Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Survival ❯ Kindle, Kindle... ( Chapter 31 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Kindle, Kindle…

Okay, let's see how far we can run with this…

October 5th 197 - Thursday - L3

“Thank-you for meeting with me,” Relena greeted earnestly, holding out one hand to shake.

Dane Robbins smiled as he took it in a similarly brisk but friendly fashion. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Darlian.”

Her smile broadened. “I like you already.”

He laughed, and moved to respectfully shake hands with Jake, who was her only bodyguard for this particular expedition. Not that he particularly looked it, in his casual dress slacks and open button-up, notebook tucked under his arm. “Dane Robbins,” he greeted.

“Jake Miller,” he returned easily, leaving the reasoning of his presence to the more obvious end of speculation. “Thank-you for meeting with us on such short notice.”

“When I heard the proposal, there was no question,” Dane dismissed, turning and heading back out of the room by a different entrance than Relena and Jake had come by. He gestured for them to follow. “I'm glad you could come so quickly, it increases chance of success. The sooner we can get the construction underway-”

“The first three plots were bought yesterday,” Relena interrupted, hastening her pace to be a step behind their host. “Even as we speak, materials are being negotiated.”

Dane only laughed, looking even more excited. “Of course, my point exactly. I have my people competing over schematics as we speak; they were eager enough to put the idea of hydroponics complexes into reality. We're making history, after all.” He shook his head a little. “I love it when we can throw the nonsense aside and get some honest work done, this is a testament to what humanity is capable of that hasn't been approached since the creation of the colonies themselves!”

Relena only smiled, glad of the man's enthusiasm, even though she thought that speculation was a little exaggerated. It was groundbreaking, to be sure, and she was still flustered and fascinated by the speed that RLTT allowed her to move at. Her emails were answered almost as soon as they were sent after her initial return response, and no time was wasted at all. As soon as the speculative landmass requirements for a facility were proposed, she had heard back of larger pieces of property bought and the initial sums devoted were almost carelessly huge. Dorothy's predicament had left her hardly able to sleep until it was solved, especially with Jake away and not able to soothe her nerves, and she had made up for it with sheer progress.

In all honesty, if she had been able to fully realize that she could move a project exactly this fast… the sheer pace made so much more possible. She wanted to growl in frustration at her previous tentative approach that had likely cost more than she could possibly imagine in terms of life and misery…

I will not be restrained by my own timidity any longer. I am not a child any longer… I can't afford to be. So long as RLTT backed her she was its coordinator, and so long as she held that position she could not play any games of bashfulness for the sake of anyone's pride. She had learned, point blank the other day, that if she proposed something RLTT thought unwise or that needed tweaking, the proprietor would simply say so… usually within twenty minutes. And it would be delivered with alternate suggestions or thoughts, with full reasoning.

She felt incomparably silly that it had taken a few typos the proprietor made in obvious haste to respond to make her realize how little the fund cared for appearances. Or, if they did care, that Relena had long ago passed those beginning stages of formality. She had a political ally and friend, somehow, not someone that she needed to be sure she didn't displease…

When she'd mentioned as much to Jake, it hadn't helped that he had only noted that he'd said as much months ago. Of course, he'd been grinning, and she'd smacked him for it, which made him laugh in that naughty little boy way of his, and it hadn't actually been insulting at all… It just was annoying that he didn't appreciate the gravity of the what this all meant.

I could take on the world right now.

Well, not really, but that was the rough sentiment. Of course, when she'd reiterated as much to Dorothy, the other woman had blinked at her and said `I thought that was the point' which basically killed the mood as effectively as Jake's words had… but her evil little laugh when shielding the carefully aimed blows with a folder had been the same sort of easy balm as Jake's same glib attitude.

…And Mitchell's… Cassidy's… `Rome's…

If she didn't know better, she might really start wondering why she'd surrounded herself with a bunch of jokers.

***

October 6th 197 - Friday - Athens, Greece

“This is awesome,” Marie gushed, drinking in the article. “They're leveling out the ground already, and the experts are going back over the final designs for errors already… They want to start construction day after tomorrow.”

“Relena never liked to do anything partway,” Odin admitted, frowning as he tapped at the laptop keyboard.

“No kidding,” she muttered, flipping to the next page of the magazine. “You knew her, didn't you?”

Her guardian glanced around before nodding an affirmative, and Marie rolled her eyes. They were on top of the Acropolis but it was during the city's siesta, so no one was really around. The view was amazing… and there were cats all over the place. That was the cool thing about Greece, she'd decided, there were just strays everywhere that people took care of but didn't take home… She'd been playing with a kitten for almost an hour before it tired out and went to sleep on the ground nearby.

“What are you so intent on, anyhow?” she asked when she realized he wasn't going to give her any detail on the princess.

“It's difficult to move things along this fast, usually,” he informed her distractedly, not looking up. “I'm trying to see why…”

She blinked. “Well, it's because she's an RLTT candidate, that's all.”

He focused on her at that. “You're familiar with it?”

“Yeah, my mom was a candidate too, when I was little. I mean, I really don't remember, but it was cleaning up one of the L3 colonies after a major coup attempt happened.” She frowned, thinking. “I think she said she was the first candidate it ever had, but I'm not sure about that.”

“Hm.” He turned back to the computer, and she went to look over his shoulder to see the search results. The R.L. Tomorrow Today Fund had done few enough projects that she didn't think it would be too hard for him to find, not even counting that he was a hacker mastermind.

So it didn't really make sense when he opened up the first site that had information on it and just stopped. “What's wrong?”

He was silent for another moment before he answered. “That was L3-X18999.” When she only looked at him curiously, he clarified, “That was where Odin died.”

…It didn't take a genius to figure out that Odin didn't usually like to talk about his dad outside of random little tidbits. All Marie had been able to really confirm was that he'd been dead a long time, and that her pseudo brother didn't really know a lot of details about him himself. It also wasn't hard to realize that he had cared deeply about the man who'd raised him… and that this was really important, somehow.

“When did it happen?” she asked, trying to figure out what the connections he had already put together.

“It was less than two months before Leia Barton was selected as RLTT's first candidate to clean up the aftermath of the attempted coup. That was a bare week after it had been created.”

“That's… interesting,” she admitted.

“R.L. Tomorrow Today… Do you know what the R.L. stands for?”

“Um… Someone's name, I think, but I'm not sure.”

“Did your mother ever say why she was selected?”

Marlé shook her head. “Not that I can remember, no. I mean, I'd guess it was because she'd been volunteering in a hospital there when the coup happened, and she was from an influential family, but that's all I can come up with. I was just barely two at the time, so I don't remember anything, I just know what she told me later on. That was before my grandfather disowned us, though, if her last name was still Barton…”

“She was volunteering in the hospital when the coup took place?”

“Yeah… She was getting some experience in before college, or something.” He had a very serious look on his face. “What?”

“Just a minute.” His fingers were flying again, and he was flipping through searches and different windows… before settling on a news article from when Relena Darlian-Peacecraft had been selected by the fund. He stayed there long enough for her to follow that it was relevant before he was searching after something else…

I really need to learn how to do that, she decided tiredly, giving up entirely and going back to poke at the kitten she'd been playing with before, seeing if it wanted any of the meat out of her pita thing she had left over from lunch earlier.

It was almost fifteen minutes before Odin rolled back on his heels, staring up at the clouds with a frown.

“The first projects follow the movements of Operation Meteor's beginnings almost exactly, with a delay ranging from one to three weeks, for over a year,” he began.

“Alright,” Marlé noted, picking the little creature up and sitting on a piece of wall right next to him.

“Leia's selection so quickly after it was founded suggests that it might have been created originally for her use, at least in part,” he continued. “Which means she probably knew the proprietor.”

“I guess that would make sense…”

“After that, the projects directly follow Operation Meteor movements for a while, which suggests a definite interest. Either they were shaken off eventually, or RLTT decided they knew enough and backed down, either at threat of retaliation or loss of interest.” His frown hardened into a glare as he concentrated. “Then the frequency of projects decreased dramatically and are seemingly random, with no particular significance. Then Lucrezia Noin is selected two years after the creation of the fund, in 190, for a project to increase higher education possibilities for adolescents on a large enough scale to affect both the Earth and colony populations.”

“That's just as random as any of the others though, isn't it?” Marie asked.

“It might be,” Odin allowed. “But Treize Khushrenada was hospitalized early in the attempted coup on L3-X18999 in the same hospital your mother was volunteering at, because he blocked what ought to have been a killing blow to one of his students… Lucrezia Noin. And OZ knew about Operation M for at least a year before its failed launch, though when I've looked through their databanks in the past, the origins of the initial suspicions were too vague to have logically drawn any conclusions from.”

“Which means they might not have gotten the information from a legitimate source,” Marie finished for him, her head spinning.

“Yes. Then in 191, RLTT endorsed the creation of Peacemillion through Howard Oclaire, which was conveniently forgotten about very quickly. Considering how controversial and liberal the making of that ship was, that had to have required heavy bribes to the right people. I'm not so sure about that one, but I know that Treize was in a position at that time to have that power.

“And when you look at the timing of the early projects to what I know I was doing within Operation M at the time in combination with the candidate selections, it ties tenuously back to Treize, and by proxy, to OZ. Not Treize specifically, the nature of the project selection is far too whimsical for him, but I'm almost positive that it still relates back to him.”

“But not anymore, right?” Marie interrupted. “I mean, Wufei Chang killed him, so whatever is going on with it now can't have anything to do with him anymore.”

He gave her a confused look. “He's not dead.”

“…He's not?”

“No, it was originally his people chasing Chang Xutao that I was following from the start.”

…Only Odin could casually note that Treize Khushrenada was alive and well and make it sound like it was obvious, even though he'd never bothered to mention it. Marlé groaned, covering her face with her hands, and the kitten hopped away. “Okay…” she said after a moment. “So Treize still has a full faction running in complete secrecy.” Odin nodded. “Geeze, I wonder what Mr. Beiber would make of that…” Her old social science teacher had practically worshipped the leader of OZ. “Okay, so… that means Treize probably supports what Relena's doing?”

“Everyone supports what Relena's doing,” Odin noted dryly. “That only makes sense, right now.”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean, like… Like maybe he's allying with her? Or at least, he wants to?”

“Probably; he allied with her to attempt to bring down White Fang, after all. He likely sees the Peacecraft Regime as a natural extension of the same organization.”

“Well, it is, isn't it?” She bit her lip. “But Relena just gave in to Milliardo for so long and stepped off the political field for a while, and she's been working entirely under him so far… So it's be hard to say what side she's on right now.”

Odin's smiles were always worth the headaches of working through his logic, really. He never smiled unless he really honestly meant it. “Right. But knowing Relena, she probably doesn't see herself as working under anyone, which makes her even harder to approach; it's impossible to know for sure how she's willing to forge alliances. It's obvious she's changed drastically over the past few years. She's far more… practical, now. It's impossible to tell where her old idealism splits into that now.”

“So she's dangerous to Treize so long as he's underground and can be exposed to her brother.”

“Right.”

She nodded a little, looking over her shoulder at the city laid out below them… and sighed. “That's… really complicated.”

Odin nodded. “Though, for all we know, Treize has already established contact with her, and they're working together already. I'm relatively sure he was trying to get a connection to Po's rebels in catching Xutao.”

“He's trying to form up a network and unite everyone against the Regime,” she realized, looking at Odin with wide eyes. He nodded. She considered all that for another long moment before shaking her head. “Wow…” Treize sounded just about as amazing as ever.

Odin shrugged slightly, closing the laptop and putting it back in our backpack. “Come on… Our flight takes off in a little over two hours; we should go check in.”

***

Brussels

“Hello, Mr. Dagdagan!”

“What now?”

Dorothy smiled sweetly at the man, which only seemed to make him more wary… which was, of course, even more amusing. Really, especially considering what it is, he ought to be cheering, not snapping. She shrugged a little and gestured at the paper she'd just dropped on his desk, setting on the edge of the monolith of furniture and looking over her shoulder to watch his reaction while he read.

Milliardo's Chief of Staff had never really liked the parameters set down around her situation of employment, and she had never made it any secret that she didn't give a damn. He had actively sought to get rid of her at first, before eventually realizing it was a fruitless endeavor and tried to simply cut his losses.

Considering how relieved he had become when she had given up all pretenses of even trying to do what was assigned to her last month, this ought to be Christmas come early.

He stared at the paper for an inordinately long time; after all, it was only a few lines of script. She supposed it must be shock; debating how long she should wait for him to recover, she studied her nails and frowned; it was a good thing the lawyer's appointment was scheduled for tomorrow, she should still have time to get a manicure this afternoon…

“…This is a resignation,” Miles Dagdagan muttered, finally.

“Mmhmm,” she agreed easily, focusing back on him, looking over her shoulder.

“Honestly.”

She nodded.

“…This isn't a joke?”

“Mmm mm,” she negated. When he continued to stare at her, she decided she'd cut him a break and clarify. “I turned eighteen yesterday.”

“…Okay?”

She gave him a bemused look. He can't really be that slow. “I'm officially inheriting tomorrow.”

He stared at her for another moment before looking back at the paper and her carefully sculpted signature… and when he met her eyes again he was grinning. “You're resigning from both his staff and the military.”

She smiled brilliantly at him. “Mmhmm.”

He nodded a little, looking off to one side before meeting her eyes again. “Are you keeping your room?”

“I was going to see about getting one of the suites near the princess,” she negated happily.

He considered that for a moment before smiling smugly and leaning forward. “I tell you what: work that out before three, and I'll even find people to move your affects for you before the night's out.”

She smiled dazzlingly again. So nice of him to remember how she disliked physical labor. Sliding off his desk, she held up one finger for him. “I'll be back momentarily.”

He actually laughed, then. “A pleasure to do business with you for once, Miss Catalonia.”

***

October 7th 197 - Saturday - Amsterdam

“We've got few big chest freezers,” Daan informed the checkout girl cheerfully when she gave us a dubious look.

“Stockpiling seemed like a good idea,” Marien added.

“We look like we're crazy,” Tiede complained, his shoulders slumped.

I rolled my eyes, yanking out my wallet. “It's the smart thing to do and you know it, so quit complaining.” Daan and Adelheid were digging cash up too, and Dev was starting to argue good-naturedly with Tiede, trying to get him to be less moody…

It wasn't until I started trying to spend quality time with normal teenagers, here in this city, that I began to appreciate how little I had in common with them.

Handing my cash to Adelheid, I turned back to the girl at the checkout… Lillian, by her nametag. “Sorry for any hassle.” Moving to the bag turnstile, got to work double bagging everything as she started ringing it up. After the initial shock she seemed more amused than anything, for which I was grateful.

After all, we'd just attempted to empty the frozen section of the whole store. And Isaac, Adriaan, Markos, and Shov were still somewhere in the store getting other staples. Father Espen had lent us the van again, so we'd take the frozen stuff back to the den fast as we could and unload quick, then Daan would bring the van back to pick up the others. By the time we got it all put away, chances were the next load would be there.

Things were cheaper in bulk. And prices were sure to go up as winter truly set in.

I was helping load everything up into the van when I felt it… nothing quite so classic as the hairs raising on the back of my neck, but something, nonetheless. I'd never figured out if it was having sharp senses or a sixth one altogether, but something… potentially tricky was afoot.

I wanted to ignore it, because really, it wouldn't matter; we'd be on our way soon, and it shouldn't affect anything, even with our people still in the store.

Yeah, and Deathscythe was made out of iron. I had long lived by that danger sense of mine, and I would be a fool to ignore it; no matter what I wanted to forget, the lessons from my old life weren't going anywhere. “Hey, guys? I'm going to walk back; I forgot something back at the shop.”

I started to wander back in the direction of my and `Liss's shop as they drove off, waving, and waited until they turned a corner before trying to narrow down exactly what had set me off.

***

Sahara Desert

Robby was pacing.

It made Vaska nervous as all hell. Robby, on the whole, did not pace. That something had upset him enough to cause the action… it was unsettling.

Of course, the news of the food shortage did fully warrant it, if he thought about it… especially once Robby had pointed out that it meant crack downs were coming on the rules concerning food, even though the current set-up was barely enough already. They might have to break into the stash they'd been building up…

The blonde man stopped suddenly, and held a hand to his face. “Nothing for it,” he announced at long last. “It's just going to take longer than we wanted.”

***

Near Bonn, Germany

“Yes, I was sent by RLTT to check on the progress.” Dorothy handed over her identification and the paperwork from Relena verifying her purpose here, and was amused as the man checked it through thoroughly before handing it all back and gesturing for her to follow him as he launched into an explanation. Construction had already begun, amazingly enough…

Working for Relena instead of Milliardo wasn't terribly different, in many ways, even while the two were complete opposites. This was interesting, and she'd only be away a night before heading back to see the princess again. She'd always enjoyed traveling, and Relena had said that she wanted the surveying done quite regularly, and the locations were spread about… She didn't want to stray too far from home for long just yet, but next month it might be nice to spend a few weeks traveling more slowly between the sites…

And really, it was already coming along so nicely…

***

Wolfsberg, Austria

“Now?”

“Shu' uh an' kee' wash,” I grumbled through a bundle of explosives I really didn't need to bite into. If Xu didn't whine so much on missions, I honestly wouldn't mind working with him so often…

The Chinese man growled. “We're already behind on the timescale,” he hissed.

“No' maa fal',” I garbled back quietly, narrowing my eyes as I deftly re-entwined the wires on the electric lock. Some bitch had superglued the damn panels down on the last two of these and it had taken longer than I'd wanted to realize that and cut the damn things apart… How the hell were they planning on reprogramming them? This one, though, was properly maintained… and had more safeguards, unfortunately.

We'd found an armory closet though, at least; the majority of any useful goods were stashed in the duffel on my back. Xu was left unencumbered because really, he was the one who was quick on his feet and stood a better chance at defending us in a surprise fight no matter the condition. I inwardly grimaced. It'll take me years to catch up, if it's even vaguely possible. If I was honest with myself, I'd just admit it was a lost cause and not bother… but some part of me really didn't like to back down.

Sometimes I still caught myself wondering if I could talk Duo into teaching me a few of his nastier chemical cocktails if I found a way to discreetly visit him.

“Hil…”

“Shu' uh!” I garbled slightly louder. “Yor distacting…” He just growled again.

He had a point, this was taking longer than I liked, but seriously, I was working as fast as I could. It wasn't like I wanted to be caught… I was reasonably sure Duo wouldn't come all the way to Austria to save my ass again, and this was a high security area, but we hadn't tripped any alarms so far, and this damn thing was almost-

It beeped clear, and the door opened. I heard Xu let out a sigh of relief as he slid past me to check the area over and I quick-stepped back to a light switch I'd already pulled free from the wall and started to rig up a timed surprise. I worked my jaw a little once I'd pulled the main components out of my mouth, double checked my work, and re-secured the light panel.

“We're clear,” Xu muttered, seeming to just appear at my side. I did my damndest not to jump, but I was pretty sure he noticed. “There were a few guards, but I got them; they weren't exactly on point.”

“My favorite kind,” I muttered sardonically, grinning at him and digging into my original knapsack for my cans of paint. Tossing one at him, I muttered, “Leave the first clear for me.”

He ducked away in a blur and I couldn't help but sigh a little in jealousy. The shithead was fast… I was fast, but not that fast, at least not yet. I popped the lid of the canister and shook it in my left hand as I reached into my bag again for a pretty solid cube of plastic. Setting it down, I slung my bags into the next room before disengaging the handiwork I'd done on the lock.

The doors slammed closed… or tried, rather, since they'd stopped up on my block.

I grinned a little to myself as I slid through the space and turned to kick the thing back to me and have them slam all the way shut… That never would've worked on a colonial or meteor base, blast doors are made to just go through anything in the way; a lost limb from a moronic cadet wasn't anything compared to the risk of vacuum. I could've rigged something up to still do what I had on one of those, but this was kinda funny, really.

In this day and age, with all the awful shit going on, I take my kicks where I can.

Looking around, I quickly spotted the camera from the view I'd memorized from the security feed, and smirked into it as I raised the can of paint to spray the lens. I'd looped the feed to hide us from the start, but hadn't had been able to outright cut the recording process without getting some attention; they'd see all this later, and I wanted them to know it was me.

I turned to find Xu done and tapped the grounding band on my wrist where a watch ought to sit, and he returned with a `hurry up' gesture. I grimaced and dashed away from my bags, gesturing vaguely at them… he made an annoyed noise.

Bitch and moan… Why did I have to have such a whiny sidekick? Seriously, he was here for the muscle and to watch my back, and the cavalry was almost here, I needed to get that hanger door open for the carrier. He could afford to do a little of the damn handiwork too, I didn't have time to reinforce those doors. Fucking morons with superglue, I grumbled internally. I would have had everything on time without that. I wasn't going anywhere without some damn fine razors anymore, I should have thought of that before…

Oh well, lesson learned, and the night was young yet.

***

Amsterdam

“Kay?”

“Hey,” I returned quietly, tugging my shirt over my head.

“What time is it?” Melissa asked sleepily. I could see the curve of her body roughly in the bit of light coming from under the door; she really wasn't awake enough to even sit up.

“Three or so,” I admitted, unbuckling my belt and squatting to grope around for my pajama pants. “Sorry.”

“What were you doing?”

I sighed as I changed my pants, trying to decide if I really wanted to talk about it just now. It hadn't been pretty, once I started considering the long view… I needed to talk to Luc about it for sure, which of course meant Melissa too, even if I had wanted to keep it from her outright… But it was seriously three in the morning and I wasn't even sure if she'd remember waking up later.

“I'll tell you in the morning,” I said instead, laying down next to her. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mm…” She yawned, but her eyes were shut. “You're worried…”

“I'm always worried,” I countered playfully, sitting up on one elbow and reaching out to brush her hair out of her face. “Go back to sleep.” Seeing as she wasn't truly awake in the first place, it didn't take her long to do so… and I sighed, anxious as hell anyway.

Amsterdam had been one of the middle of the road sort of places for the fallout from the getgo, which was one of the reasons I'd decided to settle here; it had certainly had its fair share of problems. Ever since I'd come, though, we'd had more than our fair share of luck, and the Netherlands had gotten around to having one of the healthier economies anymore.

The fact that we were healthy enough to get brand new batches of refugees coming in… That set me on edge. New people meant an upset in the bit of balance we'd managed to get, especially with the Slingers gone… If things were going to go downhill half as much as the news was predicting, there'd be a whole new batch of gangs just when we'd finished establishing ourselves as not really being one. I'd just managed to mostly calm down because Amsterdam really wasn't the shitty part of L2, it was a lot nicer… but, not to be horribly hypocritical, the neighborhood had just taken a dive. Add a little chaos, and more is sure to follow.

Heh, chaos… how damn fitting.

People assumed Kay was short for Kasey, anymore, and nobody in our little circle had really tried correcting them. Maybe I should see if I could get myself some ID with the name on it… use Luc and Rina's last name. I hadn't really expected to find family here, even if I'd been hoping for it, and I was still broody, but not quite the freaked out kid I'd been when I came here a year ago. I wasn't one of the new guys anymore. Nobody really ever thought I might be American these days; my accent was spot on with all the other locals.

This wasn't exactly impending doom… just the end to our perfect little peace. Nothing too tumultuous, just not… perfect, I guess. It probably would have gotten boring in another month or so anyhow, I guess… We could play this fine.

It could be as easy as that… right?

Mm, another chapter… Thoughts? I'll try to have the next soon enough… Started a new job, though, and school starts on Monday too… I dunno, we'll see, I guess.