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" Everywhere I Look "Written By: Presser
Disclaimer : I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. This work of fiction is written and shared freely without any attempt to profit financially from it. Rating : R Pairings : 1x2 Warnings : Wistful romance, AU, after Endless Waltz, and departing quite a bit from canon direction Summary: Duo Maxwell is a young, upcoming artist with a hole in his heart. He hates himself for never confessing his love to Heero Yuy, a war-weary mecha pilot running from his past all the way to the Phobos Project—the first manned mission to Mars. Duo longs for the man he loves, but doesn’t know where he is. Can they find love in each other’s arms? And what of Heero’s mysterious collapse when he arrives on Earth to search for the one he loves?
"Everywhere I Look " 20 “Something wrong?” “Yes, there is. I haven’t worked out in at
least four days. And this damn plastic prison won’t even let
me stand. I have to pee in a dish, for Christ’s sake, not to
mention —” “I don’t,” Wufei said, “need a description.” “So,” Heero said, settling himself the best
he could, “tell me what you want.” He waited patiently,
knowing his former comrade-in-arms was struggling to overcome his
obsession with secrecy. After a moment, Heero broke the silence. “Wufei, you came looking for me, not the
other way around.” Wufei’s sigh overblew his mic. Heero smiled at
the blast of static. “To be honest, Heero, approaching you was a long
shot. I mostly expected you to turn me down — that is, if you
responded at all. But I’m glad you did.” Wufei hesitated. Heero opened his mouth, but his friend spoke first. “I’m going to be candid. We’ve been working
on this for weeks without much progress. Of course, all we started
with was the vague suspicion that the Gundam scientists were up to
something. We didn’t know what, but we knew from the way the
chatter changed —” “Explain.” “Preventers monitors a lot of the Grid: forums,
chat rooms, social networking — though we don’t get a lot
from things like Twitter and Facebook. All online interaction between
people — blog posts and comments on news stories, articles, even
YouTube videos — that’s chatter.” “I know what chatter is, Wufei. What I don’t
know is how it changed.” “Three years ago we noticed that references to
Dr. J., Professor G, Doktor S, Instructor H, and Master O began popping
up in unexpected places.” “Like …” Wufei warmed to the task of explaining. “All five
scientists disappeared when the war ended. No one’s seen or heard
from any of them publicly or otherwise since — not that they
were visible much in the first place. Of course, that hasn’t
stopped the conspiracy nuts from constructing theories around them
for any and every possible thing wrong with the world.” “So you don’t think they’ve —” “Don’t know for sure,” Wufei said. “We
know they’re somewhere; we just don’t know where.” Heero leaned back and closed his eyes. I know where
one of them is, he thought. He decided to wait until he knew all
Wufei would share with him before divulging that information. “What changed a few weeks ago was that discussions
of them — who they are, their backgrounds, their motives for
launching Operation Meteor, what they’re doing now — started
showing up in upper-strata conversations. Events with pretty large
sig numbers.” Heero opened his eyes. “Sig numbers?” “Sorry,” Wufei said. “The jargon’s
second nature to me. Preventers organizes Grid activity into levels
of significance we call strata. Forum threads, comments of every kind
— all the interactions I mentioned — we call those events.
Events are ranked according to importance and assigned a number that
reflects their significance, called a sig number for short.” “Okay,” Heero said. He sat forward as he was
drawn into the discussion. “So events in upper-strata conversations
—” Wufei moved forward with more about Preventers’
data acquisition procedures. “Fringers like conspiracists and
UFO believers are at the bottom of the strata list; sites of major
bloggers for respected magazines like The Economist and Foreign Policy
Quarterly, where intelligent, rational discussion takes place, are
higher, and their events are assigned correspondingly larger sig numbers.
Conversation between government and military agencies are at the top.” Heero’s eyes widened. “You must have —” “More than a couple of thousands,” Wufei said.
“Some more trusted than others; most aren’t even aware they’re
working for Preventers.” Heero spoke in a hushed voice of awe. “I had no
idea your network was that extensive.” Wufei smirked. “Who’s running it, Heero?” “I assume it’s still Lady — oh.”
The most aggressive, paranoid, and dedicated solder OZ ever had. “Need I say more?” Heero grimaced. “Is there anyone Preventers doesn’t
eavesdrop on?” “We prefer to call it monitoring. It is
for the public good, you know.” “So you’re saying that the more reputable
groups began speculating on what the Gundam scientists are doing now.” “Yes, but we couldn’t put our fingers on anything
specific. Until the Phobos mission, that is.” Wufei waited while
Heero thought about that. “All right. Let me throw out a theory based on some assumptions, then you tell me what I’ve got wrong.” |
