Zeta Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ Harbinger of Darkness ❯ Relationships ( Chapter 11 )

Disclaimer: Me? I couldn't possibly own something as awesome as Gundam!

 

 

 

`So you'll really come by the restaurant later, right?' Amanda Frost asked from her end of the videophone, `Tony, it is Valentine's Day…'

`Right,' Antony Kaiser answered quickly. `I know what day it is, Amanda.'

She gave him that knock-out smile of hers and a peace sign. `See ya then Top Gun!'

He gave the screen a mock salute and she laughed before signing off. That laughter echoed in his ears and he savoured the sound, smiling in spite of himself.

Jin Romanov, his squadmate, saw him swooning and chucked a football at him from the opposite side of the barracks.

`Ow!' Antony shouted as the ball bounced off his shoulder. `The fuck was that for?'

The half-Japanese pilot snickered. `Every time that broad calls you drop the tough, lone wolf act and start acting almost human. You were sighing like a fuckin' schoolgirl.'

`She your girlfriend, Tony?' Lisa Hayes, the third member of their unit asked.

Lisa was spending her down time over in the men's barracks, drinking (contraband) with he and Jin in between rounds of cards. The AEUG was nominally under the codes of the Federation army about fraternizing, but like so many other `rules' they were loosely enforced, when officers bothered with them at all. `Long as you all are always doing more fighting than fucking, I don't give a damn one way or the other,' their commander, Sgt. Will Valentine had said.

`Why does it matter to you?' Tony shot back. He and Amanda had certainly been seeing a lot of each other since the day he'd decided to go AWOL, but he still wasn't sure just how serious they were. He'd been itching to ask, but he'd never been able to get up the nerve.

`I just want to know if I need to scratch the bitch's eyes out or not,' Lisa said with a crooked smile. `Tony, I mean, you're just so hot, I'd die if another girl laid her hands on you!'

That was the contraband talking. Lisa was normally one of the most reserved and composed women he had ever met. Even though she would often come by and chill with he and Jin, Tony had never really thought of her as anything other than a squadmate, and he'd assumed the feeling had been mutual. He hoped the feeling was mutual…

`Lay off it, Lisa,' he returned.

`Dude, you're going to get her a gift when you go see her tonight, right?' Jin asked, grinning maliciously. `Ah, a rose for zee mademoiselle, eh? Or a magnolia if you'd rather, given that atrocious accent of hers.'

`Fuck you.'

`Aw, don't pick on him, Jin,' Lisa said, sticking her tongue out at him. Turning to Tony, she said, `But maybe ya'll do like them Southern Belles, ya reckon?'

`Fuck you both!'

They both started laughing and so didn't notice that Sergeant Valentine had just marched in until they saw Tony snap to attention.

`Well, well, well,' the sergeant growled, `the fuck do we have here?'

Tony gulped. Lisa prayed for invisibility. Jin stifled a laugh.

`I turned a blind eye to your fraternizing, Romanov, but I will not stand for the use of contraband!' Their CO thundered. `What if the Titans had chosen this very moment to stage an assault on this colony?'

`Sir, we'd be fucked, sir!' Jin said, sniggering.

`You're damn right we'd be fucked, peckerhead, and I have every intention of avoiding that kind of situation.' Valentine was steaming. `You stupid fucks always gotta be pushing the limits, eh? Well then, now you've got to pay the piper. To the simulators, double-time!'

`The fuck are you talking about, Valentine?' Tony asked. `Look at those two; they're totally smashed.'

`Exactly so. Now get your asses down to the sims before I revoke leave for the three of you for the next six months.'

The AEUG trainees complied, trudging the length of the installation to the massive seven-story warehouse that had been jury-rigged into a hangar/simulation deck with aged surplus MS and trainers salvaged from the Federation base two districts uptown. Tony, Jin, and Lisa lined up at a wavering attention as the sergeant stalked back and forth in front of them.

`All right, then,' he said at last, a malicious grin creeping up his face. `We'll run the A Baoa Qu sim, max difficulty. Should one of you be shot down, he or she will have leave revoked for the next two months, owe me two hundred push-ups, and be assigned to the sorriest piece of crap mobile suit in the whole unit until he or she proves worthy of rating one of the sweet new rides coming in from Anaheim in April. Sound fair enough?'

`Wait a minute, sir,' Jin cried. `You wouldn't stigmatise our unit like that, would you? I mean, A Baoa Qu is hard enough when I'm sober and you're gonna have me run it now?'

`Well, Romanov, I guess you're fucked.'

`But what about the rest of us?' Tony demanded, `You can't really be serious about that kind of punishment.'

`The fuck do you know about serious, Kaiser?' Valentine's eyes blazed as he walked over to the team's firebrand. `You don't like my methods? There's the exit right there,' he stabbed a finger towards the door.

`You may not like me, but you will respect me. I don't take kindly to having my regs walked on, especially not when I've already been so lenient with you. This is the way the military works. Now get in those sims, or get out of my unit!'

The trainees obeyed. Within seconds of closing the padded hatch on the spherical simulator, the cameras activated around the linear seat in a 360-degree projection of the space near the asteroid fortress. One-Year War pilots, and even many Stardust-age pilots had not been afforded such a luxury of a total field of view being restricted to conventional cockpits that had only three screens to show incoming bogeys or friendlies. Those antiques had had a screen directly in front of the pilot and one on his left or right side; nothing for seeing below, above, or behind except radar, which, in the Minovsky particle era, was little help at all. Tony felt that he would have been crushed by claustrophobia in such conditions.

`—don't stand a chance of doing this chickenshit.' Jin was saying as the inter-squad radio activated. Perhaps he was saying it to himself and unaware of the fact that the radios came online as soon as the hatches closed on these trainers.

`Easy, Romanov.' Lisa's voice. `He can't ask for us to do any better than stay alive.'

Tony's mind was racing. Fortunately he'd only had a few drinks and was just beginning to feel a buzz when Valentine had broken up their party. He felt bad for Jin and Lisa, though, who'd been on their fourth and fifth beers, respectively.

Shit! He thought as the screens in the cockpit flickered to life around him, how am I going to get to Amanda's today if that fucker cancels our leave?

Too late to worry about it now. In the space of half a moment as the data loaded, he was thrown into the spectacular light show of Operation Red Tide, the final assault on the asteroid fortress A Baoa Qu. The sim was an older one and still not fully integrated into the linear seat cockpit design. It would serve its purposes though.

Machine gun fire stitched past his left shoulder. Tony made the mistake of following the glare of the tracers rather than looking for their potential source. He caught himself a split-second slower than he normally would have (damn that Yebisu Extra Dry!), and fired his thrusters in a steep dive.

As he stooped, he looked upward to spot a Zaku fast approaching the spot where he had just been. Grinning in spite of himself, he fired his verniers to whip the suit around laterally and he aimed his own rifle at the passing suit.

The kick was strong in those old beam rifles, and the gun bucked wildly in the GM's arm, but his aim had been true. The bolt of crimson fire had chewed right through the titanium armour of the Zeon suit.

The irony was apparent as he looked around for his squadmates: the sim had them fighting as Federation soldiers against the Zeon, when the reality of their ideology would probably put them more in line with the Zeeks. Tony found that to be mildly amusing, but in the heat of combat, could not afford to dwell on such trivialities.

Lisa's suit—highlighted in neon green on the simulator screen—was under heavy fire from a trio of Zakus. Jin was trying to take some of the heat off her, but his shots were mistimed in spite of the aid of his locking system.

They're gonna blow the sim! Tony's mind screamed.

From two kilometres out, he lined up for a long shot, pulling out his high magnification scope. That was very dangerous in a situation like this, because he was effectively blinding himself to everything save what was directly in front of him. Still…

A surge of pressure suddenly forced him to take his eyes off the scope and bank hard. What the hell?

He looked to his right, the direction from which the pulse had emanated, and was stunned to find a Rick Dom bearing down on his position, flame sprouting from the maw of its bazooka as it fired a rocket at him.

Tony had banked, but he wondered how much good it would really do him, with that shell so damn close. He could feel the blood drain from his face as he watched the rocket streak ever closer…

…and then it exploded harmlessly about seventy-five metres from him.

He blinked stupidly.

`Don't just stand there, dumbass!' Valentine's voice grated in his ear. `I'll hold the bastard while you save the other two!'

`R-right,' Tony stammered. Hows and whys darted through his mind, but he paid them no heed. He had to help his friends.

Jin and Lisa were fighting hard, melee-style, when he arrived in the midst of them. Lisa swung wildly, but there was force enough for her to force her opponent's parry and graze his side with the heat of her sabre. She followed up with a blast from her vulcans that was a fraction of a second too slow, for the Dom she was fighting reverse-thrusted, and shot from the hip with a machine gun, causing sparks to flash across her suit's armoured torso.

She howled profanity as she bore the brunt of the lead torrent, but was saved by the quick actions of Jin, who was able to break from his own engagement and shove her out of harm's way. Unfortunately, as he did so, a bullet caught his right arm at the elbow. The round tore through the thin joint armour, causing the appendage to be raggedly broken free from the main body.

As he bit back cries of frustration, Tony—again heeding the building pressure in his mind—snapped off a few shots at the suit Jin had been fighting before he had so heroically dove to save Lisa. The suit was vaporised, and Tony then turned his attention to Lisa, who had been able to right herself and was taking shots at the Dom that had crippled Jin's GM.

This is madness!

`Are you okay, Jin?' Lisa asked during a brief lull in the fighting. The three of them had formed a tight circle, each watching a third of the area around with his or her weapon ready.

`I guess so,' he strained. `Jesus, those bastards pack a punch!'

`Tell me about it,' Tony nodded.

`I'd say we're fairing pretty well, all things considered,' Lisa said, snapping of a few shots at passing suits.

Then, almost as if called by the mention of good fortune, a huge swath of yellow energy cut through their position, causing the three GMs to scatter. Tony looked up to see that a Musai-class carrier was slowly approaching them from above, firing blasts from its mega particle cannons at ranges the Federation suits could not hope to match. To make matters worse, an entire squad of Gelgoog suits emerged from its hangars.

`How are you guys gonna get out of this one, I wonder?' Valentine's smug sarcasm was unmistakable.

Jin, obviously angered by the unfair manoeuvre and Will's smartass comments, broke formation and charged the four Zeeks. Lisa called after him, but it was too late: the Zeon suits, in perfect synchronisation, scattered just as another blast from the m-p sponsons ripped through the void directly at him. Had he been sober, he still wouldn't have been able to react quickly enough to dodge a shot from that range. As it was, his suit was torn in half, and exploded violently into a perfectly spherical fireball.

`Jin!' Tony shouted.

His wingman's shouts of frustration could still be heard in the moments before his radio was shut off, but Tony forced himself not to worry too much about them. He, Lisa, and the Sergeant were all still `alive'; the mission would be better served if he focused on them.

Of course, even that could prove to be difficult—especially when all four of the suits had surrounded him. Outgunned and outclassed in terms of mech performance capabilities, he knew this was it for him too. There went his holiday leave, and any chances of spending a romantic evening with Amanda! Fuck! This shit wasn't fair!

`It's not fair!' he shouted aloud, firing twice in quick succession and blowing two of the Gelgoogs apart with perfectly true shots through their reactors. He whirled again, only to find himself staring down the muzzle of an enemy beam gun.

How long did he stand there like that? An hour? An eternity? No, it couldn't have been more than a second. Yet somehow, a sheen of sweat had materialised on his brow in that short time. Tony started to raise his weapon, though he knew it would be too late.

And then the gaping maw of the cannon disappeared, replaced by a white and red blur as Lisa's suit ploughed into the Gelgoog's side. His body moving on pure instinct, Tony fired directly into the face of the fourth Zeek, which had been rushing up behind the one that Lisa had so unceremoniously tackled. It disintegrated, and he looked over to see that Lisa had lodged a grenade into the cracks in the armour of the last survivor.

`Hell yeah, Tony!' she whooped as it exploded behind her.

Then another m-p blast vaporized her suit.

`Dammit!' Tony turned on the Musai, and charged it, rifle blazing.

Mega-particle beams tore through the void, impossibly close, but he managed to dodge each of them as he got ever closer to the ship's superstructure. Then he actually managed to land on it.

With a wordless cry, he pulled the trigger of his rifle.

An empty click greeted his ears.

The rifle was out of energy.

There was no time to make a rational decision about what to do (not that Tony was ever in much of a position to be making rational choices). He raised the gun and made ready to smash the bridge with it, but another surge of pressure made him look to his left. About a kilometre away in that direction, he could barely make out the form of another carrier. In fact the only way he could make it out was by the flash of saffron energy that emanated from it.

`Aw hell,' he muttered, just as the blast smashed into him and blew his suit away.

Darkness flooded his trainer's cockpit.

`Damn, kid!' one of the technical officers said as he opened the hatch to let Tony out. `Who do you think you are, the Nightmare of Solomon?'

`Very funny,' Tony said darkly, climbing out. `Tell my sergeant about that and maybe I won't lose my leave.'

`You want me to? Hell, if he couldn't see it for himself, he wasn't looking.'

`You're serious?' Tony said, the earnestness of the comment was enough to take him off guard.

The tech nodded vigorously. `The way you friggin' dodged those m-p blasts was unreal! In all the times we've run this sim—hell, any of the sims—I've never seen anybody move like that.'

Tony tsked and walked off to meet up with his comrades and the sergeant. They were already being read the riot act as he approached.

`Now do you see why we have rules?' Valentine was shouting. `If this had been the real thing, all of you would have been dead because I swear to fucking God, the Titans have pilots a hell of a lot better than those Zeeks in the sim.'

`And would you have just sat on your ass and watched as they picked us apart the way you did in the sim?' Jin murmured not quite below the sergeant's level of hearing.

`Care to say that again, Romanov?' Valentine challenged, `maybe a little louder this time?'

`Sir, no sir,' Jin said and shut up.

`Good. All of you get your sorry asses back to the barracks—separate barracks, Hayes—and remain there until reveille tomorrow morning.'

The trio saluted and trudged sullenly back through the training hangar towards the place where the folly had begun. Each of them was cussing up a blue streak in his or her mind, but between battle fatigue, and the effects of forced sobriety, all were too exhausted to say anything out loud.

`Kaiser!'

Tony looked up at the sound of his name, only to see sergeant Valentine waving him back. His superior had been talking to a pair of techs who were gesticulating animatedly, and pointing at Tony from time to time. They looked kind of down when Valentine gave them a dismissive wave, but left to return to their duties just as Tony arrived.

Jesus! Tony groaned. These idiots are going to get me in even more trouble with Valentine. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I ever get off this base again!

`Sorry to have to call you back like that, Kaiser,' his sergeant said earnestly. `The guys monitoring you all's exercise are all excited about your performance, and to be perfectly frank, I am too.'

`Sir,' Tony said, hesitantly.

`Relax, Kaiser, I mean it. Why do you think I came in to lend you a hand that one time, eh? I wanted to see how far you could go with it.'

`Thank you, sir,' the praise was foreign to him, almost as foreign as that peculiar sensation of pressure he had felt several times in the cockpit during the exercise.

Valentine nodded. `All that with a slight case of intoxication,' he said more to himself than to Tony. `That is something.'

`Sir?'

`Nothing,' he waved the musings away with the same irritation he had shown the two techs not more than a few moments before. `Tell me, Kaiser, have you heard about the Newtype hypothesis that was such a hot topic during the war?'

Tony scowled, not liking the direction the conversation was heading. `No disrespect, sir, but all of that was a load of horse-shit put out by the Zabi propaganda machine. Newtypes as such don't exist.'

`And you're sure of that?'

`Yes sir. Emphatically so, sir.'

`And yet, on more than one occasion, you demonstrated almost precognitive reflex and response during the sim.'

`I got lucky, sir,' Tony bit off the words one by one. `It happens.'

Valentine sure was pushing some odd crap towards him today and he really didn't like it. That whole Newtype mess just made him feel so very uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe it was the thought that he might be `superior' to regular people that made him insecure; maybe it was just the fact that by being one of those `evolved humans' would make him a freak in society's—or worse, Amanda's—eyes. Whatever it was, he didn't want it. He was perfectly fine just being Tony Kaiser, average-joe-turned-average freedom-fighter.

`You shouldn't deny what you are,' Will Valentine intruded upon his thoughts. `It's a great honour to be something like that.'

`Yeah,' Tony said sarcastically, `something like that. I'm not a Newtype, sarge. Please don't say anything like that to anyone, especially not Jin or Lisa.'

`As you wish,' Valentine said with a shrug. `I am going to show the combat data to my superiors, though. I'll let them know that you don't want a transfer or anything like that, but after that, it's up to them.'

`Sir.'

`Say, today is the fourteenth, isn't it?' Valentine said, looking at his watch. `Tony, why don't you go into town for a few hours? Hell, I'll even let Hayes and Romanov go too.'

Tony arched a brow.

`Just for tonight, though,' steel running under the sergeant's jovial tone. `You guys did fight well under the circumstances.'

And I made your command look good, Tony thought, darkly. Having discovered a potential Newtype will do that for someone like you, who's just one step above a grunt himself.

Nevertheless, he forced a smile and said thank you. He'd let Jin and Lisa know about their leave, and then, be off at last to meet up with Amanda.

Perhaps today was not quite so bad as he thought it would be.

 

“Make me a Newtype.”

“I beg your pardon?” Henry Sterling blinked, unsure if he'd heard correctly.

“I've been doing some research,” Michelle Bannock said, removing her glasses and crossing her legs, “The Flanagan Institute was doing some experiments into turning regular humans into artificial Newtypes. Henry, I want you to do that for me.”

He furrowed his brows. “I've heard rumours about the procedure as well, but why would you volunteer for such a risky operation?”

“I…” she paused. “I want to be able to fight too. I'm tired of feeling useless. Your sister fights, why shouldn't I be able to help you with your cause?”

Henry steepled his fingers, obscuring the smile that was beginning to form on his lips. “You wish to leave your cage at last, eh? You know that even if you were to become a Newtype, you wouldn't have the same degree of powers I do. I'm rare even among the advanced humans, for I am a true ESPer.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“And you know about the possible…instability…inherent after the operation?”

She bit her lower lip. That was the disturbing aspect of the artificial Newtype procedure that left her feeling thoroughly unsettled. The operation was rare, for only the doctors of the Flanagan Institute had been trained in how to undertake it. Most of those doctors now worked for the Federation's Labs in Osaka, Oakland, Augusta, Pyongyang, and Kilimanjaro and the few that refused to cooperate were hunted down and summarily shot for treason by the Titans. In the entire Earth sphere there were only two who had managed to escape the Federation's clutches and both now worked at Axis. Yet even these doctors had been unable to circumvent the mental damage usually incurred in the operation. Most experiments had been largely successful at turning regular humans into Newtypes with minimal side-effects, but one out of five still came out with advanced cases of delusion, pathological paranoia, extreme bipolarism, chronic depression, sporadic narcolepsy, and a litany of other permanent psychological problems.

“I am aware of that,” she repeated, almost half a beat too slowly.

“And you still wish to undertake the operation?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding emphatically.

“Nightingale, I wonder,” he paused as he stood and walked around in front of his desk. “You say you are tired of feeling useless. What would you have me use you for if you were made into a Newtype?”

Michelle shrugged. “Whatever you wished of me, Henry,” she said.

“You'd do whatever I wished of you?” he echoed thoughtfully. “If I wished you to kill for me, would you do that?”

“You know I would.”

“If I wished you to destroy members of the reactionary masses, would you do that?”

“Kill civilians?” she asked, her demeanour slightly ruffled.

“If they are not with us, Nightingale…” he let the words of the adage hang unsaid.

“I would.”

Henry knelt before her seat and leaned close, his silvery eyes boring intently into her own bistre orbs. “Would you forsake your fruitless pining for that thrice-damned Federation soldier? Would you leave all thoughts of him behind and give yourself only to me?”

“No.”

Boundless fury flashed across Henry's face. “How dare you,” he said icily, rising and turning his back to her.

“I will not give up on Alec, Henry. I told you as much.”

“Alec,” he made the word a curse, whirling on her. “Why, Michelle?” he shouted, “Haven't I given you everything? Haven't I bent over backwards for you? Why do you yet tout that cur's name before me?”

“I love him, Henry.”

“Love?” he asked, his voice fluctuating wildly. “You love this man? After what he did to you? Wake the hell up Michelle! He couldn't care less about you! You tried to have him killed, in case you forgot, and what's worse, you almost murdered his fucking wife! Even if you did manage to get back to him, he would curse your name and throw you into the street. Again!”

Each word stabbed like a rusted nail into her heart. She knew—in that detached rational part of her mind—that he was right, but what made it worse was that that wretch Rachel Sawyer had told her basically the same thing. Alec would never love her. Not after what she had done. But her heart went out to him just the same, in spite of everything. He was the first man she had ever loved, and no one, not Trowa, not Henry, not anyone, would ever take his place.

“How can you say such things to me?” she asked demurely. “I thought you cared.”

“I'm saying these things because I do care! I love you, dammit! With all that I am and all that I ever will be. That's a hell of a lot more than that fuck will ever be able to say to you.”

Curiously, his eyes had begun to mist. “Look at all I've done for you, Michelle,” he said, no longer enraged, but honestly hurt, “I…I…”

The muscles in Michelle's left forearm twitched spastically once, drawing her attention by the stab of pain. Within the time it took for her to sharply draw in her breath to cry out, the muscles snapped down with unnatural strength, causing both her radius and ulna to shatter audibly. She screamed in agony and fell from her seat, writhing on the floor while clutching her ruined arm.

“Oh Jesus!” she shrieked like a damned soul, “my bloody-fucking arm!”

Henry stood transfixed in wide-eyed silence for a full second, watching her display. He blinked, and the spell was broken. “Oh shit!” he cried. “What have I done?”

Michelle sobbed on, wordlessly. Visibly, there was nothing wrong with her arm, aside from the growing patches of discolorations. Henry wondered when he had lashed out with his psychic abilities and harmed her so, but he had no conscious recollection of it. It was almost as if his mind had acted of its own accord; a manifestation of the anger he felt.

Sinners at the hands of an angry god.

Henry shuddered.

 

“What would your wife say if she knew you were stopping by my office so often?” Sayoko Nanamori said with a forced smile.

“Come on, Sa-chan, you know it's nothing like that,” Ray LaVans replied, flustered. “It's just good to have a friendly face around, you know?”

“Is that all you think of me?” she feigned hurt, “I'm just a friendly face?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Oh…”

He gave her a wry smile. “I got tickets to the soccer game coming up. You wanna come with me?”

“I don't know, Ray; you treat me so coldly all the time these days and now you want me to go out with you?”

“It's not going out,” he said quickly. “It's just…you know: going.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“Come on, it'll be fun!”

“Just as a friend?”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Sayoko, just as a friend.”

“I don't know what to do with you, Ray,” she sniffed, turning up her nose. “I'll think about it.”

He smirked. “It's not like you have anything better to do. You want to spend all Saturday evening playing shrink with Shinji?”

He had a point there. It was her one off weekend this month, and while things were starting to pile up at the hospital without Michelle there to lighten the load (`Where the hell was that girl?') and she could use this time to try and catch up with the steadily growing mountain of paperwork on her desk, it wasn't something she looked forward to. She was even less anxious to do any more sessions with that restive kid. It was most disconcerting because she frequently had trouble telling who was analysing whom.

That and she was a total soccer nut. She wondered which of the staff had told Ray as much; letting him dangle those tickets in front of her was such torture!

But then again, what was the point in just going out with him if there was no prospect of doing anything afterwards? Hell, doing anything there. It would be just like going with one of her girlfriends. If she was going out with a guy, she wanted to get the full experience, but none of her charms were working on this stubbornly loyal husband.

“Who's playing?” she asked dubiously.

LaVans produced the tickets from his back pocket. “Ah, the Osaka Dragons and the Buenos Aires Rapiers.”

Fuck! The Rapiers! My favourite team!

“Well?” he asked.

“Dammit, I guess I—”

Their conversation was interrupted the beeping of his phone. “Excuse me,” he said as he answered. “This is LaVans. Kiyone? Holy shit!”

 

“It's good to hear from you too, Ray,” she said, letting loose a long sigh of relief. “God it's good to hear your voice.”

 

“Hell yeah! What happened? I thought you were on 30—”

 

“I was…sort of. Listen, hon, this line isn't exactly secure and I'm not supposed to be in contact with you, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay.”

Kou was standing guard as she ducked low in the public phone bay. “Hurry it up, Kiyo-chan!” he hissed.

“Right,” she nodded, “sorry.”

Returning to her conversation, “I can't tell you where I am, or why all the secrecy, but I had to call you and at least let you know that I'm alive.”

 

“That's great, sweetie,”—Sayoko winced—“I'm so glad. When can I see you again?”

 

Kiyone paused to gather herself. “I don't know exactly.”

 

“What?”

 

“Please, Ray, just wait for me! I'll be back with you as soon as I can.”

“Kiyone!” Kou elbowed her, “Wrap it up!”

“I love you, Radium,” she choked. Touching two fingers to her lips, she blew him a kiss.

 

“Kiyone!” LaVans shouted. “Wait, don't hang up!”

Silence and a blank screen greeted his pleas.

“Fuck!” he swore, slamming a fist into the wall behind him. “Damn it!”

Sayoko had been sitting quietly, watching his display with a steadily sinking heart. “Your wife?” was all she could manage.

He nodded sullenly.

Silence passed between them.

“Sayoko, here,” LaVans said at last, sliding the tickets across her desk, “take both of them. I suddenly don't think I'll be up to going after all.”

Numbly, she grabbed the two pieces of paper with a mumble of thanks. Aloud, she said, “I hope everything works out.” It was a bald faced lie, but it was what the situation called for.

“Thanks,” he said, shouldering his weapon.

“If you need someone to talk to…” she let the rest hang provocatively.

“I'll think about it,” he said with a nod. Without another word, he resumed his rounds, leaving her alone.

“Looks like I'll have a date with that paperwork after all…”

 

`Duo,' Natalia D'ark said into the phone, `I'm sorry…I'm leaving the art school.'

Silence hung on the other end of the line.

`I'm really sorry…I…I just can't stay here anymore.'

`You wanna tell me why?' his voice was toneless. Talia couldn't tell if he was disappointed or infuriated, but she was sure it was one or the other. Maybe both.

`One of my friends here was talking about going to America to do some work with one of the grassroots organisations growing over there. Karaba. You've heard of it?'

`Talia…'

`It's not like I'll be leaching off you guys or anything,' she said quickly. `They pay volunteers.'

`That's not the point, Talia. Hilde and I have put a lot of money towards your education, you know. An ass load of money. Your decision to just turn your back on all of that…it's kind of a slap in the face, you know?'

`I know,' she said glumly.

`We did this because we thought it was what you wanted. I'd never even heard of art schools before you started talking about one.'

`But—'

`You need some sort of secondary education, kiddo. Why would you throw away your talent to get some half-assed job working overseas for minimum wage? How will you get by?'

`It's not just a volunteer group, Duo. They have…bases in Florida and California. They feed and house their workers too.'

Silence for a moment. `Bases? That sounds almost like a mil—'

`It is,' Talia cut him off for fear that the line might not be secure. The name Karaba was still relatively unknown, but mentioning that it was a militant anti-Titans organisation might attract just the wrong sort of notice.

Duo was quick on the uptake. `But you hate that sort of thing. Why do you want to get involved now?'

`I can't say now, but I'll be coming back through Berlin tonight to pick up the last of my stuff. We can talk more then?'

`Dammit, Talia, I might not be your real dad, but you sure as hell ought to treat me as such. Come home if you'd like, but it's going to kill Hilde. You know how she gets.'

`I'm really sorry, Duo.'

`You keep saying that Natalia, but I wonder how sorry you really are.' With that the phone on the other end went silent.

Talia felt tears creeping into the corners of her eyes. They'd muss here eye-liner, but she didn't really care; how could she have done that? Those two had bent backwards for her to be here and she really was throwing it back in their faces. And for what? To follow some stupid dream? To follow some stupid boy? What would Gene think if he could see her like this?

But then again, her elder brother had always told her to follow her heart. He'd followed his during the war, and even though it had cost him his life, it had made him a hero among those who knew him. Hilde still got misty whenever she spoke of him, and Talia often mused that if things had been just a little bit different, she might have grown up viewing the other woman as a sister rather than a mother.

She wanted to talk to someone, but none of the people she could think of would be of any real help. Käthe would tell her to go with her instincts. Heinrich would kiss her and tell her to follow her gut. She'd already tried Duo, and what he'd said hat amounted to the same damned thing (only the added corollary that it would break her surrogate mother's heart if she went ahead with it). Everyone kept telling her to follow her heart, but she had no fucking idea what her heart wanted!

Talia felt as though she were lost at sea. Adrift in an ocean of emotions with no bearing at all, save the sporadic pulsings of a restless heart.

She packed her things and boarded the bullet train that afternoon.

Two hours later saw her standing in the stark white light of the halogen streetlamps at the front gate of her family's Berlin townhouse. It was the only `home' she could ever remember in the true sense of the word; ever since she could remember she'd lived in one hospital or another as doctors worked tirelessly to treat her illness, but they had never felt like a place that she really belonged. The Maxwells had been so kind to her in the years that had followed that horrible war, putting her up and treating her as one of their own. Now, like a capricious and prodigal daughter, she returned to them, to their house, to beg for forgiveness and the right to leave them, maybe forever.

A small part of her—the stubborn, restless part—told her that what she was doing was the absolutely right choice. Here she was being offered a chance to avenge the death of her brother, and to be with the man she loved. She should be ecstatic!

But the love she felt for her substitute family…the debt she owed them…

Talia walked to the door.

It was already ten, but because it was Saturday, she knew that both Hilde and Duo would be awake, to say nothing of the twins. And as if thinking of the two energetic kids was enough to summon them, Annika and Gene met her at the door almost ready to tackle her to the ground.

`Talia!' they cried happily.

`Good to see you guys too,' she said with a laugh, prying them loose from her legs. `Where are Mom and Dad?'

`Upstairs,' her brother's namesake said. `They're fighting again.'

Not a good sign…

`More like Mommy's fighting and Papa's sitting there and taking it,' Annika snickered. `He's so carpetbagged!'

`How come you came home, Talia?' Gene asked when they were all seated in front of the TV in the living room.

`It's…complicated.'

`Papa mentioned something about the military when he was talking to you on the phone earlier, are you going to join up with the Federation army?' he pressed.

`Or the Titans?' his sister inquired.

`No, and God, no.' Talia said. `Haven't you all been watching the news? Haven't they told you about the Titans in school?'

Annika shrugged, `Not much. Some kid in my class asked about the Titans a week ago, on account of his Papa had called them a bunch of no good killers, but the teacher told him to be quiet and sit down. He hasn't been at school since. Maybe she scared him away.'

`Besides,' Gene chimed in, `the news is booooring. Mommy watches from time to time when Papa works late, but Anni `n me, we're usually asleep by then.'

`I see,' Talia said meditatively.

`Kids!' Hilde's voice floated down from upstairs, `who was that at the door?'

`Talia!' the chorused.

After what seemed to be a brief pause but was probably some back and forth between their parents, Duo said, `send her up here please!'

`Are you in trouble, Talia?' Gene asked, hesitantly, as his `big sister' rose and started towards the staircase.

`Maybe,' she replied with a half-hearted smile.

As soon as she walked into Duo and Hilde's bedroom, Hilde burst into tears. Talia had been expecting it, but even still, it rocked her badly. Hilde was her role-model of feminine strength and dignity; to see her reduced to this…and because of her?

`Well,' Duo said, glancing at her but averting his eyes when they met hers, `Say what you came here to say, kiddo.'

Talia looked at her `mother' for the past six years, and felt tears start to well up in her own eyes. `I,' she started, but had to pause to gather herself, `I want to go to America to join the Karaba armed resistance group.'

`Why?' Duo asked.

`I want to avenge my brother's death,' Talia replied, sounding more confidant than she felt. `He died because of an unjust war by the Federation against the colonies. He died believing the lies and propaganda of a corrupt government that spit on the graves of martyrs like him and became that which it thought to fight against.'

`Is that the only reason?' Duo asked.

`N-no,' Talia stammered. He sudden confidence had evaporated when she looked into Duo's deep brown eyes. Eyes that reminded her so much of Heinrich's…

`M-my friend…'

`A boy,' Hilde said, finally toughening enough to look at the young woman whom she had viewed as a daughter.

`Yes.'

`You stupid girl!' Hilde knocked over the straight-backed wooden chair upon which she had been sitting. `You would cast us aside for some johnny-rebel who talks of vengeance and looks handsome in a uniform? We're your family, Talia, and we just want what's best for you!'

`But—'

`I won't let you make the same mistake your brother did; throwing away your life for something as trivial as a flashpan romance. He'd never forgive me if I did, and I'd never forgive myself!'

`Hilde, I—'

But the older woman had collapsed back into tears, sobbing so that she could not even answer. Duo walked over to her and put a hand on her shuddering shoulders.

`Now you see, kid. Now that you know what it'll do to all of us, I want you to make the best choice you can. We'll love you regardless—I mean, that's a given—but we know that you're a grown woman now. You have to make decisions as you see fit. Of course, if you go this route, it'll be hard for us to stay in touch; the Titans, you know. But if this is really the way you want to go with your life…'

`It is,' she said around her own sobs.

`Then go for it. And God be with you. But before you leave for America, do you think that you might be able to spend just a little bit of time with us? As a family? Not like you'll have classes or anything to worry about, right?' he forced a smile.

`Yeah,' Talia nodded.

Duo smiled. `Then head back down with the twins. They've missed you something awful. I'll be down once I've calmed your Ma down a little.'

 

Shiro Amada picked his way through the crowded market stopping every few moments both to check the list his wife had given him, and to make sure his wallet was still in his pocket. He hated coming into town. Too damn many people.

Still, the shopping needed doing, and it was his turn (Aina meanwhile tended to their small vegetable plot and made sure Mitsune didn't wander off in her games). Shiro would have liked nothing better than to stay home and relax today, but Aina had insisted that he be up at the ass-crack of dawn to hop a ride on the caravan to Hanoi with the other farmers. She had suggested that he bring their daughter with him, but he had flatly rejected. It was hard enough just watching out for himself in the marketplace, but to look after her too? Especially when he was crippled and there were so many rumours of children disappearing without a trance? No. Mitsune would be just fine at home today.

He couldn't believe how big she was getting. Six years old in March. Jesus, time flies. She would have to start school pretty soon if she didn't want to get left too far behind. The education system way out here in rural Vietnam was sketchy at best, with maybe one school every ten miles or so, and in there were kids from all different age groups struggling to learn what they could from the two or three incredibly overworked teachers. What made it worse was that the children often ended up missing many days during the spring and fall months to help their parents with the harvests and other farm activities. It was bad, but the top officials in the Federation Government were taking major strides towards education reform in backwater areas like these. Say what you would about their foreign policy debacles and that whole mess with the Titans, but the Government knew its shit when it came to matters of medical aid and education.

`Let's see,' Shiro brought his attention back to the matter at hand, `she needs beef, rice, pork, and chicken.'

He haggled with a viciously stingy old woman for the chickens. He had become much more proficient at bartering since he'd quit the military out of necessity more than anything else. This was a whole different world than the one he remembered from his days back in Side Two. Hell, he felt like he had fallen through a timewarp and landed back in the twentieth century, no, the eighteenth!

After finally completing his chores, he was just about to catch the next outbound caravan, when he heard someone calling his name. Surprised, he looked up and saw the local apothecary, sitting, with her legs crossed under the awning she had rigged above the mat where she sold her wares. Shiro stupidly pointed at his chest as if to be sure she meant him.

`Yes, you, Shiro!' The apothecary shouted and waved him over. She was a middle aged woman, the apprentice of the old medicine woman who had passed away three years ago. The odd thing was that she was not Vietnamese, but rather a descendent of the French immigrants who had first landed in the region in the latter half of the twentieth century.

`What do you want Cecile?' Shiro asked impatiently as he stalked up to Cecile Capet's booth. The woman, while not unattractive for her age with auburn hair streaked with only several strands of silver and a face that (thanks to her own powers of natural medicine `voodoo') had only just started to show signs of her forty-three years, was disliked and distrusted by many of the people in the village, and a lot of superstition had grown up about her.

`Little more than a second of your time, sir,' she said, bowing gracefully. `Please, come and sit with me for a moment. Your wife and daughter, they are well?'

`As well as can be expected,' he said brusquely. He would know how well they were doing soon enough if this maiden of the mortar and pestal would leave him to the make haste to the caravan.

Cecile Capet smiled mysteriously. `I am happy to hear this. By chance, Shiro, are you familiar with a young Japanese woman who was in this area this winter past?'

`I might be. I could say with certainty if I knew the name of the woman you were talking about.' Shiro shifted uncomfortably and glanced over his shoulder at the stack of caged chickens and other wares he had purchased, as much to avoid the Frenchwoman's eyes as to be sure that no thieves had made off with them.

`I believe that you know of whom I speak.'

`Haruka Mishima…' he said in a low voice.

Cecile gave a slight nod. `Indeed. She seemed quite fond of you, Shiro. It's not every day that one of the top spies in the AEUG takes it upon herself to track down one worn out old soldier like yourself.'

`I gave that life up a long time ago.'

`Ah, but have you really? It seems such a shame that one with talents as great as yours should be content to while away the rest of his life in a backwoods farming community like this. You know I speak the truth. You've felt it. A want; a need; an itch that no matter how you try, you cannot seem to scratch. Oh yes, Shiro, you know.'

`Enough of your lies, old woman.' He was getting angry now, and his ire was enough to quell the fear that had threatened to give him the shakes when he first stepped into the Frenchwoman's tent. `I have a family now. The responsibility I owe them negates any and all urges that I might have to fight again.'

`So you admit it! You do want to act.'

`Who wouldn't?' he retorted with forced indifference. `You know as well as I do that that was no plague that killed the people in that colony. Whenever I've had the chance I've been looking into this Titans outfit; they're nothing but a pack of murderous vigilantes. Wolves in human form. They have no value for life, place no stock in humanity—especially not colonists like me.'

`Then why do you stay here?' Cecile's voice had grown accusatory, but she held it to a tight whisper, lest untoward ears be listening. `You know the situation, but you cower in the safety of the jungle like a weak dog. Captain Mishima might have played a game of euphemisms with you, Shiro, but I have not the patience for such stupidity. I will call a spade a spade.'

`What I do is none of your concern,' with that Shiro turned to leave.

`Is it not?' Cecile Capet's spellbinding voice followed him and for a brief instant, he felt as though he really had fallen under her sway. He wanted to move, but his legs—just for an instant—felt paralysed.

`I am of colonist bloodlines too, Shiro. As such, you, myself, and all others who have lived in mankind's second chance at Eden, are all bound together. What affects one, affects all. Remember that.'

When the trance-like paralysis had ended, Shiro Amada, stumbled forward. Regaining his composure and staggering to his feet, he locked eyes with Cecile, his terrified browns meeting her piercing hazel-golds. `F-fuck off, you old crone.' He said once his powers of speech had returned.

He walked out of the apothecary's stall feeling a wave of gooseflesh run up and down his arms even though the balmy sunlight and gently swaying palm trees spoke to the eighty-degree late-February heat.

Witch. The first word that came to his mind when he boarded a largely empty wagon of outbound caravan with his goods balanced at his side. But he knew that to be stupid. This was the Universal Century for Chrissakes, there were no witches. Science had proved that. Yet…in spite of everything he believed to be true about science and the advances of this new era, something in the back of his mind spoke of something not-quite-normal that surrounded the mysterious Cecile.

…Newtype?

That made more sense, but was no less troubling. As a matter of fact, it made a damned lot of sense; the Titans feared and suppressed Newtypes as being dangerous to `normal' people. If that was the case, then Cecile's role as an AEUG operative made logical sense.

But why here? Why now? What in God's name does she think I could do in all of this?

As the questions flitted about in his mind, he was unaware of a shadowy figure standing just at the edge of the marketplace watching the departing caravan with intense interest.

`Shiro Amada…'