Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ II. Mirror Maze ❯ Shadow Play ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Shadow Play

Why did he choose London? London was so cold.

I ran my hands up and down my arms as I spotted a digital display for the time of day…and the temperature. First it was Celsius, but Fahrenheit followed…a whole whoppin’ sixty-two degrees.

I really liked Brazil.

I moved along the sidewalk, trying not to think about how damn cold I was. I hadn’t really been in temperatures below eighty in a couple years, and even putting my hands in my pocket didn’t make them feel properly warm. I shifted my phone pieces so my hands went in more, amused at what my irritation had done for me.

When I’d started to leave, Trowa had started calling me every five minute. It was a bit annoying, so I’d turned it off…and then popped the battery out and removed the chip. I’d put the casing back on, but left the battery and chip off. I didn’t need their help for this…no. They would be bad. And they couldn’t follow a device with no connection.

It had been two years since Duo had run. It’d been two years…almost to the day since he’d claimed sanctuary on United States soil. His birth-colony had been American, just like mine had been Chinese.

Actually, I could do that, couldn’t I? I could find a Chinese embassy and claim sanctuary…but that wasn’t exactly the most important thing on my mind. It wasn’t a problem I had.

I could still remember how absolutely pissed off Heero’d been when the Salvador report came back negative. It had been the latest in responding to his A.P.B., and he’d just known Duo would be there…kinda like I knew he had been there. The Japanese man had directed his search toward North America, assuming Duo would have ran to the home soil he could claim, but Duo wasn’t entirely stupid. When he wasn’t scared, he was smart.

Maybe he thought about going to the United States…or maybe he’d even done it. It didn’t matter, because Heero’d given up search after about three months because he couldn’t fund that and his life-style in the middle of nowhere. He’d pulled back and started using purely digital forms of tracking, but Duo’s new bank account had an added safeguard that you couldn’t trigger unless you knew what it was, and Duo being Duo, it was probably a password with very bizarre associations.

But, really…London?

I moved up the little side street his apartment building was located in, grateful to be nearing that place of rest. I wasn’t sure how he’d receive me, but I knew he wouldn’t send me away, not immediately.

For my own part, the two years had been spent reigning in the two monsters who really needed some sort of…leash. Heero’d been swamped by a very dark depression when he’d called Hilde to try to get her in on his cause, and had seen Duo leaving her office…or someone he thought to be Duo. It had been a very brief sight of the back of a male’s head, and without that braid, there wasn’t really anything conspicuous about the gundam pilot.

Hilde had been very confused when he’d told her Duo was lost and he needed help finding him, because Duo had called and talked to her only a matter of hours before this call…and he’d been fine then.

It was my theory that her commenting on the matter so negligently had been what made him so sure about Duo. When he’d asked for Duo’s phone number, or some sort of contact, she’d apologized and said it was a matter of national security and she couldn’t give out his number anymore than she could give out our number…which was a truth and a lie in one. The “friends” level of dealing with people gave her all sorts of leeway.

Anyway, Heero’s depression had caused him to lose weight, and he’d walked around for months looking on the edge of death before Natalie finally won some point in him. He no longer looked gaunt and rail-thin, but his eyes were haunted.

Yes, Heero, you scared your “best friend” away. You’d beat the living shit out of him at least once a month and he’d ran away and managed to get away, and didn’t seem to be interested in coming back.

Unfortunately, grief like that led to hatred, and when Heero got into foul moods he plotted all sorts of nasty things to do to Duo if he ever caught up with him again.

Quatre, meanwhile, had slid into a depression when we’d entered the city of Manaus that day, and had stayed that way…to an extent. He really needed some sort of medication to stabilize his moods, he was a tad bipolar with all sorts of manic tendencies. At any rate, my theory on him was that he only felt safe when we were the group of five. That’d been how we’d won the first war, and while during the second one he’d seemed normal enough, he’d fallen in to a severe depression that I assumed had been put off by shock. The depression had deepened, and the issue he’d had when initially wired-up to the Zero system had taken over his mind completely.

So, assuming this was his base issue, heading into Manaus that day had probably triggered the reality that Duo was gone. I wasn’t sure if he could understand the full implications of “gone”, though. His excessive manic behavior was actually starting to get to Heero…who couldn’t see the forest for all the trees.

This ended the narrative with Trowa. Trowa’s mental issues had never been so bold as Heero’s or so undirected as Quatre’s. He’d never put himself in a situation where Heero would look to him as the scapegoat, and he’d stopped caring about anything aside from his next pleasure. He’d retained that lucid side of strategic sense that had become clouded for Heero and random for Quatre.

Really, he worried me. I knew he analyzed everything he saw, and that made me analyze the same things…it made me paranoid, and I didn’t need to have an actual schizophrenic mental issue to cloud my dealings.

I lit a cigarette, looking up the length of the tall building Duo was supposed to be living in.

None of us, not even Duo, had told anyone what had been going on those three years before Duo had run. No one breathed a word about any of the little incidents. Duo’d taken my advice and hadn’t tried to get Heero out of society. He’d taken his money, and he’d left the Americas entirely.

Why London?

I exhaled, moving to lean against the building’s wall. It was early afternoon, and all around was the noise of cars and occasional people…birds. It was a very sedate little area of the city…just damn cold.

I took another drag as someone moved around a corner and blinked at me before bidding me good-day and heading into the apartment building.

“Excuse me,” I muttered, moving forward quickly before he could let the door close. “I don’t suppose you know if the Maxwell family is home?”

“Duran?” he asked happily, thinking about it. “He should be home about now…or his wife. Their little boy will be home from school any time now. Did you page their apartment?”

“No, I was taking care of something first,” I noted, indicating my cigarette.

“Nasty bit of work,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You want me to tell them you’re down here?”

“No, that’ll be fine,” I reassured him. “I’ll page up here in a bit he’s…five-six-nine, right?”

“Yep, that’s him all right…you sure you don’t want me to tell them you’re here?”

I shook my head again, taking another drag. “We had a bit of a…err…disagreement last time I saw him. I’m kinda not sure how he’ll receive me.”

“Duran’s a good man,” he reassured me with a grin. He laughed a bit. “You’d know better than me, huh? I’ll let you get back to your death certificate…I mean smoke.”

I laughed at that, waving my thanks as I moved back to the end of the railing.

Duo was smart when not scared, and his name was a prime example of this. Changing it simply from Duo to Duran kept it similar enough that he could react to it, and not bothering to change his nice and ambiguous last name furthered the illusion. Duran Maxwell was not an uncommon name, really. Every time Heero did a search for Maxwells it came up with loads of people all over the planet and solar-system.

The most amusing part of it to me was the fact that Duo was becoming a common name. It might have been a take off from his childhood, since he had no proper name, but it’d been blared enough across the sphere when the wars had ended, and now on the history channels or investigations, that parents were naming their children after him.

It touched the heart, really.

I rubbed my eye since it was irritated, then took the last drag from my…what had he called it? Death certificate? I’d have to remember that one. I tossed the thing into the gutter, exhaling slowly before looking up the building again.

Two years ago, while Heero, Quatre, and Trowa waited for a return on their bulletin, I’d told them I was going to go wander the city and see if I could find any information on him…and had revisited the people we’d talked to before.

The jovial man that’d claimed to have bought his boat said that he’d given Duo three-hundred dollars when he was talking to me. For some reason that’d slipped his mind when he’d been talking to Heero…and he’d also said he’d remembered what motel he’d set the family up in. A visit there had gotten me the information that they’d left a bunch of clothing to be thrown out…but nothing more. A casual perusal of that computer let me see that he’d looked up the list of American embassies in Brazil before looking up the worth of his money…which would make sense since Heero had worked very hard to keep him from even knowing we were in the Amazon.

I’d returned to the airport to find the woman Heero’d interrogated, and she’d asked me in a scared tone if she’d done something wrong, selling the family tickets. I’d reassured her that she had no cause for alarm, that Heero and Duo had been fighting and that was what the entire issue was over. It was petty, but Heero had the unfortunate power to make people obey him. This had bothered her extremely…but she had told me that the woman and boy were natives of the flood-plain, and that they had documents proving they had indeed taken his name. Legal documents.

At that point, I hadn’t thought he’d really married her. Like Trowa had suggested, I’d thought the pair had been a cover to keep people from realizing who he was, or singling him out.

She’d also added that they’d bought a ticket for Salvador.

It had been that easy. I’d talked to all of the people like a normal human being, empathized with their worries and soothed their minds, and they’d told me exactly what Duo had done and the time-line he’d done it in…the fat man had even said it’d been the day before we’d gotten there that he’d done it. For some reason he hadn’t told Heero.

That easy.

Of course, I’d called the U.S. embassy in Salvador when I’d gotten to a pay phone, and asked them if Maxwell had made it there safely, and if he was all right…if his wife and son were all right. I’d confirmed their supposed marriage by a local village elder in my rambling about being “worried”, and in turn they’d told me they were sorry, but there was no Maxwell on the premise.

Hopefully my muttering about their marriage had helped.

I started up the stairs slowly, warily. I hadn’t been able to find him initially after he’d made it to the embassy. I’d searched, searched, and double-searched all flight manifests I could without bringing my rank into play. I’d called Salvador motels and begged if they’d seen my friend in varying states of panic…I’d even gone to the city and begged the consulate to give me information.

I had gotten nothing.

Actually, that was really good for so many sources to turn dry.

It’d taken me about a year to wade through the list of Maxwells—and Duos—to figure out that he’d gone to London…but I had no guarantees this was him. This wasn’t the first family I’d checked.

Something about it felt right though…something…just clicked.

- -

Duo rose to his feet and moved toward the door to his apartment, bouncing a bit in a semi-dance as he went. He had the day off, and was waiting for Vasu to come home. He’d been wondering if his son or the pizza he’d ordered would get there first, and evidently it was the latter.

He had to stop and double-back for his wallet, and took a moment to lower the volume on the radio—it was one of his favorite songs, too. He bounced over to the door, pulling it open.

“Hello, Mr. Maxwell,” the delivery man muttered. “One pepperoni with mushrooms and olives?”

“Only the best,” Duo agreed happily, passing the man the bills.

“I coulda sworn your wife made you dinner,” the man noted, taking the money and starting to count it.

Duo laughed a bit. The guy lived in the building, so he knew him passingly well.

“Won’t she get a bit upset?” the guy teased. “I mean…she’s working another fifteen minutes, huh?”

“You stalking me?” Duo demanded, giving him a look.

The guy laughed, offering the change. “I ran into her this morning on the way out.”

Duo laughed and made a gesture. “Keep it.”

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” the guy protested, pocketing the bills. “She told me not to let you order.”

“I’m worth every penny,” Duo reassured him with a knowing nod.

The guy guffawed.

“You ordered pizza?” Vasu demanded, darting around the guy with a smile. “Mom is gonna be so maaad at you!”

“Ha! She’ll eat it anyway or I’ll sleep on the couch!”

“You sleep on it all the time anyway,” Vasu noted, tossing his backpack against the back of a chair and taking the food to the kitchen area of the apartment.

The delivery man grinned, raising an eyebrow.

“I do, don’t I?” Duo muttered happily, turning to follow, then hesitating. “Hey, do me a favor?”

The delivery guy nodded his curiosity.

“If she hits a high c, can you come bail me out? Seriously…claim fire, rape…fire-rape…anything…”

The man started laughing, turning away from the door. “I’ll see what I can do…hopefully I don’t have my headphones on, huh?”

Duo laughed appreciatively at that as the guy closed the door for him.

“What’s fire-rape?” Vasu asked, thinking about it as he opened the box at the counter.

“I dunno…and I don’t want to find out, it sounds painful,” Duo sauntered toward the boy.

Vasu grinned at him, then tilted his head as he listened. “You have brother, don’t you?”

“He’s napping,” Duo reassured the kid, referring to his and Nassaiya’s one year old. “He won’t wake up for another half hour…come on, let’s at least start to enjoy this before your mother comes home and gets irritated.”