and dying now would defeat the purpose of coming here to save him in the first place. Not that he had known at the time that that was what he was doing...
Four. But once he realised that was what he was doing there, Trowa had tried damn hard to do the mission, to get everything done when all he wanted to do was rush back to His Room and spend time with Wufei. Instead he’d had to leave Heero to babysit, and that didn’t set well with him at all! With either of them really, he was sure.
Three. Heero wasn’t one for indecision, and Trowa had sat through several lunches in those early days while Heero glared at him, demanding to know what he was doing with Wufei. The idea of working up the guts to seduce Chang Wufei was foreign to Heero, who had thrown himself into the relationship Duo had merely hinted at with the same determined madness he did anything he cared about with. Those lunches had eventually pushed Trowa into acting and the game of courting Wufei had begun in earnest.
Two. Of course, that hadn’t ended all that well, so he wasn’t sure Heero should give up his day job to become a self help instructor. But Trowa had Wufei, so who was he to say it didn’t work? Maybe the universe and Heero just conspired in odd ways the rest of the world couldn’t fathom. Whatever the case, Trowa had few regrets. Nothing that had gone wrong was his fault, the only thing he’d done wrong was not follow Wufei. He should have tracked him down and found him and demanded a real answer.
One. So now he threw himself into a finale he wouldn’t regret. Taking action felt good after the days of trying to bring the moment to fruition. Going home to see Wufei, knowing he couldn’t do anything or get him home had stung, but that was over with. Now it was his turn to take charge.
The sense of satisfaction that consumed him as he hit execute and watched the data flow through was excruciating. Brilliant. Heero was already stepping up to the pad and Trowa turned to watch as the Pad activated, the red light flashing briefly before Nataku appeared, dripping in the same green sludge they’d pulled Wufei from, gasping for breath and rolling onto her side, coughing up the goo in a wet puddle. Heero stepped back and waited for her to finish before moving in and picking her up, taking her to the bathroom and pushing her into the shower, helping to wash her down, stripping her clothes off and fetching her fresh whites from the closet.
“Where...what happened?” She looked around, spotted Trowa and froze, face a mask of confusion as she struggled to work it out. Trowa left her to it, moving to the message board instead.
“Hatty?”
The pause was painful while he waited for Giles to respond, but he knew the longer it took the more hopeful it was. If he didn’t respond right away, it meant Hatty wasn’t monitoring the board.
“Information link is established. Secondary inputs are activating. Hatty’s a success.”
Trowa sat back with a heavy sigh and just stared at the board, amused that so much chaos from his week could come down to such a simple finish. There was still a lot to be done, but for now they had things under control, literally. A hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed. Trowa met Heero’s gaze and nodded before looking at Nataku as she pulled on a shirt and squirmed until it was in a comfortable position.
It made him pause, watching her try to get comfortable because she shouldn’t have cared. She should have pulled it on and been oblivious if it was crooked or inside out or just a bad cut, but she wasn’t. She gave a damn and acted to fix the problem. It made Trowa think of Hatty and where she was and he hadn’t expected the ache in his chest at all, rubbing at it with a hand that wanted to curl into a fist.
“Alright, we’re coming through.”
Trowa set the timer on the Pad and hurried over to stand beside Heero and Nataku, waiting impatiently as the seconds ticked by and then he was stepping into Hanger101, amused when Heero leant over, bracing himself on his knees and breathing deeply. All those evenings of needing time to recover in the shower suddenly felt less a weakness and more an inevitability. Though Nataku simply stepped off the Pad and strode forward.
“Look!” Giles was gesturing at the lights blinking on the desk and the endless stream of information coming in on the laptop and Trowa hurried over to take a closer look, a smile of his own making it onto his face.
“You...you uploaded a virus?” Nataku was stunned. “Harrison had said it wasn’t possible.”
“He wasn’t thinking of you as a virus,” Trowa pointed out, feeling pleased with himself, but also amused that he’d inadvertently just called Nataku a virus. Having spent days with Hatty, he was now confused by the feelings that were rising up in him when he looked at Nataku. She was the polished version, and while no fault of her own she was the reason Hatty had been deactivated. The price for Nataku’s existence had been Hatty’s life, what little of it there was. Ironic that Hatty had now usurped Nataku’s place in the grand scheme of things.
“No, but...he was pretty adamant it wasn’t possible,” Nataku repeated, coming closer to get a better look at the control desk and the look on her face finally had Trowa worried. He looked at the desk, trying to see what she was seeing but it looked exactly as he expected it to.
“What’s wrong?” It was Giles who eventually asked and Trowa waited impatiently for her to finish gaping at the desk and turn to meet their curious gazes. She looked nervous, which was odd considering she was a robot and shouldn’t have known what nerves were.
“It’s just...the System was designed so that if something went wrong, like a virus, Frank would be isolated from everything but essential systems.”
“We know. That’s kind of what we wanted.”
“But it also drops the shield between Levels one and five, allowing Frank access to the military.”
The silence was profound.
“Shit,” Trowa and Giles cursed at the same time. Already reaching for the laptop, Heero used the backdoor he had hacked during the first few days in Frank to access Frank’s database, swearing when he found the magnetic field was down.
“The military’s already been mobilized,” he noted coldly.
“I’ll go,” Trowa said immediately. “If they’re mobilizing the SiS someone needs to protect the Preventer ships.” He didn’t wait for Heero to respond, trusting Heero and Giles to do whatever had to be done to slow Frank down and get things under control. They had Nataku as well, and who knew what she was actually capable of when Hatty had been so useful with only a fraction of her capabilities.
His own part in dealing with Frank had come to a halt the moment there was a threat to the Preventers outside, not because he felt loyalty to Preventers but because he’d let Duo evacuate Wufei to those ships. He went to the Pad and looked expectantly at Nataku, almost laughing as she rolled her eyes and went to plug herself in, hesitating only a moment before shoving the plug home. He wondered what it felt like, if it hurt and if she was scared of what Frank could do to her while she was plugged in, but he didn’t ask.
“Heero...the prisoners are waking up,” he pointed out, but then he was in the Hanger and he rushed to his Simulator, stalled halfway there by his commanding officer yelling at him to get in his damn SiS and Trowa was more than happy to comply, racing to the Fighter instead and climbing in. He stashed his backpack at his feet and went through the start up check before hesitating over firing up his Pad.
What if Frank was watching and waiting for him to try? What if he ended up several galaxies away? What if he just disintegrated into nothing?
“I am with you, Triton.” Nataku’s voice came through his helmet and Trowa jerked hard in response. If it was supposed to be reassuring, it wasn’t, and Trowa found himself missing Hatty. Somehow, knowing Nataku was more complete, and hence more human, in Trowa’s mind made her less trustworthy. He’d taken it for granted that Hatty only did as she was told, for the most part. Nataku could do anything she took it into her fool head to do.
“I’m hoping that means I’m going to come out on the other side,” Trowa grumbled, hitting initiate.
“Perhaps,” Nataku agreed, but it was too late, he was in that strange second of a jolt before he emerged on the other side, floating in his jump coordinate outside Frank. He scowled at the ship that materialized nearby, somehow knowing it was Nataku.
“Harsh, Taku. Way harsh!”
“You’re alive, Triton. Suck it up.”
She was learning them, much faster than Trowa had anticipated but somehow it only made him laugh. The way she learned, the sense of humour, the drive she felt to do the right thing...she really was human. And yet wasn’t, just as she had told them what felt like a lifetime ago. Not that long ago really, it was just having Wufei back making the time he’d been gone feel like eons past. Time was such a strange thing.
“We have to protect the Preventers fleet long enough to let them escape. I’ve rigged my SiS lights with a blue neon light by covering the lens with the filter paper from the rear guidance system. Can you do the same?”
“I believe so.”
Trowa wasted no time sending an encoded message to the Preventers fleet and Heero’s laptop explaining that the SiS fighters with blue lights were friendly; the red were the bad guys. Only not really bad, they just didn’t know any better which while sad and unfortunate was still going to get the sorry bastards killed and right then Trowa didn’t really give a damn.
The lights on the nearby SiS turned blue and Trowa grunted in appreciation of Nataku’s skills but otherwise gave it no thought, pushing forward and flying through their squadron to the front line of the Preventers, wasting no time in arming the weapons he had available and tracing the best path for his attack.
There wasn’t enough time to make a strategy, the SiS opened fire immediately, storming forward in a swarm and it was all Trowa could do to move with them and head them off, aware of Hatty trying to do the same but in the end he supposed it had been a stupid idea from the start.
The first Preventers ship had no warning. The SiS destroyed in before a minute had passed from their exit of Frank, and a second ship followed seconds later. Trowa cursed and shifted toward the ship he thought Wufei and Duo would be on, intercepting a missile headed toward it and extending his shields into a disc array, covering the ship.
They didn’t need to be told; the ships were already turning, trying to flee but the SiS were far more advanced and designed for close combat. They damaged each in waves, a constant rotating barrage and Trowa wasn’t sure a Gundam would have fared well against them. They were too small and quick to target easily and if you managed to get a few there was no rest, always another coming in its wake. At least they weren’t mobile dolls? But the thought was cold comfort as he saw Nataku trying to protect another of the fleeing ships. Would the mobile dolls eventually have evolved personalities? Would they have been wounded by the ethical dilemma humans often fell prey to in war? Would they have grown to resent the controller?
Hatty was a heavy weight on his conscience, her husky voice echoing in his memory. I love you.
“Barton!” Quatre’s voice! Trowa’s stomach dropped and he cursed silently. He wasn’t supposed to be here! But there was no time to think on it, connecting the secure line and separating his points of focus to include the battle and his conversation.
“I’m a little busy here Winner,” he ground out, unable to keep the anger from his voice that Quatre was here at all.
“Chang and Maxwell have been extracted. We’re receiving a string of prisoners.”
Startled, Trowa looked back at Frank and saw the eye was open, small pulses of light flashing across the lens. He thought it was probably Heero, and couldn’t argue. The more of the brass they could remove from Frank the better chance they would have of taking control. If that was even possible. The flow of battle was not in their favour, the Preventers were thoroughly out-numbered. They had no chance of success, and internally they had little chance of wrestling control of the military back from a locked down system.
“Retreat, Winner.” The damage was already done. Quatre was in charge of the fleet, and half of it had been destroyed already, debris scattered all around making it hard to position himself in a way to continue to shield the ships.
“Trowa...” Yeah, it was always hard to leave a man behind. But someone had to stay, and really this was his mistake and no one knew the situation better than he did. He was on the inside, whether Frank liked it or not.
“Get Maxwell home. He knows everything.” And if it ever became known the fate of the universe now rested on Duo Maxwell he pitied the poor fool who would have to deal with the fallout. Even if that fool was Une. He closed the comms and did his best to give them the time they needed to retreat.
It wasn’t easy, his SiS taking several severe hits that damaged key systems but it was solid and functioning and refused to give in, as much like Heavyarms as he could hope for.
“Triton?”
“I know Taku.” They couldn’t protect the ships any longer. They soon wouldn’t be able to protect even themselves. He wondered if anyone had managed to track their SiS ID’s and hoped not. The last thing they needed was to get arrested when they went back to Frank.
And it was becoming increasingly clear that was what he was going to have to do. Wufei was safe; the Preventers shuttle was leaving so he had achieved his goal. But what he was supposed to do about Frank or the ships dying around them he had no idea. He supposed he was meant to let it all go. Just let it happen, but that wouldn’t make it any easier to watch.
“Giles?”
“I’m busy, Trowa!”
And he sounded it. Trowa frowned and tried to dodge his way out of the line of fire of several SiS while he contemplated the tone of voice. Frustrated, yes. Angry, a little. Scared...very.
“I believe the virus is not working as you had hoped,” Nataku’s voice stated clearly. Not emotionally. She was not like Hatty and it made him sigh, slumping a little in his chair as he saw her blue light flicker and die, turning red as her SiS wove its way back into the fray, disappearing amongst the masses and he was forced to do the same.
“You don’t say,” he grumbled at Nataku but he had no way of knowing if she was even listening. He kicked the pack at his feet, angry because he wasn’t going home yet. He had no way of knowing how long it would be before he saw Wufei again. If, even. Life’s unfair irony might yet be that he had to leave Wufei in order to save him.
How could such grand plans come to so little? He headed for the Hanger and de-Molecularized through to his bay, hurrying through the shutdown procedures just in case someone knew it had been him protecting the Preventers instead of Frank, hurrying to the train, unsurprised to see Nataku sprinting for it herself.
Lights were flashing a rich red, orders were streaming across the screens on the announcements scroll bar around the edge of the ceiling. Soldiers were running in all directions and Trowa just kept moving, trying to look like he was doing something equally important. No one noticed them.
“I am sorry you were unable to leave, Triton.” And she actually looked it. Trowa just shrugged, taking a seat beside her on the train and wishing that willing it to go faster would work.
“I’m just glad I didn’t park my car at the airport.”
“Trowa…” Giles staggered off the Pad and gaped at the cage of unconscious prisoners but Trowa ignored him, Hatty holding a plate down for him while he welded it into place. He could hear Giles shifting around behind him and then the man was at his side, rubbing his stomach and staring at the completed desk with wide eyes.
“You’re nearly done…” Trowa didn’t bother replying, because that was obvious. Giles inspected it, leaning down to peer through the back of the casing and shaking his head at the amount of work Trowa had completed before pointing to the cage.
“You’ve been busy…” Again, that was obvious. Trowa was getting really tired of the man stating the obvious but he finished welding the last piece and put it aside before looking at Giles sternly, a little jealous the man looked so well rested.
“You have prisoners,” Giles pointed out softly. Trowa just glared at him and Giles winced, rubbing the back of his neck while he struggled to think of something to say that wasn’t going to make Trowa think killing him was a good idea, not that Trowa intended to but the look on his face left Trowa feeling only vaguely annoyed at himself for taking his anger out on the man. He doubted it was a good thing when unprovoked rage toward your friends became normal.
“Frank got Wufei,” Trowa admitted softly and Giles had the sense to swear, looking about the room and Trowa wondered why it seemed prisoners were the logical response. It had seemed like a good idea at the time? Unlikely that would stand up in court.
“I would have expected you to kill them. You were going to kill me…” And Giles hadn’t done half what those men had done. But they hadn’t disturbed Trowa’s plans either, they’d just pissed him off for the last time.
“I’m stealing time. Like they stole mine.” Years of it, with loved ones and friends. Time to dream and hope and think of a future he’d thought he wasn’t going to get when he should have been living it. All of it their fault. So he was stealing the time back, and taking some of theirs. And he wasn’t even making them clean dirt out of elephant toes, so really they should have been thanking him.
Giles was quiet, just studying him and Trowa could see him throwing up the likelihood of surviving pointing out that Trowa was a little insane right now, but he didn’t care. If he was crazy, then it felt good to be crazy. He wanted revenge, but more importantly he wanted it over, with Wufei safe and getting the care he needed. Even if that meant going back to the Circus to alleviate his boredom and handing his licenses back over to Preventers for ‘safe keeping.’ You know, just in case he really lost it and decided taking over the world would be a good idea.
“Alright,” Giles finally sighed. “I’m assuming you have a plan?”
“I do,” Trowa admitted, but he didn’t divulge it immediately, sating his own masochism by keeping it close to his heart a little longer, focusing instead on completing the control desk, relieved when Giles didn’t try to get any more out of him but instead reached in to help.
Three sets of hands made fast work of what remained and Trowa pulled away while Hatty and Giles went about clipping the back onto it, finally completing the monstrosity. They stood around it and pride swelled Trowa’s chest as he reached up to give Hatty a high five. Giles didn’t seem impressed by their camaraderie.
“So, this plan of yours?”
“I’m going to load a virus into Hatty, and then Molecularize Nataku out of the capsule upstairs, and at the same time Molecularize Hatty into it. The virus will delete a lot of the directives Frank is following as well as establish a human controller as the decision maker, through the console here.”
Giles went to the laptop immediately, examining the virus Trowa had made and sitting down heavily in the chair. He looked at Trowa and Hatty, shook his head and scrolled down the seemingly endless page.
“You think it’ll work?”
“Frank has to connect with the Origen, and has to take the information it feeds him. It’ll work.” It had to, because if it didn’t Hatty couldn’t be a substitute for the Origen, incomplete as she was, and Frank would end up conscienceless, and that would be that. There would be no way to stop him short of blowing up the station, which Trowa had to admit at this point wasn’t seeming as horrible an idea as it had been. He knew he wasn’t in the sanest frame of mind, but he didn’t care. His anger at what had been done to Wufei had finally consumed him, and if that same anger could help get Wufei help sooner, then he’d embrace it a hundred times over.
“What do you need me to do?”
Trowa thought about it seriously, trying to sort out everything that had to happen and the timing of it, but really there was only one place for Giles and Trowa just rolled the chair Giles was sitting in over to the control desk.
“Be ready to take control. It’ll be obvious when it happens, there’ll be an endless information stream coming in.”
“And Hatty will be gone,” Giles said softly, looking up at her sadly.
“I’ll be gone?” Hatty frowned, looking at Trowa for confirmation. He just sighed and shook his head.
“Not gone, Hatty, just...in hiding. You’ll be special, like Nataku. You’ll be the Origen.”
“And you’ll love me?”
How did she always blindside him with questions she shouldn’t have even thought to ask? Her preoccupation with amorous desire annoyed him most of the time, but in the last few hours it had changed to a reckless ache in his chest. What if she really did know what love was? What if she was capable of being the Origen, if somehow she’d altered her own state between the time Harry had turned her off and he had switched her back on? What if she could feel? What if she knew what love really meant? If she felt the same hole eating its way through her chest as he felt in his own?
A deep breath helped to clear his head and he nodded to her. She was just a machine. Just a tool to get what he needed. Right.
“I’m going to check on Wufei. I’ll send a message to the board when we’re ready to execute. We’ll set up the replica Pad there, and if we’re successful installing Hatty and the virus, we should be able to move between My Room and Hanger101 easily afterward.”
Giles just nodded and waved him off and Trowa headed to the Pad, giving Hatty the signal and bracing himself as he blinked and appeared in the shower, stepping out and ignoring the way his body protested the movement. Nataku was right, it got easier to just ignore it when you had the right attitude toward it. The right attitude being that nothing else mattered except getting back to Wufei and ending this madness.
“Tro...” Duo hesitated as he came out of the bathroom, but Trowa ignored it, going to the bed and sitting beside Wufei, taking his hand and squeezing gently.
Wufei opened his eyes but they took far too long to track to his face and his smile was forced as he stroked the inside of Wufei’s wrist.
“Hey.” He looked terrible. Thin and worn and in pain. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin shone with a fine layer of sweat and Trowa cursed the withdrawals.
“He’s too weak to drink the tea,” Heero noted softly. “We’ve been giving him small amounts, but it’s taking a while since he’s not getting a decent dose in one go.”
Trowa didn’t want to hear it and just shook his head, leaning down to rest his forehead against Wufei’s, closing his eyes and letting it sink in that Wufei was at least awake. He could deal with awake. Awake was one step closer to home and safe.
He turned to Duo and Heero, still holding Wufei’s hand in his own, taking a deep breath and trying to explain what he had planned. They listened with matching frowns, sharing a look when he was done and then shrugging.
“Better than anything we came up with,” Duo admitted. And just like that they were moving, packing up everything they’d brought with them, shoving things back into bags and hauling out the Pad they’d finished assembling overnight and Trowa inspected it while they got their things together.
They’d done an excellent job, following his instructions perfectly but it still felt odd not having tested it so he grabbed a jar of jam and put it on the Pad, hooking it all up to Heero’s laptop and sending it through to Giles, waiting patiently for something to show up on the message board.
“Any bread to go with that?” It finally asked him and Trowa grinned.
“Not right now.”
“Okay, it works,” Duo rolled his eyes. “But the magnetic field is still on, so I’m not testing it on myself until it’s turned off. Trowa had to agree, testing it on a human now would be unwise, which was why he hadn’t bothered finishing it off before now. Besides, he’d thought he would only need it to get them out of Frank, now it was fast becoming a second port of call for getting around Frank. Changing its use altered what he needed it to do, so he was fine tuning. And sending jam. Everyone liked jam, right?
“Triton?” He blinked, looking up at the message board because Giles didn’t call him Triton and wondering what Hatty wanted now. He didn’t have time to deal with her having another tantrum about him not spending enough time with her, or sleeping with her, or whatever it was she wanted now. Especially not if she was going to start doing it in front of Heero and Duo.
“There are ships outside.”
“Quatre,” Heero breathed immediately and Trowa hoped he was right, but frowned at the plural.
“How many?”
“It’s hard to say, they’re still arriving, but at least thirty so far.”
What, had Une sent a Preventers armada? Trowa looked to Heero, trying to see what he thought of it all, but Heero just shrugged. They should go through with their plan. Preventers being there just meant they had a way to get out as soon as they needed it. Provided Frank didn’t pull his disappearing trick.
“You can’t communicate with them?”
“No. All external signals are being jammed.” Trowa had suspected as much but it was good to confirm. He wasted no time, helping Heero and Duo pack everything up and scanning it all on the Pad, making sure it had all their details.
“Okay. Are we ready to do this?”
“I think we should get Wufei out first,” Duo put in suddenly. “I’ll take him. You don’t need me here, and I can explain what’s going on to the others.” Whoever the others were. Trowa just nodded and helped Heero load as much of their gear onto the Pad as possible before going to the bed and picking up Wufei.
“Don’t,” Wufei muttered, but his voice was so strained Trowa barely heard it.
“I need you out,” Trowa murmured back to him, screaming with relief inside that Wufei would finally get some medical attention and be where Frank couldn’t touch him. He ran the scanner for the Pad on Heero’s laptop before contacting Hatty once more.
“Hatty. Can you get coordinates for the largest ship outside and send them to me so we can send some things over? We need a place on the ship that’s likely to be empty!”
“I can.” But would she? Trowa waited impatiently and jumped when the information came through on the Computer, typing it in to the Pad program and looking to Duo to make sure he was ready. He had Wufei slumped wearily against his side and a grim look on his face that left butterflies in Trowa’s stomach but he nodded.
And then they were gone and Heero was strapping on a belt and holster, shoving in a gun and tossing the rest of his belongings into a bag in the corner. Trowa hurriedly did the same, making sure there was nothing forgotten before going back to the message board and contacting Giles.
“We’re ready. You?”
“Ready. Hatty is sending through Nataku’s profile to load.”
Trowa waited for it, surprised by the complexity compared to his own but not having time to consider what it meant. He looked at Heero and saw nothing but cold determination there. It helped steel Trowa’s own nerves and felt oddly like old times. Heero suddenly grinned and Trowa knew they were on the same page.
“Okay. We’re good to go,” Trowa sent to Giles. “Count down when you’re ready and we’ll activate on your count.”
Heero came closer, as if he could help by merely staring at the laptop, but Trowa just waited patiently until the countdown came through the Computer.
Five. This had really better work, because he’d come up with this plan and if it didn’t work Heero was standing right there with a gun on his hip and he might just snap and kill him. Which would suck, since Wufei was now back with Preventers finally getting some help and would be okay and dying now would defeat the purpose of coming here to save him in the first place. Not that he had known at the time that that was what he was doing...
Four. But once he realised that was what he was doing there, Trowa had tried damn hard to do the mission, to get everything done when all he wanted to do was rush back to His Room and spend time with Wufei. Instead he’d had to leave Heero to babysit, and that didn’t set well with him at all! With either of them really, he was sure.
Three. Heero wasn’t one for indecision, and Trowa had sat through several lunches in those early days while Heero glared at him, demanding to know what he was doing with Wufei. The idea of working up the guts to seduce Chang Wufei was foreign to Heero, who had thrown himself into the relationship Duo had merely hinted at with the same determined madness he did anything he cared about with. Those lunches had eventually pushed Trowa into acting and the game of courting Wufei had begun in earnest.
Two. Of course, that hadn’t ended all that well, so he wasn’t sure Heero should give up his day job to become a self help instructor. But Trowa had Wufei, so who was he to say it didn’t work? Maybe the universe and Heero just conspired in odd ways the rest of the world couldn’t fathom. Whatever the case, Trowa had few regrets. Nothing that had gone wrong was his fault, the only thing he’d done wrong was not follow Wufei. He should have tracked him down and found him and demanded a real answer.
One. So now he threw himself into a finale he wouldn’t regret. Taking action felt good after the days of trying to bring the moment to fruition. Going home to see Wufei, knowing he couldn’t do anything or get him home had stung, but that was over with. Now it was his turn to take charge.
The sense of satisfaction that consumed him as he hit execute and watched the data flow through was excruciating. Brilliant. Heero was already stepping up to the pad and Trowa turned to watch as the Pad activated, the red light flashing briefly before Nataku appeared, dripping in the same green sludge they’d pulled Wufei from, gasping for breath and rolling onto her side, coughing up the goo in a wet puddle. Heero stepped back and waited for her to finish before moving in and picking her up, taking her to the bathroom and pushing her into the shower, helping to wash her down, stripping her clothes off and fetching her fresh whites from the closet.
“Where...what happened?” She looked around, spotted Trowa and froze, face a mask of confusion as she struggled to work it out. Trowa left her to it, moving to the message board instead.
“Hatty?”
The pause was painful while he waited for Giles to respond, but he knew the longer it took the more hopeful it was. If he didn’t respond right away, it meant Hatty wasn’t monitoring the board.
“Information link is established. Secondary inputs are activating. Hatty’s a success.”
Trowa sat back with a heavy sigh and just stared at the board, amused that so much chaos from his week could come down to such a simple finish. There was still a lot to be done, but for now they had things under control, literally. A hand fell on his shoulder and squeezed. Trowa met Heero’s gaze and nodded before looking at Nataku as she pulled on a shirt and squirmed until it was in a comfortable position.
It made him pause, watching her try to get comfortable because she shouldn’t have cared. She should have pulled it on and been oblivious if it was crooked or inside out or just a bad cut, but she wasn’t. She gave a damn and acted to fix the problem. It made Trowa think of Hatty and where she was and he hadn’t expected the ache in his chest at all, rubbing at it with a hand that wanted to curl into a fist.
“Alright, we’re coming through.”
Trowa set the timer on the Pad and hurried over to stand beside Heero and Nataku, waiting impatiently as the seconds ticked by and then he was stepping into Hanger101, amused when Heero leant over, bracing himself on his knees and breathing deeply. All those evenings of needing time to recover in the shower suddenly felt less a weakness and more an inevitability. Though Nataku simply stepped off the Pad and strode forward.
“Look!” Giles was gesturing at the lights blinking on the desk and the endless stream of information coming in on the laptop and Trowa hurried over to take a closer look, a smile of his own making it onto his face.
“You...you uploaded a virus?” Nataku was stunned. “Harrison had said it wasn’t possible.”
“He wasn’t thinking of you as a virus,” Trowa pointed out, feeling pleased with himself, but also amused that he’d inadvertently just called Nataku a virus. Having spent days with Hatty, he was now confused by the feelings that were rising up in him when he looked at Nataku. She was the polished version, and while no fault of her own she was the reason Hatty had been deactivated. The price for Nataku’s existence had been Hatty’s life, what little of it there was. Ironic that Hatty had now usurped Nataku’s place in the grand scheme of things.
“No, but...he was pretty adamant it wasn’t possible,” Nataku repeated, coming closer to get a better look at the control desk and the look on her face finally had Trowa worried. He looked at the desk, trying to see what she was seeing but it looked exactly as he expected it to.
“What’s wrong?” It was Giles who eventually asked and Trowa waited impatiently for her to finish gaping at the desk and turn to meet their curious gazes. She looked nervous, which was odd considering she was a robot and shouldn’t have known what nerves were.
“It’s just...the System was designed so that if something went wrong, like a virus, Frank would be isolated from everything but essential systems.”
“We know. That’s kind of what we wanted.”
“But it also drops the shield between Levels one and five, allowing Frank access to the military.”
The silence was profound.
“Shit,” Trowa and Giles cursed at the same time. Already reaching for the laptop, Heero used the backdoor he had hacked during the first few days in Frank to access Frank’s database, swearing when he found the magnetic field was down.
“The military’s already been mobilized,” he noted coldly.
“I’ll go,” Trowa said immediately. “If they’re mobilizing the SiS someone needs to protect the Preventer ships.” He didn’t wait for Heero to respond, trusting Heero and Giles to do whatever had to be done to slow Frank down and get things under control. They had Nataku as well, and who knew what she was actually capable of when Hatty had been so useful with only a fraction of her capabilities.
His own part in dealing with Frank had come to a halt the moment there was a threat to the Preventers outside, not because he felt loyalty to Preventers but because he’d let Duo evacuate Wufei to those ships. He went to the Pad and looked expectantly at Nataku, almost laughing as she rolled her eyes and went to plug herself in, hesitating only a moment before shoving the plug home. He wondered what it felt like, if it hurt and if she was scared of what Frank could do to her while she was plugged in, but he didn’t ask.
“Heero...the prisoners are waking up,” he pointed out, but then he was in the Hanger and he rushed to his Simulator, stalled halfway there by his commanding officer yelling at him to get in his damn SiS and Trowa was more than happy to comply, racing to the Fighter instead and climbing in. He stashed his backpack at his feet and went through the start up check before hesitating over firing up his Pad.
What if Frank was watching and waiting for him to try? What if he ended up several galaxies away? What if he just disintegrated into nothing?
“I am with you, Triton.” Nataku’s voice came through his helmet and Trowa jerked hard in response. If it was supposed to be reassuring, it wasn’t, and Trowa found himself missing Hatty. Somehow, knowing Nataku was more complete, and hence more human, in Trowa’s mind made her less trustworthy. He’d taken it for granted that Hatty only did as she was told, for the most part. Nataku could do anything she took it into her fool head to do.
“I’m hoping that means I’m going to come out on the other side,” Trowa grumbled, hitting initiate.
“Perhaps,” Nataku agreed, but it was too late, he was in that strange second of a jolt before he emerged on the other side, floating in his jump coordinate outside Frank. He scowled at the ship that materialized nearby, somehow knowing it was Nataku.
“Harsh, Taku. Way harsh!”
“You’re alive, Triton. Suck it up.”
She was learning them, much faster than Trowa had anticipated but somehow it only made him laugh. The way she learned, the sense of humour, the drive she felt to do the right thing...she really was human. And yet wasn’t, just as she had told them what felt like a lifetime ago. Not that long ago really, it was just having Wufei back making the time he’d been gone feel like eons past. Time was such a strange thing.
“We have to protect the Preventers fleet long enough to let them escape. I’ve rigged my SiS lights with a blue neon light by covering the lens with the filter paper from the rear guidance system. Can you do the same?”
“I believe so.”
Trowa wasted no time sending an encoded message to the Preventers fleet and Heero’s laptop explaining that the SiS fighters with blue lights were friendly; the red were the bad guys. Only not really bad, they just didn’t know any better which while sad and unfortunate was still going to get the sorry bastards killed and right then Trowa didn’t really give a damn.
The lights on the nearby SiS turned blue and Trowa grunted in appreciation of Nataku’s skills but otherwise gave it no thought, pushing forward and flying through their squadron to the front line of the Preventers, wasting no time in arming the weapons he had available and tracing the best path for his attack.
There wasn’t enough time to make a strategy, the SiS opened fire immediately, storming forward in a swarm and it was all Trowa could do to move with them and head them off, aware of Hatty trying to do the same but in the end he supposed it had been a stupid idea from the start.
The first Preventers ship had no warning. The SiS destroyed in before a minute had passed from their exit of Frank, and a second ship followed seconds later. Trowa cursed and shifted toward the ship he thought Wufei and Duo would be on, intercepting a missile headed toward it and extending his shields into a disc array, covering the ship.
They didn’t need to be told; the ships were already turning, trying to flee but the SiS were far more advanced and designed for close combat. They damaged each in waves, a constant rotating barrage and Trowa wasn’t sure a Gundam would have fared well against them. They were too small and quick to target easily and if you managed to get a few there was no rest, always another coming in its wake. At least they weren’t mobile dolls? But the thought was cold comfort as he saw Nataku trying to protect another of the fleeing ships. Would the mobile dolls eventually have evolved personalities? Would they have been wounded by the ethical dilemma humans often fell prey to in war? Would they have grown to resent the controller?
Hatty was a heavy weight on his conscience, her husky voice echoing in his memory. I love you.
“Barton!” Quatre’s voice! Trowa’s stomach dropped and he cursed silently. He wasn’t supposed to be here! But there was no time to think on it, connecting the secure line and separating his points of focus to include the battle and his conversation.
“I’m a little busy here Winner,” he ground out, unable to keep the anger from his voice that Quatre was here at all.
“Chang and Maxwell have been extracted. We’re receiving a string of prisoners.”
Startled, Trowa looked back at Frank and saw the eye was open, small pulses of light flashing across the lens. He thought it was probably Heero, and couldn’t argue. The more of the brass they could remove from Frank the better chance they would have of taking control. If that was even possible. The flow of battle was not in their favour, the Preventers were thoroughly out-numbered. They had no chance of success, and internally they had little chance of wrestling control of the military back from a locked down system.
“Retreat, Winner.” The damage was already done. Quatre was in charge of the fleet, and half of it had been destroyed already, debris scattered all around making it hard to position himself in a way to continue to shield the ships.
“Trowa...” Yeah, it was always hard to leave a man behind. But someone had to stay, and really this was his mistake and no one knew the situation better than he did. He was on the inside, whether Frank liked it or not.
“Get Maxwell home. He knows everything.” And if it ever became known the fate of the universe now rested on Duo Maxwell he pitied the poor fool who would have to deal with the fallout. Even if that fool was Une. He closed the comms and did his best to give them the time they needed to retreat.
It wasn’t easy, his SiS taking several severe hits that damaged key systems but it was solid and functioning and refused to give in, as much like Heavyarms as he could hope for.
“Triton?”
“I know Taku.” They couldn’t protect the ships any longer. They soon wouldn’t be able to protect even themselves. He wondered if anyone had managed to track their SiS ID’s and hoped not. The last thing they needed was to get arrested when they went back to Frank.
And it was becoming increasingly clear that was what he was going to have to do. Wufei was safe; the Preventers shuttle was leaving so he had achieved his goal. But what he was supposed to do about Frank or the ships dying around them he had no idea. He supposed he was meant to let it all go. Just let it happen, but that wouldn’t make it any easier to watch.
“Giles?”
“I’m busy, Trowa!”
And he sounded it. Trowa frowned and tried to dodge his way out of the line of fire of several SiS while he contemplated the tone of voice. Frustrated, yes. Angry, a little. Scared...very.
“I believe the virus is not working as you had hoped,” Nataku’s voice stated clearly. Not emotionally. She was not like Hatty and it made him sigh, slumping a little in his chair as he saw her blue light flicker and die, turning red as her SiS wove its way back into the fray, disappearing amongst the masses and he was forced to do the same.
“You don’t say,” he grumbled at Nataku but he had no way of knowing if she was even listening. He kicked the pack at his feet, angry because he wasn’t going home yet. He had no way of knowing how long it would be before he saw Wufei again. If, even. Life’s unfair irony might yet be that he had to leave Wufei in order to save him.
How could such grand plans come to so little? He headed for the Hanger and de-Molecularized through to his bay, hurrying through the shutdown procedures just in case someone knew it had been him protecting the Preventers instead of Frank, hurrying to the train, unsurprised to see Nataku sprinting for it herself.
Lights were flashing a rich red, orders were streaming across the screens on the announcements scroll bar around the edge of the ceiling. Soldiers were running in all directions and Trowa just kept moving, trying to look like he was doing something equally important. No one noticed them.
“I am sorry you were unable to leave, Triton.” And she actually looked it. Trowa just shrugged, taking a seat beside her on the train and wishing that willing it to go faster would work.
“I’m just glad I didn’t park my car at the airport.”