Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ Chapter 27

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

27:
Somehow, seeing Wufei as a little pacman-esque figure on a screen dashing down one corridor and then another made it easier. Not being there, at his side where he was supposed to be, making sure the man didn’t do anything stupid. Like decapitate him, since that’s what would likely happen if he was stupid enough to stand beside Wufei while he had a sword drawn and started swinging. Not that Wufei often swung his sword, he was more of a stabby kind of guy... Trowa sighed for what felt like the thousandth time, and wished yet again that Frank was just a wee bit smaller, and didn’t take so damn long to get around. He’d grown accustomed to his instant transportation, thank you very much.
 They looked strangely good together, Wufei and Duo. They moved similarly, like cats. All grace and stealth while Trowa and Heero preferred to just walk in and see what happened. Duo and Wufei were sneaky, and it occurred to Trowa only now, after all those years of sitting at Preventers cafeteria tables together, that Duo and Wufei got along. That they had been friends, not just because their group mingled together, but because they had things in common. Not what they liked, because Duo had no interest at all in the Art of War as a book when he could practise it in reality, and Wufei had no interest in practical jokes outside of their use between pages to entertain him quietly, but in the way they liked to do things. They were similar.
Trowa wasn’t sure he liked that. Did that mean he was attracted to part of Duo? Because that was downright creepy. He looked over at Heero just to make sure he was unconscious, lest his body language give something away and Heero decide to take offence to Trowa perhaps finding Duo’s toenails endearing. Heero was still blissfully out of it.
“Triton?”
“My name’s Trowa, Hatty. Call me Trowa?”
“But he calls you that.”
Confused, Trowa looked up at her and saw her staring at Wufei-pacman on the screen and he sighed, wondering if they were ever going to get along. He hoped so, but it would ultimately be Hatty’s decision. Or, he supposed Wufei might have a problem with her, Trowa hadn’t really thought to ask. Hey Wufei, do you have a problem with the half robot girl they made out of your cloned body parts? It was likely. And unlikely he would ask, or that Wufei would give him any other answer than a punch in the face. Which was probably why he hadn’t asked.
“He has a name, too.”
“He’s the Origen.”
“No, he’s Wufei.” And it hurt that she apparently refused to acknowledge it. Or maybe she didn’t see a difference. To her, Wufei had always been the Origen.
“Wufei is the Origen,” Hatty corrected, turning away from the screen to look at Trowa. It felt like she was trying hard to make him understand something she wasn’t sure how to express with words and the struggle was so human it hurt. In that place Trowa was starting to understand only Hatty could make hurt. Because she was the only one like Her.
“Is it important to you? That Wufei is the Origen?” It seemed to be?
But she was quiet, still just staring at him and Trowa realised after a while that he was being weighed. That she was judging him, for once, instead of the other way around, and he had no idea if he would be found wanting. She didn’t trust him with something, and that niggling fear that sat somewhere in the giant hole in his chest told him that meant he couldn’t trust her.
“It’s why I’m here,” she said at last, turning again to look at Wufei-pacman. They were still sneaking through the corridors, but getting closer and closer. About an hour away by Trowa’s guess.
“You’re here because Wufei is the Origen?” What did that mean? What question did he need to ask to get her to tell him the answer? Was there a specific one? Was there a password? Why had Harrison built her? Was she really the key to stopping Farrar, or had she just been a pawn in an otherwise much larger plan? Why had Harrison been smart enough to think of a plan to stop his brother but dumb enough to fall prey to Wufei-Frank’s plan to do him in?
“Yes.”
Trowa sighed and slumped back in his chair, wincing at the pain that bloomed through his chest at the contact, holding his breath until it subsided. He was getting used to it, and knew that was a bad thing. He needed to feel the pain. Needed to stay awake and aware and feel it. Needed to remember he was injured so he didn’t go do something equally stupid, like getting shot again. Maybe in the head this time.
“We’re not going to be able to use the SiS many more times without people getting suspicious. I just got bellowed at by my superiors for taking so much time to work on our SiS when others were fixable and waiting for attention.” Giles came to sit in the other chair, looking up at the screen and frowning.
“Kind of reminds me of pacman, that old arcade game?”
“You don’t say,” Trowa laughed but shook his head when Giles looked at him questioningly. Great minds and all that.
“Hatty, what are you doing?” Giles was staring at her where she was crouching over Heero, staring closely at his face. She looked up at the question, her expression stumped.
“I’m watching him sleep?” Duh.
“Why?” Trowa had to admit it was a valid question. He wished Heero would wake up right now and freak out, only he suspected Hatty would be more likely to be strangled than Heero squeak like a girl. Still, he could dream.
“Because Triton likes to sleep with the Origen. I don’t understand why. He can’t even tell I’m here.” The perplexities of being a half robot girl in love. Trowa couldn’t actually sympathise. At all. Not being female, and not being part robot anything.
“I like to sleep with him because I love him. I like knowing he’s there, and knowing that he’s safe.”
“How do you know that if you’re asleep?”
“Because he was there when I went to sleep and if he got up to move, I would know and wake up. So, as long as I’m still asleep I know he’s there and that he’s safe.”
She was doing that staring thing again and he decided to accept the challenge, staring straight back at her because he’d given her an honest answer and she should learn some manners and give him an honest one back. Only she was a robot and didn’t understand honesty and instead he just felt stupid trying to stare down a robot.
“Points for trying,” Giles mumbled at his side and Trowa laughed softly, blinking and turning in his chair, aware of Hatty going back to staring closely at Heero’s sleeping face and having no desire whatsoever to stop her.
Wufei pac-man had made it halfway to the Eye and Trowa didn’t envy the way they were crawling over things in the walls at all. He rubbed his chest at the thought of it, and cursed himself not for the first time because how dumb did you have to be to get shot point blank by a robot anyway? Not that Nataku was really a robot, more a half-half sort of thing, but he doubted Duo was going to let him live it down just because part of the brain was built instead of born.
“What are you going to do, when this is all over?”
It was not a question Trowa had given specific thought to. More a blanket ‘take Wufei home and tie him to the bed’ fantasy sort of thing. But having Giles ask him, of all people, made him pause and actually think about it. Allow himself to believe it was a possibility, and that it would be soon.
“Go home.” Only it lacked something, his home, and he didn’t think it was Wufei. Not anymore, because the thought of taking Wufei back to his little apartment really wasn’t that appealing, and Wufei’s apartment was so much worse! That was, if he even still had one. Trowa had assumed he’d gotten rid of it when he took his new job, but since he never actually chose to do either did that mean he was still renting? Had they gutted it when Wufei didn’t pay his rent? Had Wufei ben paying rent all this time? Maybe it was set to direct debit and just...
“I didn’t mean to make you think that hard,” Giles mumbled, looking embarrassed and Trowa just sighed. He hadn’t been thinking hard, not really. That was the point. He was just distracting himself from the very real fact that home was starting to mean something else. That maybe it wasn’t just starting but that it had been that way for longer than he cared to realise. That maybe the reason he kept petitioning his landlord for things he knew they wouldn’t grant wasn’t because he wanted to try, but because he’d given up trying. Because he’d wanted Wufei, and when he couldn’t have it he’d tried for every consolation prize he could think of and it hadn’t been enough.
“I’ll go wherever he goes.” And he didn’t care that Giles was smiling, nor what Giles was thinking or felt about it because it was none of the man’s business. Trowa would go with Wufei, because that was where Home was, and had been for a long time now.
“What about me?”
Giles and Trowa both turned to see Hatty standing between them, ignoring the screen altogether, much more interested in their discussion. Which shouldn’t have been the case. Robots were not supposed to think about the future, or worse...have dreams for it.
“What would you like to do?” Giles asked her, genuinely curious and Trowa would have gladly smacked the man had he not been vaguely interested in the answer himself.
She was staring again. It was really starting to grate on Trowa’s nerves. He stared back, waiting and determined to outlast her this time. His nerves felt ready to snap when she just kept staring into his face and slowly his lips moved and she smiled, wide and open mouthed and delighted, all teeth and tongue and was that a speaker in the back of her throat?
“I want to stay with Triton.”
Of course she did. Trowa slumped back in his chair and decided having staring matches with a robot was a stupid idea. It didn’t need to breathe.
“And do what?”
It was the pauses, Trowa decided, not the staring, that gave it the effect that unnerved him. When she was staring at you, you could still dream up strange things in your head that might be going on in hers. But when she was silent, there was a weight to her gaze that meant she wasn’t just trying to find an answer. She was trying to decide which one to give you. If she was a robot, there should have only been one answer, and she shouldn’t have been capable of any kind of deceit.
But she wasn’t a robot. Not really, that was the point.
“Watch him sleep,” was what she finally said, smiling brightly again and skipping back to Heero’s side, crouching down and doing just that. It left Giles and Trowa staring at each other, not sure what to think of it. If maybe they should stop trying to understand, because Hatty was just ever so slightly insane.
“I’m so glad she met you first.”
It made Trowa pause, because he hadn’t stopped to wonder if perhaps her attachment to him was simply that he’d been the one to turn her on. That after Harrison, he was the closest thing she had to family, or a friend, or whatever. That he was the only one who had cared, at least from her perspective, enough to give her life. That he was sort of like her father.
And he was now so officially creeped out that he just glared at Giles and stroked the knife strapped to his thigh.
“Even if I can’t outrun you, I can still throw this.”
“Son, you stopped scaring me the moment you told me the Origin was your dreamboy.”
“What?” Because of all the things that might have made him seem more human, that was the last thing Trowa would have thought of. And yet, he supposed, he wasn’t like most people, and maybe love to most people was the most human trait there was. He looked at Hatty and really hoped that wasn’t true. But if it wasn’t, and something else was, there was still a good chance she at least thought she had it. Dreams, check. Love, check. Hope...
“You forget I moved to a giant invisible space station to escape war. Knives and threats don’t scare me. Gory half-built robot girls? Yeah, they’re a tad on the awkward side, but as long as they’re professing love for you and not me, it’s still not that bad. But if a person cannot love...”
That was scary? Trowa decided Giles was stupid, and just hadn’t seen Heero Yuy wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
“Hatty, did you spend a lot of time with Harrison?”
“All of my time!” She sounded immediately excited and he wasn’t at all surprised when she started humming happily under her breath. She was fiddling with the ends of Heero’s hair, frowning occasionally and taking a closer look, forcing her fingers to be increasingly dexterous and, he realised, learning to braid. Duo wasn’t going to know what to do with himself.
“Did you talk about things?”
“Yes! Lots and lots of things!”
“Did you talk about Frank?” Giles, who had seemed uninterested in Trowa’s line of questioning sat up at this and looked not at Hatty, but at Trowa, and something in his expression told him to stay quiet. That Trowa was trying to find answers to things Giles hadn’t known they needed to ask.
“All the time! It was like his baby or something.” Jealousy. That was definitely jealousy colouring her tone of voice and making her frown, just slightly. Because Frank hadn’t been his baby, just his greatest invention. Hatty on the other hand...
“Hatty, how old are you?”
“I don’t understand the question,” she confessed, frowning.
“When were you switched on?” She was still frowning, turning away from Heero’s hair and looking at him now. Again. In that way.
“How old are you?” She asked and Trowa frowned, shrugging carefully, still dubious as to where this was even going. She sighed, as if having to deal with someone very stupid. “You measure life by years, one of which is the rotation of Earth around the sun. But what if there isn’t a sun, and you’re just in a Frank, exploring the universe. Should you still measure time as you would have on earth? Or by the time periods used in the area of space you happen to be in? Or by the time periods used by Frank?”
Okay. Not as in depth as he had been hoping to go. Trowa looked to Giles for help because now he’d had it pointed out to him he wasn’t entirely sure how time was measured on board.
“We use Earth time,” he replied easily, rolling his eyes and Trowa had to admit it was almost like Hatty was just stalling. Or making fun of them. Whatever she was doing, it was weird.
“And do you remember every day of earth time you’ve been alive?”
Trowa blinked, reaching up to tuck his hair behind his ear so he could see her properly, with both eyes. No one remembered the first year or two of life, but they still lived it.
“My first memory is six months old,” Hatty confirmed, as if he’d actually asked a question. But she was thinking, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, as if straining to recall something from before that time.
“My nanoboard pre-dates that time, and age testing confirms my heart is at least a year old, so I would suspect my brain and other organs are the same. But I don’t remember anything from then. Does that mean I was not alive before that time, and if it does then does that mean that you were not alive before the first thing you can remember?”
Giles and Trowa turned around in their chairs at the same time, rested their elbows on the table and let their heads fall into their hands.
“Good thing the robot knows how to love,” Trowa grumbled. “Wouldn’t want it to be scary or anything!” How did she even know how old her organs were? Was it in a database somewhere? Had Harrison told her? As for the nanoboard...he just didn’t want to know.
“And then, I’ve been switched on and off in between that time, so does that mean I’ve died and come back to life each time? So then really, I’m only as old as the time you’ve been here, right? Or do those days count, when I was sleeping?” She was pacing now, walking up and down the length of the room and Trowa just let her go, listening to her mumble and muse about the prospect of her age, of all things. Ponder life, its meaning and what it meant to breathe. Human ponderings, and that was the answer he had needed, really.
Because she had been sleeping, while her nanoboard was switched off. Still breathing, heart still beating, but not conscious. Right? Not conscious in the way Wufei had not been conscious in Frank? Meaning completely so?
“Did Harrison tell you why he made you?”
“Of course.” Right, because it would be stupid to make her and not tell her why. And Harrison wasn’t stupid. She was humming again and he was pretty sure it was Vader’s March, which was just plain creepy.
“And?”
“And he told me, not you,” she grinned, thrilled with her own answer and laughing as she stopped pacing and came back to the table, looking up at the screen and frowning, reaching out to poke the Wufei-pacman on the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“He can’t hear you...” Only Trowa paused and looked up at her, saw the set of her jaw and the lights blinking under her skin and his heart sank a little. “Yes you can.”
All this time, watching him on the screen, and he could have been talking to Wufei the whole time. Through Hatty. Worse, she could have been, and most likely was. What were they talking about? What was really going on? He wanted answers and every time he seemed close to getting one he just got handed a notebook of new questions.
“Wufei?”
“Yes?” Was it really Wufei? He couldn’t quite believe it when it was Hatty’s voice, the sound coming from her throat, but he kept remembering Wufei tracking their way here, using sensors and he was really starting to wonder what the inside of Wufei actually looked like now.
“What are you doing?”
Because Hatty was right, and it just looked downright strange. He and Duo had stopped in what appeared to be an access shaft above a corridor. The only reason Trowa knew that was because he could see their feet dangling down from the top of the camera frame, where they disappeared into the ceiling.
“We’re arranging a surprise.”
“Are you absolutely sure he loves you back?” Giles muttered and Hatty laughed. It made them both pause, frowning at her until she stopped and shrugged, and it was impossible to tell if it had been Hatty or Wufei laughing.
“What do you mean arranging?” There weren’t a lot of things you could arrange in an access shaft. Unless, of course, you had the ability to access other things from it. Which was why Trowa was clutching so hard to the arms of his chair. He didn’t trust himself to let go.
There wasn’t a reply and Trowa sat forward, glaring at the screen as Duo hopped down out of the panel and kept an eye out for anyone who might carelessly interrupt. Only being able to see Wufei’s feet dangling down beside Duo’s head wasn’t doing anything to improve Trowa’s mood. His imagination was well able to picture Wufei hanging from Frank’s rafters, so to speak.
“Stop worrying.”
“Oh sure, because that always works,” Giles laughed, rubbing a weary hand over his face and just sitting back to watch the screen, because there wasn’t a whole let else they could do. Trowa rubbed at the bottom of his bandage through his shirt and scowled, because if Nataku hadn’t shot him... But she had. She’d betrayed him and he couldn’t even get revenge. At least, not yet.
And he realised he wanted it. Yes, he wanted to take Wufei home and make sure he lived a long, happy life, but he also wanted to pay back all the pain he had felt the last few years. A thousand fold or more.
“Hatty. Triton is upset.”
Hatty paused only a moment longer before blinking and turning to look down at Trowa, eyes widening and face looking immediately concerned.
“Triton? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Besides her hijacking his boyfriend? Oh, nothing! He scowled at her but only succeeded in making her look more distraught and he regretted it immediately. She looked about to cry and then... Trowa just sat there, gaping at her.
“Are you crying?” Holy shit!
Giles stretched around to see it for himself and they both sat there, gaping while Hatty blubbered and scrubbed at her eyes in confusion, only crying harder because she didn’t seem to understand what was going on.
“Hatty, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s okay. I’m not mad. I’m just worried about Wufei, but I promise I’m not mad at you.”
It still took time for her to settle down, hiccupping and looking pathetic until Trowa gave in and moved his chair back away from the table and turned invitingly. Hatty stared at his lap, then back at his face and smiled.
“You’re not mad at me?”
“No, Hatty.” He felt a lot of things when he thought about her, but anger wasn’t generally among them. Not at her, anyway. She took no further nudging, hopping closer and plonking herself unceremoniously in his lap, arms thrown around his shoulders, head laid in just under his jaw. He sighed and resigned himself to the horrible ache in his chest, aware she had somehow managed to avoid putting any weight against the wound and grateful for the small mercy.
“Hatty. Wufei is plugged into the System, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” But she seemed confused as to how he knew it and Trowa just smiled. He knew Wufei, but she didn’t know anyone well enough to understand that kind of awareness of the actions of others. She wasn’t old enough, and the only person who might have come close was dead.
“Why?”
But she didn’t reply and the screen suddenly went black. Sitting up so fast he nearly dropped her on the floor, Trowa hissed and let her steady him while his chest protested the movement and Giles flicked through the displays, frowning because they were all dark.
“He couldn’t have cut every feed...”
He could have, but he hadn’t. Trowa shook his head and switched back to the feed of the hallway on the main screen, listening to the screams and cries coming out of the feeds from the other screens.
“Not the feed. The lights. He cut the lights.” But why was a mystery, though Trowa had to admit he preferred working in the dark, and it definitely wasn’t something Farrar would have been expecting. But the real question was did Wufei do it because there was something he didn’t want them to see.
“Why doesn’t Frank just turn them back on?”
“Because he can’t,” Trowa noted softly. Or wouldn’t. He frowned, staring at the darkness and imagining Wufei and Duo moving through it. There were so many things nagging at him, while others were just starting to make sense.
Wufei had known Farrar by name, but he hadn’t said anything when the man stood before him in the flesh while they hid in the temple. Trowa was certain they’d said the man’s name numerous times, but Wufei hadn’t reacted. Why?
Frank had made an elaborate plan that would lure in Quatre, but which also alerted Preventers who had immediately called in the agents with the appropriate skillset, Duo and Trowa. The mission brief had practically screamed their names it was so specific. Why?
Frank had created a means to get Wufei out of the system, creating Nataku to take his place, knowing full well Nataku wasn’t enough to last and that Wufei would likely have to be replaced. Why?
Harrison had built Hatty... But even she hadn’t been able to replace Wufei, so why build her? She was the mysterious key to everything but nothing about her made sense. Was she just imcomplete? Was it the plans that were important? Were they for Wufei or Hatty? Why had she started broadcasting them the way she had?
Why had Nataku shot him?
So many questions and finally the answer was forming, it just wasn’t one Trowa wanted to consider. Wasn’t one he had wanted to believe. He got up carefully, putting Hatty down in the chair and checking his weapons. He grabbed a tablet from the stash of devices still in Heero’s bag and handed it to Hatty.
“Link this up to you and the computer here.”
She didn’t question him, happy to do anything to help him, and he had to wonder about that too. But he busied himself checking he had what he needed in his backpack, which was hard when he wasn’t really sure what he was going to need.
“Son, you look like you’re getting ready to do something stupid.”
“That’s very observant of you,” Trowa rolled his eyes. Of course he was going to do something stupid. He had a hole in his chest and he gotten back on a Pad first chance he got and went straight back in to Frank to finish the job he was well within his rights to hand over to someone else. Everything he’d done lately could be classified as ‘stupid’, but then people in love were supposed to do stupid things, so he thought he was probably okay.
“All done, Triton!” Hatty handed over the tablet proudly and Trowa checked the access even though he knew it would be flawless. He grabbed the pile of plans from his bag and handed them to Giles.
“Get everything you need to make these adjustments. Pretend you have no base to work with. You need everything to be made from scratch.”
“Alright.” And Trowa was just grateful Giles didn’t ask who they were upgrading. It was time to stop waiting for everyone else to make a move and do something about it himself. If everyone else was going to keep secrets, he was going to do the same.
“DUO!” Heero lurched into a sitting position and reached out to grab someone who wasn’t there, glaring at his empty hand and hurriedly looking around the room.
“Barton. What the fuck are you doing here?” Heero was already pushing himself up, taking stock of himself and moving to see what Giles was up to, surveying the sheets Trowa had handed over.
“You’re just in time to go help your friend do something stupid,” Giles smiled at Heero and Trowa thought the man really might be insane. He’d lost his family, after all, that scrambled most people, right?
“Again?” Heero was glaring at him and Trowa wished people would stop assuming he’d gotten shot on purpose. Only that wasn’t what Heero was referring to.
“Yes, again.” Because while he wasn’t planning on rushing off to kidnap and possibly murder a few hundred people, he might have if there had been people worth kidnapping or killing.
“Okay.” And it really was that simple with Heero. He moved quickly and collected his own small stash of weapons, hiding them in what Trowa considered very uncreative places but whatever worked for him, Trowa wasn’t complaining.
“Where’s Duo?”
“With Wufei,” Trowa grumbled and Heero barely skipped a beat, grabbing an extra gun and putting it in the bag. Trowa didn’t think it was for shooting Duo, but he thought Maxwell was going to have some talking to do anyway. Though really, Heero deserved a few punches after the amount of times he’d done the same thing to Duo.
“You’re bleeding,” Heero grunted and Trowa looked down, startled to realise he must have broken his stitches while Hatty was in his lap, the blood leaking through the bandages and if Wufei saw it he was going to be in so much trouble.
“Triton, are you okay?” Hatty was in front of him immediately, hands fluttering in strange patterns while she tried to decide what to do with them without actually touching him.
“I’m fine, Hatty.”
“Because people with massive holes blown in their chests are always fine,” Giles muttered and even Heero grunted in amusement. Trowa ignored them both and let Hatty hurriedly undress him, taking off his shirt and Heero reached in to help, getting the old bandage off and assessing the damage.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Trowa muttered darkly, looking around while Heero searched for thread and needle. He grabbed a stapler off Harrison’s desk before anyone could do anything and stapled the wound with three good hits.
It was quite possibly one of the ten dumbest things he’d ever done, and it hurt like hell.
“Fuck, Barton!”
“Oh like you can talk Mr I like to reset other people’s bones. You’re just disappointed you didn’t get to stitch me back up yourself!”
“I can do it later...” Trowa paused and looked at Heero but that didn’t look or sound like it had been a joke and he just shuddered, letting Hatty re-bandage him and help him get back into a shirt. A nice clean, unbloody shirt that Wufei wouldn’t take one look at and try to send him back to Une.
Heero followed him to the Pad and looked over his shoulder as Trowa punched in his instructions to the tablet, checking that Hatty had received the instructions.
They re-Molecularized in the Hanger, lights out and people running, yelling, shouting orders, torch beams spraying in every direction. Complete chaos and Trowa just grinned because that suit him just fine.
“What are we doing, Barton?”
“Saving Wufei.”
“Funny. I thought that was what we’d been doing this whole time?”
“We’ve been trying to stop Frank,” Trowa corrected and Heero followed him as he turned on the tablet light and let it guide them through the Hangers. He had a good idea of where they were, and it wouldn’t take too long to get back to his SiS. With any luck the rest of his crew would be out of the Hanger trying to help get the power back on.
“And that’s not the same thing?” Trowa just smiled because Heero had never been slow.
“Wufei knows how to stop Frank.” But it wasn’t Frank Wufei was trying to stop, it was Farrar. All along, from the moment they had received the communication from Frank with its three instructions, Wufei and Frank had been working together, as one, to stop Farrar.
He remembered his first few hours in Frank, wandering the station and wondering what the hell he was going to do. What he was supposed to do. The confusion had lingered all day, until he went back to His Room and found many of his questions had been taken care of by Frank. He had money, a job, an I.D. All the things he had needed to survive in Frank. Why?
He’d asked, and he hadn’t listened.
“Why am I here?”
“I want you to save someone.”