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"Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars "Part 1Written By: ELLE Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Gundam
Wing (unfortunately) and they were used without permission, but all
the words are my own. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: occurs post-EW, language, angst, sex,
hopefully acceptable OOC, 1st person POV (*shudder* sorry, no way
around it!), plus a ton of minor and a few major OCs (since it's 1st
person, you get to avoid dealing with them too much.) Pairings: 1x2x1 plus others TBD Summary: Jack Kaufmann has no recollection of the braided man who claims they were once more than friends, but his quest to recover his memories leads him to discover a plot much larger than himself that is a threat to the peace he'd once fought to protect... Author's Notes: This is gonna be a doozy of a fic, guys. I'm thinking 100k+. I'll likely update Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then take a brief hiatus between sections of the trilogy just to get all my G-boys in a row, so to speak. ;-P This fic starts off a little slow, in my typical psychological style, but will pick up into an action fic by the end so stick with it, please! =) The lovely Miss-Murdered beta'd this for me and frankly this story wouldn't exist without her encouragement. Oh and some of the topics I'm discussing here are waaaay out of my league so go easy on me, okay? My husband is a computer programmer and I've taken a few classes but my knowledge ends there. I hopefully know enough that I didn't make any glaring errors but no promises.
"Memoirs of a Former Life" 1.5 The Proposition I'm not really sure how much time I spent researching AI design in my life. Logically, I knew I had been diligently researching since 12. But now I knew that despite what I thought I knew about my life, that wasn't the case. It's strange - I didn't know why I did this to myself, and frankly, I didn't really know why I just accepted that I had. But what other choice did I have? What other explanation was there? Which left me asking, if I hadn't spent almost fifteen years on this, how long did I spend? I should've asked Duo how long I'd been researching AI before I left. The idea that it might not have been that long at all made me feel vastly unsure of myself. I suppose if I was able to get myself into this predicament to begin with, I knew enough about the subject to get myself out. ... right? I growled and slammed open my office door. I didn't doubt myself. I didn't spend time worrying about my abilities. These ridiculous thoughts did nothing but distract me from my purpose. It was difficult enough to think about having to wipe my own memory to restore a person I wasn't even sure I liked. I didn't need any second thoughts. But thinking about Duo - the way he felt in my hands, the way he tasted on my lips, the way those eyes bore into my soul, begging me to be real, begging me to be Heero - steeled my resolve. Why? There again, I didn't know. Why was I willing to completely destroy myself for that man? I sat down at my desk and realized my fingers were trembling on the keyboard... and I knew. I knew I would do it for him because in my whole sorry time on this planet, no one left me feeling this way. No one got under my skin like this. I never spent as much time thinking about anyone else in the past twenty-four years the way I thought about him in the past twenty-four hours. And that was only some reaction in my subconscious spurring me into this obsessive desire. If my feelings were this strong, even buried under heaping layers of Jack, even in the face of my own destruction I couldn't deny it simply wasn't fair to keep Heero from him. By contrast, I had done nothing noteworthy, had no experience worth even a tenth of the buffered feelings I was experiencing for Duo. I sighed and tried to push those thoughts to the back of my mind. I had a lot to think about without such diversions. To be honest, I didn't even know where to start. I didn't work with memory specifically. I'm not even sure how Heero figured out a way to put me - us - in this position. From the outside, the whole situation appeared rather hopeless, I'll admit. But I tried to remain positive, tried to have faith in myself. Unfortunately, I rather quickly realized I was going to have to attempt to weasel some kind of information out of Duo. While the prospect of talking to him again sent a thrilling shiver down my spine, I knew it wasn't going to be easy or even wise. But who else would know what Heero was working on before he left? At least Duo could give me a shove in the right direction... And there I was - thinking about him again. This was going to be more difficult than I anticipated. Just as I was clearing out my inbox from the previous night - managing to will Duo from my mind for fifteen minutes - my phone rang and I pulled up the screen, immediately recognizing Duo's cell number. I froze for a moment, feeling like my heart was going to jump up my throat, before hastily accepting the call. His handsome face popped up, looking rueful and embarrassed. "Hey Jack," he greeted, his face flushed, his eyes apologetic. It was easy for me to hide my surprise at the greeting from him - I hid most of my emotions most of the time - but I still felt every bit of it. He'd always called me Heero. But before I even had a chance to respond to his greeting, he continued quickly. "You know I was thinking, maybe Jack n' I should go on a date... A real date, that's not about Heero or the past or any of that." I blinked, feeling suspicious. "Why?" I asked, immediately regretting the question when his smile slipped. Although he recovered quickly, the pain was still obvious in his eyes. "Look - I'll be straight with you. You might not be Heero, but I'll be damned if you walk right out of my life again." Despite his smile, his voice had a harsh quality that made my stomach churn nervously. "So I wanna take you on a date, Jack, and I hope you'll agree." I found myself nodding compulsively, personally humiliated at my quick capitulation - although I know I would've agreed anyway, in spite of my reservations. "Good!" Duo exclaimed cheerfully, the authenticity coming back to his happy expression. "Are you free this weekend? We could meet half way, ya know, or I could come down that way." "This weekend is fine." I thought for a moment. I realized quite quickly that I didn't want to risk him coming back to my apartment - or me going to his, either. It was too soon, the situation was too strange. I didn't want to hurt him again. "I think half way would be good." Whether Duo knew my motives or not, he seemed genuinely pleased. "Well, I'm picking the place again! Unless you didn't like the last one...?" he asked slyly, feigning a lack of confidence. "No, it was perfect," I admitted, unable to deny that fact. "Ha, ha! I knew it!" he whooped and I could see why Heero fell in love with him - his enthusiasm was contagious. I felt the corners of my lips twitch involuntarily. "Don't worry buddy, I'll pick another good one, especially if we can meet in Zurich." "Zurich is fine," I agreed, pleasing him immensely. "Great! Take whatever train gets in closest to four, huh?" Once again, I agreed easily and he made a motion with his hand that imitated a gun firing at me. And then I realized, maybe a bit foolishly all things considered, that he was flirting with me. No one had ever... "Gotcha! I'll see ya then, Jack," he emphasized my name with a wink and the screen cut out. This affection left me feeling jumbled and lost inside. I knew he only felt this way because I was Heero, but at the same time, it felt... nice. Nice to be wanted by someone. Nice to feel desirable. But... what if Duo was going to try to get to know me? I had been so set on undoing what Heero had done that I never even considered that Duo might've been formulating his own plan. If he loved Heero, what's to say he wouldn't love me? I mean, I was him, at one point anyway. I looked down at my hands and noticed they were so tightly balled into fists they were shaking. I stared at them in horror. I knew this whole situation was affecting me badly but... I don't - I don't know how long I could be expected to deal with this! By Wednesday I was feeling frustrated and confused and unsure of whether I should proceed or not with meeting Duo for our first date. I spent most of that morning doing nothing productive and so it was I found myself wandering back from the small, supplementary team break room with my mug of tea grasped firmly in my hand, the warmth of the dark liquid soothing me. The technical division office wing was always kept remarkably cold due to the amount of computer equipment and servers we had in our area. Typically it didn't affect me, altthough my teammates complained relentlessly about it, but for some reason after meeting Duo I felt the temperature much more acutely than I had previously. Unable to help myself I glanced into the lab rooms as I passed, noting the different teams occupying them, until I passed the last one in which Aisha was working alone. I walked by and paused, turning back around. "Aisha," I announced myself from the doorframe and she turned to me, offering a small smile. "Jack," she murmured, leaning back in her seat, her soft blue eyes meeting mine affectionately. She was easily old enough to be my mother, her blonde hair showing a few platinum streaks of age, and she had always been kind to me, as if sensing I lacked a maternal figure to care for me. Although I knew this wasn't the case now, I had always thought my parents died in a car crash when I was eighteen, but either way, I didn't have a mother to speak of, and her fondness had always seemed genuine enough that I accepted it without complaint. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" I asked as I walked in to meet her, sitting casually on the long, metal desk the computers in that lab rested on against the wall. Aisha and I only occasionally worked together. Her research was more in the realm of memory storage and allocation though she knew quite a bit about the brain and its structure and interconnectivity so we only really overlapped where I had questions regarding the best ways to interface an AI directly with the brain. For a while we worked together regularly, but over the past year as I got a handle on my research we'd fallen away and I couldn't believe I forgot to speak to her in my quest for research regarding memory alteration. In fact, I was sure she would be able to offer me key insights into my current condition - if I trusted her enough to help. But I didn't trust anyone and I was careful about what I pulled up on my work computer so that Nexxus wouldn't get suspicious either. Not that I thought it was any of their business, but I was a very well compensated, integral part of their organization and it's always better to walk the straight and narrow in that position. The last thing they needed to think was that I was doing personal research that would interfere with my non-compete clause on company time. "Of course, anytime," she agreed easily, waving a delicate hand in a gesture of openness. "I am having some issues regarding memory storage," I lied straight to her face without feeling a hint of guilt. "Some testing is coming back stating that the subject's memory is altered after interaction with the AI." "I would love to see those result logs," she interjected and I made sure my façade didn't betray my irritation at her helpfulness. "Oh, no, that's okay," I appeased, "my work has been a bit slow - testing has never been my favorite phase of development - and the instances so negligible that I thought I would just do some research on my own to come up with a plausible theory explaining the anomaly." "Ah," she nodded her head but her brows furrowed as if she didn't particularly care for that explanation. "Anyway, I wondered if you could send me some texts you thought were relevant." I gave her my most self-deprecating smile, though it was a struggle for me to do so. "Honestly the body of work relating to memory allocation is so large I'm unsure of where to start." She chuckled, a sound a bit like pealing bells, and rested her head in one hand while studying me contemplatively. "A moment when age is better than intelligence," she teased. "I will send you some of my favorite theses on the subject if you'd like." "I would be indebted to you," I answered honestly, and then decided to throw her a bone for her willingness to help me. "I'm sure in a few weeks I'll be at your office door with those logs in hand." "Ah, the stubbornness of youth!" She winked at me and then shooed me away with one hand. "I'll get those materials to you this afternoon," she promised before I walked back out, feeling proud of myself for deceiving her so easily. Maybe I wouldn't have to use that research, I still wasn't sure, but it certainly couldn't hurt to have information that could possibly clue me in as to how Heero did this to us. And maybe, just maybe, it would trigger some memory within me that could help explain why he'd done this, too...
~ * ~ tbc... |
