Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ 12 ( Chapter 12 )
[ 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: 01.19.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 5.5K | Visits: 296 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Sci-fi / Thriller | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 01.19.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 5.5K | Visits: 296 | Status: Work In Progress
12:
An erratic pulse was fast becoming the norm when Trowa walked into His Room to find Duo and Heero ripping up the cables and stuffing them frantically into bags. Trowa could have wasted time trying to get someone to explain what was going on but since time appeared to be of the essence, he grabbed what he could and helped pack it away in the bags.
They didn’t appear to be grabbing anything from the fridge and so he left that alone, focussing on things they had brought into Frank, leaving anything that originated here. When he was done he moved to help Wufei get into the white suit he was trying hard to get into, mostly failing miserably. He fetched the black caps and put one on Wufei’s head. It would stand out, but not as much as the bandages wrapped around his head.
“What’s going on?” He asked at last, watching Heero and Duo grab the bags while he helped Wufei, tempted to just carry him but that would draw attention to them too.
“They’re searching Chinatown. They’ll reach this Sector in an hour,” Wufei mumbled and Trowa hesitated only because Wufei sounded exhausted. He’d obviously plugged himself in again, and it was taking a noticeable toll. He wanted to say it wasn’t worth it, but they wouldn’t have known to get out if he hadn’t so Trowa stayed quiet and helped him down the hallway, heading for the shuttles.
Wufei was shaking, covered in sweat by the time they reached the shuttle port and Trowa checked the times and sighed, because the next shuttle wouldn’t get there for fifteen minutes, and he had no idea if that would be too late. He looked around with sharp eyes and his gaze was drawn immediately to orange robes. He met the monk’s gaze and the man nodded before hurrying back inside.
“This way,” Trowa muttered, not sure this was a good idea at all but taking the gamble. If worst came to worst, and four Gundam pilots couldn’t kick one lone monk’s ass then the world was coming to an end and they were all going to die anyway.
“The monk?” Wufei sounded completely spent and Trowa just grunted in response, hurrying Wufei up the steps and into the corner he usually watched from. The monk was already there waiting and took Wufei’s other arm without being asked, helping to hold him up.
“This way.”
Neither Heero nor Duo argued as they rushed in behind them, following the monk to the curtain at the back of the altar, ducking in behind it and blinking at the lack of light inside. It was lit only by candles and split in two directions. The monk led them down the left side, through a warren of paths and through several large storage rooms before they came to a wall that disappeared when he pushed against it, revealing one small room behind it. The hurried in and the monk nodded to them before retreating.
“Is he going to give us away?” Right, Heero, because he could read the monk’s mind.
“No need to help us if he was just going to give us up. He could’ve just left us out there.”
“True enough,” Duo muttered in response but his eyes were locked on Wufei and Trowa waited for Heero to grab a blanket before lowering him to the floor, crouching down in front of him. Wufei was pale, shaking and his breathing was short and hard. He was obviously trying to fix it himself but the effort of getting there had taken a toll and Trowa knew only time was going to put it right. So he sat down against the wall and pulled Wufei back against him, taking the hat off and tossing it aside so he could lay a soothing hand on Wufei’s head. It was testament to how bad he was feeling that he turned into the embrace.
“Here,” Heero grabbed a second blanket and tucked it in around Wufei before moving to rummage in one of the bags for his laptop.
“What are you doing?” Duo frowned at him, lying down between them and using one of the bags as a pillow so he could still see everything.
“We still need to finish the transmission and load it onto the transmitter.” He cast a look at Wufei and Trowa knew he was wondering if Wufei was going to be in any state to check the transmission over and make sure everything was accurate. But they were out of time, it was tonight or they would have to wait until the next satellite, at risk of discovery every day more they spent there.
They sat in silence and Trowa ignored Heero in favour of running soothing hands down Wufei’s arms, down his chest, down his back, rubbing his hip. Wufei didn’t protest to a single touch and Trowa realised after a while that he’d passed out and just held him close, relieved when the damp coolness of his skin slowly warmed to something more human.
The monk came in hours later, closing the door behind him and looking down at them. Looking down at Wufei, Trowa realised, his eyes wide and troubled. It made Trowa hold him tighter, accidentally waking him up, earning himself an elbow in the ribs and he forced himself to soften his grip.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to...” The monk shook his head and just waved a hand in Wufei’s direction. “I’d seen his picture, I never thought...never thought I would actually see him.”
“You know me?” Wufei croaked out, frowning up at the monk, very clearly having no idea who he was.
“You’re the Origen.”
That was already too much information and Trowa wondered if the man knew Heero habitually kept a gun down the back of his pants and understood that with one hand behind his back already he was as good as dead if he tried to leave now. Probably not. Hindsight was so many things. Unfortunately a second chance at life wasn’t one of them.
“How do you know that?” Duo asked, trying to remain calm and keep the man talking, one hand landing on Heero’s shoulder and staying there, holding him still.
“My brother...he made you. I mean, he made you the Origen? Ah...but he didn’t know! I mean, he knew what he was doing, but...he didn’t know you hadn’t agreed to it. When he found out, it was the biggest regret of his life and he spent everything he had setting it right.” He was hesitating with his words, at least a little aware that he was walking a fine line, and it was dangerous on either side.
“Even his life,” Duo sighed, putting two and two together easily and sighing glumly. Trowa could understand it; the man who had mutilated Wufei was already dead, and he couldn’t even did up his remains to bury him all over again because he’d been blown up.
“Are they still searching?”
“They’re nearly done with Chinatown,” the monk agreed. “An hour or two and it should be clear.”
They nodded and Heero finally put his hands back in his lap so Duo was able to keep his hands to himself.
“Hanger 101 was your brother’s workshop,” Trowa said softly and the monk nodded. “Why did you send me there?” He couldn’t done without seeing the earlier attempts at Nataku. They made him wonder what Wufei would look like now, had it gone wrong somehow.
“The Pad there,” the monk grinned softly. “It can be set to take anyone anywhere.”
Handy! They all shared a knowing look and Trowa knew he was going to spending a lot more time in Hanger 101 trying to master the Molecularizer there. As long as that fool mechanic didn’t do anything stupid like repair the Pad in the main Hanger. He was looking forward to getting off Frank just so he could go back to being unemployed and doing whatever he wanted. For the whole twenty four hours he expected Wufei to let him get away with it.
“Why are you helping us?” Duo looked sceptical and Trowa couldn’t blame him. Granted, the guy was wearing an orange robe, but that didn’t mean he really was a monk, or that he actually liked to help people. It definitely didn’t make him obligated to help them.
“The system killed my brother,” the monk replied easily, but he was looking at Wufei now and Trowa realised from the look on Wufei’s face that Wufei had approved of the death. In fact, Frank wouldn’t have been able to make it happen without Wufei agreeing, and the monk knew it too. But Wufei wasn’t apologising, and the monk wasn’t asking him to.
“If it could kill when it had a conscience, what will it do without one? My brother believes the System is acting against the best interests of the colonists. I care about these people. When I saw you,” he nodded to Trowa. “I recognised you, from the war. I lived here even then, helping my brother build the System, but I watched the news feeds. I knew why you were here.”
And he’d made the effort to help, feeling Trowa out and Trowa wasn’t sure what had done it, maybe he’d just been waiting for the right time, or maybe it had been him fumbling for a reason to light his candle, but for whatever reason the monk had decided to trust him. Whatever the reason, Trowa was glad.
“How old is the System? You said you were making it during the war?” Duo was frowning, trying to make a timeline in his head and Trowa had to agree it was a tight one when you were thinking of something the size of Frank.
“The colony was being built long before the war started. The men who designed it saw the war coming and decided to make a colony that could remain autonomous. They targeted people who wouldn’t talk, and who wanted to avoid conflict. Most people who live here had lost loved ones to wars before and were grateful for the chance to live apart from the world they’d grown to hate. It was finished not long before the war ended.”
“But you didn’t take Wufei for another two years?”
“The System was completed after the colony launched. My brother realised within months that it was missing something vital and what it was. It took them another year to finish the adjustments and then they began screening possible candidates.”
“Why Wufei?”
The monk shrugged having no more idea why than they did and Trowa scowled in annoyance. He wanted to know the names of every person who had thought Wufei would be a good person to stick in their machine, and then he wanted to bring the circus to see them so he could feed them to the lions, figuratively speaking. Maybe.
“Go see if they’re done searching,” Heero ordered and the monk had enough sense not to hesitate, hurrying from the room to do his bidding. Trowa sighed and stroked Wufei’s arm, wondering how he was taking it all but not wanting to ask in front of Duo and Heero, knowing he wouldn’t get an honest answer if he did.
“You make the weirdest friends!” Duo gaped at him a little, shaking his head and slumping back into the bags. “Seriously, a monk?”
“Says the guy who introduces himself to the local priest of every Catholic Church he lives within a hundred miles of,” Trowa countered and Duo stuck his tongue out at him but admitted defeat.
“Whatever Frank’s been planning pre-dates Wufei’s entry into the system,” Heero noted softly. “Something that prompted the monk’s brother to put Wufei into the system.”
They sat in silence thinking that over, until the monk returned, a smile on his face as he pointed back the way he had come.
“They’re gone. They’ve left signs everywhere but most people are just tearing them down, I don’t think they’re really interested in something being stolen from Level 5. People from up there don’t really contribute to life on the lower levels and I guess they’re paying the price now.”
Having the people turn against them was just what they needed and the monk knew it. They weren’t grinning about it the way he was, but it was still obvious they were pleased by the news. They got up quickly, Heero and Duo grabbing the bags again while Trowa helped Wufei up and the monk helped, walking them back out to the temple but releasing Wufei at his corner.
“I am sorry, for what my brother did to you. But I am grateful for the service you gave the colony.”
Wufei was silent and in time the monk nervously left. Trowa was not surprised when Wufei looked away and he helped him walk down the steps and back toward His Room. It was a slow walk, Wufei still weak after the hurried rush out and Trowa found himself feeling weary as he tugged a notice off his door informing him his room had been inspected and found to be kept in a clean and tidy state. They even thanked him for his cooperation, which he’d never given. He scowled and tugged Wufei inside, helping him onto the bed and going to get the comfortable house shorts and a t-shirt for Wufei and the pants and a shirt for himself.
He helped Wufei change first, tucking him in to bed, not surprised at all when he turned to face the wall and closed his eyes, already falling into sleep. Trowa left him to it and went to have his shower while Heero and Duo unpacked. He noticed they were leaving a lot of it in the bags in case they had to run again.
The shower was a relief, the day catching up with him. He put his hands against the wall and hung his head, letting the water wash through his hair to his scalp as if it could wash away the memory of Hanger 101. He scrubbed himself nearly raw in his need to wash the day off and took the time to comb his hair before going back out to the main room.
Heero went in for a shower next, making Trowa blink because he’d usually had one by the time Trowa got back to His Room. They must really have been caught off guard by the inspection.
He got the journals from his backpack and went to sit on the bed beside Wufei, sighing as he opened the first one and the words swam a little on the page. The man’s handwriting wasn’t fantastic and he wrote like a scientist, making it a boring read. Duo was watching him curiously but he couldn’t even share the load, because Duo wasn’t going to be able to help him without getting in to Level 1, which he didn’t have authorization for, and who knew where Hanger 101 actually was. He would have suggested Wufei try to find it, but he didn’t want Wufei plugging in any more than was completely necessary and it wasn’t. Trowa just had to read.
That didn’t mean he enjoyed it. The man was a dreamer, in the most annoying sense of the word. Worse, he had the skills to back up his insane ideas. He kept going off on tangents, halting work on his major projects to build a variety of strange devices he was for that week at least convinced would change the way people lived, as if living inside of Frank hadn’t already done that. But the next week he would have abandoned the idea, sometimes having completed it and others just changing his mind, and he would be back on task but it was impossible to know when he would be on or off topic so he couldn’t even skip over those bits that seemed irrelevant.
“What are these anyway?” Duo asked curiously and Trowa couldn’t even say when he had moved and started reading over his shoulder.
“The journals of the monk’s brother. I found them in the Hanger.”
“...huh. Handy of him to write it all down. Nice fellow,” Duo noted sarcastically, and gave up on reading what Trowa could just tell him all about later and went to the kitchenette to find something he could turn into food.
“Bastards!”
Trowa looked up curiously and Duo held up the empty packed of muesli bars, shaking it as if something might actually fall out.
“I can’t believe they ate your food!”
Neither could Trowa, and yet he could. They must have been hungry, and since they had no qualms about entering someone’s house without permission it wasn’t that surprising that they felt equally entitled to eat his food. Still, he thought it said a lot about the kind of people who were running Level 5’s operation to get the Origen back.
“I wonder why they don’t just tell people what they’re looking for. No one would know Wufei hadn’t done it voluntarily, they could just spin it the right way and turn us into very bad guys and the whole colony would turn against us.”
“Guess they don’t want anyone to know how the System works.”
“But that’s what I don’t get. I mean, it’s basically the biggest technological breakthrough since the Mobile Dolls. Why not give that to the world?” He was genuinely curious about it, of the opinion most scientists were self serving and desperate to have the world acknowledge their work in some way.
“Maybe they don’t want the world to have it?”
That made sense, in a way Duo hadn’t intended to and they shared a startled look. If they didn’t want the world to have it, that meant they wanted to have something the world didn’t. Which could have something to do with whatever Frank was planning.
“Good thinking, Duo.”
“Thanks,” Duo frowned, well aware he hadn’t meant it that way and that Trowa was being annoying.
Heero came out of the shower and came to see what he was reading and Duo related the conversation, receiving little more than a grunt in response. Heero waved a hand at Wufei, a dark frown on his face.
“He keeps trying to do too much. The plugs in his head started leaking blood while he was plugged in today. I don’t know what it’s doing to him on the inside, but I recommended he stop and he tried to bite my head off.”
Trowa was so startled he dropped the journal he was reading and turned to stare at Wufei but the lack of a response told him Wufei really was asleep. He reached out and stroked the bandage around Wufei’s head, frowning because the last thing he’d needed was their sudden evacuation on top of a tough day. Worse, he didn’t know how to make Wufei stop. How to convince Wufei that he wasn’t useless, or a burden and that they didn’t need him to help them get him out. What sort of rescue team would they be if they relied on the person they had to rescue to get them out?
“I told you this would happen. If you’d just agreed that the risk was too great he wouldn’t have tried it in the first place!”
“And yet, we wouldn’t have known they were doing a raid, and they would have found us here and we would’ve been caught, or had to kill them and now be on the run with no base. Maybe hanging out in the monk’s hidey hole,” Duo reasoned in Heero’s defence and it didn’t help at all that he was right.
“Did he say anything about it?”
“Not really. Just said he needed more ports active, that he was too isolated.”
That left Trowa flabbergasted, hands clenching as he leant down to pick up the journal, glaring over at Wufei.
“He wants to plug in more? He starts bleeding out of his head and his answer is, let me do more?” Was he insane? As if Trowa was going to allow that! But Heero had probably said no, this time, as well, and Wufei’s response was to bite his head off. Trowa knew him saying no wasn’t going to be any more acceptable than Heero saying it, but while he didn’t want his head being bitten off he didn’t want Wufei hurting himself either.
“What an idiot,” Duo grumbled, pouring some canned soup into a saucepan and stirring it until it started to boil. Trowa had to agree with him, Wufei was being a pain and it annoyed him. But he wouldn’t be Wufei if he wasn’t doing something frustrating.
Heero booted up his laptop and pulled up the transmission, needing to finish it off and he cast a look at Wufei. Trowa also wondered if Wufei was even going to wake up to attempt to read it, let alone catch anything they needed to change. He definitely wasn’t letting Heero wake him up to read something he might not have to change anyway.
“Alright if I boot up your laptop and transfer all your files across?” Heero waved a hand at his bag and Trowa just nodded in agreement, forcing himself to focus on the journals again while his anger cooled.
Heero had the laptops running the transfer by the time Duo handed out bowls of soup and Trowa ate it more because he needed the energy for tomorrow than because he was hungry. It was a distraction and he forced himself to put aside the journals to eat it, which made him think about the day.
“Did you find the aviary?”
“Sort of,” Duo agreed, rolling his eyes. He’d clearly already related his frustration over the matter to Heero but he sighed and stabbed at his soup with the spoon and elaborated. “I found it. I wasn’t allowed in, because I didn’t have a special access pass.”
“So you just left?” Duo Maxwell did not just give up and leave. Trowa stared at him and waited impatiently for the second half of the story.
“No? I found a back way in, which got me a lot dirtier than your mechanic gig did, I might add!” He waved a hand at Trowa’s not so dirty clothes pile a little accusingly.
“And?” He was getting really tired of prompting people to tell him things they should have just told him from the get go, but he knew his annoyance stemmed from things entirely unrelated, namely the sleeping body beside him, so he bit his tongue and just waited.
“And I found a way in, of course. Anyway, there is a small bed of passion flowers, but I couldn’t figure out what the deal was. They’re in this weird straight line and at first I thought it was leading somewhere but I followed it from end to end and there was nothing at either end. And then I realised they were on a ledge, and I remembered that quote about not letting them pass? And I thought maybe it had something to do with that, since they were sort of making a wall? But there was nothing below the wall, just more grass and plants and stuff.” He shrugged, clearly disappointed he hadn’t been able to find anything more interesting and went back to eating his soup.
Trowa just sighed and finished his own meal because the aviary really seemed like a lose cause, or at least one that was too difficult to figure out. It was just another thing to keep in mind, that there was a particular flower growing in the aviary that might have something to do with whatever Frank was planning.
Which could be anything. He knew he was tired because he just wanted to punch everything. Instead, he put his empty soup bowl down, picked up the journal and did his homework.
Something kicked him in the side an hour later and Trowa frowned as Wufei woke, a hand going immediately to his head, a clear sign Wufei had a headache. Not that that was all that surprising now he knew blood had been leaking out his brain. It just made him want to wrap the man up in cotton wool and then shake him like crazy.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Wufei grumbled, moving around to sit up beside him, leaning a little against his shoulder to see what he was doing, then frowning as he leaned a little closer to get a better look. “Are those journals?”
“Mmm...from the man who made Frank.”
“Well, that’s creepy,” Wufei muttered, picking up one of the older looking ones and flicking through it until he found something that interested him. He read for a few minutes before slamming it shut and tossing it aside, the expression on his face not one Trowa interpreted as good. He made a note of which journal it had been, convinced it talked about Wufei, for later reading.
“Here, you need to look at this,” Heero said softly and he put the laptop in Wufei’s lap. “The folder’s huge, but you can read the breakdown I’ve attached as the header of the transmission.”
Wufei just nodded and looked over at the kitchenette, licking his lips. It was all he had to do for Duo to get up and hurriedly make him a smoothie. Wufei seemed surprised at first, then just settled in to the pillows and started reading. He made a few small changes without even telling Heero and it was almost worth him being awake and doing it to see the increasingly frustrated look on Heero’s face every time he heard Wufei’s fingers on the keys changing something without knowing what it was. Trowa had no doubt the man would re-read the entire report just to see what Wufei had done.
“This Quatre thing is really bugging me,” Wufei muttered, something in the report triggering the response and he looked up at the Computer as if it might give him answers. Or as if he might plug himself in and get them, but he didn’t suggest it, which was good because if he had Trowa might just have tied him to the bed for his own good. And maybe just because it would be fun.
“What do you remember of it?”
“That’s it, I don’t know. I just remember the name...Winner...it was something to do with money.”
“Well, he’s got enough of that to go around,” Duo grumbled and there was a touch of sarcasm in it. Not long ago a news reporter had estimated that if Quatre printed out a hundred dollar bill for every hundred dollars he was indirectly connected to he could wrap Earth in money. Quatre politely corrected the reporter, and reprimanded them asking them to get their facts right before making ridiculous reports, and informed them that he could have wrapped up Jupiter and had a lot to spare. He wasn’t shy about the fact he had money, but that was mainly because it was impossible to hide the fact he had it. Trowa just found it all amusing, especially since it was usually his apartment Quatre retreated to when it all got a bit too much.
“Did he do anything weird lately? Lately being...since I went for the job?” Wufei was frowning, clearly not liking that ‘recently’ involved years of stuff he had no idea had happened.
“You mean other than buy Preventers and subsequently privatise the only law enforcement agency in the world?” Duo scoffed.
“What?” Wufei stared at them all as if they’d grown another head, or as if what Duo had said was a weird joke. Which wasn’t that strange an assumption to make, because Duo usually was making weird jokes, this just sadly wasn’t one of them.
“Yeah. Technically we all work for Winner now,” Duo rolled his eyes. “But don’t tell Une that.”
“Preventers are privately owned...” Wufei was thinking it through, his frown pulling the bandage further down his forehead, making it look like it was about to swallow his head. Trowa thought it was cute.
“If Quatre dies, who inherits his Empire?”
“No idea. One of his millions of relatives?” Duo shrugged, it clearly not being something he had ever concerned himself with.
“He doesn’t actually have that many,” Trowa mused, trying to remember who was next in line but he couldn’t recall off the top of his head.
“Mmm, no, killing requires a decision from the conscience, I would have known more about it. But if Quatre was discredited...” He was struggling, straining to put the random pieces of someone else’s thoughts into order and he rubbed his head, it clearly paining him but didn’t complain.
“If Quatre is discredited the United Earth Nations would force him to give up Preventers.” Heero seemed to think this was obvious, looking at Wufei and waiting for him to get to the point.
“He’d have to sell it at a loss,” Duo noted. “If they let him sell it. Not sure they can legally make him just give it away though.”
“Frank has the money to buy it,” Wufei whispered, eyes wide.
“Which would give him the only standing army left in the universe, and control of the only other people with weapons and a license to use them,” Trowa concluded, wishing he could kick himself for not realising it sooner. Something had changed after the war alright; Frank had realised he was powerful.
“Shit,” Duo whispered, coming to the same sorts of conclusions as the rest of them. A world ruled by Frank. A computer in charge of maintaining peace. A machine making the decisions for the preservation of all humankind. It could only end badly, like in all those taking-over-the-world machine movies Duo had made him watch.
“How would anyone discredit Quatre?” Duo sounded as confused about it as Trowa felt. Everything about Frank was out of this world crazy and extreme. It left him feeling exhausted from all the thinking he had to do.
“You start by giving him a few failed missions,” Heero noted coldly. “Making it look like his incompetence has gotten good people killed.”
“The satellite,” Trowa cursed. “We need Quatre taken off the case.”
Wufei was already typing, adjusting whatever Heero had written to reflect this new revelation. Even if it turned out they were entirely on the wrong track, Quatre would know to look out and they could avoid total disaster.
“You know,” Duo grumbled as he did the washing up. “Frank is starting to piss me off.”
“Starting to?” Wufei looked at him, incredulity clear on his face. “You didn’t sit through his job interview.”
An erratic pulse was fast becoming the norm when Trowa walked into His Room to find Duo and Heero ripping up the cables and stuffing them frantically into bags. Trowa could have wasted time trying to get someone to explain what was going on but since time appeared to be of the essence, he grabbed what he could and helped pack it away in the bags.
They didn’t appear to be grabbing anything from the fridge and so he left that alone, focussing on things they had brought into Frank, leaving anything that originated here. When he was done he moved to help Wufei get into the white suit he was trying hard to get into, mostly failing miserably. He fetched the black caps and put one on Wufei’s head. It would stand out, but not as much as the bandages wrapped around his head.
“What’s going on?” He asked at last, watching Heero and Duo grab the bags while he helped Wufei, tempted to just carry him but that would draw attention to them too.
“They’re searching Chinatown. They’ll reach this Sector in an hour,” Wufei mumbled and Trowa hesitated only because Wufei sounded exhausted. He’d obviously plugged himself in again, and it was taking a noticeable toll. He wanted to say it wasn’t worth it, but they wouldn’t have known to get out if he hadn’t so Trowa stayed quiet and helped him down the hallway, heading for the shuttles.
Wufei was shaking, covered in sweat by the time they reached the shuttle port and Trowa checked the times and sighed, because the next shuttle wouldn’t get there for fifteen minutes, and he had no idea if that would be too late. He looked around with sharp eyes and his gaze was drawn immediately to orange robes. He met the monk’s gaze and the man nodded before hurrying back inside.
“This way,” Trowa muttered, not sure this was a good idea at all but taking the gamble. If worst came to worst, and four Gundam pilots couldn’t kick one lone monk’s ass then the world was coming to an end and they were all going to die anyway.
“The monk?” Wufei sounded completely spent and Trowa just grunted in response, hurrying Wufei up the steps and into the corner he usually watched from. The monk was already there waiting and took Wufei’s other arm without being asked, helping to hold him up.
“This way.”
Neither Heero nor Duo argued as they rushed in behind them, following the monk to the curtain at the back of the altar, ducking in behind it and blinking at the lack of light inside. It was lit only by candles and split in two directions. The monk led them down the left side, through a warren of paths and through several large storage rooms before they came to a wall that disappeared when he pushed against it, revealing one small room behind it. The hurried in and the monk nodded to them before retreating.
“Is he going to give us away?” Right, Heero, because he could read the monk’s mind.
“No need to help us if he was just going to give us up. He could’ve just left us out there.”
“True enough,” Duo muttered in response but his eyes were locked on Wufei and Trowa waited for Heero to grab a blanket before lowering him to the floor, crouching down in front of him. Wufei was pale, shaking and his breathing was short and hard. He was obviously trying to fix it himself but the effort of getting there had taken a toll and Trowa knew only time was going to put it right. So he sat down against the wall and pulled Wufei back against him, taking the hat off and tossing it aside so he could lay a soothing hand on Wufei’s head. It was testament to how bad he was feeling that he turned into the embrace.
“Here,” Heero grabbed a second blanket and tucked it in around Wufei before moving to rummage in one of the bags for his laptop.
“What are you doing?” Duo frowned at him, lying down between them and using one of the bags as a pillow so he could still see everything.
“We still need to finish the transmission and load it onto the transmitter.” He cast a look at Wufei and Trowa knew he was wondering if Wufei was going to be in any state to check the transmission over and make sure everything was accurate. But they were out of time, it was tonight or they would have to wait until the next satellite, at risk of discovery every day more they spent there.
They sat in silence and Trowa ignored Heero in favour of running soothing hands down Wufei’s arms, down his chest, down his back, rubbing his hip. Wufei didn’t protest to a single touch and Trowa realised after a while that he’d passed out and just held him close, relieved when the damp coolness of his skin slowly warmed to something more human.
The monk came in hours later, closing the door behind him and looking down at them. Looking down at Wufei, Trowa realised, his eyes wide and troubled. It made Trowa hold him tighter, accidentally waking him up, earning himself an elbow in the ribs and he forced himself to soften his grip.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to...” The monk shook his head and just waved a hand in Wufei’s direction. “I’d seen his picture, I never thought...never thought I would actually see him.”
“You know me?” Wufei croaked out, frowning up at the monk, very clearly having no idea who he was.
“You’re the Origen.”
That was already too much information and Trowa wondered if the man knew Heero habitually kept a gun down the back of his pants and understood that with one hand behind his back already he was as good as dead if he tried to leave now. Probably not. Hindsight was so many things. Unfortunately a second chance at life wasn’t one of them.
“How do you know that?” Duo asked, trying to remain calm and keep the man talking, one hand landing on Heero’s shoulder and staying there, holding him still.
“My brother...he made you. I mean, he made you the Origen? Ah...but he didn’t know! I mean, he knew what he was doing, but...he didn’t know you hadn’t agreed to it. When he found out, it was the biggest regret of his life and he spent everything he had setting it right.” He was hesitating with his words, at least a little aware that he was walking a fine line, and it was dangerous on either side.
“Even his life,” Duo sighed, putting two and two together easily and sighing glumly. Trowa could understand it; the man who had mutilated Wufei was already dead, and he couldn’t even did up his remains to bury him all over again because he’d been blown up.
“Are they still searching?”
“They’re nearly done with Chinatown,” the monk agreed. “An hour or two and it should be clear.”
They nodded and Heero finally put his hands back in his lap so Duo was able to keep his hands to himself.
“Hanger 101 was your brother’s workshop,” Trowa said softly and the monk nodded. “Why did you send me there?” He couldn’t done without seeing the earlier attempts at Nataku. They made him wonder what Wufei would look like now, had it gone wrong somehow.
“The Pad there,” the monk grinned softly. “It can be set to take anyone anywhere.”
Handy! They all shared a knowing look and Trowa knew he was going to spending a lot more time in Hanger 101 trying to master the Molecularizer there. As long as that fool mechanic didn’t do anything stupid like repair the Pad in the main Hanger. He was looking forward to getting off Frank just so he could go back to being unemployed and doing whatever he wanted. For the whole twenty four hours he expected Wufei to let him get away with it.
“Why are you helping us?” Duo looked sceptical and Trowa couldn’t blame him. Granted, the guy was wearing an orange robe, but that didn’t mean he really was a monk, or that he actually liked to help people. It definitely didn’t make him obligated to help them.
“The system killed my brother,” the monk replied easily, but he was looking at Wufei now and Trowa realised from the look on Wufei’s face that Wufei had approved of the death. In fact, Frank wouldn’t have been able to make it happen without Wufei agreeing, and the monk knew it too. But Wufei wasn’t apologising, and the monk wasn’t asking him to.
“If it could kill when it had a conscience, what will it do without one? My brother believes the System is acting against the best interests of the colonists. I care about these people. When I saw you,” he nodded to Trowa. “I recognised you, from the war. I lived here even then, helping my brother build the System, but I watched the news feeds. I knew why you were here.”
And he’d made the effort to help, feeling Trowa out and Trowa wasn’t sure what had done it, maybe he’d just been waiting for the right time, or maybe it had been him fumbling for a reason to light his candle, but for whatever reason the monk had decided to trust him. Whatever the reason, Trowa was glad.
“How old is the System? You said you were making it during the war?” Duo was frowning, trying to make a timeline in his head and Trowa had to agree it was a tight one when you were thinking of something the size of Frank.
“The colony was being built long before the war started. The men who designed it saw the war coming and decided to make a colony that could remain autonomous. They targeted people who wouldn’t talk, and who wanted to avoid conflict. Most people who live here had lost loved ones to wars before and were grateful for the chance to live apart from the world they’d grown to hate. It was finished not long before the war ended.”
“But you didn’t take Wufei for another two years?”
“The System was completed after the colony launched. My brother realised within months that it was missing something vital and what it was. It took them another year to finish the adjustments and then they began screening possible candidates.”
“Why Wufei?”
The monk shrugged having no more idea why than they did and Trowa scowled in annoyance. He wanted to know the names of every person who had thought Wufei would be a good person to stick in their machine, and then he wanted to bring the circus to see them so he could feed them to the lions, figuratively speaking. Maybe.
“Go see if they’re done searching,” Heero ordered and the monk had enough sense not to hesitate, hurrying from the room to do his bidding. Trowa sighed and stroked Wufei’s arm, wondering how he was taking it all but not wanting to ask in front of Duo and Heero, knowing he wouldn’t get an honest answer if he did.
“You make the weirdest friends!” Duo gaped at him a little, shaking his head and slumping back into the bags. “Seriously, a monk?”
“Says the guy who introduces himself to the local priest of every Catholic Church he lives within a hundred miles of,” Trowa countered and Duo stuck his tongue out at him but admitted defeat.
“Whatever Frank’s been planning pre-dates Wufei’s entry into the system,” Heero noted softly. “Something that prompted the monk’s brother to put Wufei into the system.”
They sat in silence thinking that over, until the monk returned, a smile on his face as he pointed back the way he had come.
“They’re gone. They’ve left signs everywhere but most people are just tearing them down, I don’t think they’re really interested in something being stolen from Level 5. People from up there don’t really contribute to life on the lower levels and I guess they’re paying the price now.”
Having the people turn against them was just what they needed and the monk knew it. They weren’t grinning about it the way he was, but it was still obvious they were pleased by the news. They got up quickly, Heero and Duo grabbing the bags again while Trowa helped Wufei up and the monk helped, walking them back out to the temple but releasing Wufei at his corner.
“I am sorry, for what my brother did to you. But I am grateful for the service you gave the colony.”
Wufei was silent and in time the monk nervously left. Trowa was not surprised when Wufei looked away and he helped him walk down the steps and back toward His Room. It was a slow walk, Wufei still weak after the hurried rush out and Trowa found himself feeling weary as he tugged a notice off his door informing him his room had been inspected and found to be kept in a clean and tidy state. They even thanked him for his cooperation, which he’d never given. He scowled and tugged Wufei inside, helping him onto the bed and going to get the comfortable house shorts and a t-shirt for Wufei and the pants and a shirt for himself.
He helped Wufei change first, tucking him in to bed, not surprised at all when he turned to face the wall and closed his eyes, already falling into sleep. Trowa left him to it and went to have his shower while Heero and Duo unpacked. He noticed they were leaving a lot of it in the bags in case they had to run again.
The shower was a relief, the day catching up with him. He put his hands against the wall and hung his head, letting the water wash through his hair to his scalp as if it could wash away the memory of Hanger 101. He scrubbed himself nearly raw in his need to wash the day off and took the time to comb his hair before going back out to the main room.
Heero went in for a shower next, making Trowa blink because he’d usually had one by the time Trowa got back to His Room. They must really have been caught off guard by the inspection.
He got the journals from his backpack and went to sit on the bed beside Wufei, sighing as he opened the first one and the words swam a little on the page. The man’s handwriting wasn’t fantastic and he wrote like a scientist, making it a boring read. Duo was watching him curiously but he couldn’t even share the load, because Duo wasn’t going to be able to help him without getting in to Level 1, which he didn’t have authorization for, and who knew where Hanger 101 actually was. He would have suggested Wufei try to find it, but he didn’t want Wufei plugging in any more than was completely necessary and it wasn’t. Trowa just had to read.
That didn’t mean he enjoyed it. The man was a dreamer, in the most annoying sense of the word. Worse, he had the skills to back up his insane ideas. He kept going off on tangents, halting work on his major projects to build a variety of strange devices he was for that week at least convinced would change the way people lived, as if living inside of Frank hadn’t already done that. But the next week he would have abandoned the idea, sometimes having completed it and others just changing his mind, and he would be back on task but it was impossible to know when he would be on or off topic so he couldn’t even skip over those bits that seemed irrelevant.
“What are these anyway?” Duo asked curiously and Trowa couldn’t even say when he had moved and started reading over his shoulder.
“The journals of the monk’s brother. I found them in the Hanger.”
“...huh. Handy of him to write it all down. Nice fellow,” Duo noted sarcastically, and gave up on reading what Trowa could just tell him all about later and went to the kitchenette to find something he could turn into food.
“Bastards!”
Trowa looked up curiously and Duo held up the empty packed of muesli bars, shaking it as if something might actually fall out.
“I can’t believe they ate your food!”
Neither could Trowa, and yet he could. They must have been hungry, and since they had no qualms about entering someone’s house without permission it wasn’t that surprising that they felt equally entitled to eat his food. Still, he thought it said a lot about the kind of people who were running Level 5’s operation to get the Origen back.
“I wonder why they don’t just tell people what they’re looking for. No one would know Wufei hadn’t done it voluntarily, they could just spin it the right way and turn us into very bad guys and the whole colony would turn against us.”
“Guess they don’t want anyone to know how the System works.”
“But that’s what I don’t get. I mean, it’s basically the biggest technological breakthrough since the Mobile Dolls. Why not give that to the world?” He was genuinely curious about it, of the opinion most scientists were self serving and desperate to have the world acknowledge their work in some way.
“Maybe they don’t want the world to have it?”
That made sense, in a way Duo hadn’t intended to and they shared a startled look. If they didn’t want the world to have it, that meant they wanted to have something the world didn’t. Which could have something to do with whatever Frank was planning.
“Good thinking, Duo.”
“Thanks,” Duo frowned, well aware he hadn’t meant it that way and that Trowa was being annoying.
Heero came out of the shower and came to see what he was reading and Duo related the conversation, receiving little more than a grunt in response. Heero waved a hand at Wufei, a dark frown on his face.
“He keeps trying to do too much. The plugs in his head started leaking blood while he was plugged in today. I don’t know what it’s doing to him on the inside, but I recommended he stop and he tried to bite my head off.”
Trowa was so startled he dropped the journal he was reading and turned to stare at Wufei but the lack of a response told him Wufei really was asleep. He reached out and stroked the bandage around Wufei’s head, frowning because the last thing he’d needed was their sudden evacuation on top of a tough day. Worse, he didn’t know how to make Wufei stop. How to convince Wufei that he wasn’t useless, or a burden and that they didn’t need him to help them get him out. What sort of rescue team would they be if they relied on the person they had to rescue to get them out?
“I told you this would happen. If you’d just agreed that the risk was too great he wouldn’t have tried it in the first place!”
“And yet, we wouldn’t have known they were doing a raid, and they would have found us here and we would’ve been caught, or had to kill them and now be on the run with no base. Maybe hanging out in the monk’s hidey hole,” Duo reasoned in Heero’s defence and it didn’t help at all that he was right.
“Did he say anything about it?”
“Not really. Just said he needed more ports active, that he was too isolated.”
That left Trowa flabbergasted, hands clenching as he leant down to pick up the journal, glaring over at Wufei.
“He wants to plug in more? He starts bleeding out of his head and his answer is, let me do more?” Was he insane? As if Trowa was going to allow that! But Heero had probably said no, this time, as well, and Wufei’s response was to bite his head off. Trowa knew him saying no wasn’t going to be any more acceptable than Heero saying it, but while he didn’t want his head being bitten off he didn’t want Wufei hurting himself either.
“What an idiot,” Duo grumbled, pouring some canned soup into a saucepan and stirring it until it started to boil. Trowa had to agree with him, Wufei was being a pain and it annoyed him. But he wouldn’t be Wufei if he wasn’t doing something frustrating.
Heero booted up his laptop and pulled up the transmission, needing to finish it off and he cast a look at Wufei. Trowa also wondered if Wufei was even going to wake up to attempt to read it, let alone catch anything they needed to change. He definitely wasn’t letting Heero wake him up to read something he might not have to change anyway.
“Alright if I boot up your laptop and transfer all your files across?” Heero waved a hand at his bag and Trowa just nodded in agreement, forcing himself to focus on the journals again while his anger cooled.
Heero had the laptops running the transfer by the time Duo handed out bowls of soup and Trowa ate it more because he needed the energy for tomorrow than because he was hungry. It was a distraction and he forced himself to put aside the journals to eat it, which made him think about the day.
“Did you find the aviary?”
“Sort of,” Duo agreed, rolling his eyes. He’d clearly already related his frustration over the matter to Heero but he sighed and stabbed at his soup with the spoon and elaborated. “I found it. I wasn’t allowed in, because I didn’t have a special access pass.”
“So you just left?” Duo Maxwell did not just give up and leave. Trowa stared at him and waited impatiently for the second half of the story.
“No? I found a back way in, which got me a lot dirtier than your mechanic gig did, I might add!” He waved a hand at Trowa’s not so dirty clothes pile a little accusingly.
“And?” He was getting really tired of prompting people to tell him things they should have just told him from the get go, but he knew his annoyance stemmed from things entirely unrelated, namely the sleeping body beside him, so he bit his tongue and just waited.
“And I found a way in, of course. Anyway, there is a small bed of passion flowers, but I couldn’t figure out what the deal was. They’re in this weird straight line and at first I thought it was leading somewhere but I followed it from end to end and there was nothing at either end. And then I realised they were on a ledge, and I remembered that quote about not letting them pass? And I thought maybe it had something to do with that, since they were sort of making a wall? But there was nothing below the wall, just more grass and plants and stuff.” He shrugged, clearly disappointed he hadn’t been able to find anything more interesting and went back to eating his soup.
Trowa just sighed and finished his own meal because the aviary really seemed like a lose cause, or at least one that was too difficult to figure out. It was just another thing to keep in mind, that there was a particular flower growing in the aviary that might have something to do with whatever Frank was planning.
Which could be anything. He knew he was tired because he just wanted to punch everything. Instead, he put his empty soup bowl down, picked up the journal and did his homework.
Something kicked him in the side an hour later and Trowa frowned as Wufei woke, a hand going immediately to his head, a clear sign Wufei had a headache. Not that that was all that surprising now he knew blood had been leaking out his brain. It just made him want to wrap the man up in cotton wool and then shake him like crazy.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Wufei grumbled, moving around to sit up beside him, leaning a little against his shoulder to see what he was doing, then frowning as he leaned a little closer to get a better look. “Are those journals?”
“Mmm...from the man who made Frank.”
“Well, that’s creepy,” Wufei muttered, picking up one of the older looking ones and flicking through it until he found something that interested him. He read for a few minutes before slamming it shut and tossing it aside, the expression on his face not one Trowa interpreted as good. He made a note of which journal it had been, convinced it talked about Wufei, for later reading.
“Here, you need to look at this,” Heero said softly and he put the laptop in Wufei’s lap. “The folder’s huge, but you can read the breakdown I’ve attached as the header of the transmission.”
Wufei just nodded and looked over at the kitchenette, licking his lips. It was all he had to do for Duo to get up and hurriedly make him a smoothie. Wufei seemed surprised at first, then just settled in to the pillows and started reading. He made a few small changes without even telling Heero and it was almost worth him being awake and doing it to see the increasingly frustrated look on Heero’s face every time he heard Wufei’s fingers on the keys changing something without knowing what it was. Trowa had no doubt the man would re-read the entire report just to see what Wufei had done.
“This Quatre thing is really bugging me,” Wufei muttered, something in the report triggering the response and he looked up at the Computer as if it might give him answers. Or as if he might plug himself in and get them, but he didn’t suggest it, which was good because if he had Trowa might just have tied him to the bed for his own good. And maybe just because it would be fun.
“What do you remember of it?”
“That’s it, I don’t know. I just remember the name...Winner...it was something to do with money.”
“Well, he’s got enough of that to go around,” Duo grumbled and there was a touch of sarcasm in it. Not long ago a news reporter had estimated that if Quatre printed out a hundred dollar bill for every hundred dollars he was indirectly connected to he could wrap Earth in money. Quatre politely corrected the reporter, and reprimanded them asking them to get their facts right before making ridiculous reports, and informed them that he could have wrapped up Jupiter and had a lot to spare. He wasn’t shy about the fact he had money, but that was mainly because it was impossible to hide the fact he had it. Trowa just found it all amusing, especially since it was usually his apartment Quatre retreated to when it all got a bit too much.
“Did he do anything weird lately? Lately being...since I went for the job?” Wufei was frowning, clearly not liking that ‘recently’ involved years of stuff he had no idea had happened.
“You mean other than buy Preventers and subsequently privatise the only law enforcement agency in the world?” Duo scoffed.
“What?” Wufei stared at them all as if they’d grown another head, or as if what Duo had said was a weird joke. Which wasn’t that strange an assumption to make, because Duo usually was making weird jokes, this just sadly wasn’t one of them.
“Yeah. Technically we all work for Winner now,” Duo rolled his eyes. “But don’t tell Une that.”
“Preventers are privately owned...” Wufei was thinking it through, his frown pulling the bandage further down his forehead, making it look like it was about to swallow his head. Trowa thought it was cute.
“If Quatre dies, who inherits his Empire?”
“No idea. One of his millions of relatives?” Duo shrugged, it clearly not being something he had ever concerned himself with.
“He doesn’t actually have that many,” Trowa mused, trying to remember who was next in line but he couldn’t recall off the top of his head.
“Mmm, no, killing requires a decision from the conscience, I would have known more about it. But if Quatre was discredited...” He was struggling, straining to put the random pieces of someone else’s thoughts into order and he rubbed his head, it clearly paining him but didn’t complain.
“If Quatre is discredited the United Earth Nations would force him to give up Preventers.” Heero seemed to think this was obvious, looking at Wufei and waiting for him to get to the point.
“He’d have to sell it at a loss,” Duo noted. “If they let him sell it. Not sure they can legally make him just give it away though.”
“Frank has the money to buy it,” Wufei whispered, eyes wide.
“Which would give him the only standing army left in the universe, and control of the only other people with weapons and a license to use them,” Trowa concluded, wishing he could kick himself for not realising it sooner. Something had changed after the war alright; Frank had realised he was powerful.
“Shit,” Duo whispered, coming to the same sorts of conclusions as the rest of them. A world ruled by Frank. A computer in charge of maintaining peace. A machine making the decisions for the preservation of all humankind. It could only end badly, like in all those taking-over-the-world machine movies Duo had made him watch.
“How would anyone discredit Quatre?” Duo sounded as confused about it as Trowa felt. Everything about Frank was out of this world crazy and extreme. It left him feeling exhausted from all the thinking he had to do.
“You start by giving him a few failed missions,” Heero noted coldly. “Making it look like his incompetence has gotten good people killed.”
“The satellite,” Trowa cursed. “We need Quatre taken off the case.”
Wufei was already typing, adjusting whatever Heero had written to reflect this new revelation. Even if it turned out they were entirely on the wrong track, Quatre would know to look out and they could avoid total disaster.
“You know,” Duo grumbled as he did the washing up. “Frank is starting to piss me off.”
“Starting to?” Wufei looked at him, incredulity clear on his face. “You didn’t sit through his job interview.”