Heero Yuy, L6, and the Second Suit Wars | ELLE
Pairings/Warnings: 1x2x1 plus others TBD, 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.)
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. =) Definitely check out her work, if you haven't already for whatever ridiculous reason!
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.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Gundam Wing (unfortunately) and they were used without permission, but all the words are my own.
PART ONE | Memoirs of a Former Life
1.1 The Meeting
I stared at the mass of disorganized people swarming the mad digital explosion of lights and robotics geared to get their attention. I couldn't imagine a place I wanted to be less than where I was, disgusted by the display of swarming ant-like people vying to have the newest and best inanimate thing possible for the sake of their ego and vanity.
Yet here I was, to give a lecture to this horde, on 'Theoretical Compatible AI Implementation for Human Interconnectivity in Mobile Suit Construction.' Theoretical because mobile suit construction was outlawed, but also because god only knew if any one of these pathetic creatures would understand even a tenth of what I was going to say. Inevitably, I'd be fielded a bunch of questions that missed the point entirely and maybe that was a good thing. I didn't really understand why I was invited here to give this lecture, or why my boss was so insistent I come, despite the fact that mobile suit construction was a dangerous topic and if someone did understand what I was prepared to say... Well, they probably didn't need my lecture, I suppose.
But the fact of the matter is that I'm no show pony and this was far out of my league and I don't know what I was thinking when I felt compelled to 'volunteer.' Maybe it was too many years without a vacation. Maybe it was the hopeful look in Kerry's eyes when he suggested it to me. Maybe it was the chance to talk to a few of my industry peers in person. It didn't matter – either way I was here now and I'd make the best of it.
"Sir?" a quiet woman in an ill-fitted suit appeared behind me, the perfect picture of patience. She seemed a little intimidated by me as our eyes met. "We need you to come back now. It's almost time for your lecture."
I sighed heavily. It wasn't really that I minded giving speeches or being the center of attention, I didn't. It was just like any other task. If you were well prepared, there was nothing to worry about. It's just that I preferred to be alone.
I followed her back and into a large hallway that connected several lecture rooms. She was briefing me on the various technology available in the room, assuring me that they had my presentation pre-loaded on their computer, and she fitted me with a lapel microphone. Beautiful. I simply loved hearing my intentionally monotonous voice booming across a speaker system.
Did I mention how ill suited I was for this kind of thing?
"You know, I really admire your work," she said after a moment of quiet, almost blushing.
It occurred to me then that I could easily pick her up – slip her my hotel room number and spend a couple hours with her. I almost grimaced at the thought – a particularly rude gesture as she gushed her accolades upon me for my most recently published white paper. I wasn't sure she really understood the implications of that document, but I listened politely to her, nodding my head at key junctures, until I was allowed to escape into the lecture hall.
It wasn't a particularly large room, but then my lecture was going to be highly technical and I was sure I'd loose the hundred and fifty people in the seats anyway. I approached the podium and ruffled through my notes there, making sure everything was in order, and pulled up the introductory slide. I looked up and tested the microphone and noticed a man slip in. Normally I wouldn't note any individual person – they didn't particularly interest me in any way – but he stood out. Initially because of his ridiculous hair, braided straight down his back. And because he was young, about my age, which was surprising because I stood out dramatically in the field, having no formal education other than an honorary doctorate from MIT in Artificial Intelligence Engineering two years ago for my thesis work interfacing the neocortex with super computers to spawn a primitive secondary intelligence. Suffice to say I normally interacted with men and women at least fifteen years my senior and it was that crowd I was looking at now.
But then he became memorable because once his eyes fell on me, the blood drained from his face and he looked like he was going to faint. I didn't usually produce that kind of reaction in people – frankly, I maintain a rather blasé appearance – but he didn't make any move towards me, he just stood there, his mouth agape, leaning heavily against the wall.
It was easy for me to ignore him, however, and I performed my sound check then introduced myself.
"Welcome to this lecture on Theoretical Compatible AI Implementation for Human Interconnectivity in Mobile Suit Construction. As you can note in your schedule, I'm Jack Kaufmann, and I represent the Nexxus International Group. I will give my contact information at the end of the lecture if you would like any further clarification on the concepts that will be discussed over the next hour."
I paused for a moment and got a feel for the vaguely interested crowd. The young man managed to find a seat in the back, but his face still betrayed his shock and disbelief.
The lecture was an extreme jaunt through the underlying concepts and difficulties regarding human-machine interfaces and was filled with enough technical jargon that most of the faces glazed over after awhile. I left a minimal amount of time at the end for questions and noted that the braided man had furiously scribbled down my contact information while politely waiting for a few confused and rambling questions about basic database structure and interface mechanisms. I answered as concisely as possible, noting the young man practically jumping out of the seat, but not expecting a man with his pretty-boy exterior to have anything of much value to say.
"So if I understand correctly, you are postulating that a pilot could interface completely with a machine via a neural network such that their thoughts would dictate its actions, working in tandem with the reprehensible assumption of compliant AI, despite the limitations of the human brain. How can you assume synapses would increase at that exponential rate to keep up with the computing power of petabytes worth of RAM without destroying the subject?" he asked seriously, almost angrily. I didn't understand his depth of emotion on a theoretical subject but he continued, adding darkly, "Your personal experience should dictate otherwise."
I was surprised how shaken I was by his antagonism. "First of all, sir, I think you are taking this a bit too seriously as this is purely theoretical and I have no personal experience piloting or designing mobile suits. Second, while it is impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether the subject would be destroyed or not, Nexxus International Group has done extensive research on synapse development in the human brain. This theory hinges on the assumption that children would be recruited as their synapse expansion peaks so that their development could be artificially maintained and grown beyond that of a normal adult. But this is acceptable only given the completely theoretical nature of this discussion as such experimentation on children would never be allowed to come to fruition."
I noted he was physically shaking at this point, his hands balled into fists and his teeth gritted such that the muscles of his jaw were bulging, tight with strain.
He didn't sit down but he didn't ask anything else so I swept the room, looking for any other questions before realizing I was finally free from this lecture. I thanked the audience and exited the stage gratefully. I nodded my head at my peer who was waiting in the hallway to take the stage. He smiled back at me, but Milton had always been excessively friendly for someone in this field.
I thought about that braided man as the microphone was removed from me and I was thanked profusely for my involvement in the lecture series. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like he was baiting me, deliberately asking that question to see how I would respond. What could he possibly be referring to? My personal experience? With what? Sure, I wrote some high-level simulation scripts and developed some rather advanced AI but I wouldn't exactly consider that 'personal experience' with the subject of mobile suit interfaces.
He weighed on my mind as I wandered back down the hall alone – was the suggestion that an AI might be compliant really reprehensible? – when suddenly he bolted out from a doorway and came at me with the fury of a hurricane. I glanced around but noticed no one was there, all my peers and the convention aides were in lecture rooms on the opposite end of the hallway around some bend or another. For a brief moment I thought he was going to punch me and I braced myself as best I could for the hit, but he stopped just short and he wrapped me in an inescapable hug.
I froze, unsure of how to respond to such an unexpected greeting. No one ever touched me. People rarely offered to shake my hand. His warmth overwhelmed me for a moment and the earthy smell of him was strangely comforting. I didn't hug him back, but I was almost disappointed when he pulled away from me and punched me hard in the shoulder.
"I don't know what the fuck you're playing at in there, Yuy, but goddamn I'm glad to see ya." He was so enthusiastic, his eyes shining, his hand gripping my upper arm like he was scared that if he stopped touching me I would disappear before his eyes. "Why you gotta say shit like that to piss me off? We haven't seen each other in over three years and you hafta do that to me? Jeez. You haven't changed a bit."
Finally I snapped out of my shock as he rambled and said bluntly, "I think you have the wrong person."
He laughed, a wonderfully loud, boisterous sound that resounded in the hallway. "Oh come on, I've finally caught you, Heero. There's no one here, you can admit it."
"I have no idea what you are talking about or who you are," I stated honestly. I think I would remember a man with a three and a half foot braid. Or at least that my name wasn't Jack.
"You don't remember me? At all? Duo Maxwell? God of Death? None of that ringing a bell to you?" He sobered up dramatically then, the light fading from his eyes and his shoulders slumping dejectedly.
"No." I felt a bit guilty striking the last nail in his coffin. His mouth dropped to a sad frown and he took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest to inspect me.
"Well, that fucking sucks," he stated plainly. "What happened to you, Heero...?"
"Jack," I said. "Jack Kaufmann." That just seemed to dig salt in the wounds of his internal suffering.
"Goddamnit, Heero," he ground out and for a moment I genuinely worried he was going to cry. "You told me I'd see you again, but you didn't say it'd be like this!"
I really didn't know what to say to him. People didn't get this distraught around me. I didn't really know how to deal with this kind of emotional overflow. I think others sensed it and therefore avoided spectacles of this nature in my presence. I couldn't even apologize because what would I be apologizing for? I can't help not being who he wanted me to be.
So I stood there stupidly as he pulled himself together and dug into his jacket pocket. The way he stretched left his too-thin white shirt exposed, the top three buttons undone casually, and I could easily see how well muscled he was. I wish I wasn't looking, I never capitulated to this kind of base behavior, but his smell still intoxicated me and I blamed his stupid touch for my wandering eyes.
"Look, I don't care if you believe me or not, but I'm your friend and I've missed you, buddy. So here's my card." He flipped out the little white piece of paper and handed it to me. "We really should get lunch some time to talk about things. I mean... as long as you're on Earth."
I glanced at the card. Freelance consultant? What the hell did that mean?
"Nexxus' HQ is in Geneva," I stated absently, tucking the card safely into my pocket as his eyes shifted dramatically.
"For fucks sake we've been hours apart this whole time and I didn't even know it?" he asked himself aloud, appearing even more rattled by that realization than I'd thought possible. "I've been in Sanc since I always thought if you showed up anywhere it would be for –" Abruptly he dropped what he was going to say, clearly thinking better of it. "Well, what the fuck." It was a statement, not a question, and his eyes seemed the most vivid shade of blue I'd ever seen just then. I don't know why I noticed something so impractical but I felt this inexplicable draw to the other man, like he slipped perfectly into a missing piece of my soul. What kind of ridiculous sappy nonsense was that? I didn't think this way – this wasn't me. I banished the thoughts and gave him a cool glare.
"Is that all?" I asked impatiently, looking down my nose at him a bit through he was slightly taller. He seemed incredibly hurt by this but sucked it up well and gave me a big goofy grin.
"Just don't go redesigning the ZERO system or anything, buddy," he suggested enigmatically, tapping my forehead with one finger. "And call me sometime," he added with a wink, sauntering off.
My eyes lingered on his ass a bit longer than I felt comfortable admitting but I waited until he turned a corner and was out of sight before I slipped through the nearest doorway into a dark banquet hall, closing the door behind me and breathing deep, calming breaths.
Who was that? And why did he make me feel like that? Terrified, anxious, angry, and licentious – all at the same time? No one had ever produced such a visceral reaction in me. Frankly, I didn't want to call him. I didn't want to ever see him again. I just wanted to leave this conference, go home, and pretend we'd never met.
If only I had known how impossible that would prove to be.