Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ The Palace of Justice ❯ 30 ( Chapter 30 )

30

When the light faded, Trowa almost stumbled out of reflex but held himself still long enough to realise he didn't need to. He felt fine. He was whole, or as whole as he could be with a hole in his chest, and he felt no queasiness at all. He looked to Giles but the man seemed fine as well, which just left him glaring at Hatty.

"You will be upgrading all of the Pads."

"Okay!" It seemed she enjoyed doing it, which was fine. Trowa had no problem with her enjoying her work, as long as it resulted in nice, easy transitions from once place to another. He just wished he was part robot so she could fix him. Wufei couldn't even complain about it, since just how human he was was debatable now as well.

They were in the Hanger. Several men were standing around them, staring and one had the sense to reach for the weapon at his hip. Trowa had to admit the shock on their faces was understandable. They had just appeared out of nowhere on an empty SiS pad. It had to look suspicious. It wasn't like they could have just molecularized from the other side of the door, unless they'd developed a means to breathe in space without a helmet, which...they hadn't. It was still a stupid idea to threaten an Artilect.

It was a worse idea, apparently, to shoot at one. Not because Hatty got angry, but because she had a bodyguard.

The man fired his weapon but it never hit its target, his arm breaking with a hard snap of skin and bone, his scream drowning out the sound as Nataku's hands closed around the limb and wrenched. His arm faced two directions, neither of which was the right one and Trowa thought he might have thrown up if his stomach hadn't already been completely empty. He watched coldly as Nataku silenced the man permanently and turned to face the others still staring in horror.

"I don't suggest trying the same," Duo noted coldly, stepping up behind the other men, calm and in no hurry, as if they were unaware of the thunder of feet rushing to investigate the scream. Quatre was at his side, looking much more comfortable with his surroundings, dressed in full military blacks. What he and Duo had been up to, Trowa was almost sure he didn't want to know.

The ground started to move under his feet. Hatty was crouching at his side and Trowa watched, fascinated as she altered their landscape. He had no idea how she did it. Self replicating nanites? It's wasn't impossible, but then he didn't think anything was anymore, so he just watched as the world moved around them, building walls where there had been none and creating hallways where there had been solid barriers. It would have been interesting to see it from the other side, if it was even half as stunning as being within.

He had no idea where she led them, and didn't dare to ask. Moses had never had such an attentive following. He saw parklands he was sure belonged on Level 5 alongside metallic slums he was sure he had rummaged through on Level 2 in the same hallway, and emerged into street stalls he was sure had been not far from His Room. He saw people who looked as confused as they should, and others who seemed beyond it, as if nothing would surprise them anymore. As if they had moved here to escape ever being surprised again. Hatty wandered through the changing landscape as if it were normal, her feet gentle and caressing as they slowly stroked their way through the moving city.

Trowa watched her through wide eyes and wondered if this was what the world looked like to her. Fluid and changing at a rate not perceivable to the human eye, but constant to her. If nothing was still, but instead was like information moving through the system of the universe, consistent and relentless. Like life. If maybe she was just speeding it up.

The world stopped moving and Hatty stopped in the middle of a large expanse of grass. Level 1 parklands, Trowa recognised, not because they were any better than the parklands in the rest of Frank but because all around them flowers were blooming. The kind that only grew in one place.

Passion flowers. Duo went and crouched beside one, poking at its petals, disbelieving for a minute before picking one very carefully and taking it back to Hatty. Very carefully, as if he thought Hatty might break his arm, or Nataku and really who could blame him for that fear, he reached out and slid the stem of the flower over her ear, curling it around so the flower bloomed by her forehead, framing one eye. She titled her head, as if considering the significance of the action and Duo just smiled.

"You look very pretty."

Hatty tilted her head to the side and Trowa wasn't even aware he was holding his breath until Quatre poked him in the side when his lungs began to ache for release. He still hesitated to do so and doubted anyone blamed him.

"Was I not pretty before?"

"Of course you were," Duo assured her, not missing a beat. "But friends like to give one another gifts. I think my gift is pretty, and I hope you think so too. It suits you, in my opinion."

Again with the thinking. Trowa thought he might go mad if she didn't stop. If maybe knowing she would never stop meant he was already mad.

"Why do friends give one another gifts?"

"Sometimes to celebrate special occasions. Sometimes just to show they care. Sometimes for no reason at all," Giles mumbled and Hatty watched him. Saw pain and joy and loss in the words and reached up to stroke one of the petals of her flower approvingly. And promptly forgot about it. Simple as that.

But while Hatty considered presents, Trowa mused on flowers and the significant of their arrival at that particular place. It couldn't be a coincidence but it's significance was lost on him. They stood watching, each unsure what to do as Hatty wandered the small park and carefully picked a bouquet for herself.

"There something you're not telling us?" Duo smirked and Trowa scowled darkly because no he wasn't marrying the damned Artilect and he would prefer Duo didn't put the idea in her damned head. Duo won his snicker from Giles instead.

"Something's not right here."

They all stared at Quatre then, because...really?

"And what gave it away?" Duo muttered. "The robot girl turned ascended being, the trip through the space version of wonderland or the field of consciousness enhancing drugs we're all just happily standing in?"

"Honestly, it was the drugs," Giles mumbled back and after a minute of staring at him in confusion Trowa realised he agreed with him. Hatty didn't really surprise him anymore, but the flowers were confusing. There was only one thing he knew about them; they were part of Wufei's prison. He didn't like them at all.

"If Level 5 is where we left it, which I will admit is pretty debatable right now," Duo observed.

"We're not far from Level 6," Trowa agreed, and that was what wasn't right. Yes, he had asked Hatty for help, but she could have transported them directly from the workshop to the lift. Why the detour? What was she really changing and why? How insidious was her hold on Frank already and could they really trust her? He'd thought they could trust Nataku and that really hadn't gone too well for him. He rubbed his chest, contemplating.

"You did ask her for help," Giles reminded him and it was only the truth but it still annoyed the hello it of him. He'd meant with his plan, not with whatever the hell she had come up with. He looked at Ntaku and wondered what she thought of their conversation. Did their doubts annoy her? Was she trying to convince herself Hatty wouldn't destroy her if she broke Trowa's arm? Turned his head too far on his shoulders? Left his body amongst the passion flowers?

Why passion flowers?

La pasionaria. Why?

It was a stunning flower, with it's sun like heart of gold and it's flakes of petals overflowing in rich reds or purples, and at its heart it's tiered stem of three, surrounded by its halo of snow like whisp. There was something otherworldly about it and he found himself drawn in, crouching down to stare into it, closer and closer until it filled his vision.

"Trowa?" Quatre leant over his shoulder, trying to see what he was seeing but he sounded confused and he'd hadn't been on board Frank long enough to see anything but a flower. To realise everything had another meaning, another life. Another reason for being.

"It's a triangle," he mumbled, frowning as he began to suspect things he probably shouldn't. He as just tired, worn out and injured and likely feverish and suffering exhaustion. Seeing things that weren't there. It wasn't out of the ordinary, was even to be expected.

So why did it feel so right? Why was he so certain he'd made a very, very big mistake?

"I got something for you."

He looked up at Hatty, not surprised she was as far away from Quatre as she could get while still being considered close to Trowa.

There was no hint of purple in the flower she held out for him. The petals were the rich red of blood and the pollen stuck to its triadic centre in fluorescent clumps. But it's centre was broken, the flower splitting in two from its stem up through its heart. It wouldn't live long, and there was no saving it, but for the moment it retained its beauty. He took it in confusion and just stared at Hatty's smile, wondering if he would come to regret putting it there.

"Our ride is here," Duo said nearby and Trowa turned to see the lift in the middle of the park. It certainly hadn't been there before.

"So it is."

Hatty took his hand again and swung his arm. It felt like she might rip it clean off, pulling at his stitches and staples but he didn't dare to say so. The pain was a welcome reminder of reality and just how much was at stake. He held tight to the flower in his other hand and let her lead him to the lift.

It was a tight squeeze with all of them. Trowa looked at each person individually, wondering by he felt a distinct lack of trust. Nataku, Giles, Quatre, Duo...Hatty. Each had given him whatever he asked for since he arrived on Frank, and some a little more than that. But he felt alienated and betrayed, by events that hadn't even happened yet.

Hatty was humming and he realised there was elevator music.

"Is that Beethoven?" Duo mumbled.

"Yes," Quatre replied quietly, stuck in the corner as far away from Hatty as he could get without being excluded.

"I don't see how that matters," Giles noted and Trowa had to agree with him. There hadn't been elevator music before, so why the hell was it there now? Either Hatty was oblivious to them, or was ignoring them on purpose, eyes closed and humming along happily.

"Of course it matters," Quatre mumbled, sounded annoyed that anyone would suggest classical music wasn't of vital importance, even in the elevator. Really, Trowa should have seen it coming.

"I hate Bach," Duo agreed. "Always puts me in a bad mood, and for gods sake put in a damn crescendo!"

"And Haydn!" Quatre latched onto the subject, grateful just to be allowed to contribute. "Write another sonata, I dare you."

The familiar ding sounded and the doors slid open. He really had to get out of the habit of holding his breath. And Giles needed to stop staring at Quatre and Duo like that, before they took offence.

His blood was gone from the floor and the holes in the wall had been repaired. The previous disarray of the system had altered and was an organised mass of equipment along the walls. The Origen chamber sat in the middle of a now round space, eight large tubes embedded in the floor running off into the walls. It looked like a giant spider, waiting in the dark. Trowa went to stand over one of the tubes and frowned at the rich green colour of whatever was inside. Too familiar.

The wall had transformed into a large Computer, monitoring the changes taking place in Frank on a series of video feeds down one side. The rest was running diagnostics, and a small square was still open showing a blank message board.

"You did all this?" Duo was stealing glances at Hatty as he wandered around the room, taking in the differences. There was no place to sneak in anymore, just the lift doors, closing behind them. He felt obsolete in the face of it all.

"Yes." Simple as that.

But it was the wrong question and Trowa stood frozen, not daring to ask the right one. Not ready to know why. The flower in his hand felt like a brick.

Hatty walked to the computer and carefully placed the passion flowers in a vase on the bench, only the vase sucked them inside and Trowa felt queasiness brewing in his gut. The flowers disappeared and fear gripped him as he wandered forward toward the Origen capsule.

The green liquid was swirling inside, the orb sitting in waiting where they had left it, it's lights dimmed and looking somehow worn. On its last legs. Dying, if a machine could do such a thing. But they had Hatty now...right?

Duo moved to his side and looked in, sighing in relief to see nothing human inside and Trowa felt him relax, seeing no immediate threat, besides the very obvious one better known as Hatty. Only they had completed her for a reason, and surely now she could make it all work.

But Trowa couldn't relax and Quatre must have picked up on some of his anxiety, because he stood closer than he needed to and his shoulders were set just so. The last time Trowa had seen him like that he'd been swearing a blue streak, and he'd lost men. The expectation was there that it was likely to happen again. Quatre then, at least, had figured out a little something of what Trowa knew.

"She's in love with you. I bags you do the talking," Duo mumbled under his breath and Quatre nodded in immediate agreement. Trowa just sighed and tentatively stepped past the capsule, as if putting it behind him could render him impervious to the pains it could yet cause.

"Hatty?"

"Yes?"

She looked too small to be capable of such things. Barefoot, hair loose around her shoulders, skin barely marked with freckles, eyes bright and clear and huge in her small face. It didn't seem possible she could alter the universe so intrinsically, with just a thought. He hated to think what she might be capable of in a century, or a millennia. A century of millennia. He didn't want her to have to live that long.

"What are you going to do?" He doubted anyone had ever asked her such a thing. What she was doing, yes, but not her intentions. She seemed as confused by the question as one might expect.

"What would you like me to do?"

"Save Wufei." The wanting, at least, was easy. But she was studying him again and he knew the silence was saying a lot more than he was hearing. If only he could connect, just plug in wirelessly and download her understanding of the situation, maybe then things might have made sense. Because he suspected that what he wanted was being misinterpreted, or that it was at least more complicated than he wanted to believe.

The screen blinked and the images changed, scrolling through events outside. The Preventers ships were making their move, closing in on Frank, most likely unaware of the SiS surrounding them and moving around to flank Preventers, trapping them between themselves and Franks hull.

"How is that a good defence? They're as like to blow a hole in our side as they are to actually take out a ship!" Duo was clearly displeased by the tactic but Giles just shrugged.

"Frank can take a pretty big hit. We hit an asteroid field about a year ago? There's not a dent to show for it."

They all just stared at the man, but it wasn't a joke and after a while they had to admit the computer screen and it's scrolling images was more interesting. The desire to be out there amongst it was thick in the room. Sitting at a desk had never suited any of them.

"Well. Time to go." Quatre went to the Pad and stepped on, looking to Trowa for help because Hatty was apparently ignoring him.

"Okay...and you're going where?" Duo was just annoyed to be once again out of the loop.

"Stay on the ground this time?" Trowa reminded him and Quatre saluted with a wry grin before Trowa nodded to Hatty and the Pad remote activated, the light sweeping up Quatre's legs and torso until he was too bright to look at, and then he and the light were gone. The nothingness was deeper on the inside than out.

"Is anyone ever going to tell me what the hell is going on?"

"I wouldn't count on it," Giles laughed softly, moving to sit on one of the chairs in front of the computer screen, close to the data feed. He looked old, and Trowa wondered if he even expected to live to see how it would all turn out.

"Dandy," Duo ground out, and Trowa didn't miss that he was rather strategically placed where he could see and access the whole space easily. But he felt little sympathy, since he was sure Duo had his own secrets. Like where Tracey was, and what he and Wufei had gotten up to in the dark when they cut the lights.

Trowa was tired of secrets.

"What should I do?" Hatty looked at him inquisitively and Trowa listened more carefully as a result. Because he understood now that every answer he gave was important.

"If I help, I could save lives, but people won't learn anything from the mistakes they've made and will most likely make the same mistakes again, costing lives. If I don't help, people might learn, but others will die in the process, but I could avoid further tragedy in the future from the lessons learned today. Is it a greater evil to let lives go now, or to deliberately risk the future?"

Not was it evil, but which was the greater evil. Because she understood it was evil to have the choice to begin with, that the greatest horror of it was that she could choose what to do with life. Whether to let it be, or see it extinguished.

"Life is lost either way," Trowa pointed out. "The question is do you want to live knowing you let them die."

Contemplating the answer, Hatty looked like a child puzzling over a particularly tricky riddle. Her expression in no way matched the gravity of her question.

"I will live either way." So the blood would be on her hands one way or the other. It didn't matter what she did, people were going to die, and she would be left to contemplate her roll in it, for eternity if she chose to live that long.

"People are not supposed to live long," she observed and he had no idea if she was talking about the life she saw coming for herself, or the lives she had in her hands.

"No they aren't." But they wanted to, and occasionally needed.

Her head tilted to the side and the monitors of the ships outside disappeared, the screens black. Whatever was going to happen, it was in the hands of others now. If Hatty was interfering, they had no way of knowing. Leaving things in the hands of others didn't sit well with them either. Especially when those hands weren't human.

He just hoped Quatrre had gotten through and was doing his part in things. Because really, Hatty could have sent him anywhere. Maybe he was finally getting a real holiday in the Bahamas.

"I will do the wrong thing eventually." And that seemed to hurt her a great deal.

"You will," Trowa agreed quietly. "But you can always make up for your mistakes, if you really want to."

"I think it will be easier to avoid making them in the first place. At least, for as long as possible. Don't you think?" She looked to Giles for confirmation, and it made Trowa smile because she wasn't that inhuman at all, looking to her elders for guidance.

"I think that's generally the best way to do things," Giles agreed and the regret in his voice was an aged beast long beaten down. He too had realised what was going on, starting to put all this obscure pieces of the puzzle together to form the real image. The sadness in him was no longer just for himself and his own loss.

The walls were changing again, things moving under the surface, bubbling across the expanse and smoothing out again. Trowa didn't even want to know what she was changing, his curiosity dying in the face of her impossibility. He clenched the passion flower tight in his fist, feeling the odd sting of its sap against his skin.

The Pad activated and Duo reacted immediately, gun coming up, his glare focused on Nataku where she stood opposite him, daring her to make a move on him. But she stood there, still and silent and it was her lack of action that told Torwa what was happening. He was already halfway to the Pad when the light faded and Wufei stood there, staring at him.

"No," Trowa ground out, stopping a few feet away and just staring at him. He had changed, just as Frank had. The ports looked new and the caps were gone, the improved plugs no longer leaking and the suit he wore hugged him like skin, a rich inky black that looked more like a shadow than clothing. There was circuitry in it, visible in the soft light as a pale tracing of lines in the material. Trowa could take a hint. He was no fool and knew what it was for.

"Yes," Wufei whispered, denying him despite the pain behind the words.

"No! I won't allow it!"

"And I won't allow you to stop me."

Trowa closed the gap between them, arms wrapping tight around Wufei, pulling him in close, covering him as much as possible and glaring at Hatty.

"Send us to Earth."

"I can't do that."

"SEND US NOW!"

Lips on his, arms holding so tight he felt blood between them, stitches breaking apart and pain blooming like the wet stain on his chest. Wufei's face so damn close to his, the warmth of him crashing against the cold in his own flesh. To come so close...

"I refuse." Because he deserved a say, at last. He was tired of sitting back, tired of waiting. He wanted his chance to be the centre of something. He wanted a phone call. He wanted it first. He wanted a life, and a home and a heart that no longer felt cold and withered in his chest. He wanted to look at someone and believe what they had to say, and to say thing sack that he actually meant. He wanted to feel. To react without thinking about the consequences. He wanted to do it with Wufei.

"It's not a choice, Trowa. It's a deed, and it's the right one. And it's mine." Not Frank's, not Hatty's, not some unknown face. Wufei's.

But his arms disagreed and Wufei only held him tighter. Trowa doubted getting blood on Wufei's shiny new suit would change anything. But it was a fleeting thought in a river of confused compulsion as Trowa struggled to bring himself under control when everything in him screamed to finally, blissfully let go.

Wufei pulled away but Trowa refused to release him just yet, holding him still on the Pad and trying to concentrate past the ache he doubted had anything to do with his injuries.

Things were finally making sense, becoming concrete in his mind and had he been thrown off a bridge he knew he would sink. That someone had already thrown him, and he just didn't know it because the bottom was an ocean away.

"The pyramid is mankind," he realised quietly and Wufei just winced. It was all Trowa needed to know he was on the right track. "Frank is what? A giant petrie dish?" So that man and machine could coexist in a controlled environment and learn from one another. And eventually, all that knowledge could be downloaded into a new system, the birth of the first Artilect. Only Harrison had jumped the gun, had learnt his own lessons from Frank and exceeded the limitations of the experiment. The sword was the Artilect, marking the end of human reign, the opening of the eye the birth of understanding in the universe at last. The dawn of something else.

Duo stepped forward, frowning at Trowa and Wufei and then looking to Nataku for confirmation. She finally stepped up, moving to Hatty's side and watching them carefully. Looking for the threat. Still following the program. It was Hatty who watched them with curiosity and the little something extra in his eyes that spoke of synapses a robot didn't possess.

"When they uploaded the information and activated me, they thought they hadn't accumulated enough information," Nataku divulged. "That I was still incomplete. That I lacked the understanding they were looking for."

"But Harrison knew better," Giles murmured, spinning idly in his chair and watching all of them, smart enough not to interfere. It was a story repeated a thousand times through history, he'd probably heard it a hundred times in a hundred different ways, but the key was timeless. Like Hatty.

"You weren't incomplete, you were faulty. He used what he knew of Frank and Nataku and he built Hatty," Duo surmised, shaking his head and finally dropping his hand and putting his gun away. "Is everyone on this freakin station nuts?"

"They didn't even know," Nataku countered. "They truly believed they were just getting away from the war." But her concern was fake, a manufactured response her programming believed best fitted the situation, and it didn't ring true as a result. Because it wasn't.

"Because that just makes it all better! They're innocent!" Duo ground out, rage rising and Trowa knew they would never hear the end of this. It would be one of those things Duo reminded them of incessantly. Remember that time we got stuck on the giant petrie dish and all the little bacteria thought they were just running away from the bad guys when in reality they were letting the bad guys lock them up like sardines to study while they rotted?

"Exactly," Wufei agreed stoically and Trowa finally let him go. Accepted the last kiss Wufei gently placed on his lips and watched him go to Hatty. The smile on both their faces was breathtaking. Identical but separate.

"You didn't ask me to come here to save you," Trowa realised, seeing them together. Both their heads came up.

I want you to save someone.

"I would never have been that selfish." And Trowa should have known that all along. He could have chosen to look on his own, but Wufei would never have asked.

"But you asked for her?" His voice broke as he said it because he understood why, and was glad he had. He would have done the same thing, had their situations been reversed, because Hatty deserved a chance to live. But she wasn't what he wanted, and it hurt, more than he would ever have thought possible, to be told at last.

No.

"Farrar had killed Harrison. I knew I could manipulate the system enough to bring you here, and that once here you would save her." It hadn't mattered what conclusions Trowa had drawn once there, what he had or had not believed. Once there, he had indeed found a trail of obscure breadcrumbs, and here they all were.

"But I want you." Had wanted him for so long it had become a need, as essential as breathing.

Wufei's smile turned sad and he pressed his hand to the cover on the Origen capsule, waiting patiently as it dematerialized and he stepped in.

"Just what the hell is going on here?" Duo demanded to know. "Wufei?"

"Hatty has made all the changes she can, without giving us tools that would destroy us," Giles observed. "She has made sure Frank will run flawlessly, the way it was designed to run, but beyond that..." Maybe she couldn't, maybe she just wouldn't, the point was that was the line she had drawn. If she crossed it she believed she would cost lives she wasn't willing to take the blame for and none of them had the right to ask her for more than that.

"It still needs you to run," Duo realised, sounding as horrified as Trowa felt watching Wufei lie back down inside the damn thing. "You don't have to do this! We'll find another way! Fuck, Fei, we'll do whatever it takes!" But that was exactly what Wufei was doing. Whatever it took to save innocent lives. To not be guilty, because if you saved the lives the first time and people didn't learn their lesson, then you just had to make sure you were there again the next time they fucked up. Again and again. As many times as it took.

Trowa ran forward, stumbling to the edge of the capsule and falling to his knees, leaning in and stealing one more kiss, holding Wufei's head above the green gel, firm and determined in his own hand.

"I will be here." Because Wufei had promised, and that mattered still. "However long it takes, I will be here and we will find a way."

"I know," Wufei whispered and this time his smile was a quiet, secret thing meant only for Trowa. "I will come back."

"I know." There was no fear in Wufei. He had given himself up to the idea long before he ever woke from his Frank-induced slumber. Had known the story could only have one ending.

"I love you," Trowa whispered, barely audible.

"I know."

And in the end that was all that Trowa needed. He forced himself to sit back on his heels and watch as Wufei's head slid below the surface and sank to the bottom, pulling Trowa's heart along with it. The capsule lid reappeared and the room was silent.

For a long time.