Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ 24 ( Chapter 24 )
[ 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: 04.20.2012 | Pages: 2 | Words: 6.6K | Visits: 190 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Sci-fi / Thriller | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.20.2012 | Pages: 2 | Words: 6.6K | Visits: 190 | Status: Work In Progress
24:
"You."
"You," Quatre agreed, smiling up at him and Trowa wanted to punch him in the damn face because he'd liked those shoes and he didn't feel like asking the military for new ones. And he only had one of his old ones spare, the other still in his locker on Level 1.
"I would say it's nice to see you, but there are parts of you I wish I couldn't see. Your lunch, for example."
"Sorry," Quatre muttered, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve and looking around, blinking as if he'd just come from a much brighter place, which he had. "That...that sucks!"
"It get's easier."
"That's what Heero said! And I bet it's not true!" Because really, nothing Yuy said was usually true, for the most part. It was just delusional, and Quatre had every right to believe it wasn't going to get any better. Because it didn't, the process remained exactly the same, you just sort of grew accustomed to it. That didn't mean it got easier, it just made you really stupid if you believed when other people said it did. That didn't stop Trowa from smirking.
“Wipe that smirk off your face or I swear I'll make you regret it.”
“Sure you will.” Because really, what more could he possibly regret at this point?
“Oh wow...is that the other one?” Quatre was already walking circles around Hatty, eyes wide and reaching out to touch her cheek and Trowa didn't have time to warn him before her hand lashed out and slapped him hard across the face. He recoiled and looked like he might cry because the robot apparently didn't like him.
“Oh, don't worry, Trowa's like her favourite thing in the world and she slapped him too. She's just in a mood,” Tracey rolled her eyes, wandering past them both to tape her instructions systematically on the wall where they could see them clearly and sequentially.
Quatre still looked ready to cry. Trowa took his hand and tugged him over to a chair, of the opinion Quatre probably needed air, much like himself. And a second to think. Only Trowa had been thinking from the moment Quatre appeared and he wasn't getting any answers from himself.
“What are you doing here?”
“Me? I'm Frank's hostage.”
“WHAT?” That unison thing again. Trowa felt a little stupid to be gaping like Giles and Tracey but in this case he figured he was allowed.
“Une's idea.”
“Because those always work out so well!”
“Yeah well, Heero agreed with this one. I can't do anything anywhere else, and if I'm here and claim to be a hostage then it makes Frank look bad, which can only help us.” Unless of course the people saw Frank as a vigilante hero and told him to off Mr Winner to save them, but Trowa noticed Quatre was carefully leaving that part out.
“And how are you going to claim to be a hostage?”
“Send them a video from here with me beaten and begging for help and we'll be all good.” He made it sound like a no brainer and Trowa just stared at him, wondering if these were the kind of tactics he used in everyday business and if maybe Frank wasn't right about him needing a demotion, of sorts.
“Beaten?”
“Yes. And you'll have to make it look real, none of that holding back bull- OW!” Trowa punched him hard, in the face, and felt bone break under his fingers. He felt a little bad about that, but at the end of the day Quatre told him to, so no guilt required.
“You broke my nose!” Quatre bellowed at him and Trowa just folded his arms smugly over his chest. One of Quatre's eyes was already purpling. He'd done quite a good job, and with just one punch too!
“I'm bleeding!” Such indignation wouldn't do at all. He didn't sound like he'd been kidnapped, he sounded like he was a stowaway pretending to be captured, which he was, but that wasn't going to work for them at all. Trowa punched him again.
“TROWA!”
“QUATRE!”
They glared and it slowly sank into Quatre that Trowa was just doing exactly as he wanted. He was just enjoying it a great deal more than Quatre had expected. He slowly deflated, sitting back in his chair and cradling his aching face.
“You said real,” Trowa reminded him.
“I didn't mean break my face,” Quatre grumbled but Trowa knew he wouldn't hold a grudge. Instead he sat quietly while Giles grabbed the laptop and set it up in front of him to make the video.
“Oh, oh, can I be the kidnappers voice? I always wanted to do that!” Tracey was hopping excitedly from one foot to the other as Trowa wheeled Hatty over to sit beside Quatre, just to add to the creepiness of it all.
“Sure. We're going to change it with Frank's vocoder anyway, so it really doesn't matter who's talking,” Quatre muttered, sounding nasal and in pain. Trowa had to look away to stop himself from trying to feel bad again. So not his problem, Quatre shouldn't have come if he'd wanted to keep his pretty face in tact.
Somehow, making a ransom come hostage film of his best friend just minutes after said friend appeared out of thin air and he beat him up seemed entirely normal. Trowa wondered what Preventers psychiatry would make of his current mental health and if they would pull him from the mission if they found out. He hoped not, because it was sort of...fun. In an `I'm delirious and most likely out of my mind' kind of way.
Tracey enjoyed herself immensely pretending to be the big bad wolf better known as Frank, and Quatre begged appropriately for his life, though he looked a little like he wanted to swallow his tongue at one point. It could be brushed off as a grimace of pain by anyone who didn't actually know the man. When they were done, Trowa took Quatre's downstairs, to the apartment below and showed him the shower while he fetched a first aid kit and some fresh clothes. He was done long before Quatre and ended up leaning in the doorway while Quatre finished his shower.
“He's okay.” Okay. Not fine. They were different things, especially coming from Quatre. Quatre knew the words Trowa liked to hear, and chose his words deliberately as a result. The sigh that escaped Quatre at his reaction didn't help him at all.
“They've developed a serum that keeps neutralizes the effects of his addiction. They've made these little caps that fit inside the ports on his body, sort of capping them and slowly administering the drug. He's getting stronger fast and seems fine.”
They weren't curing him, then. They were just covering up the problem, almost literally. Capping the ports with a drug to keep him addicted? What were they thinking? But he knew, with the threat of Frank still very real healing Wufei came dead last to having an asset who might be able to help them. And Wufei would be on their side, desperate just to be back on his feet, regardless what it cost him personally.
“Damn them!” Trowa punched the wall and didn't regret it at all when pain flared up his arm into his elbow and his knuckles began to bleed.
Quatre got out of the shower and dried off, taking the clothes gratefully and dressing efficiently. It made Trowa grin when he reached for a tie that wasn't there. He pushed Quatre into a chair and went about cleaning up his face, finally allowing himself to feel a pang of regret but it really was his own damn fault. He'd agreed to come here, and Trowa was still technically under orders.
“You too,” Quatre noted softly, reaching for Trowa's hand when he was done with his face and quickly tending to the superficial wounds there. It was soothing and Trowa felt calm slowly returning, forcing himself to take deep breaths and relax when all he wanted to do was strangle everyone who should have tied Wufei to a bed and found a real solution. A long term one that would see Wufei going home with him to finally have a life.
“That was it? Upstairs? That's where they kept him?”
Trowa just nodded and refused to look at Quatre. He stared instead at the hot tears that splashed onto his shoulder, comforted that for once they weren't his own.
“Where's Heero?” Because of all the people Trowa had expected to come through on that Pad, Quatre had been very far down on the list. He hadn't been on his `coming through first' list at all.
“Arguing with Duo about which one of them gets to come back.”
“Heero's fighting a losing battle, then.” It had been Duo's mission to begin with and Duo's skills were more suited to the job. They needed Heero on Earth, or in one of the Preventers ships, ready to fight if it came to that.
“He is,” Quatre agreed with a soft chuckle. They both knew Une wasn't going to let him go now she had him back, and Heero would realise she was right once everything was over and done with and his fear of Duo got hurt was proven right or wrong, one way or the other, but over and done with nonetheless.
“I asked him,” Quatre noted softly. “I felt nothing, I don't understand why, and I asked him...”
It made Trowa pause because it wasn't something he had thought to ask. Quatre tended to know things about them, especially Trowa. He couldn't count the amount of times Quatre rang him at strange hours just to `talk', because he knew Trowa was in one of those moods. Or had one of those dreams. Or was just having a bad day. But Quatre always knew. It was strange, he realised only now, that Quatre had never rung Wufei.
“And?” Even hearing Wufei's words second hand, he felt he had to prepare himself for it, steeling himself as if the words might hurt. He wanted to laugh at himself because if the words had been `my name is Wufei' he knew they would have hurt just as much as `he's going to die'. At this stage anything ached, somewhere inside he couldn't afford to examine closely.
But Quatre was smiling and Trowa didn't understand when Quatre reached up and stroked his cheek, loving and accepting and so damn knowing. They'd been best friends for so long, yet such touches were rare. Reserved for when they were really needed, or when the emotions behind words or actions were just too much for Quatre and he needed to express it in his own way.
“My mind was taken by a machine, my heart caught in a sticky web, but my soul was safe all along, with the one who stole it before I left.”
Quatre's hand slid away from his cheek and Quatre himself walked away, leaving him there, leaning against the bathroom wall but it was propping him up now as Quatre disappeared and went upstairs. Trowa remained, staring at nothing, hearing nothing, lost in a void of empty longing that slowly filled with hope.
So much time, wasted. But regrets had no place within Frank, he could only move forward and reward Wufei's quiet promises with action. He slid down the wall, hugged his knees and recalled every moment he had shared with Wufei, from finding him in the Origen capsule, to letting Duo take him to a safe haven beyond his control. This was why he was there; why he was fighting so damn hard to solve the conundrum of Frank instead of just blowing it to kingdom come. No matter how much he might hate it, Wufei was inherent in much of what Frank was, from Hatty and Nataku, through to the justice Frank was seeking. It was ironic that it was likely Wufei's insistence on justice that had led Frank on his current path. Some part of Wufei was forever a part of Frank, and Trowa knew he had to accept that if they were going to win, they had to defeat that nemesis because it was the part of Frank that was fighting the hardest.
His soul. With Trowa the whole time. Trowa wanted to be skeptical, to say it was a lovely romantic sentiment but it wasn't real, but at the end of the day Quatre hadn't known and who the hell knew what Wufei had really been through, stuck in Frank. Being one with Frank. Losing himself to the machine. It made Trowa furious and inconsolable. He fought with himself for an indeterminable time before he was able to accept it. Because Wufei had made promises, not in words but in actions. Together. They just had to pass this hurdle.
The hurdle, better known as Frank. Right.
He collected himself and went back upstairs, not surprised to find Quatre staring at the Origen capsule and asking Tracey question after question. He was grateful to have the questions directed at someone else for a change, and she seemed to be enjoying it to boot. He doubted she got to show off very often; people didn't often want to discuss high end robotics and programming while ordering coffee.
He went to sit beside Giles instead of interrupting them and scanned what Giles was looking at.
“Nataku's manual,” Giles confirmed his suspicions. “It has...a lot more pages. The start's basically the same, but the end is far more advanced than Hatty's.” As was to be expected, Nataku was a far more advanced piece of technology than Hatty, if they could still refer to them as pieces of technology. Harrison's understanding of biology was just as advanced as his inventions, perhaps moreso. He'd achieved something very basic in principle that had eluded mankind for centuries. He'd made a living machine.
“Does it match up with the instructions we have now?” Because if it didn't...
“Not exactly. It might, but honestly the stuff it's talking about it far beyond anything I understand. I just don't know what it's trying to do, let alone how to do it.” Giles shrugged apologetically but Trowa couldn't blame him. They weren't Harrison and there was always going to be a limit to what they could do. That didn't mean he didn't wish it was otherwise.
“This place is incredible,” Quatre said, coming over to lean against the back of Trowa's chair and see what they were doing. The awe in his voice had long since soured in Trowa's. It was a little amusing to hear it now, from someone else.
“What's keeping Preventers?”
“They're still not sure what to do about Frank,” Quatre shrugged. “He's a threat but the sheer size of him makes him a pretty unique one. Seriously, why do you all call it Frank?”
“Duo named it,” Trowa shrugged, but when he thought about it that didn't quite make sense. “But just before I came on board, it referred to itself as Frank. Duo was really surprised it knew its name.”
“That's weird,” Quatre screwed up his nose, clearly not liking the idea of the station just knowing things, while it was something Trowa had grown used to very quickly. He didn't know how Frank did it, but the machine wove its way into things and just knew stuff. Maybe he found a microphone in one of their controls, or on a switched on laptop on their shuttle, and accessed it. Simple things they didn't tend to think about that Frank was thinking about all the time. Those things were dangerous now.
“You'll get used to it,” Giles assured him and Trowa just smiled because yeah, he would, and much faster than Giles or Tracey was expecting. Because Quatre tended to just know things too.
“So should we try to fix Hatty, or...?”
“I don't think these instructions are for her. I think she's just stuck on repeat,” Tracey noted, coming over to join the discussion.
“Something had to have told her to start relaying the instructions, so she won't stop until that same thing tells her to stop most likely,” Trowa mused, but it hurt in a way he didn't want to acknowledge, to see her so steadfastly repeating herself. It was too much like a machine. Too unreal, when she was so real normally. Unless this was normal?
“So what are we doing then?” Quatre actually sounded excited. Trowa supposed this had to be more exciting than sitting on his hands unable to do anything had been on Earth.
But they weren't really doing anything. Their current distraction had been Hatty, but it didn't look like that was something they could fix. Yet. Other than that, they had been waiting for Farrar to build a Pad and send reinforcements to take care of everything for them. But that didn't look like it was about to happen either. Which left them...with nothing to do, really.
Quatre must have figured it out by the way they were just staring at him because he suddenly deflated and slumped.
“Really? We're not doing anything? But the reports you sent were huge!”
Trowa didn't bother to point out that was because Heero had sent them, and had included everything and anything that possibly had nothing at all to do with what was actually going on. They would likely have been huge anyway, but not that huge.
“Sorry to disappoint?” Tracey laughed at him. It was worth it just to see Quatre scowl because the man certainly didn't like being laughed at. He put up with it when Duo managed to prank him, but that was as far as it went, usually.
“Come on, I'll give you a tour.” And they could talk, away from Giles and Tracey and even Hatty and just...catch up. He was their hostage, after all, so he might as well get to know why.
“Great!” The excitement was back immediately and Trowa almost regretted the offer. Still, he forced himself up and lead Quatre back downstairs, avoiding the lift mostly because he was beginning to understand the value of shoes. He scrounged a spare pair of house loafers from his newly acquired apartment before moving them out into the halls of Level 5.
“We're on Level 5. It's the rich end of town. There are five levels, each separated into segments, usually a hundred zones, each with a shuttle station and community area.”
“It's huge,” Quatre mumbled, wide eyed and staring as they emerged into the closest communal zone. Trowa continued to explain things that were unique to life in Frank while they caught a shuttle and rode it through the five levels to see how diverse they were. He surprised himself with how well he knew the place, how it worked and it's people. He hadn't been there long enough to have an infinite knowledge of it all, but he understood why people lived here because having lived there himself he felt the same need to do so. There was something peaceful about living in Frank; a carefree-ness that came from knowing you were entirely alone. That the universe was contained to the small microcosm they had created. Nothing else mattered; that it existed was irrelevant to those inside. They'd given it up, even if Frank hadn't.
“It's amazing,” Quatre agreed as they walked into Trowa's room, taking it all in and going to the touch screen on the wall. Trowa stared at the empty expanse with it's blinking cursor and wondered if it had really answered him, or if he'd imagined it. If it might talk to him again, if Quatre weren't there. If Wufei might talk to him.
“I read about this in the reports,” Quatre was saying softly, going through the various screens, seeing how people networked and shaking his head as if it were really that surprising after everything else he had just seen. “Reading it on paper…it's not the same. It's too easy to forget
how many people live here.”
“Heero thinks we should just transport them off and blow Frank up.”
“Heero would.” Quatre was laughing and Trowa had to agree, it was a trend with Heero. Save the people, destroy everything else. It wasn't a bad policy, per say, it just wasn't that feasible a lot of the time. Which was why Heero was starting to hate paperwork, much to everyone`s amusement.
“What are you doing here?”
“My job?” Really, wasn't that a bit obvious?
“In that case you're doing Duo's job, which is fine,” Quatre was mumbling, sounding distracted but he stopped playing with the message board and looked seriously at Trowa, sitting on the edge of the bed and studying him in that way only Quatre could.
“You like it here,” Quatre noted. “You like this room more than you ever liked your apartment back home, and you like the way things work here more than you ever liked living on Earth. You're tired and stressed and under so much pressure you look ready to fall over, and yet you're happier than I have seen you in years.” He smiled, the first real `I'm your best friend' smile since the whole mess had started and Trowa felt himself relaxing and listening to what Quatre was actually saying.
“You want to save Frank. That's why you're here.”
“Frank? No.” But the colony…maybe. It deserved saving. They'd done something amazing and yes they had gone about it the wrong way but the right way never would have worked. They'd had the audacity and the means and they'd done it. Trowa couldn't help but admire that.
“It feels like him,” Quatre observed and there was a hint of fear in the observation. “You like it here, because the whole thing feels like him.” Like Wufei.
Trowa recalled how safe and sheltered he felt inside the SiS; how the feeling was only amplified when he was in it, but he knew Quatre was right and the feeling was everywhere. Something about the idea of Frank, and the success of it just felt like Wufei. The calm of it all. It was like being wrapped up in Wufei, all the time, and yet it wasn't enough.
“What will you do, if Preventers decide to go with Heero's plan?”
It hadn't felt like a real option, before. But now Heero was there, in Une's ear, the people's hero giving her his expert advice and Trowa was stuck on the opposite side, with only Quatre, who had once been the most powerful man in existence and was now just as powerless as Trowa had always been.
What should he do, if Heero really did suggest blowing Frank up, and they all agreed?
“He better not. Though, really…the insurance payout your heir gets would be enough to give them more power than Frank. He really might have a point.”
“I don't have an heir,” Quatre snorted, very amused by the idea that Heero's plan might be to kill him to nullify Frank's power. He doubted anyone had suggested that course of action when they first suggested to Quatre that he go be Frank' hostage.
“Where's all the money go then?”
“If I die it gets divided up into little pieces. A bit for each of my friends, but most of it to various colony projects I want to see finished.”
Of course. Who needed an heir when there were colonies to care for. Some things never changed.
“They won't hesitate to stop you if you try to stop them.”
Trowa sighed because he knew that, but he honestly didn't think the Earth Sphere stood a chance against the advanced technologies on board Frank. The SiS alone could annihilate any force sent against them. The Preventers ships couldn't even see them to fire on them, after all. He knew Heero would likely find a way around that, but not in time and time was the important thing.
“The people here are good people. Innocent people, who chose to live simple, peaceful lives. They deserve the right to continue to do so.”
“Invisible to the rest of the world?”
“If that's what they choose.”
“But they could do anything!” Quatre seemed horrified by the idea and it just made Trowa feel sad, because that would be the reaction of most. It had been his own reaction, at first. What could they get up to, what might they do, what might they be planning? And yes, that element existed, as it did in any society, but for the most part Frank's inhabitants were ordinary, good people, who just wanted to forget.
Trowa saw no reason people shouldn't be allowed to forget.
“Do we condemn people for what they could do now?”
Quatre paused, staring at him and Trowa saw him realise what he was saying and just smiled because, yeah. It was like that. That wasn't the future they wanted, nor one the people would stand for. It was, ironically, what Frank was trying to stop; a small number of people making decisions that were ultimately not in the larger population's best interests. Frank was, rather humanely, just going about it the wrong way.
“What needs to be done?”
Trowa sighed, running a hand through his hair and thinking about it carefully. The goal had to be simple, if it was going to have a simple solution.
“Nullify the threat of Frank.”
That was what they had been trying to do, all along. Save the colony but end the threat. It was the how that was eluding them. Everyone had good ideas, it was just that nothing seemed to work. Frank was always one step ahead of them. Or fifty steps, depending on how you looked at it.
“Alright. Well, as your hostage I suppose I am at your disposal,” Quatre grinned. It was a little ridiculous with his black eye and swollen nose but as long as he was enjoying himself Trowa didn't want to spoil it for him.
“You're not my hostage,” Trowa grumbled but he was grinning too. “But since you're here…”
“I'm going to regret this, aren't I.” It wasn't a question and Trowa just smirked. Oh god yes, he was going to regret it, and Trowa was going to enjoy every second of it because it was about time someone else had to deal with his new daily life.
He opened his closet door and motioned to the Pad there, amused when Quatre paled and began sweating a little.
“Do we have to?”
“It's a two hour trip back to Level 5 otherwise,” Trowa pointed out stoically.
Quatre took a deep breath and stepped up to the Pad, sighing when he got on it and looked up at Trowa.
“Well…it's not like I can throw up anything else, is it.”
They re-Molecularized in the lift and Quatre stumbled sideways into the wall, bumped his broken nose, yowled in pain as he stumbled backward, hit the other wall, slid down it and rolled onto his side, coughing with nausea fuelled by pain and disorientation. Trowa laughed hard as he stepped over him and out of the lift, letting Tracey hurry in to help Quatre up, only more amused by her
soft soothing promises that it would get better.
“Welcome back,” even Giles was chuckling, spinning lazily in his chair, not bothering to get up because Trowa was coming to him, to check on what he'd been doing with the new instructions from Nataku's manual.
Only he never got there.
“TRITON!” Trowa had enough time to look sideways before Hatty barrelled into him, launching herself out of her chair and throwing herself across the distance between them, sending them both careening into the wall of circuitry behind him. Her arms and legs wrapped around him like limbs of an octopus, tight enough to leave significant bruises but he was too dazed to do
anything about it.
“It's so good to see you again! You were gone and you didn't say where you were going or how long you were going to be and I missed you so so so so much! Where were you? Why did you go away? Did I do something? Was Hatty bad? I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be bad, I promise!”
Leaning on Tracey's arm for support, Quatre looked down at him with an expression Trowa couldn't quite place and Trowa just felt helpless, stumbling to his feet and trying to pry Hatty off him.
“Hatty, calm down! Get off me! You've got to…let go!” She finally seemed to realise she was wrapped around him and dropped off but she clung to his arm with both of her own, rubbing her cheek against his elbow and he sighed, figuring that's as good as it was going to get for now.
“You weren't bad, Hatty, you were very good, and I just took Quatre on a tour of Frank. See? This is Quatre. He came while you were…sleeping.”
She looked over at Quatre with wide eyes, mouth a little open, as if in awe. As if a robot could feel awe. He sighed and rubbed his hip where she had smacked it with her knee.
“Hello, Hatty, it's nice to meet you!”
Hatty stared for a few seconds more before ducking behind Trowa and hiding, peeking out around his side to steal glances at Quatre. Which was new. Hatty was sometimes suspicious, and always curious, but never shy. The hell?
“Ahh…guess it might take her awhile to get used to me?” Quatre grinned nervously, looking around at all of them because they'd never seen Hatty not just like someone immediately and start chatting away. It was weird, plain and simple.
“Guess so,” Trowa agreed, because it was easier than hurting Quatre's feelings by pointing out that Hatty just plain didn't like him for some reason. He didn't have time to contemplate it any further though because the Pad activated and his attention went there immediately.
Nataku stepped off, calm and collected and in the strangest outfit Trowa had ever seen. Skin tight black…something, that looked like a second skin and each of her plugs were capped, just as Quatre had said Wufei's were, with a gold sphere, a liquid visible inside. Her hair was tied back like Wufei's and her face was unreadable. Her boots were Earth shoes, steel capped and calf high and laced tight. She looked lethal, which was definitely new.
“You know a little warning before you come through would be nice,” Giles muttered and Trowa couldn't agree more. Were they really going to have to put up with people just showing up out of the blue.
Nataku kept her gaze pinned on Trowa, no hint of emotion as she un-holstered her gun and aimed it at his head.
“I believe you have my hostage.”
"You."
"You," Quatre agreed, smiling up at him and Trowa wanted to punch him in the damn face because he'd liked those shoes and he didn't feel like asking the military for new ones. And he only had one of his old ones spare, the other still in his locker on Level 1.
"I would say it's nice to see you, but there are parts of you I wish I couldn't see. Your lunch, for example."
"Sorry," Quatre muttered, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve and looking around, blinking as if he'd just come from a much brighter place, which he had. "That...that sucks!"
"It get's easier."
"That's what Heero said! And I bet it's not true!" Because really, nothing Yuy said was usually true, for the most part. It was just delusional, and Quatre had every right to believe it wasn't going to get any better. Because it didn't, the process remained exactly the same, you just sort of grew accustomed to it. That didn't mean it got easier, it just made you really stupid if you believed when other people said it did. That didn't stop Trowa from smirking.
“Wipe that smirk off your face or I swear I'll make you regret it.”
“Sure you will.” Because really, what more could he possibly regret at this point?
“Oh wow...is that the other one?” Quatre was already walking circles around Hatty, eyes wide and reaching out to touch her cheek and Trowa didn't have time to warn him before her hand lashed out and slapped him hard across the face. He recoiled and looked like he might cry because the robot apparently didn't like him.
“Oh, don't worry, Trowa's like her favourite thing in the world and she slapped him too. She's just in a mood,” Tracey rolled her eyes, wandering past them both to tape her instructions systematically on the wall where they could see them clearly and sequentially.
Quatre still looked ready to cry. Trowa took his hand and tugged him over to a chair, of the opinion Quatre probably needed air, much like himself. And a second to think. Only Trowa had been thinking from the moment Quatre appeared and he wasn't getting any answers from himself.
“What are you doing here?”
“Me? I'm Frank's hostage.”
“WHAT?” That unison thing again. Trowa felt a little stupid to be gaping like Giles and Tracey but in this case he figured he was allowed.
“Une's idea.”
“Because those always work out so well!”
“Yeah well, Heero agreed with this one. I can't do anything anywhere else, and if I'm here and claim to be a hostage then it makes Frank look bad, which can only help us.” Unless of course the people saw Frank as a vigilante hero and told him to off Mr Winner to save them, but Trowa noticed Quatre was carefully leaving that part out.
“And how are you going to claim to be a hostage?”
“Send them a video from here with me beaten and begging for help and we'll be all good.” He made it sound like a no brainer and Trowa just stared at him, wondering if these were the kind of tactics he used in everyday business and if maybe Frank wasn't right about him needing a demotion, of sorts.
“Beaten?”
“Yes. And you'll have to make it look real, none of that holding back bull- OW!” Trowa punched him hard, in the face, and felt bone break under his fingers. He felt a little bad about that, but at the end of the day Quatre told him to, so no guilt required.
“You broke my nose!” Quatre bellowed at him and Trowa just folded his arms smugly over his chest. One of Quatre's eyes was already purpling. He'd done quite a good job, and with just one punch too!
“I'm bleeding!” Such indignation wouldn't do at all. He didn't sound like he'd been kidnapped, he sounded like he was a stowaway pretending to be captured, which he was, but that wasn't going to work for them at all. Trowa punched him again.
“TROWA!”
“QUATRE!”
They glared and it slowly sank into Quatre that Trowa was just doing exactly as he wanted. He was just enjoying it a great deal more than Quatre had expected. He slowly deflated, sitting back in his chair and cradling his aching face.
“You said real,” Trowa reminded him.
“I didn't mean break my face,” Quatre grumbled but Trowa knew he wouldn't hold a grudge. Instead he sat quietly while Giles grabbed the laptop and set it up in front of him to make the video.
“Oh, oh, can I be the kidnappers voice? I always wanted to do that!” Tracey was hopping excitedly from one foot to the other as Trowa wheeled Hatty over to sit beside Quatre, just to add to the creepiness of it all.
“Sure. We're going to change it with Frank's vocoder anyway, so it really doesn't matter who's talking,” Quatre muttered, sounding nasal and in pain. Trowa had to look away to stop himself from trying to feel bad again. So not his problem, Quatre shouldn't have come if he'd wanted to keep his pretty face in tact.
Somehow, making a ransom come hostage film of his best friend just minutes after said friend appeared out of thin air and he beat him up seemed entirely normal. Trowa wondered what Preventers psychiatry would make of his current mental health and if they would pull him from the mission if they found out. He hoped not, because it was sort of...fun. In an `I'm delirious and most likely out of my mind' kind of way.
Tracey enjoyed herself immensely pretending to be the big bad wolf better known as Frank, and Quatre begged appropriately for his life, though he looked a little like he wanted to swallow his tongue at one point. It could be brushed off as a grimace of pain by anyone who didn't actually know the man. When they were done, Trowa took Quatre's downstairs, to the apartment below and showed him the shower while he fetched a first aid kit and some fresh clothes. He was done long before Quatre and ended up leaning in the doorway while Quatre finished his shower.
“He's okay.” Okay. Not fine. They were different things, especially coming from Quatre. Quatre knew the words Trowa liked to hear, and chose his words deliberately as a result. The sigh that escaped Quatre at his reaction didn't help him at all.
“They've developed a serum that keeps neutralizes the effects of his addiction. They've made these little caps that fit inside the ports on his body, sort of capping them and slowly administering the drug. He's getting stronger fast and seems fine.”
They weren't curing him, then. They were just covering up the problem, almost literally. Capping the ports with a drug to keep him addicted? What were they thinking? But he knew, with the threat of Frank still very real healing Wufei came dead last to having an asset who might be able to help them. And Wufei would be on their side, desperate just to be back on his feet, regardless what it cost him personally.
“Damn them!” Trowa punched the wall and didn't regret it at all when pain flared up his arm into his elbow and his knuckles began to bleed.
Quatre got out of the shower and dried off, taking the clothes gratefully and dressing efficiently. It made Trowa grin when he reached for a tie that wasn't there. He pushed Quatre into a chair and went about cleaning up his face, finally allowing himself to feel a pang of regret but it really was his own damn fault. He'd agreed to come here, and Trowa was still technically under orders.
“You too,” Quatre noted softly, reaching for Trowa's hand when he was done with his face and quickly tending to the superficial wounds there. It was soothing and Trowa felt calm slowly returning, forcing himself to take deep breaths and relax when all he wanted to do was strangle everyone who should have tied Wufei to a bed and found a real solution. A long term one that would see Wufei going home with him to finally have a life.
“That was it? Upstairs? That's where they kept him?”
Trowa just nodded and refused to look at Quatre. He stared instead at the hot tears that splashed onto his shoulder, comforted that for once they weren't his own.
“Where's Heero?” Because of all the people Trowa had expected to come through on that Pad, Quatre had been very far down on the list. He hadn't been on his `coming through first' list at all.
“Arguing with Duo about which one of them gets to come back.”
“Heero's fighting a losing battle, then.” It had been Duo's mission to begin with and Duo's skills were more suited to the job. They needed Heero on Earth, or in one of the Preventers ships, ready to fight if it came to that.
“He is,” Quatre agreed with a soft chuckle. They both knew Une wasn't going to let him go now she had him back, and Heero would realise she was right once everything was over and done with and his fear of Duo got hurt was proven right or wrong, one way or the other, but over and done with nonetheless.
“I asked him,” Quatre noted softly. “I felt nothing, I don't understand why, and I asked him...”
It made Trowa pause because it wasn't something he had thought to ask. Quatre tended to know things about them, especially Trowa. He couldn't count the amount of times Quatre rang him at strange hours just to `talk', because he knew Trowa was in one of those moods. Or had one of those dreams. Or was just having a bad day. But Quatre always knew. It was strange, he realised only now, that Quatre had never rung Wufei.
“And?” Even hearing Wufei's words second hand, he felt he had to prepare himself for it, steeling himself as if the words might hurt. He wanted to laugh at himself because if the words had been `my name is Wufei' he knew they would have hurt just as much as `he's going to die'. At this stage anything ached, somewhere inside he couldn't afford to examine closely.
But Quatre was smiling and Trowa didn't understand when Quatre reached up and stroked his cheek, loving and accepting and so damn knowing. They'd been best friends for so long, yet such touches were rare. Reserved for when they were really needed, or when the emotions behind words or actions were just too much for Quatre and he needed to express it in his own way.
“My mind was taken by a machine, my heart caught in a sticky web, but my soul was safe all along, with the one who stole it before I left.”
Quatre's hand slid away from his cheek and Quatre himself walked away, leaving him there, leaning against the bathroom wall but it was propping him up now as Quatre disappeared and went upstairs. Trowa remained, staring at nothing, hearing nothing, lost in a void of empty longing that slowly filled with hope.
So much time, wasted. But regrets had no place within Frank, he could only move forward and reward Wufei's quiet promises with action. He slid down the wall, hugged his knees and recalled every moment he had shared with Wufei, from finding him in the Origen capsule, to letting Duo take him to a safe haven beyond his control. This was why he was there; why he was fighting so damn hard to solve the conundrum of Frank instead of just blowing it to kingdom come. No matter how much he might hate it, Wufei was inherent in much of what Frank was, from Hatty and Nataku, through to the justice Frank was seeking. It was ironic that it was likely Wufei's insistence on justice that had led Frank on his current path. Some part of Wufei was forever a part of Frank, and Trowa knew he had to accept that if they were going to win, they had to defeat that nemesis because it was the part of Frank that was fighting the hardest.
His soul. With Trowa the whole time. Trowa wanted to be skeptical, to say it was a lovely romantic sentiment but it wasn't real, but at the end of the day Quatre hadn't known and who the hell knew what Wufei had really been through, stuck in Frank. Being one with Frank. Losing himself to the machine. It made Trowa furious and inconsolable. He fought with himself for an indeterminable time before he was able to accept it. Because Wufei had made promises, not in words but in actions. Together. They just had to pass this hurdle.
The hurdle, better known as Frank. Right.
He collected himself and went back upstairs, not surprised to find Quatre staring at the Origen capsule and asking Tracey question after question. He was grateful to have the questions directed at someone else for a change, and she seemed to be enjoying it to boot. He doubted she got to show off very often; people didn't often want to discuss high end robotics and programming while ordering coffee.
He went to sit beside Giles instead of interrupting them and scanned what Giles was looking at.
“Nataku's manual,” Giles confirmed his suspicions. “It has...a lot more pages. The start's basically the same, but the end is far more advanced than Hatty's.” As was to be expected, Nataku was a far more advanced piece of technology than Hatty, if they could still refer to them as pieces of technology. Harrison's understanding of biology was just as advanced as his inventions, perhaps moreso. He'd achieved something very basic in principle that had eluded mankind for centuries. He'd made a living machine.
“Does it match up with the instructions we have now?” Because if it didn't...
“Not exactly. It might, but honestly the stuff it's talking about it far beyond anything I understand. I just don't know what it's trying to do, let alone how to do it.” Giles shrugged apologetically but Trowa couldn't blame him. They weren't Harrison and there was always going to be a limit to what they could do. That didn't mean he didn't wish it was otherwise.
“This place is incredible,” Quatre said, coming over to lean against the back of Trowa's chair and see what they were doing. The awe in his voice had long since soured in Trowa's. It was a little amusing to hear it now, from someone else.
“What's keeping Preventers?”
“They're still not sure what to do about Frank,” Quatre shrugged. “He's a threat but the sheer size of him makes him a pretty unique one. Seriously, why do you all call it Frank?”
“Duo named it,” Trowa shrugged, but when he thought about it that didn't quite make sense. “But just before I came on board, it referred to itself as Frank. Duo was really surprised it knew its name.”
“That's weird,” Quatre screwed up his nose, clearly not liking the idea of the station just knowing things, while it was something Trowa had grown used to very quickly. He didn't know how Frank did it, but the machine wove its way into things and just knew stuff. Maybe he found a microphone in one of their controls, or on a switched on laptop on their shuttle, and accessed it. Simple things they didn't tend to think about that Frank was thinking about all the time. Those things were dangerous now.
“You'll get used to it,” Giles assured him and Trowa just smiled because yeah, he would, and much faster than Giles or Tracey was expecting. Because Quatre tended to just know things too.
“So should we try to fix Hatty, or...?”
“I don't think these instructions are for her. I think she's just stuck on repeat,” Tracey noted, coming over to join the discussion.
“Something had to have told her to start relaying the instructions, so she won't stop until that same thing tells her to stop most likely,” Trowa mused, but it hurt in a way he didn't want to acknowledge, to see her so steadfastly repeating herself. It was too much like a machine. Too unreal, when she was so real normally. Unless this was normal?
“So what are we doing then?” Quatre actually sounded excited. Trowa supposed this had to be more exciting than sitting on his hands unable to do anything had been on Earth.
But they weren't really doing anything. Their current distraction had been Hatty, but it didn't look like that was something they could fix. Yet. Other than that, they had been waiting for Farrar to build a Pad and send reinforcements to take care of everything for them. But that didn't look like it was about to happen either. Which left them...with nothing to do, really.
Quatre must have figured it out by the way they were just staring at him because he suddenly deflated and slumped.
“Really? We're not doing anything? But the reports you sent were huge!”
Trowa didn't bother to point out that was because Heero had sent them, and had included everything and anything that possibly had nothing at all to do with what was actually going on. They would likely have been huge anyway, but not that huge.
“Sorry to disappoint?” Tracey laughed at him. It was worth it just to see Quatre scowl because the man certainly didn't like being laughed at. He put up with it when Duo managed to prank him, but that was as far as it went, usually.
“Come on, I'll give you a tour.” And they could talk, away from Giles and Tracey and even Hatty and just...catch up. He was their hostage, after all, so he might as well get to know why.
“Great!” The excitement was back immediately and Trowa almost regretted the offer. Still, he forced himself up and lead Quatre back downstairs, avoiding the lift mostly because he was beginning to understand the value of shoes. He scrounged a spare pair of house loafers from his newly acquired apartment before moving them out into the halls of Level 5.
“We're on Level 5. It's the rich end of town. There are five levels, each separated into segments, usually a hundred zones, each with a shuttle station and community area.”
“It's huge,” Quatre mumbled, wide eyed and staring as they emerged into the closest communal zone. Trowa continued to explain things that were unique to life in Frank while they caught a shuttle and rode it through the five levels to see how diverse they were. He surprised himself with how well he knew the place, how it worked and it's people. He hadn't been there long enough to have an infinite knowledge of it all, but he understood why people lived here because having lived there himself he felt the same need to do so. There was something peaceful about living in Frank; a carefree-ness that came from knowing you were entirely alone. That the universe was contained to the small microcosm they had created. Nothing else mattered; that it existed was irrelevant to those inside. They'd given it up, even if Frank hadn't.
“It's amazing,” Quatre agreed as they walked into Trowa's room, taking it all in and going to the touch screen on the wall. Trowa stared at the empty expanse with it's blinking cursor and wondered if it had really answered him, or if he'd imagined it. If it might talk to him again, if Quatre weren't there. If Wufei might talk to him.
“I read about this in the reports,” Quatre was saying softly, going through the various screens, seeing how people networked and shaking his head as if it were really that surprising after everything else he had just seen. “Reading it on paper…it's not the same. It's too easy to forget
how many people live here.”
“Heero thinks we should just transport them off and blow Frank up.”
“Heero would.” Quatre was laughing and Trowa had to agree, it was a trend with Heero. Save the people, destroy everything else. It wasn't a bad policy, per say, it just wasn't that feasible a lot of the time. Which was why Heero was starting to hate paperwork, much to everyone`s amusement.
“What are you doing here?”
“My job?” Really, wasn't that a bit obvious?
“In that case you're doing Duo's job, which is fine,” Quatre was mumbling, sounding distracted but he stopped playing with the message board and looked seriously at Trowa, sitting on the edge of the bed and studying him in that way only Quatre could.
“You like it here,” Quatre noted. “You like this room more than you ever liked your apartment back home, and you like the way things work here more than you ever liked living on Earth. You're tired and stressed and under so much pressure you look ready to fall over, and yet you're happier than I have seen you in years.” He smiled, the first real `I'm your best friend' smile since the whole mess had started and Trowa felt himself relaxing and listening to what Quatre was actually saying.
“You want to save Frank. That's why you're here.”
“Frank? No.” But the colony…maybe. It deserved saving. They'd done something amazing and yes they had gone about it the wrong way but the right way never would have worked. They'd had the audacity and the means and they'd done it. Trowa couldn't help but admire that.
“It feels like him,” Quatre observed and there was a hint of fear in the observation. “You like it here, because the whole thing feels like him.” Like Wufei.
Trowa recalled how safe and sheltered he felt inside the SiS; how the feeling was only amplified when he was in it, but he knew Quatre was right and the feeling was everywhere. Something about the idea of Frank, and the success of it just felt like Wufei. The calm of it all. It was like being wrapped up in Wufei, all the time, and yet it wasn't enough.
“What will you do, if Preventers decide to go with Heero's plan?”
It hadn't felt like a real option, before. But now Heero was there, in Une's ear, the people's hero giving her his expert advice and Trowa was stuck on the opposite side, with only Quatre, who had once been the most powerful man in existence and was now just as powerless as Trowa had always been.
What should he do, if Heero really did suggest blowing Frank up, and they all agreed?
“He better not. Though, really…the insurance payout your heir gets would be enough to give them more power than Frank. He really might have a point.”
“I don't have an heir,” Quatre snorted, very amused by the idea that Heero's plan might be to kill him to nullify Frank's power. He doubted anyone had suggested that course of action when they first suggested to Quatre that he go be Frank' hostage.
“Where's all the money go then?”
“If I die it gets divided up into little pieces. A bit for each of my friends, but most of it to various colony projects I want to see finished.”
Of course. Who needed an heir when there were colonies to care for. Some things never changed.
“They won't hesitate to stop you if you try to stop them.”
Trowa sighed because he knew that, but he honestly didn't think the Earth Sphere stood a chance against the advanced technologies on board Frank. The SiS alone could annihilate any force sent against them. The Preventers ships couldn't even see them to fire on them, after all. He knew Heero would likely find a way around that, but not in time and time was the important thing.
“The people here are good people. Innocent people, who chose to live simple, peaceful lives. They deserve the right to continue to do so.”
“Invisible to the rest of the world?”
“If that's what they choose.”
“But they could do anything!” Quatre seemed horrified by the idea and it just made Trowa feel sad, because that would be the reaction of most. It had been his own reaction, at first. What could they get up to, what might they do, what might they be planning? And yes, that element existed, as it did in any society, but for the most part Frank's inhabitants were ordinary, good people, who just wanted to forget.
Trowa saw no reason people shouldn't be allowed to forget.
“Do we condemn people for what they could do now?”
Quatre paused, staring at him and Trowa saw him realise what he was saying and just smiled because, yeah. It was like that. That wasn't the future they wanted, nor one the people would stand for. It was, ironically, what Frank was trying to stop; a small number of people making decisions that were ultimately not in the larger population's best interests. Frank was, rather humanely, just going about it the wrong way.
“What needs to be done?”
Trowa sighed, running a hand through his hair and thinking about it carefully. The goal had to be simple, if it was going to have a simple solution.
“Nullify the threat of Frank.”
That was what they had been trying to do, all along. Save the colony but end the threat. It was the how that was eluding them. Everyone had good ideas, it was just that nothing seemed to work. Frank was always one step ahead of them. Or fifty steps, depending on how you looked at it.
“Alright. Well, as your hostage I suppose I am at your disposal,” Quatre grinned. It was a little ridiculous with his black eye and swollen nose but as long as he was enjoying himself Trowa didn't want to spoil it for him.
“You're not my hostage,” Trowa grumbled but he was grinning too. “But since you're here…”
“I'm going to regret this, aren't I.” It wasn't a question and Trowa just smirked. Oh god yes, he was going to regret it, and Trowa was going to enjoy every second of it because it was about time someone else had to deal with his new daily life.
He opened his closet door and motioned to the Pad there, amused when Quatre paled and began sweating a little.
“Do we have to?”
“It's a two hour trip back to Level 5 otherwise,” Trowa pointed out stoically.
Quatre took a deep breath and stepped up to the Pad, sighing when he got on it and looked up at Trowa.
“Well…it's not like I can throw up anything else, is it.”
They re-Molecularized in the lift and Quatre stumbled sideways into the wall, bumped his broken nose, yowled in pain as he stumbled backward, hit the other wall, slid down it and rolled onto his side, coughing with nausea fuelled by pain and disorientation. Trowa laughed hard as he stepped over him and out of the lift, letting Tracey hurry in to help Quatre up, only more amused by her
soft soothing promises that it would get better.
“Welcome back,” even Giles was chuckling, spinning lazily in his chair, not bothering to get up because Trowa was coming to him, to check on what he'd been doing with the new instructions from Nataku's manual.
Only he never got there.
“TRITON!” Trowa had enough time to look sideways before Hatty barrelled into him, launching herself out of her chair and throwing herself across the distance between them, sending them both careening into the wall of circuitry behind him. Her arms and legs wrapped around him like limbs of an octopus, tight enough to leave significant bruises but he was too dazed to do
anything about it.
“It's so good to see you again! You were gone and you didn't say where you were going or how long you were going to be and I missed you so so so so much! Where were you? Why did you go away? Did I do something? Was Hatty bad? I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be bad, I promise!”
Leaning on Tracey's arm for support, Quatre looked down at him with an expression Trowa couldn't quite place and Trowa just felt helpless, stumbling to his feet and trying to pry Hatty off him.
“Hatty, calm down! Get off me! You've got to…let go!” She finally seemed to realise she was wrapped around him and dropped off but she clung to his arm with both of her own, rubbing her cheek against his elbow and he sighed, figuring that's as good as it was going to get for now.
“You weren't bad, Hatty, you were very good, and I just took Quatre on a tour of Frank. See? This is Quatre. He came while you were…sleeping.”
She looked over at Quatre with wide eyes, mouth a little open, as if in awe. As if a robot could feel awe. He sighed and rubbed his hip where she had smacked it with her knee.
“Hello, Hatty, it's nice to meet you!”
Hatty stared for a few seconds more before ducking behind Trowa and hiding, peeking out around his side to steal glances at Quatre. Which was new. Hatty was sometimes suspicious, and always curious, but never shy. The hell?
“Ahh…guess it might take her awhile to get used to me?” Quatre grinned nervously, looking around at all of them because they'd never seen Hatty not just like someone immediately and start chatting away. It was weird, plain and simple.
“Guess so,” Trowa agreed, because it was easier than hurting Quatre's feelings by pointing out that Hatty just plain didn't like him for some reason. He didn't have time to contemplate it any further though because the Pad activated and his attention went there immediately.
Nataku stepped off, calm and collected and in the strangest outfit Trowa had ever seen. Skin tight black…something, that looked like a second skin and each of her plugs were capped, just as Quatre had said Wufei's were, with a gold sphere, a liquid visible inside. Her hair was tied back like Wufei's and her face was unreadable. Her boots were Earth shoes, steel capped and calf high and laced tight. She looked lethal, which was definitely new.
“You know a little warning before you come through would be nice,” Giles muttered and Trowa couldn't agree more. Were they really going to have to put up with people just showing up out of the blue.
Nataku kept her gaze pinned on Trowa, no hint of emotion as she un-holstered her gun and aimed it at his head.
“I believe you have my hostage.”