Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ 20 ( Chapter 20 )

20:

“It's not working!” And it's nice to see you too, Giles. Trowa sighed and hurried over to stare at the information streaming through on the console and felt his stomach drop a little. There was just too much. The logisitics of running anything the size of Frank was beyond the capabilities of the technology they had available to them. He remembered the sheer size of Frank; miles upon miles of city levels, and one of those was just the computer core to run it all. And they had thought they could just hack in and take over.

Hindsight and all that jazz. Nataku's expression was cautiously blank, but Trowa heard her I told you so loud and clear.

“We should blow it,” Heero coughed, materializing on the Pad and everyone just stared as he struggled to stay upright, getting his bearings.

“What are you doing here?” Trowa was pretty damn certain the plan had been to get off Frank.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Heero pointed out, scowling and Trowa wondered if he was angrier about having to stay back to help Trowa or leaving Duo alone with Wufei, who would no doubt be equally pissed when he figured out what was going on. They should make a club. We're Pissed? On the Way? Over the Edge? There were so many possibilities for names, Duo would have a field day. Maybe it would be enough to entertain them back to Earth. Unlikely, but he could dream.

“We can't blow it up,” Trowa muttered, still furious for completely different reasons. He could feel Heero glaring a hole in his back and sighed, wondering why he had to keep explaining things that he felt should be obvious to everyone. Only Heero probably didn't know yet.

“Quatre was with the Preventers.”

“Shit!” And now he understood. Trowa sat down in one of the chairs and glumly spun, staring at the ceiling and trying to think of a solution.

“If Winner was here, the destruction of the ships will be enough to make people force him to step aside from many of his public roles, including Preventers. He will likely be forced to sell many of the involved shares, and Frank will step into the void it creates. This is exactly what he has been planning from the start,” Nataku pointed out, as if they didn't already know it. It occurred to Trowa for the first time that Frank might have planned a lot more than they had ever given him credit for. What if he'd learnt about each of them from Wufei? What if he had known what Trowa would do if he was lured here? What if everything had been set up for them to do exactly as they had done?

Worse, without Wufei as Frank's conscience, was his main directive still to protect the human race, or was he trying to take over for his own purposes? What the hell purposes could a computer think up for itself? He eyed Nataku suspiciously and then sighed, shaking his head and trying not to get too carried away.

“If Frank buys Winner out, and we blow up Frank...it would lead to economic ruin. We'd land the Earth-Sphere in a Depression.”

“I'm despressed already,” Giles grumbled.

“You're depressed?” Nataku frowned at him and Trowa had to laugh at the expression that finally cracked her blank facade.

“Yes!” Giles defended himself. “This whole mess is depressing. Got a problem with that?”

“No?” And Trowa doubted she ever would. What did a robot care if a human found a situation depressing? He wasn't convinced she even knew what depression was, though if Hatty had shown evidence of emotions that should mean Nataku actually had them, or something. The whole thing was just plain creepy and he was getting tired of having to consider the implications of robotic emotions. Did they even have expressions or should he consider every look on their face some sort of advanced emoticon?

Trowa moved to the control panel and opened a message board.

`Hatty?'

No one spoke, Trowa wasn't even sure they breathed until so much time had passed he had to inhale or die and he cursed silently, knowing no reply was coming. The feeling of having sent a soldier to their death was all consuming, and reminding himself Hatty hadn't been alive didn't help at all. He could hear her singing when he closed his eyes.

“We need a strategy.”

“A strategy for what?” Giles just looked at Nataku incredulously, but Trowa did his best not to simply agree. Nataku was just thinking ahead of them; looking at an endgame Trowa wasn't so sure they were even going to reach. He leant casually against the desk and let Heero drop into the chair so he could at least look steady on his feet.

“We have until the Preventers ships that survived get back for the crap to start over Winner,” Heero pointed out grimly and Trowa just nodded. They wouldn't hesitate to go back at full speed with Wufei on board, wanting to get him to the best medical attention they could. Quatre would have it no other way, especially after losing men...again.

“A day or two at best,” Trowa muttered, trying to decide what to focus on, but reminding himself Wufei was beyond his reach. He was in the hands of others, whether Trowa liked it or not. He was out of Frank, and that was a start, right? Unless of course Frank decided destroying Earth would be in their best interests and then he supposed being inside Frank was the safest place, in which case he'd sent Wufei to his death. Probably best not to think about that.

“If Frank is going to make an attack, he'll have to move in that direction without being seen.”

“Have you forgotten how this mess started to begin with?” Heero was frowning. He always looked like an asshole when he frowned. “Big black box, appearing and disappearing at will?” Or maybe it was when he was being sarcastic? Trowa just rubbed his temples, willing the headache to go away.

“We need to take the military.”

“From Frank?” Giles asked, just to clear things up. He sounded as though he thought it were impossible, and Trowa wasn't so sure he was wrong.

“You could just tell them who you are?” Giles asked, though he sounded sceptical.

“Oh yeah...let's tell the millions of people who fled the war that we're the guys who killed the most people in it. That'll go down a treat.” Heero rolled his eyes and didn't stop spinning in his chair until he realised everyone was just staring at him.

“What?”

“You've spent way too much time with Maxwell.”

“I'm sleeping with him, of course I'm spending too much time with him!” Heero sounded like he still wasn't quite sure how that had happened, but they both knew he wouldn't change it for the world and if Duo ever actually got into trouble where Heero could even inhumanly do something about it he would drop everything, Frank included, to be there. The only reason Heero was here was because he agreed that Preventers was safer right now. That, and who the hell knew what Wufei was going to do when he got some decent medical attention.

“So we need to take over upstairs. Shouldn't be too hard since you just shipped them all off to a Preventers prison,” Nataku noted in a soft, even tone that didn't match her words at all. Trowa wondered if she thought that was what he had been thinking when he did it and found himself preferring she thought he had done just that. Because frankly he wasn't sure he hadn't just lost his shit completely, but these things happened when people threatened the things you loved, right? Heero would agree with him, right? That was why Heero had helped him, after all. Right? Right.

“Shouldn't be too hard at all...” Really, he thought that was going to be one of the easier things they'd had to do of late. It was actually taking control of the systems once they got up there that was going to be hard.

“We will have to assemble another Demolecularization Pad there,” Nataku noted softly. “We can't trust Frank not to interfere with the core devices...It's safer to run our own system through the three Pads we have.”

“Four,” Trowa corrected. “We can rig the SiS to transfer to the other Pads as well as the workshop.”

“Access to Level 1,” Heero agreed, stilling his chair and looking hard at Trowa. If he was trying to converse silently, it wasn't working but Trowa didn't feel like telling him. If the man thought he had any kind of similarity to Duo and would subsequently be able to read his deadpan expressions, they were in more trouble than they realised, and fighting would be entirely pointless. “I'll man the central control area. I have the best chance of hacking the system.” That, at least, Trowa agreed with.

“I will take the Hanger,” Nataku put in immediately and while Trowa had been going to do it himself, he had to agree Nataku was the better choice. She knew everything about Level 1, and more importantly everyone seemed to know her, or at least allowed her access to anything she wanted. She had to have an inbuilt override, or something similar, but Trowa thought it a waste of time to figure out exactly what it was since they couldn't exactly remove it from her anyway.

“Giles and I will take my room and move around the station when required.” He looked to Giles for confirmation and the man just shrugged.

“We have an effective set up here, if we can get it to work,” he noted softly. “We should keep it manned as much as possible. We're going to need friends anyway...I believe I know a few.”

“I might have one too,” Trowa mused, not sure she would want to or could be trusted, but figuring it was worth a shot. “We'll team between Levels 1 and 5. Pool resources and see what we can come up with.”

“We meet back here in twenty four hours with whatever we have,” Heero agreed and he was already moving, grabbing the things he needed and heading for the Pad. Nataku wasn't far behind him. Giles seemed as reluctant to move as Trowa, but there were things to be done so Trowa sighed and forced himself to think, rubbing the back of his neck while he pondered the situation.

“Does anything seem off about all of this to you?”

Startled by the question, Trowa just blinked and waited for his lazy-feeling mind to track to the new line of conversation. Off? Like off as in odd? Well, Heero was involved and that always made things seem a little off to Trowa, because the guy was ridiculously set in his ways, but Trowa didn't think Giles had a problem with it. And sure, they were in a giant space station that was apparently self aware and had adopted the name Duo Maxwell, of all people, had given it, and really he supposed anyone who wanted to be named Frank was suspicious, but off? Franks weren't all serial killers, that Trowa knew of.

“Such as?” Really, he needed more information to make a decision on that one.

“Well, Frank's plan is pretty complex.”

“For a machine, you mean?”

“For anyone,” Giles corrected. “I don't know, I just get the feeling something is off. How does Frank know how to manipulate people? Nataku can't, nor can Hatty, so...how did he plan all this? It's not exactly very computer-like behaviour, right?” Whatever the hell computers were supposed to behave like.

It was a good question. Maybe something was off, but for the moment Trowa had a job to do so he just shrugged and went to the Pad, setting the coordinates for his room and picking up Hatty's hat before stepping on, putting it carefully on his head. Giles just smiled and waved and then Trowa was stumbling sideways, struggling to remain standing.

“Fuck Molecularization. Once I get off Frank I refuse to have my body broken down into nothing and remade ever again!” He muttered to himself as he struggled to grab some fresh clothes and get them on. It hurt, being in the room and seeing the rumpled bed and knowing he had been that close. That Wufei had slept in the same bed, right beside him. That they'd woken up together, and showered together and had meals together. Not in a conventional sense, sure, but it was the closest to happy Trowa remembered being in...a very long time. And how fucked up was that?

Something moved out of the corner of his eye and Trowa spun to stare at the message board, but it was blank, a single cursor blinking in the corner. He frowned and reached out to close to window, the image returning to the start screen. He still wasted a minute standing there, waiting for it to change but there was nothing and he knew he was just being paranoid. A deep breath, and Trowa was leaving, locking the door on his way out and heading for the temple and station.

It felt strange, to walk through the corridors and spaces of the station and realise for everyone else nothing had changed. There were likely signs of panic on Level 5, but here it was the same crowded, budy day to day movements of every other day Trowa had witnessed since his arrival. He wondered if anyone who worked in Level 1 found their sudden change from training to real action odd, and if they had even mentioned it to their loved ones. Surely...and yet, perhaps they saw no difference between training exercises and the real thing? Perhaps Frank had made real events seem like training exercises? It was certainly possible, and all things considered very likely.

He went to the temple first, taking the steps more slowly than he wanted, forcing himself to move as if it were any other day. He bought a set of prayer sticks and headed for the altar, lighting one of the incense sticks and waiting in line as he prayed, fervently in silence, that Wufei was okay and getting the help he needed. That Duo had told Preventers what was going on, and that Quatre had things sorted. That Heero and Giles were on top of things and would pull off their jobs. That Nataku really was on their side. So many words unspoken but sent to whoever might be listening. Momentarily, Trowa wondered if their prayers were goin to Frank; if he could somehow hear their thoughts and his own stilled to a halt.

But that was ridiculous! He wasn't plugged in and he breathed out forcefully slow, reminding himself he was getting increasingly paranoid and smirking wryly to himself because he hadn't been nearly so paranoid while Wufei was still at his side. How that made any kind of difference, he had no idea. Surely having Wufei there should have made him more on guard? Apparently not.

He lit one more stick of incense and sighed, looking at the thin trails of smoke, thousands of others wishes and dreams curling into nothing and something in his chest ached as he placed his last silent prayer amongst the others, to coil and dissipate with all the rest.

Hatty.

He turned faster than he had meant to, and to anyone watching he supposed it probably looked like he was fleeing the temple. And maybe that was because he was, but Trowa didn't look back. He went straight to the shuttle bay and got on the first shuttle to arrive.

A boy was sitting across from him, looking suspiciously familiar and Trowa had to stop staring because he was certain he probably had seen the kid before. Had likely sat just like this directly across from hundreds of children. He doubted children were planning anything. Not all children, after all, were Gundam pilots or the like.

The shuttle went through station after station but Trowa remained in a daze, running through things in his head and trying to figure out exactly how he had gotten to where he was. Honestly, he'd thought he'd done his dash when he sent Heavyarms into the sun. Surely he could have a normal life. Only the others had gone insane and decided to join Preventers, and Quatre had apparently taken offence to anyone attempting to be richer than he was and so Trowa had found himself stuck between helping his best friend control the known universe through money, and the man he was interested in and their trigger-happy friends who wanted to keep shooting things. And then Wufei had gone and given him hope before running away with it to become part robot with Frank.

Frank. Honestly, couldn't Duo have come up with anything better? But it was Duo, and Trowa wasn't all that surprised. Still...Frank.

And why the hell had it been Wufei? Out of all the people in the universe why did they have to choose Wufei? Sure, Trowa couldn't argue that Wufei was the bees knees, but he was the only one who was supposed to think that! Recruiting Wufei for a job as a control trigger for a giant cyborg was certainly not something Trowa had considered needing to protect Wufei against. Like, ever.

But here they were. And here the shuttle was, so Trowa got off and quietly made his way to his favourite diner, waving to Tracey as he came in and going to a booth in the back to wait. True to form, Tracey served those waiting in line first before appearing at his table with his customary coffee and muffin, a large smile on her face.

“Thanks, T.”

“Always a pleasure, Mr Bloom.”

“Please...Triton.”

“Mmhmm.” It almost sounded like she knew that wasn't his name and it made Trowa pause, but really it was why he had come here in the first place.

“I don't suppose you finish your shift soon?” In fact, he'd never been here when she wasn't on shift. He realised he knew nothing about her and nearly changed his mind, but they were after friends and he didn't have that many outside of Frank, let alone inside.

“I can close as soon as these customers leave?” She arched a brow and Trowa winced a little, hoping she wasn't expecting what he feared she was expecting. If she was it was just going to have to be something else to deal with and really, could dealing with an emotional woman really be any worse than dealing with a homicidal space station?

Perspective was everything.

“That'd be great.” Didn't mean he didn't have to force his smile.

It was boring, waiting alone. For the first time in his life, Trowa thought he might actually miss Duo. Then he decided he was just bored. Like, really supremely bored. And how did that even happen when you had a mission to recruit some pals within twenty four hours by which point you needed to have a system up and running so you could somehow plan a coup for control from within the belly of the beast, so to speak? Was is life in any way boring, really?

Maybe he was just sulking because Wufei was off on a shuttle jaunt back to Earth? It was possible.

The last customer left and she put a closed sign on the door before coming over to his booth and sliding in the seat opposite, smiling brightly at him. Looking at that sunny smile it was suddenly very hard to think of the best way to broach the subject of her possible working for him. Particularly when he supposed inside Frank it was likely against the law to work against Frank.

“Hi.” Yeah, because that was a great start.

“Hello,” Tracey laughed at him and he couldn't blame her at all. He wanted to laugh at himself.

“So...you like...working with coffee?” Smooth, Barton, so smooth. Not.

“I suppose. Do you like working in infiltration and sabotage? Oh, and kidnapping! Hmm...and mass murder? I'm not sure you can put that one in there if it wasn't done deliberately or anything...”

Had he known how to gape, Trowa would have. Instead, his mind was running through the many ways he could kill her now, dispose of the body and hurriedly find someone else to help him. And she was laughing at him again.

“Harrison Jules liked my coffee.” Of course he did. It was a small world after all. Especially when the population was limited to a specific three dimensional space.

“Right.”

“He was a big fan of yours. Of all the Gundam pilots, really.”

“Yeah...huge fan. Built a giant, sociopathic space station to escape us...” Was she insane? What the hell did she know? Was he really going to have to stab her with a coffee cup and use the meat grinder out the back to get rid of the body? Because that was gross!

“Stop thinking of ways to dispose of my body. Please. The lack of expression on your face is such a giveaway!”

Trowa just raised a brow and let his mind run away with itself. Maybe if he just took her tongue? But she knew how to write...

“Harrison didn't want to get away from Gundams. He wanted to get away from war in general. He wanted a world where everyone knew the score. Where everyone had a purpose and enjoyed it and just...lived. It was a nice dream.”

“Was?”

“Well, you know. Station started killing people, Origen started plotting, random cute Gundam pilots started turning up and buying my coffee...” She shrugged as if it were an everyday thing and it was enough to win a laugh from Trowa and something in him finally eased. She wasn't freaking out, and she could have caused a lot of trouble for them long before now but she hadn't. She'd just waited him out. That was something, and right then something was so much better than nothing.

“The Origen started plotting?” Didn't she mean Frank? But then she probably didn't know its name. It was just `the Station' and Trowa didn't like that at all! It sounded ridiculously ominous.

It made her sit back in her chair and she fiddled with the pen wedged behind her ear.

“I was in my room, just having a shower, getting ready for bed, usual routine you know? Was a while ago now, but a message appeared on my board. Three neat little points, you know how it is?”

Trowa sat up and glared, but he doubted it had the same effect as Yuy's with his hair in his face the way it was, but still. He gave it his best shot. What the hell was going on here?

“Settle down, geez! I did my job, it's all ready to go.”

“What is ready to go?”

“Ahh...no way. I'm not saying. If you weren't told, then how do I know you're supposed to know? Besides, if I tell you, you have no reason not to kill me with your coffee cup and put me in the meat grinder. That's so obvious, by the way? At least be more inventive than that!”

Trowa glared harder, fuming on the inside. He wanted to know what she knew, and why she knew it when he didn't. What had Frank done? Were they supposed to meet like this, was it all part of Frank's plan? Were they still falling into his grand scheme? Was nothing they tried ever going to avert them from disaster?

“I'm against the sociopathic station, just FYI?” She rolled her eyes and took his coffee, taking a long sip and sighing in pleasure before standing and fetching her keys.

“Well? Come on. We have work to do!” Honestly, you people drink way too much coffee and spend way too much time just sitting around pretending not to do anything. No wonder the space station went crazy and tried to take over the universe!”

Who the hell was this monster and where had the lovely, innocent coffee wench gone? Trowa got up on unsteady legs and followed her out, wondering where the hell they were even going. He didn't like not knowing exactly what was going on, and was off balance enough that he was struggling to just casually go with the flow.

“Harrison liked your coffee?” He asked as he sat next to her on the shuttle.

“Drank it every day, in a small coffee shop on L4 while he scribbled his plans. After a while he told me about this crazy idea he had to make a computer with a conscience...Eventually, I ended up moving here, when it launched, and he kept coming to my coffee shop every morning.”

On the way to his lab? Did she really understand the importance of the information she had observed? Did she really know he was dead? Did she know how or why or was she just connecting dots as best she could?

“Why you?”

“Why you?” Tracey mimicked and Trowa folded his arms very deliberately across his chest. And then his legs, because you couldn't fold enough to show your displeasure.

“Let me guess...because you're so awesome?” She rolled her eyes and Trowa just glared, not thinking pretzels were all that awesome. “You sure have a huge opinion of yourself.”

“Excuse me?” He had a what of himself now? He had an opinion on just about everything, it was true, but he didn't include himself in everything. Well...not often, anyway. And he certainly didn't share those opinions with the world!

“Yeeeah, the blank look? Not as blank as you think. I get it, okay? You were a big, bad Gundam pilot, you've got a license to do just about anything and a badge to let you get away with it, and here you are trying to save the universe and all that. But you still thought every time you smiled at me that my heart was melting into a gooey mess and I wanted to drag you home with me.”

Okay, enough was enough! He needed the upper hand back, right the hell now! This was worse than the time Mari had convinced him dying Une's white shirts fluro pink for Apirl Fools was a good idea.

“You're wrong.”

“About...what part exactly?”

“I'm not trying to save the universe. I just wanted to save ...the Origen.” My boyfriend. My Lover. The only thing in the world I care about anymore. “And I figured it was Maxwell you wanted to sleep with.”

“...Well. He is hot.” And the upper hand was once again his. Trowa smugly unfolded his legs, but kept his arms crossed just in case.

They got off on Level 4 at Station 44. It made Trowa pause but he shook his head and wondered why anything surprised him anymore. Maybe it was coincidence but he doubted it. Not when she was from L4. She led him to her rooms and he followed her in, looking around at the familiar space, though hers was significantly larger than his own. She obviously made a significant amount of money in her coffee shop, or had brought a lot with her. Either way...maybe he should consider buying something on Level 5. He had the money, thanks to Frank's set up fund. Unless Frank had taken it away...he should check up on that.

She went to her closet and opened it to reveal neatly stacked shelves of clothes and one shelf of...stuff. He blinked and stuck his head in to get a closer look before he noticed the floor of the closet and shoved her clothes aside. Then all he could do was stare.

“You...have a Molecularization Pad in your closet.”

“Oh. Really?” He didn't even need to look to know she was rolling her eyes at him. Trowa poked at it with his shoe but that was as close as he was willing to go for the moment. Who knew where that went?

He focussed on the shelf and it's magical three items, then blinked, reaching out to pull out two long mechanical structures and shaking them as if they might magically turn into something else.

“Legs?” They sure as hell looked like two legs. Short legs, but still...legs. And there was a small disk drive, a little old but it looked functional. The third was a strange looking orb that could have been used for fortune telling but who really knew.

“The three things I was told to build.”

She was told to build? Trowa just stared, stumped because he hadn't been asked to build jack! And really, couldn't Duo have named Frank Jack instead? Why Frank?

“I'm assuming you had a reason for building these?”

“Well, technically I only built the legs and the orb? The disk drive I just had to store.”

Right. None of which helped Trowa have any clue why the hell he needed mechanical legs. His own were fine, last he checked.

“Let's go.”

How the hell had she gotten the upper hand again? Building crap on command should not have been enough to unbalance him from the top seat! Heero would never have fallen for it, Trowa was sure. And she was pointing at the Pad, and really who even knew where that went? She could be leading him to Frank, ruining their plans! She'd received commands, after all, just as they had and those had come from Frank. Right? How much of it had been Frank, and how much Wufei?

Giles had thought something was off about the whole thing...maybe this was just more of that?

“To get whatever you shoved in the Origen's place, of course!” Of course.

Trowa started to laugh and once he started it was remarkably hard to stop. He held up the legs and nodded to himself because okay, now he knew why he needed legs, and apparently Tracey knew how to build them so she should know how to install them. But how had anyone known that they would need legs? How much was planned, and whose plan was it...really?

“Trowa?”

“Ah, hell...whatever! Let's go.”

Hatty's waiting.