"The Darkest Reflection"

Written By: Impish

Rating: strong R

Pairings: main 1+2+1, background 2+3, OFC+5 and 4+3

Category: Duo POV with angst, action, drama and politics.

Warnings: creepiness, more graphic images and gore

Summery: The earth sphere has moved on into an age of peace, but Duo is fighting battles of his own. He has reluctantly joined the Preventers, and is surprised to see Heero sign up as well. With an assassin on the loose and an increase in suspicious activity, he’s beginning to realize the fine line between genius and insanity, and how easily it can be erased.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. Surprise! And none of the songs or titles belong to me, either.

"The Darkest Reflection"

CHAPTER 13: Raised by Wolves
"I figured out then that life is a circle, you get back right where you started if you get to be a hundred and fifty-eight years old. It's like a dog chasing its own tail, all is for naught. We live and live, and in the end we're just like this boy [he pointed at me], knowing nothing, remembering nothing. You might as well stop living now, my son. You might just as well stop, for nothing will change."
- "The Question of Bruno" by Aleksandar Hemon


I have a certain ease of nature that has people generally expecting me to get along great with children. This same notion has Heero glaring at said children until they get it through their fuzzy little skulls that all that noise and excess movement they produce is not only unnecessary, but also potentially dangerous while in his presence.

If course, I enjoy rebelling against most stereotypes inflicted upon me.

I really can't stand being around kids, and it's not because I hate them. I just have no idea what to *do* with them.

Kids have something about them. People call it innocence, but when I was the age to be called a child, innocence was ignorance, which was stupidity, which would kill you. I didn't know any real *kids,* at least none that stayed alive after the first few minutes of meeting them. The point is that nowhere in my Crayola-colorful life have I really had the opportunity to figure out how to deal with the eight-year-old in front of me.

We had snuck onto the satellite disguised as techs with a shipment of old Leos for Bosch’s mobile suit re-modification project. It was a simple Chop and Swap, and routinely easy to knock the guys out and steal their uniforms and IDs. From there, it didn't take us long to get to where we needed to go in order to find the information we needed for Une; blueprints, implicating data, logistics, staff records, video surveillance, plus everything Jag had already dug up for us.

Security on the satellite was mostly Bosch's personal goons, but most of the rest of the workers, crew, and engineers were all unaware of the actual nature of their jobs. Problem was, legally, if we ran into anyone during the actual search, we had to present the warrant, which would travel the chain of command and inescapably lead to our unquestioned disappearance.

Our plan had been to find a computer or file room empty of personnel, keep an eye out, and get the information and out as quickly as possible. We hadn't counted on the supposedly vacant room containing a little girl that someone had brought to work with him and left stashed out of the way to play computer games.

She was a skinny little thing, a creature of elbows and eyes that turned to look at us with an uninterested expression. I stared back at her like she was some kind of mythical being that I hadn't been sure even existed until now, but then she turned dealing with her into a non-issue by deciding we were just employees like everyone else, and turning back to her computer game.

Heero and I stared at each other for a bit, then shook off the stillness and went to work. I kept watch at the door in a bored way that made me look a little lazy, while Heero did his thing on a computer to send everything we had to the Preventers before sneaking out of there.

The whole satellite smelled of industry- of soot and steel. Even in this out-of-the-way file room, the smoldering scent of minerals and chemicals seeped its way into the air. It was so thick it stained the senses with a tinny aftertaste that stuck to your clothes and sank into your skin. I wondered if the workers here became so saturated with that smell and grime that they eventually became a part of the machinery they worked in, blending grey and mechanical into the backdrop of wires and metal.

"Any signs of movement?" Heero mouthed silently, the blue glow of the screen consuming his eyes. "I’m almost finished."

I leaned casually on the door, eyes scanning the hallway outside through the thin rectangular window. "Nothing." I replied in kind. No need to make the kid run off and tell Daddy about the strange guys she met today.

"Done. Let’s-" Heero was interrupted by the strident sound of alarms.

"Oh, shit." I murmured, looking up at the flashing red lights, and then my gaze flicked to the girl, whose eyes had doubled in size. "Hey, doll, you best stay here 'till you’re your… parent comes to get you, k? They'll make sure you're safe, but they won't be able to find you if you try to leave. Just stay put."

She didn't look like she was planning to leave, just sat back nervously. I nodded at Heero and with a swift movement that was as sure as a definition, I slammed my hand down on the panel beside the door and ran out into the corridor with Heero just behind me.

We sprinted to the shuttle docks, my body sharp and my mind racing over contingency plans. We had to get to the fifth level, which meant taking the scaffolding up on Three to the platforms, from where we could take the maintenance tunnels all the way to five. Our movements were synchronized enough that we didn't verbalize the intention of our direction; we both knew the best way out, and we took it without so much as looking at each other.

There was the great possibility that we were fucked, but in that moment that was just me and Heero running with the bass beat of alarms, fear didn't exist. It was a rush of adrenaline, movement and an unstoppable momentum that didn't want to end.

The alarm appeared to be a general warning, as everyone in the damned place was running around as if the gates of hell had suddenly opened in their shuttle bay. They didn’t seem to know we were the problem, so two extra guys darting around with the rest of them was fortunately inconspicuous.

That industrial smell that was infused into the atmosphere was now coated, as if distress were a fine sheen of sweat. The scaffolding, a few stories tall, loomed in front of us. It was a temporary job, not well constructed, or even finished. We scaled it together, the whole structure wobbling with our every move up it. The platforms up top, when we had climbed close enough to get a good look, appeared to be even more poorly pieced together than the construction leading up to them. We took off running again when we got to the top, leaping over large unfinished gaps where there were missing metal panels.

We had one more gap to hop before we were at the tunnel hatch, when the PA system went off, informing all available security personnel that intruders were… oh, about where we were now.

Heero jumped that last gap first and me not half a second after him. The platform shifted when he came down, the sudden alteration making me twist my bad ankle on my landing and fall, skidding with my full weight on it across the panel. I felt tearing. Acutely.

"Shit!" Heero cursed breathlessly, and slid down to his knees beside me. "Down?"

I nodded distractedly. I knew before I tried to get up that there was no way I was going to make it all the way through the tunnels to the fifth level on this ankle, not with the amount climbing we had to do in the amount of time we had. Judging by the noises I was hearing distantly below, Heero wasn’t going to have time to carry me, either.

"I’m done." I let out, the words almost disappearing in a gasp of pain. "You have to go. I can hold them off for at least fifteen minutes after they get up here."

He stared me down almost incredulously. "Duo, you can’t stay here. They’re almost on us."

What, was he crazy? We didn’t have time for this fight! "Heero! It’s shredded. There is *no* way-"

He ignored my words and picked me up as if I were weightless, but before he could straighten, I struggled, hard, catching him enough by surprise that he let me fall back down.

"I am not *helpless* and I am not *weak,* Heero!" I growled lowly. The fear I hadn't felt earlier suddenly struck me, but it wasn't fear for my self. "You are not going to *carry* me out of here like a goddamn child!"

"I am *not* going to walk away and leave you here to die!" He barked back, matching and exceeding the violence in my tone without getting any louder.

"No, you’re not. You are going to *run*." I said desperately. Taking a deep breath, my voice dropped into something more rational. "If you take me with you, we’re both dead. If you leave me, not only are you safe, but I may also have a chance to escape later. I can hide, and then sneak out when I get the opening."

"You can’t ask me to do this, Duo. You can’t." He had crashed from vehement to pained in a second.

I had a twisting, overwhelming panic that he was going to die trying to get me out of here; that trying to save me was going to end up killing him. "I’m not asking you. I’m telling you; you are going to *go* and you are going to go *now*."

He stubbornly stepped towards me, I guess to try to pick me up again, but I shoved away, sliding back across the platform, almost to the edge.

Quickly and smoothly, I drew my gun and planted it to my temple.

"I swear to god, Heero. You get out of here alone or you go carrying a corpse."

His face was expressionless, but he saw something in mine that told him I was far from bluffing.

"Up there!" Called a voice from below.

"Now, *go*." I ordered harshly.

The look in his eyes as he turned and ran into the tunnels was frightening. It reached into my chest and clawed something apart in a way that should have razed me, but I couldn't help but feel a cold relief that he had gone.

The gun dropped from my temple, and I took off my boot and got to work. I couldn't hide as I'd told Heero. I had to distract them enough to make sure that he got away.

So I cut off both my sleeves to use as bandaging, and bound the ankle as best and taut as I could. I stuffed it back into the boot, laced it up tight, and rolled over on my stomach, arms outstretched and braced to face the attack. There were nine rounds in the magazine, so I had better make them count.

I could feel them climbing the scaffolding, the metal beneath me swaying drunkenly. There were a lot of them, judging by the amount of noise. I fired at the first head that came into view, but two bodies fell, as I think the person behind the first was following too closely and got knocked down with him. Anyone else to present themselves went down after them. A few rounds were fired in my direction, but none came even remotely close to me, the shooter unwilling to show enough of himself to see his mark. I shot the weapon from his hand, and it fell to the ground with a faint clatter. The gunfire stopped on both ends.

There was the crackle of a radio, but I couldn’t be sure what orders were being issued from this distance, hearing only a tinny garble. Finally, there was movement on their end again, and something was tossed over the platforms, landing on the panel in front of me with a smoking tail. It bounced a couple of times before rolling to the edge and falling off. I had to snicker; it had looked like a gas grenade.

Someone’s head popped up to see if it had gone off, not having heard the thing fall, and I had no problem shooting him as well. When he fell, there was a stirring of activity, and then another grenade sailed over. Then three more immediately after. I pulled my shirt up over my face and tried to slide back towards the hatch. One rolled over and two landed on the platform with me, and the fourth on the other side of the gap. The two were close enough for me to knock over the side, but the other landed right on the end of the panel in front of me; out of reach but close enough to do the damage.

The gas poured out in a thick cloud, and it was only a few seconds before my head started to get fuzzy. I only time enough to vaguely wonder if this was that stuff that gave you cancer before I blacked out.



I was walking along the Row at the salvage yards on L2, hands stuffed in my pockets. In the air hung the dim scent of metal. Soldering and rusted metal, and rubber. As I got nearer to Hilde’s yard, I started to get worried. The tracks in the mud at the open gate were fresh, but wouldn’t belong to any kind of scrap delivery or cargo truck, and her pick-up was in the shop ‘till next week. It was why she hadn’t picked me up at the Port. Unexpected customer, maybe?

I broke into a jog, and when I rounded the corner, I knew something was very, very wrong. The front door was open and the tracks by the scrap piles made it look like someone had spun out of there in a hurry. The jog dropped down into a full sprint and I ran up the steps and burst inside.

I paused hesitantly in the doorway, and didn’t see Hilde at first. Then I heard a faint, ghastly sucking sound. I took off again, dashing to the back of the house, where I found her. On the floor in the hall, blood bubbling from the slit in her throat and dribbling down to the floor.

"Oh, Jesus!" I whimpered, dropping down to get a better look. "God, Hilde, what the hell did he do to you?"

I gently put her head on my lap, trying to put enough pressure on the wound for it to stop bleeding, but I knew without doubt, there wasn’t anything I could do at this point. They hadn’t cut down far enough to make it quick, and she was still barely alive, but wouldn’t be long enough for me to be able to save her. She tried to speak, tears streaming down from the corners of her eyes, but nothing came out but a gurgle.

The sick sounds of air pulled through her severed throat should have been enough to make me take my eyes from her, but I found myself incapable of it. If she was going to die like this, somebody had to care enough to at least watch her go. Her hand in mine, I stroked her face, trying to comfort those last, painful seconds, and read her lips as she tried to murmur, "I never found… never… I never… never found…"



"Hey, baby boy."

I didn't look up, the brim of my hat low over my face.

"You hear me, boy?" The voice came again, rattling along with the clanking of the train over tracks. The light through the slats of the car rolled over my eyes in a pulsing red and black that matched the rocking of the boards beneath me.

"You alive, boy?" This time, the voice was accompanied by a rough nudge of his boot to the ribs.

My reaction was something drawn out and lethargic. It was the slow roll of my neck that let my head drop back enough that I could see the voice from beneath the brim of my cap and my bangs.

“You really don’t want to go there.” I said, the words coming from my mouth in an eerie voice that seemed like it had traveled from a ghost a century or two older than the boy stowed away in a railroad car.

"You travel this way, you gotta pay, boy. One way or another. Which road you wanna go?" The voice and the shadowed figure that drew up dark against the rolling play of light were dried out and devoid of lust. The toll was the toll, and had been for more years than this man had run the route, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to collect.

I had no money on me, nothing to bribe him with, and I couldn't afford to have a body found, not with Deathscythe under a tarp two cars down.

By the time we'd arrived at my stop, I had a couple of fresh scars and couldn't feel the left side of my face, but I hadn't paid.



It was the dirty side of the streets and dark enough that I couldn't see his face; just the vague shine of a neon sign against his hair and the pilfered knife he held out to me.

“There's no stop to think 'bout what t'do out 'ere. Ya can't think 'bout feelings, 'bout nice. Ya can't be na hero, and ya can't save nobody, n'even ya'self." He told me, and I took the blade from his hand.

He turned, just a little, and the neon glowed in his eyes enough to see the street in them.

"You think, you die.” He said.



I could smell wood.

My eyes fluttered open. Wood? There was a knot in the wood, a knot in the world, a knot in my eyes. Eyes, mine. Mine eyes.

There was a dull, unsteady pounding in my head. I had to steady, steady… breathe… focus… focus on the wood. The knot in the wood. The grains in the wood. The stain is dark. Worn. The wood is a table.

I was in a chair, slumped over a wooden table. I smelled steel and gasoline.

The satellite… gas. No horrible side effects, other than a weak headache… just to knock me out, then. They must want me alive for some reason… or else they would have killed me once I was unconscious. I kept my eyes closed to assess what I could from my other senses alone. If anyone was around, it would be to my advantage for them to think that I was still out.

It seemed to be strangely quiet; though I didn’t get the feeling I was alone. My wrists were chained in front of me, but with the heavy-duty forearm shackles and not plain handcuffs. Ok… getting my hands loose didn’t seem to be an option. I was seated in, but not tied to, a metal chair. Hm. They probably thought I wouldn't be able to make much of a break for it with a busted leg. That was their first mistake.

Judging by its warmth, I'd been sitting there for a while. There was a small pain in the crook of my elbow, and I was pretty sure that was the feel of a taped-on cotton ball. They must have injected me with something intravenously or taken blood.

My ankle was throbbing and obviously swollen, and that my captors hadn’t taken the effort to do anything about it was telling me they weren’t going to bother keeping me around too long. Which meant they were most likely after information. Not a problem… two can play at that game.

Had Heero made it out? Had he stolen a shuttle or stowed away? They wouldn't be planning to kill me if they'd known that they'd let an agent get away. Either he was dead already or they didn't know anything about him. That didn't bode well… if he'd stolen a shuttle, they would have noticed.

If they’d caught or killed him, they would use it against me for sure… if he wasn’t mentioned at all he was most likely in the clear.

I heard something shift, and I opened my eyes and drew slowly back to sit up and face the inevitable.

"Your recovery skills are quite remarkable, 02."

Ohhhh shit. Somehow… they knew I was a *Gundam Pilot*? That certainly had us playing a completely different kind of game.

"Thanks. I do my best to impress the villains." I quipped, taking what I could visually.

The chair was set before a plain table, and Bosch himself was seated across from me, hands folded and leaning forward, looking distinguished and unconcerned. That was his second mistake.

There were a few files in front of him, but he didn’t look at them. A stereotypical harsh light hanging above me, and the rest of the room was dark enough that I couldn’t even make out how big it was or if there was anyone else in there. I couldn’t hear any more people, but we had to be under surveillance at the very least. I wondered how many guards were outside.

"Do you believe in hell, 02?" He asked, as if he were asking how I liked my tea.

I loved the way these guys started interrogations. Very subtle, as if I didn’t get that they were about to put me in what they deemed as a hell-simulator to coerce me to give them… whatever it was they wanted.

I studied him, a vague smile decorating my features. "I think hell is a place where you have no power to create your own future."

He smiled back at me, but it was a calculating version of the one voters were used to seeing on TV. "Profound, for one such as yourself. But I should have expected you to be an idealist."

I laughed outright. "An idealist? No, I don’t think so."

"And not an opportunist, either. Not like your… friend, 03 was."

Shit! He knew about Trowa, too… and he was going to try to use him against me as well, it seemed. This was not looking good.

I set my chin and met his cool gaze. "No. Not like he was."

I let my head tilt to the side, staring him down, my posture carelessly at ease. He wasn’t a James Bond villain, and he wasn’t going to reveal his master plan until it was relevant to his interrogation. I couldn’t push him; I had to let him come to me.

He sat back a bit and said, a little too casually, "So you know what he did then?"

I didn’t move in the slightest. "It was kind of hard to miss, considering the situation."

"So it would seem." He tapped on the files absently. "You don’t seem to upset by it."

"It takes quite a lot to upset me."

He leaned forward again. "That sounds like a challenge."

"Only if you want it to be."

He chuckled charismatically. The kind of laugh you make with friends over a joke that’s been said a few too many times. My grin deepened in return, but I said nothing.

"You wanted to go after him, though, didn’t you?" He nodded in concentration, eyes narrowed studiously. "You wanted to take Rostislav and the others down."

"Is that it, then? Competition again? You think 'cause Trowa and I were partners, I just may know something about it? And you want me to tell you what I know about their little operation. You have quite a project here… reprocessing mobiles suits. That’s very clever." I sat up a little. "It's a pretty sweet deal."

He gave no signs that I'd hit the mark, but the abrupt change in topic let me know I'd pegged him right. "We were going to assassinate Une, you know. I thought it was perfect… an organization so inept it couldn’t even protect its own leader…"

Oh, this was good… they were going to kill me for sure. That meant his tongue would be a little looser.

"But this may be quite a bit better." He continued. "A Gundam Pilot…"

"I’m not a Gundam Pilot anymore." I replied with the faint regret that always accompanied the thought.

The remark didn’t faze him in the least. "… and now I get to see how upset you can be."

Oh, really? That did sound like a challenge…

He smiled darkly. "Did you know you were the only pilot to use the ZERO system and not master it?"

I laughed in his face. "Is that some kind of lame evil villain insult?"

He opened one of the files before him. Those files must have been where he figured out my background as a pilot. I wondered how he’d gotten his hands on them. "Do you know why? The records are quite thorough."

What was he getting at? If he was going where I thought he was with this… then he'd just confirmed some of the extra info Jag had gotten for me. And I was very much screwed.

"There were some very interested individuals in the system’s effects on the human brain, and your case seems to have been the most studied. After examining the feeds, the initial speculation that you were simply incapable of handling the system because your mind was too weak to control it was deemed unlikely. The reports finally concluded that because the things you had seen at that point in your life gave ZERO so many options, so many sickening images, that its expansion on those images should have driven you insane. They even noted what a testament it was to your strength that you weren’t."

I snorted with contempt. That was dumb; to think that what I'd experienced in my life could have been so much worse than the other pilots. Their lives hadn't exactly been sunshine and rainbows, and I knew for a fact that they'd all had some pretty heavy losses.

"You have ZERO?" I guessed, the chains on the cuffs clanking quietly. "Oh, no you don't…" I grinned slyly, as if he'd said something very clever. "You stole that version of it that Rostislav developed… and you’ll use it to torture me until I break down into a sniveling mess of a little boy and tell you all my deep dark little secrets. Am I right?"

"Torture? No… let’s call it additional study. We can discover how long it takes exactly to be driven mad by your own life." His voice had a dominant edge to it, expecting a fault in the careless manner that I presented. "We injected you with ZSOLES, which, having traveled through your bloodstream to your brain, allowed us to link you directly to the ZEROLX program."

"Satomi, start up the program again." He ordered to an unknown minion, and then spoke back to me. "Those dreams you had when the gas pulled you under weren’t dreams at all. They were memories. Not even the worst of your memories, I'm sure. How would you like to relive the most horrific of them, one after the other? ZEROLX has the ability to make them quite vivid."

It was sudden, my laugh. It was evil and low, and so chilling that even I shivered from the sound of it. "I relive them every night all on my own."

His smile actually faltered, and he must have finally had the thought that rendering me mad might be a fruitless pursuit. I was a boy before him, eighteen years old, and I should have been scared, or angry, or crying. I was only human, right? But I laughed. Without a trace of fear or weakness, I laughed, as if he wasn’t ever going to break or get anything out of me, and nothing he said or did could change that. I laughed as if I was going to break him instead.

He took a second and regained his composure. "War is inevitable. You and this program is going to ensure that I am the one to profit from it."

"The only thing inevitable is death. Everything else is up for grabs. You should never resign yourself to something unjust because you think it can’t be avoided." I said calmly.

"You can’t beat me." He said with authority and absolute confidence. But his smirk was slick and vile, and an expression a politician as good as he was would never wear. Because of that smile, I knew I was done with him.

"Maybe not," I replied, my grin growing a little harder and a little less sane. "But I can kill you."

I didn’t even give a moment for the words to register before I swept with blurred speed to my feet and, grabbing the metal chair, swung it round with all my might and hurled it through the observation window high over his head that had been so carefully obscured. Bosch knocked the table over on its side as a barrier, glass showering down around him, and drew a gun. He was steady and fast, and from three feet away I would be a hard target to miss.

But I wasn’t three feet away anymore. I was behind him, bringing down my irons over his head.

Alarms were sounding as he hit the floor, and I stomped my boot down on his wrist, making him reflexively loose his grip on the gun. He tried to get back up, but I kneed him down, knocking him back over, and braced my boot on his throat. I looked straight into his eyes as I scooped up the discarded weapon.

"You’re not good enough to be my enemy." I said blackly.

The shot I fired took away half his face, spraying me with blood and fragments of bone and chunks of grey matter that had been his brain.

Guess he had the gun loaded with hollow points.

I wiped a fleck from my cheek, then moved the table to the wall and hoisted myself up through the window, heavily favoring my injured leg. Anyone who’d been watching was gone now, probably trying to get to the door they thought I was trying to get out of. I immediately used the computer to cancel the program they'd been running and disconnected myself from it, then planted a virus just as guards bust the door below open. I darted lamely out of the gallery, trying to get my bearings while also trying to think of a way to get these shackles off. Running with them on was a dear pain in the ass.

All right, they wouldn’t be dumb enough not to cover the maintenance tunnels this time around… what did that leave me? I was one level below where I needed to be to snag a shuttle. The ventilation system wasn’t going to cut it… maybe I could use the elevator shaft? I could cut the power to this level and that would shut it down… and they may have the maintenance tunnels covered this time around, but I doubted they were using the maintenance elevators at a time like this.

But the shaft would be pitch black and I'd have no way of knowing exactly how far up one level was, or be able to pry the doors open on that floor. Using the elevators without cutting the power ran the risk of being caught on surveillance equipment, and it was a little too obvious. I would have liked the distraction an outage would have given me, but I couldn't climb with my arms tied together and without the use of a leg, and then guess the distance to the next floor.

My sprint was more of a limp, but somehow I made it where I needed to go without having to use the gun I’d snagged from Bosch again. It was a slow journey, and I took my time and no more chances with the hope of avoiding more carnage. The elevators were unexpectedly empty, and I somehow made it to the shuttle docks without having to confront anyone.

The shuttle wasn’t too easy to secure, but I secured it nonetheless, and managed to blast my way past a hastily-constructed blockade without any damage. When I knew I was out of the hot zone, I set a course to Earth and beamed a message off to Quatre and Une, not having any other way to contact Heero.

/Second floor stable. Returning to ground level. /

I rummaged around the transport shuttle, but I couldn’t find anything to use to remove the shackles, and I hoped nothing came up requiring me to get into a spacesuit. I moved back to the controls and set an alarm and proximity signals, and then settled back in the pilot’s seat to wait.



My shuttle landed back on Earth less than an hour after Heero and Quatre’s, just as dawn was breaking. Heero had gone straight to the satellite Quatre was waiting on, and they had been on their way to come back for me when they had received word that I was headed back to HQ, at which point they changed route and made it down just before me.

So when I hopped down from my appropriated ride, I found myself immediately engulfed in a Quatre-hug, which was awkward with the whole bound-wrist thing.

"I can’t believe you made it! We were so worried, I can’t even *tell* you how worried!"

I gave a rueful chuckle. "I can imagine, Quatre."

"No, Master Duo," One of the Maguanacs who'd made the trip with them, Afmad, cut in from behind Quatre with a sigh. "You really cannot."

"So can we do something about these things?" I rattled my chains. "I mean, I know they’re pretty and everything, but they’re awfully constricting."

"Are you all right?" A quiet voice asked. Quatre finally let me go, and I turned to face Heero.

I tried to read how angry or upset he was with me, but only came up with a faint sadness. I gave him half a smile, now knowing he wasn’t mad, knowing he couldn’t be, because no one understood self-sacrifice like Heero Yuy.

"I'm fine."

Quatre looked me over. "You don’t look too bad. How did you escape?"

I chewed on my lip and ducked my head a little. "I, uh… I did something bad."

"That’s not unusual." Quatre said, eyebrows raised. "Spit it out."

"Ok…" They really weren't going to take this well. "I kinda… killed Bosch."

"You WHAT!?" Heero and Quatre spat out in the exact same moment and in such a similar tone that it sounded as if the words had come from a single voice.

"Agent Maxwell," A new voice entered with exasperation, "He was one of the most influential politicians in the colonies."

Everyone turned to look at Une, who was striding across the tarmac. "You certainly enjoy making me work hard to square you with I.I." Her tone was as unaffected as ever. "But as relieved as I am that you’ve both managed to get out of the situation relatively unharmed and all of that, we have more pressing issues now than this incident."

"You have bigger problems than Duo killing *Gustav Bosch*?" Quatre asked, eyebrow twitching. "Running a multimillion dollar corporation doesn’t seem so stressful anymore." He muttered.

"Please follow me to the car. I'd rather we spoke of this where no one might listen in." She looked to Quatre. "You should come along so that we can you’re your statements, and I think it appropriate you hear this information as well."

With that, she turned and walked towards a standard Preventers vehicle parked on the tarmac just a bit away. I was the first to go after her, felling kind of stupid with my arms bound as they were. Quatre and Heero followed closely behind after Quatre left instructions with Afmad to mind his shuttle and make sure it was prepared to either remain docked at the spaceport or return to L4.

Une drove the car herself, leaving Quatre and I to ride in the back and Heero to take the passenger's seat.

"Based on those inventories you sent, Bosch had gotten his hands on ZEROLX." She started as soon as she put the vehicle into drive.

"ZERO… LX?" Quatre murmured with trepidation.

Une's eyes flicked to him for a moment in the rearview mirror. "Yes. It's an altered version of the ZERO system that we believe was developed a few years ago, just at the end of the first war. Unlike the original system, it doesn't show possibilities of the future. The LX reads memories, and then from the same type of programming that ZERO used, expands upon those images to create hundreds of alternate versions."

"But ZERO was used to predict maneuvers in battle." Heero pointed out. "I fail to see the use of altering memories, or the danger of a program that could do such a thing. Why exactly was it created?"

"Originally? As a threat to force compliance. But it would seem that it has been used most often for extracting information from those unwilling to part with it." She informed him levelly.

"Torture…" Quatre’s eyes widened. "Oh, god…"

"That is correct. The LX has the capability to take even repressed memories and expand on them in whatever degree the program controller wishes. It can target memories that the brain equates with high levels of stress, and therefore the memories that are the most traumatic. Moreover, a new way to connect the subject to the program was created. Microscopic units called 'ZSOLES' are injected into the bloodstream to connect the LX directly into the brain. The user could literally invade the subject's inner conscience." Une informed bleakly. "If he has had it as long as the records indicate, there’s no telling where he got it from, or who else might have acquired it for that matter."

Heero frowned at my lack of expression. "Duo, you don’t look surprised by any of this."

"I’m not." I said flatly. "He brought it up when he was trying to interrogate me. He was going to try and use it… against me."

"No wonder you killed him…" Quatre murmured, shuddering.

"That should make your case of self-defense a more substantial claim, at the very least." Une mused. "But you have more critical concerns still, Maxwell."

I frowned. "Rostislav?"

"Yes. I don’t think you should stay at your home for a while." She said against her better judgment, knowing my answer to that was going to be a "hell no."

"He can stay with me." Quatre interjected thoughtfully, before the words could leave my mouth. "I was thinking of staying around for a little longer and getting a hotel room. I would really like to help out until this is resolved."

"I don’t know if that’s a good idea." Une said slowly, shaking her head. "You’re a rather prominent figure, and since Maxwell’s already a target… I don’t think we should ask for more trouble."

"With all due respect, Commander, Duo and I can take care of ourselves." Quatre said in a voice that was just a little bit scary. "When someone messes him, they mess with me. I do not intend to leave until these people after Duo are no longer a threat to him, especially after he just saved my life. Moreover, I need to be involved in the Sandman-Bosch investigation, since it was my life they were after. I am not going anywhere and you are going to accept my assistance in these matters."

There was a delayed pause before Une responded. "Very well, then." She said hesitantly. "We would be grateful for the consult. Maxwell, do you require medical attention? I can take-"

"I’m fine." I said at the same time Heero said, "He needs to go to the clinic."

"I’m fine." I repeated, glaring hotly.

"If it was bad enough for you to force me to *abandon* you," he ground out quietly, "then it is definitely enough to make you go to the clinic, at the very least. Or I’m taking you to a hospital, by physical force if necessary. Your choice."

I flushed with frustration. "Fine. I’ll go to the fucking clinic. After I get these damn arm cuffs off."

Une continued droving towards HQ, with an eyebrow arched just so, and Quatre leaned over to whisper wickedly, "He’s got you so whipped."

"Shut up, Quatre." I grumbled, sinking down in my seat, watching out the window as we passed by a school, crowded with minivans and SUVs and parents dropping their children off.

People start out as children, all innocence and shine. The things that separate them from the adults of the world just don't exist until in small, awful moments, they are exposed to the reality of the world they live in.

It happens to us all. The only difference is when.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Raised by Wolves" by Voxtrot

~I will never live like you
But you will probably die like me
Oh lovelessly, an ending
Full of god, and god makes plenty.
You will go on searching
For someone to keep you killing
If you love me, won't you leave me?
'cause I want to settle down
First you
Fade into the background
Wouldn't even call me
Had the nerve to leave me
Go ahead and love me
I'm a hungry man
Ever since you went away
And oh, don't you wanna love?
And don't you wanna feel?
I remember, you were reckless, you were hungry
You were real, you were so uptight
Listen, I don't mind
I feel like I'm watching a car crash.
And oh, this is how it ends
You will watch your friends
Take a moment, take a nothing
Then they'll put it in again.
This is how we are
We are young and stupid
And raised by wolves
I will never live like you
Say I, I will never love like you do~

~ * ~

Chapter 14

Back to Single Authors Index

Back to GW Authors Index.