Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Blue Lightening ❯ Cookies Crumble ( Chapter 8 )

Sorry for the wait; been in hospital and so didn't have much of a chance to write. Hospital sucks, btw. Utterly and completely.

 

 

“So, uh, this is it,” Duo said, gesturing around the long room.

“Cool!” Solo exclaimed. “Am I crashing on the sofa or sleeping with you?”

Duo shrugged. “Don't mind. Just… be cautious if you're waking me, kay? I don't wanna accidentally gut you in my sleep or anythin'...”

Solo's expression immediately sobered. “Ok, kid. I'll be careful.” The blond dancer stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Duo in a hesitant hug. “Thanks for gettin' me outta there.”

“It's no biggie.”

“No, it is,” Solo insisted. “Livin' at the club… I weren't free, and ya knows how much I prize bein' free.”

Duo sighed and nodded. He gestured to Solo to dump his bag by the wardrobe and moved over to the kitchen area. “You want some coffee?”

“Sure.”

“It's one of the few things I know how to make. Rosemary's been feedin' me since I arrived. She said that she don't mind cookin' fer you now.”

“Grammer, kid, speak proper.”

Duo pouted. “Speak proper yerself.” He set the kettle to boil and took two mugs out of the cupboard.

“Hey… uh, Duo?”

“Mmm?”

“Ya gots ta do anythin' today?”

The braided teen thought for a moment, then nodded. “Aa. I gotta go to the Preventers base at some point. I promised Scary Une that I'd stop by.”

“Preventers?!” Solo asked, alarmed. “Ya in trouble?”

Duo shrugged. “Not really. I am a pretty dangerous person though, with the whole terrorist thing. The government want to keep tabs on me, and I can't disappear, I might be needed.”

“Needed?”

Duo grinned. “Yeah, to help save the world again!” He handed Solo his mug of coffee and flopped down onto the sofa with his own. “See, the government are giving me… well, it's kinda like an allowance, although I bet they've got a fancy name for it. That's going into one of my accounts. Q's also promised any of us money if we ever need it. But you taught me never to rely on others, so I'm taking up a position in the Preventers as an outside consultant, which I can do from here, with that computer over there.”

Solo nodded, one hand absently toying with the shorter hairs around his ear, and the other cradled around the warmth of his coffee mug. “I get it. Who's Q?”

“Ya know Winner Corp?”

“Everyone does!”

“He's the heir. Only son.”

“Wow. How the hell do ya know him?”

“He was a pilot too, but don't tell anyone. Heero's the only one that's gone even marginally public, and that's cause he's bodyguarding Relena.”

“Relena?”

“Peacecraft.”

“Oh, that Relena. Man, kiddo, you sure have friends in high places.”

“Heh, don't get too impressed,” Duo cautioned, sipping his drink. “The other two are a circus performer who grew up in a mercenary troop, and the last survivor of the Dragon Clan of L5.”

“Owch. Bet that hit him hard.”

“Yeah, he's always been unsociable, after they pulled a Heero he was even worse.”

“Pulled a Heero?”

“Sorry, man. Heero was 01, the one who kept on Self-Destructing.”

“Didn't he only do it once?”

“He did it all the time, the baka, with or without his Gundam. It's a fucking miracle he lived to see the end of the war in my opinion. Anyway, enough about the past. I gotta go check in with some stuffy guys in uniforms, who I will do my best to annoy profusely… I may break into the office, just to check security. Une gave us these nifty cards in case we ever got into trouble, being who we were and all, so I'm clean if anyone does actually catch me…”

“Is that likely?”

“Not really. Demolitions may have been my forte, but infiltration is my second. Not as good as Trowa, but then, who is?”

Solo shifted, looking a little uncomfortable.

“What is it?” Duo asked immediately.

“Uh… what's a four-tay?”

“Forte? Um… strength. Thing that you're best at.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Hey,” Duo chided, putting an arm around Solo's shoulders. “Don't be sorry. You learnt a new word, that's a good thing. I learn new ones all the time, and even Quatre, who actually had teachers, doesn't know everything. I know - I taught him a good few words and even some songs that he'd never heard before in his life!”

Mission Accomplished, Duo thought, as Solo laughed at the joke. Still, Solo couldn't just lounge around the studio; even if money wasn't an issue, it would make him feel like a burden and he'd get depressed.

“So, So', whatcha gonna do? Ya still gonna dance?”

“Kid! Talk proper!” Solo frowned as Duo laughed . “I dunno. I'm not gonna laze around here, but now that I got time ta look fer a job, I don't wanna dance no more. No future in dancin'; someday I'll get too old and that'll be it.”

“You're right. It's been too long, I dunno what you're good at anymore.”

“I'm ok with fixing things.”

“Hm… a garage?”

Solo shrugged.

“Well, for now ya can probably help Rosemary out with this place, she runs it on her own. Actually, if she needed another person, there might be a job there. You could ask her.”

“Duo, I ain't even met her yet! You're jumpin' ahead.”

Sheepishly, duo scratched the back of his head. “Oops.”

“Anyhow, ya need ta get goin'. Go break into the Preventers office, or whatsever it is yer gonna do.”

“I'll introduce ya to Rosemary afore I go, ok?”

“Speak proper!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on!”

X

Duo stared up at the imposing front of the L2 Police headquarters with some trepidation. He could remember several instances when he had been dragged there as a child… it seemed to have shrunk a little, but it was still connected with a need to get away in his mind. Of course, it had nothing on the main headquarters back on earth.

Looking around, Duo spotted a small alleyway to the left, running down the side of the building. He ducked into it, and found himself faced with a stack of boxes and crates. The boxes had once held computers, he had no idea about the crates. Equipment maybe. They were stacked fairly well, it looked like they would take his weight, and there was a window left ajar about five metres up the wall. Piece of cake. A quick scramble later, and he was looking into a deserted supply room. The window had been alarmed, but that had been easy to disable, and then re-enable behind him. Didn't want to compromise their security, after all this wasn't OZ, and he had an idea that this spur of the moment impromptu spot inspection wouldn't go down well as it was.

There were voices in the corridor, so Duo quickly ducked behind a tall filing cabinet near the door. He caught his breath as they paused outside, but the sound of water solved his problem. There was a water dispenser of some sort outside the storage room.

“Do you think he will actually come today?”

“Preventer Une said so.”

Duo perked up. Ooh, they were talking about him! What a stroke of luck, maybe he'd find out something useful, and without having to crawl through any air ducts.

“Well, yeah, but who is he anyway to get her special notice?” The first voice sounded rather annoyed.

“I don't know, but obviously somebody we should follow orders towards.” The second said firmly. “Let him in without a fuss, no matter what he looks like at the time, and direct him straight to the Preventer's office on the second floor.”

Second floor? This was just too easy. Man, cops were lax when there wasn't a war in the vicinity.

“So, you have no idea why such a high up Preventer is getting involved with a, by the description, teenage hippie?”

“Just because he has long hair doesn't make him a hippy. And she said he wears a lot of black. According to my history lessons, that would make him a Goth, Hippies wore bright colours.”

“Man, you know I never listened in history.”

“Come on, our shift starts in two minutes, they'll be pissed if they have to wait.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Duo listened to them leave, and decided there and then that he much preferred voice two to voice one. Hippy indeed! The corridor sounded empty, and a quick peek confirmed that. There was a stairwell at one end, which he headed for. He was on the first floor, by his reckoning, and they had said that the Preventers office was on the second.

There was no-one on the stairs either. Cops must all take the lifts, he reasoned. [AN: uh, that's elevators for any American readers] This was just a little too easy, he hoped that his surprise visit would cause them to bump up security a little. The two cameras he had seen were on a timed rotation and easily avoided. While panning the camera around gave the security team a wider view, it also meant that you could sneak up behind, stand directly under the camera with your back flat against the wall, and then dash off again while it was `looking' in the other direction. Useful design flaw, all of OZ's cameras had been the same, and from the look of it, this building was ex-OZ.

The next floor, usefully, had one of those little signs that stuck out of the wall just above head height, that said “PREVENTERS”. Grinning, Duo moved to the door and peeked through the glass pane. The room wasn't empty, although it might as well have been. One desk had a little sign that said `out to lunch' propped against the desk light, while the Agent to whom it belonged to sat behind it with a Preventer's baseball cap over his face. Duo could hear his snores through the door.

The sound of a toilet being flushed caught his ear, solving the mystery of where the other Agent had gone. Still grinning, Duo waltzed into the office, closed the door quietly behind him and made himself comfortable behind the empty desk.

Two minutes later an older Agent with greying brown hair and a scar on one cheek walked though the door and stopped dead.

“Who're you?!” he demanded, waking up the other Agent, who almost fell backwards off of his chair.

Duo grinned. “Duo Maxwell. I believe you were expecting me? Your security sucks, by the way. You might want to do something about that.”

X

Solo eyed the old lady cautiously. She seemed nice enough… she had announced that he was too thin, forced him to sit down and was now talking at him about the memorial garden down the road while she baked him `cookies'. He wasn't sure what cookies were, but so far they smelled nice. She was mixing lots of different things in a bowl - so far all he had recognised was butter. He hoped that the white powder, whatever it was, wasn't a dangerous powdered drug, `cause she had used a lot of it.

“Nearly ready, dearie,” she said, spooning globs of the mixture onto a tray and sliding them into a cupboard with a glass door. There was a wave of heat as the cupboard opened, and Solo could see a light inside. Maybe this cupboard was a bit like the microwave in the back of Blue Lightening? Bess used to make him hot chocolate using that when he was younger. Kid too. Solo frowned. He'd really have to ask Kid… Duo which name he would prefer. Although, knowing the kid, he'd probably say that he didn't mind and that both were cool.

Rosemary sat down at the table, wiping her hands off on a dishtowel. She smiled disarmingly, and handed him a glass of water. “Now, I've been talking all this time, let's hear a little more about you.”

Solo shrugged. “Not much to tell. I've been workin' at Blue Lightening since afore Duo went, afore the plague. During the plague the manager saved me life, an' I worked there since to repay him.”

“Since before the plague? You must have been very young.”

“I helped out in back at first, then on tables an' at the bar.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“No. People kept on wantin' to touch me, and I didn't wanna be touched.”

“Then why did you work there?”

“When I started, it was for the Kid. Duo, I mean. Workin' there got me some credits so that we could eat an' fix up the den a little.”

“Well, what are you planning to do now?”

Solo shrugged. “I need to get me a job of some sort, I'm not gonna freeload. I know a little bit about fixing things, and I know how to mix drinks an' thatsabout it.”

There was a beeping noise that made him jump. Rosemary smiled and got up. “The cookies are done! I'll just get them out of the oven. Now, about a job… there are a few reasonably respectable bars around here that might be willing to take you on.”

Solo smiled as he watched her move flat brown disks from the tray onto a rack. She put one on a small plate and handed it to him. “Here you go, dear. Fresh from the oven, which means it will be nice and soft.”

“What did ya call it?”

Rosemary smiled. “A cookie.”