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"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options" Chapter 157 2nd March AC 198 Rosemount Station Isolation Suite Time 06:46 [time coincides with Sanc time] Treize He could not afford to have any regrets. Regret did little more than undermine the efficiency of his performance. No, he could not entertain the luxury of regret but he could permit himself to remember the good times, few though they had seemed and provided he did not wonder what might have been had he not chosen this path to walk he could enjoy those memories. From the earliest day he had determined to ensure the lives of those he loved and cared for were no longer considered to be toys and breeding stock by those who had earned his enmity, being young and having a good time had not been permitted to influence his thoughts. They had created him and all that he was and they must deal with the consequences of their dynastic designs and genetic interference. He had determined on learning of Them to demonstrate what he thought of their methods and their ideals. Their. They. Them. Romefeller. Those who were the true Romefeller not that decrepit bunch of blowhards who professed to be The Romefeller. Those self important old nobles full of their jumped up superiority he had manipulated to bring about the opportunity for a future free from war and graced with a freedom his birthright and training would never grant him. They were not the Romefeller that mattered. Two Romefeller, as if one were not bad enough. One organization was the gathering of the rich and influential, predominately old aristocratic families of the European sector with aspirations to greatness and who denied the equality of the general populace and their ability to govern themselves. They remembered too well the past days when the nobility ruled and all bowed before them. They were the public Romefeller, the organization the world recognised and blamed for much of the past trouble and yet were celebrated as being the instigators of the peace, the protectors of Relena Peacecraft. Hypocrisy. The second Romefeller who were in truth the first, the original incarnation of the modern organization and who were most ancient indeed. He had no doubt that they were the oldest organization in existence and that they had no compunction about killing if it should continue to guard their secrecy. These were the people behind the scenes of world event. The instigators of change and the assassins who brought about that change if they did not approve the natural movement of the world order. They were the hidden rulers, the people who determined the course the world should follow and manipulated, lied, cheated and killed to bring about their vision all from secrecy. Their chosen tools payed the price of their assassinations and lived the glory of their successes and cringed in terror awaiting their executioners hand should they fail the design. This was the Romefeller he had discovered and feared and hated. And determined to take down. This was the Shadow that hung over the world hiding for centuries and emerging from time to time to grasp the world by the throat and shake the life out of it… or into it. Civilizations rose and fell at the design of Romefeller, knowledge found might be lost at their command, advances slipped under the carpet and hidden if it did not suit their purpose. If you looked hard enough you could find hints and suggestions of something shadowy and mysterious behind the greatest events in the history of the world of mankind. You might find the suggestion of something but you would not put the pieces together to shape a whole picture unless you suspected the scope of the organization involved. Ancient, powerful and with wealth that made the wealthiest of businessmen look like paupers in comparison they worked from secrecy devising their plans and such plans were never isolated to a year or three in the making. These people planned on the grand scale. Their influence might go unfelt for centuries yet behind the layers of history you would find a plan that spanned millennium. Only when an unexpected event transpired might you gain a glimpse of manipulating fingers as with deft touches, subtle as a breeze on a child’s face or devastating and destructive as a tornado they would correct the damage done to their design. Their resources were staggering and he was certain that he had not found even a half of their investments and much as he would have liked to ruin even a small portion of their financial resources to do so would have brought the world to the brink of economic ruin. Their manipulating fingers dabbled in many pies and perhaps their greatest strength was that they believed they had the inalienable right to guide the lives of mankind along the course they set out. They truly believed that they had the right to play God with the lives of humanity. It was because of this hidden Romefeller and what he had learned of them that he sat here now, staring out a false window at a star scape that was not what it seemed. There were no familiar constellations warped by distance and position for him to trace. Those shining pinpoints of light were not stars but chunks of rock travelling at astonishing speeds. The asteroids danced around Rosemount Station and were a most effective security screen. None of their vaunted technology on the station could have provided them with such security from discovery. No electronic security screen could be powered up to protect something so large from prying eyes. Even the great generators of the station could not provide them with sufficient power for that. Stars that were not stars, as deceptive as the stars viewed from the Earth were deceptive with their planets masquerading as stars. These false stars were wandering chunks of debris from a world never formed in the primal dawn of the solar system. A planets worth of wealth in bite sized chunks for the taker. Explorers had been exploiting that wealth for the profit of those hub bound conglomerate executives for more than a hundred years now. There were more than mining explorations being carried on in space though. There were an increasing number of explorers seeking to go beyond even this great distance from Earth who sought sites for habitats to be constructed to spread mankind further from the planet of its origins. Space was getting rather busy, really. Crowded as more and more colonies were founded and grander designs were hatched. He was amused to think that if all of his plans devised from the moment of his insight into Romefeller and their aims was realized then the ESUN’s grandiose schemes would be shown for the childish fantasies they were. Why were they so keen on leaving the Earth for the icy chill and hostility of space? Why did so many of the people prefer the regulated artificial worlds of colonies and planetary habitats such as those being constructed on Mars and talked about for the moons of Saturn and eventually Jupiter? Why did so many people abandon that beauty that only a living breathing world could produce? He preferred the solidity and security of a planet to a tiny floating speck of metal in space. He sighed softly and rested his head on the back of the chair. He was tired but he could not rest. He had not rested well since he had woken in that life support capsule and after many months had finally understood that he was more than just raw flesh and nerves screaming in agony. Since the awakening of his mind he had known little natural rest. When the body was incapable of distraction there was simply too much to think about. His work was not physical but mental and tired as he was he slept perhaps only four hours out of twenty four. //Dancing rocks. An ageless dance birthed in primal rage. Behind this dance we live and breathe and scheme of greater things.// The asteroids effectively hid them from the prying sensors that periodically swept the area. Space was vast but it was far from empty and humankind were moving more and more of its population and interests into space. Mining teams were steadily exploring the asteroid belt and in the last year were becoming more common in this area but they were not the only neighbours the Rosemount residents needed to hide themselves from. If the probability curve he had been working on was sound, and he had no cause to believe otherwise, then the station would need to be moved soon. He predicted there would be only a matter of months, perhaps as few as three or as many as seven before discovery would be imminent and now there was more to the mysterious fading contacts patrol crews had detected to be considered. They had given him facts and figures and all the intelligence they had gathered on those registered ships supposed to be in the area of the asteroids and that information did not account for all of the contacts encountered in the region over the last year. Those unaccounted for contacts had been bothering him but now he had a possible solution to the problem of who those ships belonged to and how they had eluded contact and clear identification. The Raiders had been assumed to be largely independent individuals preying on the space lanes and around the fringes of the mining colonies who had formed a loose trading organization to dispose of their trophy cargo’s. It had disturbed him that they had shown an increasing level of sophistication and organization but with the announcement of this Station Alliance there was a workable scenario to explain the discrepancies. His cousin. Kristian Kushrenada. If it was in truth him and again the probability curve he had entered into his base equation suggested that it was indeed a blood relative. It seemed that the Kushrenada’s produced change in their wake and this Kristian was no different. The address made to the ESUN had held interesting information just waiting to be picked out and added to his formulations. The man had revealed so much it could not be by accident but by design and he would have to work more to determine the course of events that other Kushrenada was instigating lest it disturb his hard won opportunity to progress. Sweepers. They were the missing factor he had not considered in the mysterious contacts occurring in the asteroid belt. Sweepers and the secrets they guarded so jealously. Link Sleepers with a Kushrenada and a secret trio of space stations claiming independence as well as those mysterious contacts and he progressed his evaluations substantially. Intelligence suggested it was Sleeper technology that had given one of the Gundam’s the ability to incorporate superior stealth technology. Marry the stealth abilities of the Deathscythe with the mysterious contacts in the asteroid belt and stations they had not discovered but knew to be out there and he had a complex picture demanding more of his time to evolve into resolution. //We have our own stealth technology on our ships. Only the smaller ships can be shielded but we have it and it enables us to patrol this area and keep the station a secret. Yet now I must ask if it is possible for one of our ships under stealth to be able to find one of these Station ships hidden by their own stealth mode?// He was developing a headache and that was not conducive to accurate speculation and development of sound hypotheses and if he was not careful his doctors would take matters into their own hands again and sedate him. They complained he did not sleep enough and he complained he had not enough to occupy his mind. The problem was his eyes saw his study at home, on Earth and his brain told him it was deception. His senses were confused by the mixed input. They had copied his study as a healing aid but they had not copied those other things that all together made up his impressions of home and would in truth relax him. He was well aware that he was becoming claustrophobic and on a space habitat that was a disaster waiting to happen. He missed the simple things that he had enjoyed before he had become a prisoner to an isolation unit. The breeze on his face, ruffling through his hair, caressing him with the gentlest touch of a lover or slapping him with the accusation and lament of the world for the lives of the sons and daughters of Earth that he had sacrificed to the greater good. The sounds of birds surrounding him were more sweet and enjoyable than the finest of Operatic stars wondrous voice. He missed the calls of those tiny melodious voices calling to their mates, defined their territories and the flutter of their wings as they ghosted over the beds of roses in the garden at home. And Ah! The scent of roses… He missed Earth. He missed home. //There is no going back. No changing things. Treize Kushrenada is dead. For the grander design he must remain dead. He is needed here now on this artificial world suspended in space, enclosed by cold metal. This is home.// Earth is home. That inner whisper defied his logic. He sighed softly. Home no longer. Dead men had not the option to change their minds and return to past lives. Dead men had not the luxury of regret and should know better than to entertain useless time consuming memories that served no purpose other than to unsettle him further. Dead men should just accept that what was known and comfortable and loved was now lost and to look forward and fashion a new life. It happened more frequently though. All too often these moments of melancholy would take him but a curious side effect of these instances had stopped the doctors and psychologists from medicating him. It had been noted by those observing his recovery that these moments of melancholy and reflection triggered insights he required for his calculations to progress at accelerated speed. They needed his calculations. It was so wonderful to be wanted. He shook his head slightly, disgusted with himself. He could deal with those melancholy moments but they seemed to come more and more frequently and he supposed that was due to his continued confined status. Confinement, as he had discovered under the Romefeller restraint, produced only brooding and out of that enforced activity brilliance could emerge. So it had been before when he had been confined to a castle and old fools had presumed to control him. //I need to gather my control. This will serve no useful purpose.// He had work to do but he would have enjoyed a breeze caressing his skin. //In the near future I will no longer be forced to remain in this isolation. It will be better then.// It was time he pulled his errant thoughts back from the brink of insanity. Time he set old memories to rest. Time he left what was best forgotten and moved on to a new life. He had so much to do and he needed that work. He needed to distract and occupy his mind from the subtle differences in this study that told him he was not in truth at home. He needed to make this home, to devote his abilities to ensuring than the cost payed in the life’s blood of others was not in vain and that the desired future remained on course. The future that he and others had given their life’s blood to bring about. Some had payed that ultimate price with full knowledge. Some had had only blind trust in him. Some had known nothing and become tools to be used but not discarded in the aftermath though it might indeed seem so. He forgot none who had contributed to this future. It was the least he could do to remember their sacrifice. They alone had not been used. He too had been used and knew what it was to be manipulated even as he had manipulated others to bring about circumstances conducive to the desired conclusion. //We all are hypocrites.// There were days when he doubted if they were any better than Romefeller. These people had come to him, talked to him of a desire for peace and new beginnings and told him of an account of history very different to that taught in schools across the ESUN. He had not been easy to persuade to their views. He took nothing for granted and investigated all that they had told him and in the end he had had to believe. They had convinced him of their version of history and they had asked for his help and seeing the abuses surrounding him wherever he looked, he had not refused them. Those people. He was one of those people now. A representative of Rosemount and working to bring about all that these people had stood for. They had convinced him to work with them and it was these people who had provided every resource imaginable to see that they had been there that fateful day to gather what was left of him and begin the painstaking work of putting him back together again. He might have died. He would have died if not for them. He owed them. As they owed him. The scales of balance never quite evened out in his view despite all that they had done for each other. They continued to heal him and he continued to run their probability calculations and determine the correct course of action and the appropriate timing to garner the best possible results. That was what worried him about this whole affair. Were they any different? Were they and indeed he any different from Romefeller? They used to be Romefeller and he like their ancestors were Romefeller experiments. They had their own grand design on what the future should be and that too was like Romefeller but there was one thing that gave him hope. They did not play in the genetic laboratories as Romefeller had done. They did not manipulate the genes of the unborn to produce a tool for the grand design. They had a plan, a design and it required Romefeller be placed on notice that all that they had done was not going to be accepted by those they had manipulated and murdered and bred for their convenience. //Am I any better than they? I like to think I am but there is no denying the deaths I have brought about to bring us to this point of that design. While more deaths are not called for I am not fool enough to think that no one is going to die for us to go beyond this point. There will be more deaths and I can not write off those lives lost in the past or those that might be lost in the future. I must ensure that their sacrifice was not nor will be in vain.// It had been a long road that he and others had walked to this point in time and space and they had reached a point that perhaps might equate to half its length travelled before they reached the end of their journey. A very long road indeed. They spoke of mid way points and defined destinations but his calculations and evaluations and suppositions led him to believe they were in error. His thoughts suggested they had just set their first step upon this road and it stretched out ahead of them unmarked by human footsteps. Pristine. Waiting for them. He had felt this before. This sense of expectation and worry and uncertainty. ——————————- * //Must it truly be this way? Perhaps I have missed some element within the evaluation that might indicate we walk a false path? Can I trust them? Some small thing that I may have missed or misunderstood…? It need not have seemed important at the time, merely a minor matter and possibly at the time unrelated to the larger question … No. No, I know enough not to ignore any iota of information. Not even a single grain of sand on a beach can be forgotten to attain a clear directive. It is impossible to know every grain of sand individually but it is not impossible to gain an overall view of the beach upon which sand rests. I have learned that everything has importance at some point in time and in the correct place and one must have patience and fortitude to await the outcome. To formulate a design that will produce the most desired result the designer must take into account everything, especially the seemingly insignificant and the independent bodies that bend and sway to a whim.// Or to a subtle push at the right time. Sunset. A glorious explosion of colour across the western sky that in ancient days would have been looked upon by the soothsayers and magicians of feudal courts as heralding great events with the coming of the new day. Colours in which he saw the need to question all that he had influenced up to this point and rethink his intentions for the future. Colours in glorious vibrant displays of reds, gold and deepening blue streaked with orange and rose that reflected both his misgivings and his certainties. This mood of reflection, of fleeting doubt was brought about only because events were to mature to a stage where he was to lose his direct sphere of influence for a length of time that made him uncomfortable. He was to set the scene in the new day and leave matters to the hands, hearts and souls of other players in the grand design. He had come so far, worked so hard, lived and breathed this plan… so why now did he hesitate? Why now did he stop and wonder if he had erred or if all would go crashing down into ruin because he passed this burden to others and could not free himself of its weight thus jeopardizing the later plans into which he must thrust his life and his trust. Would any of the other players in this grand design understand his reasoning? He doubted that there was more than the one individual in the entire Earth Sphere who could understand his fears. One person. The one who perhaps was the most innocent in this entire mess though he would no doubt laugh at the notion he was innocent given all that he had done. He had already betrayed Him and not once but many times and in many ways over the years. This man who had given him his trust and friendship and in years past had looked upon him with something horrifyingly like worship and adoration would be the one he entrusted the future to. It was because of Him that he had initially begun to have doubts and begin to question the beliefs and ways of Romefeller. They had been children together, closer than brothers after the blood and horror had marked the innocence of his young friend. He had been marked but never could his strength be destroyed. Milliardo had learned the horrors of the world and the injustice and the betrayal of friends… and still he retained the heart to make a difference. He would, of course, argue his own virtues should he ever be consulted. In their younger days when they had shared a home and had been brothers and friends. It seemed so long ago and yet it was not. It was but a few years ago, a handful of years had changed so much between them and after all the other misunderstandings and betrayals would come the greatest betrayal of all. So much greater than seemingly bending to Romefeller’s will and ordering his friend to die for the glory of warped power hungry old fools who refused to see more than days long gone to dust He must now betray once again the young man who must share with him the burden of the future of humanity. He had played with the lives of billions in this grand game of designing futures. He had steadily shaped the course of the future, delicately guided circumstances until they matched the design he knew was the only means by which the human race would have the prolonged peace that he desired so much. The peace that would give him freedom if it was won. The peace HE desired. Was he being selfish? It was not for his own gain that he desired peace come to the Earth Sphere though indeed he did desire it. It was not just for him that he stood here on this tallest of towers and second guessed himself on the morals of the design and the costs to bring it to fruition. He was not even certain that in a situation such as this the usual standards and morals could be applied. If he did this thing in the new day coming then he was going to die. Like everyone else he wanted to live but there was one simple truth that he would never deny. He could not ask others to die and himself side step the necessity. If his calculations were in error, if he had made even one miniscule mistake, then he was going to die but should his calculations be true there was that tiny chance that he might survive and with his survival might that most desired of doorways open. Freedom. If he survived then he might work not for the entire human race crammed into this grubby little backwater of the galaxy but for himself and for those others he had as yet to meet but in whom he needed to trust if he was to survive. Beneath the rule of Romefeller he like all others on the Earth and in space would be no better than a slave. Kushrenada’s were slaves to no man. //Why after coming this far should I hesitate now?// Was it because what was yet to come in this grand design was to be the hardest part of all to achieve? He would lose all but minor influence and place the entire scheme in jeopardy or was is simply because it meant such huge changes ahead? But no. No, neither of those excuses was correct and he had had enough of pathetic excuses from people who sought to bring down the hope of the future so why should he stand here and consider making them himself? That was truly pathetic. All of the scheming, all of the lying, all of the debasing and acting the sycophant he had needed to do was for that change in the world and in the attitudes of the people to take place. He and those others who saw as he did the potential and possibilities of a lasting peace and the freedom it would grant them to forward their own ambitions had worked tirelessly to bring about this sequence of events. In all that was to come he must remember that he was not alone. They were out there watching him and continuing to work towards the same ends. With peace in place they might make giant strides into the future and the cost in human lives and friendships and families would not have been paid in vain. They who ran Rosemount and who had worked beside him and behind him in the shadows and his friends who had trusted him and whom he had betrayed had known from the start, just as he had known, that their work would neither be understood nor appreciated. They all would go down in history as demons, as dictators, as mass murderers or their contribution would be lost in silence… and it was a price they deemed worthy of their sacrifice. So few would ever understand. So few would ever see the scope of their endeavour. //Peace. True lasting peace. So many have died for that elusive word so easily said and always steeped in blood. I sometimes think it does not and never will exist. So many men and women must give their lives for it to be complete. Death comes to us all but what is it? What is death really? An ending or a beginning?// For him it would be both an ending and a beginning. If all went as it should and he had not erred. If he who was to come in the new day and carry forward the design all unknowing would perform as expected. If the Epyon would tolerate him. //So many questions and this only a minor though important part of the design. This is to be a test of the strength of the design I have woven and of my faith in its weaving. I need you to come to me and to take my gift away with you. I hope that in time you can forgive me for what I will be making you a part of. Though you are not here to hear it I must voice my apologies to you for what I am about to do. I confess that I am uncertain of the effects the Epyon will have on you… For the nightmares it will undoubtedly give you and for whatever else it may subject you to… I am sorry. I will take upon my head the deaths of those who succumb at your hands while you are within its influence but you are strong and single minded in your dedication to seeking peace and that should see you survive.// “I apologize, Heero Yuy for what must be done.” Sunset over Luxembourg was a beautiful sight and fading now in splendour. The first stars were becoming visible and the landscape was softening and blending into the darkness. There was little of the city visible from this estate but standing on this highest of towers afforded a glimpse of the city. The details of buildings were indistinct but he did not need to see it clearly beneath the glorious golden glow that faded with each passing second. He had seen it so many times in all of its splendour in the broad light of day, in the harsh light of summer noon and in the glitter of its evening jewels… and in all of its filth. The splendour of it and the depravity. Two sides of the one coin. What would his spirit look like if you could liken it to a coin? Perhaps a coin was not how he needed to measure himself. Perhaps he should think of the after world from the viewpoint of the ancient Egyptians. Weigh his intentions and heart on the scales of Thoth against the Feather and how pure then would his intentions be found to be? //This is idiocy.// Yet he could not help but wonder what you would see if you measured his intentions and his heart in the casting of a coin? //Purity of intention can be lost so easily. It happens to us all but in this I am firm in my resolve to bring about the correct equation.// Was it dehumanizing him? Was he becoming a calculating machine? Was he human at all or had he become something else? Something awful. Something to be shunned as inhuman and shameful? Or demonic. //Romefeller.// He could spit the name if it was not so unseemly to do so. Even up here on the tallest tower he was watched though those at the castle were in fact all his own men. Regardless of who it was who guarded him he had a presence to maintain that reflected his position, his breeding and his command status. He could not and indeed would not insult them by being less than the epitome of control. These men who watched now were his own and had dedicated themselves to his cause, had made that cause their own and for them he would not fold. For them. For the future. For his friend who was to be betrayed and for the boy who unknowingly would be his tool to deliver damnation to Milliardo and salvation to humanity. //I am sorry, my friend. I know how you seek to avoid the dreams… How as a child the dreams would bring you nothing but terror. Terror not from the memories that haunted you of the massacre past though those memories were bad enough but for the horror of seeing what was yet to come. It pains me more than you could know, more than I could convey to you that I must force an awakening of what it was you struggled so hard to suppress. The truth is that I can no longer run this computation. The threads of equations, of possibilities, probabilities, supposition… All of the threads I have so painstakingly gathered together and woven into a fabric of great richness… They all converge around you.// One young man, barely grown to maturity would carry the weight of that tapestry. One young man torn by the past, abused both physically and mentally by fate must carry the weight of the future on his broad shoulders. One young man who on some days seemed a rock upon which the only stability could be found and who on other days seemed as shifting and deceptive emotionally as quicksand. A young man who had so recently been betrayed by the one he considered his friend. It was a chance he knew had to be taken. Emotional fragility was projected at this time when his friend was torn between the past and the future, the old and the new. The kingdom that had birthed Milliardo Peacedcraft and the harsh reality that had birthed Zechs Marquise. They were not, in truth, one man wearing two names and he knew he must chance the sanity of this man trying to determine who he was. There was no other choice available to him. Milliardo Peacecraft was needed, not Zechs Marquise. Milliardo Peacecraft the man, not the child who had run in horror from terrifying dreams that had become tragic reality and destroyed all he held dear. Milliardo Peacecraft who if all of the designs of a secret organization had become flesh and blood was the only one who could see beyond the veils that shrouded even his own enhanced vision and who should be able to craft from that chaos the eventual outline of a world and a society that bathed and prospered in peace. //There is no time for Zechs Marquise to play at being Milliardo Peacecraft as he has been doing. I must awaken the child and all that he was and bring back the abilities from which he fled and for that necessity I apologise, my friend. You, like Yuy are not here to hear me voice it but I promise you Milliardo that if all goes well there will come a day when I will apologize to you in person. When it is done. When we both are dead and we meet on the other side.// He closed his eyes against the deep colour of the sunset. Almost gone now. Almost true night. How much time and effort and money had gone into this great deception? How many lives had been lost to bring them to this penultimate moment when the fate of man hung in the balance? It was there, waiting just beyond the darkness that blocked the vision from him. He could not cross that point with his calculations and evaluations and he had tried. Tried and failed to make that leap of perception. Such an ability was not bred into his blood and bones as it was bred into his friend who as a child had been terrified by its early awakening and who had in his terror spent his life blocking it out. “It will take only the one use of the Epyon to awaken you to your ability. Just one use and the system will ensnare you. I was not right for it and there was no true merging and no true evaluation possible. I saw enough… perhaps too much but I knew from the start that I might need to pay the ultimate price. For you it will be different. It picked up enough from me and I from it for me to know that it is you who can understand it and use it to the fullest extent. It will be you but you will fear that merging and the sight it brings, won’t you? I can not blame you for it terrified me. Do you have the strength that I believe you have? Do you have the strength to go beyond the fear and the un certainty and the darkness into what lies beyond? What would it be like, I wonder? What would it be like to see as you will see, to know the things that you will know. To have the potential to shape a civilization?” He closed his eyes, pressed his palms over his eyelids and sighed. Did he have the right to force the issue and condemn one man to insanity? Did he have the right to not bring about the circumstances that could give mankind the opportunity to know true and lasting peace? It could all fail. It could come crumbling down into bloody ruin. If he had overlooked even the smallest detail in his calculations it could crumble into an unmitigated disaster and the world would tumble into ruin. Such chaos as to make all of the worst of history insignificant in comparison. He was casting more than his own life and the lives of his followers into the wind by choosing this course and forcing one man to carry the weight of so much. He was taking the lives of every man, woman and child on the Earth and in the colonies into the sort of risk no one could be expected to take and be considered sane. //Therefore I am not sane. Ah, well. Such must be for the greater good to eventuate. I have played with the lives of so many already that my soul is forever damned should I fail but why is it that toying with Milliardo hurts the most? Will there be redemption for me in the future? Will there be redemption for the lives and the souls I have played with and will continue to manipulate in the future? I have toyed with Une and mercilessly with Milliardo. I have lied, cheated and cajoled, threatened and murdered to get what I needed out of people. I have driven Lady to the brink of insanity and now it is Milliardo’s turn. No one will ever know that what eventuates does so not by his choice but by my instigation. He will not have been asked to participate in this and even he will not understand that it is all done to my design. No one not already privy to my evaluation will understand why I do what I must.// They would think they understood, the leaders of the world they were about to shape but they would be wrong. Psychologists no doubt would debate his sanity and that of his unsuspecting friend for a generation or more. A grand case of insanity that shaped the world and none of them would really understand what it had all been about. There would be no one left to explain it. No records left behind for the survivors to find. //I have no doubt that you will play your part in this deception and that you will exceed my greatest expectations and that is what truly frightens me. You have so much potential and you have the drive to take it to the extreme. Epyon may drive you to the edge and what should happen if it drives you too far and you leap over that edge? Will it be peace you choose or something else? Something terrible that I sensed but could not see? Will you shrink from the price I believe must be payed to bring about a future where we can have a place that is accepting of us and what we have been made to be?// Night greeted him when he opened his eyes. Velvet darkness, star pointed sky and the silver lights growing steadily clearer as the darkness deepened. Up there lay so many things. His possible death. The first step to his freedom be that the release of death or a new beginning in life. Freedom. They were colonizing the solar system and out there, in the far reaches of space there were new worlds to be explored, new opportunities to be welcomed for mankind to broaden his horizons. There lay escape from the blood of the past and the chance to find the peace of the future. “The other side.” * ——————————————- Sapphire eyes opened slowly, taking in the moving pin points of light within the velvet darkness. Cold, cold space but filled with the promise of the future. He had been right to do what he had. He had been right. He must never doubt it nor must he doubt that he could look upon Rosemount station as home. There was no going back. The past was past and the future lay before them, they merely needed to reach out and grasp it. There was so much opportunity, so much potential to be found lying ahead of them. For him, for those who crewed the station and her attendant flotilla and for those they had yet to gather to them. All they needed to take the first great step into that future was to gather the last of their people and the time to do that was fast approaching. They needed to bring their lost souls home. Not the least of those lost souls was the two who according to stolen information might be able to pilot this dream to its conclusion. Two? No, though they were certain there were two with the ability his calculations suggested that only one of the two would actually be able to initiate change over and give them the freedom they sought. Of the two with the needed potential Dorothy was the closest and he had no doubt that she would join them on Rosemount but he also knew that she would not agree immediately to their designs. Ah, no, not his Dorothy. First she must extract every ounce of emotion out of those who surrounded her, who expected her cooperation without understanding that she was not one you could manipulate. They considered him to be a master manipulator but they had no idea what they would be getting in Dorothy. She had grown up in Dermail’s shadow and she had survived the halls of the modern Romefeller. She had passed through the war and survived the aftermath and then dealt with the true insanity of Romefeller. Had she been able to maintain her personal integrity? Though he would not know if she had survived this last trial intact and uniquely the Dorothy he knew until she arrived he suspected that she had. She was indomitable and he looked forward to their meeting. //She will be angry.// Perhaps angry was too tame a word for what would shake his cousin when they met face to face. He knew that she had been abandoned on his ‘death’. He knew that so many of those who had been needed in the past and who would be needed in the future had been of necessity cast adrift to cope on their own when it had come down to the battle to shape their lives in the aftermath. The strong had survived and no doubt the weak had gone to their graves cursing his name. It could not be helped. Dorothy was not one of the weak ones. He dealt with their ghosts every day. He dealt with the memories of their names, their faces, their families whom they had left behind. He knew the names of all those who had followed him or been caught up in the games he had needed to play to bring about this day so soon to be upon them. The deaths were not just in the past. He was not so much the fool that he did not expect there to be more deaths in the future. He would remember them too. Someone must for they deserved at least that much. To be remembered. //It is time I approached Lady. Our future together is… uncertain. The evaluations I have made suggest…// He did not wish to admit it even to himself that he may have wrought her too well. He had crafted her as he had needed too to bring about the peace. He had strengthened her to watch him die and accept that death… and move beyond it and maintain the peace. If he had wrought well, and he believed that he had, then he may have destroyed any chance of a future they might share together. He had wanted her to come with him into a new future where they could have that time denied them as man and woman. That most joyous of moments had hung on his uncertain survival and the belief that he was dead. His survival had hinged on Milliardo and Milliardo had almost failed. He shuddered at the thought. After all of the hard work, after all of the lives that had been snuffed out or ruined, changed irrevocably in order to change the world… after it all was over and done with he could sit here and remember how it was, what had been done, what had succeeded and failed and see how close they had come to disaster. It had all hinged on the sanity and fortitude of a man, hardly more than a boy, who had been terrorized by the past and who had feared what had been bred into him by those who professed to be the Guides to humanity. //Guides!// he could feel his lip curl in disgust. How could he have left the fate of the world, and his own life in the hands of a young man who had sought to forever lock away the very thing that made him the unwilling and unforgiven saviour of their civilization? Mankind in space would continue to explore and colonize and reproduce in peace because Milliardo Peacecraft had had the heart to see beyond his fear. //Manipulated, cheated on, driven to insanity… All at my instigation. I would have come for you sooner, my friend, had I been able. I can act now and I know where you are. It can not be permitted to end now when we are so close to the beginning.// A future free of war. A future for everyone where they did not need to face their brother across a loaded gun. Would anyone understand the cost to the individuals who had carried the weight? They could see the cost in shattered human lives everywhere they looked in the colonies and on earth but no one could see what had become of him and he could not as yet see what had become of Milliardo. He had not been able to destroy all of the evidence of his manipulation and schemes so it was possible that someone, some day, might stumble upon the truth. Could they break through the maze of deception and lies to reach the core? //It is of no matter. Should someone eventually break through to the truth it will not be in my life time. I forced them into this with promises for a better world and a better future. Those who survived the war and the aftermath will know both and those who died… To you who believed and died I bid you be comforted by the knowledge that your families will not know the horrors that made up your life.// He was tired. He was making no sense even to himself and yet there was no room for sleep. The urgency of the calculations was weighing upon him and he could not ignore it. //Am I even human anymore?// There was no time to wallow in such thoughts. He should know better and indeed he did but sometimes he just needed to allow the negatives out to appreciate the positives. There was one negative that he preyed might become a positive. His calculations had not shown him the Station Alliance. He had calculated for many events, for the rise and fall of organizations who sought to gain influence in the next hundred years or so. It would be four generations, he had calculated, before mankind would understand the strength of the peace and what it could lead them to. Four generations of humans who with each successive generations birth would strengthen the framework of peace until it became as natural as breathing. He had calculated the rise and fall of business empires, the effects of rebellions in each of the colony clusters and in seven areas of the Earth over the course of a hundred years and he had calculated that they would fail to disrupt the peace in any significant manner. In all of those calculations he had not found any hint of information that would have incited the equation that would reveal an independent body so far from the Earth Sphere. No hint of this Station Alliance and therefore no warning to Preventers to enable them to prepare to meet this new power. It could mean disaster. It could mean delay in their timetable. He needed to input every piece of information they could find on this Station Alliance no matter how small or insignificant it seemed. He needed to have profiles on the council who represented the stations people and determine their temper. He needed to learn from what walks of life the Stations drew their citizenry. He needed to learn how many were miners, how many would be generally unskilled labour, how many were specialists in their respective fields… how many might be displaced and dissatisfied soldiers. Dare they ignore this so called Alliance and continue with their time table? Must this force a delay? Did they need to bring down the Station Alliance or could this sudden emergence prove to be a fortuitous development? Was it’s emergence something brought about within the echoing dreams of the man he had forced into the Epyon? //How can I be sure what is safe to touch? I did not craft what surrounds us now. Milliardo crafted whatever world is forming beyond Rosemount. He chose the course they now tread and without speaking to him do I dare to interfere? I might well ruin some fundamental development that could bring the peace into ruin.// There was only one person he could think of besides Milliardo who might have the answers and that person was perhaps more dangerous to approach if he could be located than the former Prince of Sanc himself. //Kristian Kushrenada. Cousin. No doubt as toyed with by Romefeller as any of us on Rosemount. As angry at Romefeller? Perhaps even as intent on bringing them down?// Taking action could result in disaster… so too could inaction. t.b.c.
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