Zeta Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ Harbinger of Darkness ❯ Catching Up ( Chapter 10 )

Disclaimer: I don't be ownin' any of Gundam, yo.

 

 

Duo Maxwell slid down from the cab of the massive flatbed after parking it in the loading dock of the Vienna GM factory. “Another shipment courtesy of Berlin Works!” he shouted over the din of welding and riveting.

“Perfect timing,” David Stryfe said, with a grin.

The two comrades dapped up and with the aid of several workers currently on break, commenced the arduous process of unloading. As the tons of processed metal were lifted by crane towards the furnace, Duo sidled up to the foreman of the works.

“So…did you get a chance to do any work on what we discussed last time?”

Dave scowled at him. “You owe me big for that. It was hard enough just to convince the manager that it was a legit venture, but then I had to deal with the Unions to get the workers to do the necessary overtime! Fortunately, the manager thought the design was good and is currently passing along his thanks to Anaheim for the great new concept. Wifey'll probably get a fat bonus in her next check.”

“Hot damn!” Duo whooped. “God, you have no idea how tight things have been. I got to try and put one through college, and the other two…tell me why we humans go through the arduous process of procreation again?”

His friend laughed. “You're the stupid one who wanted to settle down in the first place. Me? I got only the worries I impose on myself. That is, when I'm not doing favours for certain people…”

“Heh, danken,” he said, sheepishly. “You know when it'll be finished?”

“Sorry,” Dave said, shaking his head. “I told you, this is a mass production facility. We don't handle prototypes here. The manager sent the prints to the Sarajevo proving grounds and they'll put it together there. If there are no kinks to work out, then they send it here, and we configure our equipment to manufacture the component parts—though for that sonofabitch, it may take some time; the drive system alone is an incredible feat of engineering wizardry. Expensive as fuck, too.”

The smirk had slipped from Duo's face. “I'll be sure to give Hilde your complements, but when will it be done? That sounds like an awful lot of chickenshit to get through.”

“It is,” Dave said with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Best case scenario, you're looking at six months for the prototype; a year before we start production.”

“A year?” Duo was unable to conceal his shock.

“Hey, this isn't some sort of smoke-and-mirrors operation we're running here. You want something—especially something like that—and you're gonna have to wait in line like every other corporation trying to flood us with new designs.”

“Ah, shitfire!”

Dave started to say something in reproof, but a cheerful voice rang out over the din of the factory floor, “Hey, Dave! It's almost lunch break; hurry up so we can get a good spot in the mess hall!”

“I'll be there in a minute, Kelly!” he shouted back to the muscular young woman, perched on a catwalk high above them.

She smiled and ran on ahead.

Duo narrowed his eyes and smirked again. “I believe on our last encounter you called me something along the lines of a `pussy-whipped son of a bitch'? Care to recant that statement?”

“Fuck you,” Dave snarled, “it ain't even like that. She's one of the Union organisers so I naturally have to deal with her often.”

Duo said nothing, but smirked all the harder. He started back towards the truck.

Leaning out the window, he shouted back at his flustered comrade, “Let me know when you get word about the project. And be sure to take it slow with that chick, `cause remember, it ain't all it's cracked up to be!”

He gunned the engine and started down the autobahn leaving Dave to curse him.

Moments later he had the radio blaring classic rock ambiance as he pushed the eighteen-wheel mega-hauler at over 120 kph around the scenic Germanic countryside. Minus the load, he could get the truck moving a lot faster than he could on the trip out, so his trek back to Berlin generally was shorter by about a half-hour; he should be getting back a little after dinnertime tonight.

Duo smiled. Hilde wouldn't be able to yell at him tonight, and his kids would be happy to see him. This family stuff could get to be rough at times, but the bright smiles on Gene and Annika's faces when he made it home early enough to wrestle with them or tell them a bedtime story made it all worth it. That and he had a beautiful wife to share it with? Something about coming home after eight-plus hours of working in a man-made inferno, steering a crucible of molten metal alloy to see Hilde standing by the door to greet him every night…especially when she had that look…

From time to time, it seemed like this was how he had always lived. The War seemed like a protracted nightmare that one barely remembers after waking up, but he was glad for the people it had introduced him to. He got calls from his former squadmates Kiyone LaVans and Alec Kincaid every so often, and Alec and Rachel had visited over Christmas a couple of years back. He had not heard from his former CO, Karen Joshua, since the War, but the two of them hadn't got on very well, so Duo didn't count it as too big a loss.

There were times, though, when he missed the thrill of combat. Alec had stayed in the army, and Kiyone had joined the Titans; he was the only conscript from the 107th Space GM that had taken to civilian life. God, how he had wanted to go fight in the battle with Delaz's stragglers two years ago! Yet, he knew that even if he had managed to fake his way past the medical examiners, Hilde would have pitched a fit to beat all hell. She certainly had got all teary-eyed when he brought it up back then.

“You'd leave me here with all the children?” she'd wailed, “how could you be so selfish!”

He knew she still got the itch for combat too from time to time, but something about her maternity instincts had helped to quell it better than anything his simple male mind could do for him. Of course, he couldn't really blame her for acting the way she did; with all the advances in Mobile Suit combat that had come along since the One Year War, fighting in space had become a whole hell of a lot more dangerous. Everybody had beam weaponry now; the machine guns of the past were deemed obsolescent and discarded for the higher stopping power of the new age. What was more, the advances in Newtype weaponry were truly staggering. He and Hilde, as well as Alec had fought against a Newtype once when they were stationed in New England, and the one suit had managed to get their entire unit totally fucked up beyond all recognition.

Now, though, it was beginning to seem more and more like it was the Federation that was becoming everybody's enemy. Maybe it was just because he wasn't a particularly politically-minded guy, but Duo was having difficulty seeing exactly why the government he had fought so hard for was taking such a destructive course. Granted, he could see the need to keep the colonists down—anybody who'd fought the Zeeks knew that they were tough SOBs and could be very dangerous if well armed—but using a secret police force like the Titans to put the fear of God in them…that rubbed him the wrong way. It was almost as if the Federation was becoming the totalitarian regime he had fought to save it from six years ago.

If that was the case, what did he fight for? What had he lost his ability to see the colour of his kids' eyes for? What had his wife lost her leg for? Why did his son bear the name of a soldier who killed himself in that last battle?

Good questions all, but none that he had any answers for.

Or did he? He smiled wolfishly remembering the project he had Dave working on. With that he could do some real good in the world. But how would he use it? The only effective way to get his hands on a mobile suit again would be to rejoin the military, and—

An explosion in the highway ahead caused him to swerve the truck violently. He slammed on the brakes as hard as he could, but the massive vehicle's momentum pushed it forward another three hundred metres in spite of the squealing wheels.

When it finally came to a stop, he whipped the sheen of perspiration that had formed on his brow. “What the fuck was that?”

“Out of the car, ass-wipe!” a gruff voice shouted from outside the window.

“What?” he asked out of startled reflex.

A bullet spider-webbed the window. “Can you hear me now, you fuck?” The voice shouted again, “out, now!”

Duo fumbled with the door latch and stepped out into the brisk afternoon. The sun was setting along the horizon ahead of him, partially obscuring his assailants and turning them into little more than silhouettes. He counted six of them nonetheless, all armed.

`Shit,' he thought, `there goes dinner…'

He held his hands high and walked away from the vehicle. Two of the gunmen kept their automatics trained on his heart while the other four broke into groups of two and scrambled onto the bed and cab respectively.

“What do you want with my truck?” he demanded. Out of the glare of the sun, he could see that all of the gunmen wore bandanas over the lower half of their faces, and sunglasses and caps to obscure the rest. He also noted that they all wore scarlet bandanas on their right arms—the only sign of uniformity among them.

“Shut up, Fed!” one snapped and jerked his gun menacingly. “We're taking it, and that's all you need to know.”

“But there's nothing on it!” Duo returned. “It's just a flatbed truck!”

Neither gunman deemed to reply to his pleas. Instead, one watched him while the other gave orders.

“How's it look?” he asked.

“It ain't as big as I'd like, but it's still one fucking huge-ass truck,” one of the brigands on the bed said. “One of those new mega-haulers; can probably carry about 700 tonnes.”

“That'll do,” the commander said. “You, you, and you, fire up that truck and get it moving back to the base. We'll follow in the car.”

In the span of several moments, they had piled into the vehicles (their car had been parked in the shoulder of the road twenty metres away from the blast zone) and drove off.

Duo stared after them, wondering why in the hell they had left him alive. Seconds later, another thought forced its way into his mind:

“How the fuck am I gonna get home?”

Ryoji Kaji stood beneath the vaulted rotunda of the Republic of Zeon Military and Political History Museum. The sign out front said that the curator was still looking for suggestions for famous people for whom to name the building after, but after almost five years of waiting, Kaji, like everyone else in the colony (except maybe said curator), felt as though the baroque edifice would simply be consigned to an existence as “The War Museum”.

Regardless of the plain-sounding name, stepping inside was quite a humbling experience; the forest of Corinthian columns supporting the rotunda which itself sat comfortably forty metres up was designed to inspire a sort of awe in all who entered. That, and the two armed MS-02f model Zaku suits which stood on a raised platform in the centre of the circular room, gave the impression that one was walking among giants.

Kaji snorted, exhaling a dirty cloud of cigarette smoke as he did so (he was leaning on a marble wall right next to a no smoking sign). He'd come to this museum several dozen times since it had first opened its doors back in '81, and each time he did so brought the old bitterness to the surface again.

Shit! He thought angrily, taking a savage drag on his cancer-stick. The fuck did we think we were getting into back in those days?

Kaji hated the war, hated looking back on the war, and sure as hell hated being reminded of the war. In spite of all of that, though, he found himself drawn to the museum like a fly to an electric bug-zapper. It was as if the old scars cried out for recognition from time to time and the only way he could scratch that itch at the base of his mind was to throw on his old uniform and stalk off to that most banal of locales. `Course, it was illegal to be caught wearing a Zeonic officer's uniform, so as usual, today he was wearing a heavy waterproof greatcoat with his hands firmly jammed in his pockets.

Why risk it? He had asked himself time and again. Is it worth possible incarceration to stir up memories better left dormant?

Rather than answer himself, he simply blew another cloud of smoke.

He had been a force to be reckoned with back in those days. One of the hundred elite pilots commissioned to use the modified Gelgoog Jäger mobile suit, he had also led the Headhunters Squadron to a small degree of notoriety for its role in one of the major counterthrusts at A Baoa Qu. Less well known was the role he played in Operation Rubicon, in which he assisted a Spec Ops team in the infiltration of a Side Six colony. He never found out what had happened to the Cyclops Team after their infiltration, but whispers and scuttlebutt said that they had all been killed while trying to halt the production of a secret Gundam designed specifically for Newtypes.

Fucked up, he thought with a mental shrug. Then again, that statement could be used to describe any number of events relating to the course of the war.

Kaji stared up at the towering green suits posing in the centre of the great hall. What a lie they represented. What a farcical hope. Mobile suits were supposed to have been Zeon's ace in the hole, the secret weapon that would have ensured a speedy victory over the Federation, but what had they really achieved? Limited autonomy for a puppet `Republic' government, and a shitload of dead bodies.

Fucked up.

Still, had it not been for mobile suits and the war, what would he have been doing with his life right now? Working a two-bit job living just by the skin of his teeth, that's what. He'd graduated twentieth in his class at Kurosawa Tech back home on the Nirai Kanai colony, which, while it was by no means bad, without all the job markets opened up by the MS industry, it certainly would have left him stuck as a lowly colony technician. At least the government was giving him some sort of a pension (not much because of the economy was shot to shit on the large scale, but whatever funds weren't directly for the reconstruction projects went towards the Vets. At least the government respected them that much.)

Of course, he'd also met a bunch of really interesting people during his time in the service. Friends he'd not soon forget. Friends like…

`Excuse me, sir?'

This time his train of thought was derailed by an outside interruption. He blinked out of his musings and gave a glance to his right where he saw a petite young woman in a business suit holding a computer slate. Like him, she was of Japanese ancestry, with short hair, the colour of ravens' feathers. Her face was only slightly made up as befitted a working woman such as her clothes implied that she was, and while she was far from beautiful, she had that sort of girl-next-door charm that always won second glances from those of the opposite sex.

`Can I help you?' he said, gruffly. It'd been awhile since any woman other than Janey down at that bar on Thirteenth and Elm had spoken to him directly, but right now he was more interested in miring himself in nostalgia than making a bid for a skirt.

`I'm looking for a mister Ryoji Kaji. Might you be him?'

`That depends on who's asking,' a tired line, but one that seemed oddly apropos in this situation. If she was here to tell him that his monthly pension was going up, then hell yes he was Ryoji Kaji, but if she was with the military and looking to have him come back…well, he'd happily point her in another direction.

The woman smiled. `It is so good to finally meet you, Kaji-san. I'm Representative Linna Yamazaki, colonial delegate to the Republic's Diet elected from your home colony of Nirai Kanai.' She stuck out her hand.

Hesitantly, he took it in his own. He found himself surprised at her grip (she was a woman after all) and quickly squeezed to match it.

`I'm glad I finally caught up with you,' she said, `My God, you're tough to find.'

He shrugged nonchalantly and waited for her to continue.

`I was looking through the records of all the offices who served during the days of the Duchy that were still living in the Republic, and yours stood out among the list as being particularly decorated. I'm given to understand that you received an Iron Cross?'

`Something like that.'

`Is it true that you shot down twenty GMs at A Baoa Qu?'

`Stow the shit, Representative,' Kaji snarled. `Jesus, you sound just like one of those fucking bureaucrats. What do you want from me? Yes, I fought during the War—just about everybody my age did. And, yes, I did shoot down an ass-load of Feddies, but what the fuck does any of this have to do with the here and now? It can't be that you all appreciate what I did—what any of us did—because if you did, you'd be giving us a helluva lot more money than you are. If I'm such a great war hero, why am I barely getting enough to live day-to-day?'

Linna's expression darkened slightly. `Why are we all so strapped?' she mumbled under her breath. Aloud, `I'm very sorry about your circumstances, believe me I am. This is one of the other reasons I tracked you down. You see, in the wake of the Titans recent wave of crimes against humanity, some of us on the Diet have decided to pool our resources and raise a small force of Mobile Suits in order to give aid to the AEUG—excuse me, the Anti Earth Union Group. Would you be interested in…'

`Forget it,' he said, not even deigning to look at her. `I don't work for politicos.'

`But think of the good you could do! Between myself and the other members of the committee, we certainly have all the funds you might need. This could be our chance to finally exact some degree of restitution against the Feddies for that catastrophic war.'

Kaji stared down at her, his eyes glowing with barely restrained fury. `Look,' he snapped, `I fought the Feds at Solomon, A Baoa Qu, and during Stardust. They are not the type of people to be fucked with, Madame Congresswoman,' he loaded the title with all the sarcasm he could. Sneering, he added, `but I guess someone like you who only experienced the conflict through news clips while getting a salon pedicure—'

`No, lieutenant colonel, you look,' Linna cut him off mid-gibe. `You think you can place me? You think that just because I wear a suit that I don't know what kind of war that was? Well, you better wise the fuck up shit-sack. I fought on the frontlines just like you did. I piloted a mobile suit and fought under the command of Anavel Gato's Dark Phoenix tactical strikeforce in several sorties. Don't treat me like a cowardly bourgeois.'

Kaji blinked. This mousey little woman fought under the Nightmare of Solomon? It couldn't be possible, but yet…the way she stood before him almost trembling with suppressed anger…

`You're serious,' he said slowly.

`Deadly serious Lieutenant Colonel.'

`And how do you plan on raising this unauthorized regiment of yours? I doubt the Diet would easily be swayed into dicking around with the Feds again.'

`I've piqued your interest then, have I?' she said. Some of the tension began to ebb from her taut features as she began to explain, `I intend to resign my position as delegate and head up operations using personal funds and aid from friendly organisations within the republic. You'd be surprised how many people would love to see the Feds give themselves a black eye.'

`And how will you outfit you soldiers? MS are hard to come by these days, especially in our neck of the woods.'

`Through the activities of dummy corporations,' she said with a matter-of-fact shrug. `We set up several “defence agencies”'—she made motions with her fingers to emphasise the wordplay—`in some shoal zone near Side 2, say as peacekeepers or part of a colonial militia. Then, under the cover of this false front, we purchase several new model MS and armaments. If we have several independent operations doing this simultaneously, we could raise a force at least large enough to max out the carrying capacity of one or two old Musais.'

A silence flickered between them.

`You've planned this quite thoroughly,' Kaji mused at last.

`This is not some Society of Creative Anachronism weekend warriors game, Lieutenant Colonel,' Linna said, brown eyes still flickering with intensity, `we want to make this work. The people who died in the war, the ones that died in Stardust…we owe them this much.'

`Aren't you forgetting the “Seig Zeon,” Congresswoman?'

`And you mock me even yet,' she growled. `Fair enough then, Lieutenant Colonel. Please, walk away. I lack the authority to force you to join up. Although…'

`Although what?' he asked suspiciously.

`Having heard my intentions, I doubt it would be prudent to leave you in a state where word might reach the wrong ears.'

It took half a second for that to register. `Are you blackmailing me, you arrogant bi—'

`Call it what you will, Ryoji Kaji,' she said, the indifference in her voice causing gooseflesh to ripple up and down his arms though the museum was fairly warm. `I'll give you but one more chance to reconsider.'

Kaji was thunderstruck, but rallied with the swiftness of a trained MS jockey, `Very well then. I'll play your game; but it's going to cost you, Congresswoman, and cost you a lot. I want a twenty mil up front. Fed Yen too, none of the ass tissue in circulation here in the Republic. Another five mil for each mission, and eight for each two weeks of training I give.'

`Done.'

`And I want ranking officer status. You went to the trouble of tracking me down, you must've thought I was pretty damned good. You make me a full colonel, put the paper in my account and I'll see what I can do for your little private legion.'

`Very well,' Linna was grinning like a sated lioness, `Colonel. I'll contact you once I've raised the first wave of recruits. Until then…'

She started to walk off. `Yamazaki!' Kaji found himself calling after her, `what're you going to call this motley rabble of yours?'

`Call it?'

`Yeah, it's got to have a name right? The Rough Riders, The Glory-Seekers, something to make people remember it.'

Linna gave a curious smile that sent Kaji's thoughts spiralling back towards a certain world-weary Lt. Colonel he had tried to spark a romance with during the war.

Cirrus?

`The Hatamoto was the name I was kicking around. You should appreciate that, Nihon-jin?'

Part of him wanted to share in her revelry in irony but because he still felt something akin to a spectral brush, all he could do was nod.

`Good. Expect to be contacted again within the next few days, either by myself or one of my fellows. Good day, Colonel.' Kaji watched as Linna turned primly and walked off through the halls of the museum.

 

Ray LaVans coughed uncomfortably before knocking on the door to Sayoko's apartment. He knew this was a bad idea, his coming here, but Sayoko had said she needed help with something really important, and as awkward as he felt around her, chivalry mandated that he offer whatever assistance he could.

Of course, he was just a soldier. What kind of help could he offer to a trained psychiatrist?

…aside from that kind of help.

Ray swallowed hard, but a growing lump in his throat made it into a mildly strangled sound.

`Christ,' he thought, shaking his head. `I should've taken a cold shower before coming over here. It's probably nothing more than help installing a new coffee-grinder or something.'

“Coming!” his Japanese co-worker's voice floated out in a sing-song fashion. “That you, Ray?”

“Y-yeah,” he replied forcing his voice to be steady.

He heard the beeps of an electronic alarm system being deactivate and the clicks and scrapes of old-style deadbolt latches being flipped. At last the door swung open to reveal the scrumptious Sayoko Nanamori wearing aught but a flimsy silk kimono.

“Hiya, Ray,” she said with a coy smile. “Thanks a lot for coming down here today on such short notice and everything. Come in, come in. You kinda caught me while I was heading for the shower.”

I bet, the two words were barely able to coalesce into a single coherent thought amidst the swirl of images that played in his mind.

He hesitated at the threshold as she turned and walked back into her ultra-chic living room, fortifying his resolve. `No matter what,' he thought forcing his heart-rate to slow, `I am in love with Kiyone; first, last, and always!'

After taking off his shoes at the doorway, he followed her across the hardwood floors and into the room and sat on the white leather sofa at her request. Sayoko then sashayed into her bedroom to “put on something a little more appropriate”. Ray wondered exactly what that could mean (hoping with all his heart that it wouldn't be garters and a g-string) but was pleasantly surprised/relieved when she returned wearing sweats and a tee.

“Comfy?” she asked. At his nod she continued, “you'll have to excuse the place today, it's been a helluva week and I've not yet had a chance to pick up. I can fix you some tea if you'd like?”

“No thanks, Sa-chan. Um, listen,” he faltered slightly, “you said you needed my help with something?”

“Oh, that.” She pointed to the open door of the chequered-tile bathroom, “I've been having trouble with my sink, do you think that you might be able to take a look at it?”

“Your…sink?”

She nodded. `Yeah. I've been fiddling with the damned thing as much as I could spare, but I just can't seem to get the hot water flowing.'

`Sa-chan, why didn't you just ask your building supervisor? I'm no good with plumbing.'

`Oh please, Ray, just try it for me? You're a big guy; I'm sure all the pipes need is a little elbow grease.'

`Besides,' she added in a small voice, `my landlord and I haven't gotten on too well together since…well, never mind. You'll try won't you? It's an awful long commute back to the barracks at Murasame; I'd hate for you to've come all the way out here for nothing.'

LaVans sighed. `I'll see what I can do, but I'm not gonna promise anything.'

With that, he rolled up his sleeves and set about trying to finagle the pipes into a proper alignment. He had broken out in a light sheen of sweat when he returned to find his hostess sitting on her couch, novel in hand and a pair of steaming cups of green tea before her. `Any luck?' she asked.

He took a seat a measured distance away from her and took a pull at his cup before answering. `I think I managed to do something. Whether it'll give you hot water now or blow up on contact is another matter.'

Sayoko laughed a little more than the joke deserved, and, setting her book aside, took a sip from her own mug. `I'm glad,' she said at last, `I hate washing my hands with cold water, you know? It does nothing to get them any cleaner, and it dries my skin out, see?'

He made a cursory glance at her proffered hand, and smiled slightly in acknowledgement. `Anything else you need before I go?'

`You're leaving so soon?' she asked, `at least stay and finish the tea. I'll feel bad if you just throw it out.'

Obediently, Ray took another sip. `This is very good.'

She pointed to a box garden on the balcony outside of her bedroom. `I grow my own leaves. When I have the time, that is. The silly things were a gift from my mother, and whenever she comes to visit she always asks about them.'

He smiled and took another sip.

Several seconds of silence passed.

`Ray…'

`Yeah?'

Sayoko started to say something, but the words died in her throat. `Never mind.'

Not knowing what else to do, he gave a short laugh.

`Are you hungry?' Sayoko tried. `I'm not a great cook, but I've got instant Ramen in the cupboard. Would you care for some?'

`I wouldn't want to impose…'

`Oh no! It wouldn't be a problem at all. I've got plenty and it would only take a moment.'

`Thanks, Sa-chan, but I think I need to be getting back to the barracks. Like you said, it's a long trip and—'

`Dammit, Ray!' Sayoko suddenly snapped, startling the soldier, `I need you to see what I'm trying to show! Please, for the love of God, just look at me! You haven't met eyes with me since I let you in. Don't you know what this was about?'

He swallowed hard. Jesus, he thought, I knew it was going to come to this, but now what?

Her beautiful dark eyes were locked on him, demanding an answer, and he knew that he would not be able to feign naïve or bullshit his way out of this one. He had to tell her the truth: `Sayoko, I do understand, and believe me, I certainly am flattered. But I…I just can't get involved with you like that. I—'

`Why the hell not?' she interrupted. `Aren't I good enough for you? You're so kind to me at work all the time—who wouldn't think that you were interested?'

`I just thought that we were friends.'

`Friends? In case you haven't noticed, you are a man and I am a woman. Anything that you tried to start between us would only end up with us in the sheets together!'

`I don't think that it would be quite that simple.'

`Why not? Wouldn't you want to? What do I have to do to be good enough for you?'

`It's not a matter of you being good enough,' Ray said as he tried to put a hand on her shoulder. `You're as beautiful, talented, intelligent as any man could ever hope for. I love spending time with you, but it's just hang-out time. I see you as a great friend but only as a friend.'

Sayoko shook his hand away. `What the fuck does that mean? If I'm so good, and such a good friend, why can't we be more than that? What's wrong with taking it to the next level?'

`Sayoko…I'm married.'

It was almost possible for the outside observer to watch as Sayoko Nanamori's countenance cracked, for it all happened in slow motion. Her cheeks sagged, her eyes widened, and her nostrils flared almost to the point of caricature.

`You're what?'

`I'm sorry. I should have told you from the get-go. I just didn't think you'd take it this way.'

`How the bloody-fucking hell was I supposed to take it, Radium? Holy shit! Married!'

They sat in silence for the span of several moments.

LaVans broke the air with an uncertain voice. `But…I don't know. Kiyone…she was stationed on 30 Bunch—the colony where there was that horrible accident. I'm not sure. I keep telling myself, that she was with the Titans. If anyone would have access to a vaccine or something, she would be among the first. But, if that was the case, why hasn't she called? It's been a month and a half Sayoko!'

`And in the meantime you figured you would come and start playing games with me? What the fuck do you take me for, Ray? I'm some sort of replacement?'

`That's not the way it is at all Sayoko, and you know that,' he said straining to keep the anger from his voice, `I told you from the start that I wanted to be your friend. Nothing more, nothing less. You were the one who started taking things out of context.'

`Oh, that is rich. Now you're saying that this is all my fault.'

He shrugged.

Sayoko slowly sank to her sofa. `Ray,' she said at last, `I…I don't hate you.'

`I don't hate you either, Sa-chan. I…just don't know about us. If I knew for sure one way or another about Kiyone…I could give you a better answer. I'm sorry, but right now I don't. For now, though, as long as there is a possibility that she might be alive…I can't give up on her. Not just yet.'

`So what does that make us?' Sayoko asked softly.

`I have no fucking clue,' Ray said, sitting down beside her and putting an arm around her shoulders. `Not a clue at all.'