Zechs pressed his back against the wall, his gun held in two hands, at eye level. It was dark and damp in this ruined neighborhood of Old Tokyo. The world was at peace, but peace did not mean prosperity. This portion of the city, too remote to be influent, had not been rebuilt since the war, but people living there had constructed rudimentary shelters out of the rubble.

The Preventers had received a call from one of their informants. He had finally traced a series of intrusions to their databases to a network access point in this section of Old Tokyo. From their research, only a door separated them from the culprit.

Static filled his right ear for an instant, and then Seize spoke up over the line. He hated this headset they were required to wear, but it often proved to be useful. "He's accessing the network again. Access point confirmed."

The hacker responsible for the attacks on their system had particularly attempted to access old Oz files. Classified files dealing with Mobile Dolls.

Zechs nodded to Noin and quickly spun around, banging the door open with his shoulder and rolling back to his feet, his gun held firmly in his grip. He scanned the room, and noticed someone hunched over a computer terminal in the corner.

"You over there! Move away from the terminal!"

Next to him, his partner, his fiancée, trained her weapon in the direction Zechs was pointing, already lifting her flashlight up to point in the perpetrator's direction.

"Masaka..." Noin breathed, unable to believe what they saw.

---------------------

Ann shook her head in the dim lighting, feeling no sense of surprise at all. After all, they were former OZ officers, and she had worked with them before, starting up the organization that she led so that peace could hold sway on the Earth and the surrounding colonies.


She turned towards the second voice to see Noin standing there, a stunned look on her face, one that mirrored briefly on Zech's face before his face went impassive. It was a trick that Ann had perfected years ago.
"Why are you so surprised, Noin?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned back to the glowing screens. "You're both in time to see his dream die."

Zechs slowly lowered his gun and put it back in its holster. He could not believe someone as loyal as her would have betrayed them.

Then he understood. She was still loyal to him before all else. Before the living…

"Ann, he never hid what he felt. He would have wanted you to be true to yourself. Whatever reason you have for doing what you did...I know he would have never approved."

He could not gaze into her eyes. Or Noin's. He saw himself in the figure he had glimpsed, hunching down over the keys of that terminal. And he hated what he saw. Who was he to judge, he who had tasted both defeat and betrayal?

"Take her away," he called through his headset.

Zechs let her file out of the room with two other Preventers as her escort but could not bring himself to look at her. He let out a sigh and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes, his hand going up to massage the bridge of his nose.

Trust Treize to come back and haunt him.

-------------------

Noin was at a loss for words. The hacker was... Ann? What in the world could've possessed her to do something like this? ...And worse yet... why didn't she tell her anything?

Ann and Noin had become really close after the war. A bond had been created between them, a friendship that had only strengthened during the X18999 crisis. They kept in contact even outside of work, and Mariemeia was a common sight at Noin's apartment when duty called Ann to work even later than she usually did. She found herself shaking her head subconsciously.

She supposed it was all too sudden... I mean, how can one expect to conduct a raid... and find your best friend, not to mention, the last person you'd expect to be there, is the one responsible?

She turned to Zechs, who was refusing to make eye contact with Ann as the backup team escorted her out of the room. Yet, somehow, she found herself looking in Ann's direction despite her best attempts not to. Ann was looking straight down at the ground, meek as a lamb being carried to slaughter. Noin shuddered, repressing the analogy. It struck too close to home.

Noin's eyes narrowed as one of the escorts started behaving unnecessarily rough, prodding her to move faster, and before she knew it, she was shouting at the Preventer, warning him about proper decorum. After all, no matter what she may have done...Ann was still the Commander-In-Chief of the Preventers...at least until the President said otherwise.

Noin turned to Zechs. Oddly enough, he seemed to be trying to avoid her gaze as desperately as she was trying to avoid Ann's.

Zechs raked a hand though his blond hair and pushed himself off the wall with his shoulders. Stuffing his hands in his pocket he walked silently to the terminal.

Non watched, her eyebrows raising slightly as she followed Zechs with her gaze as he walked past her, seemingly oblivious to her unasked question. Once he arrived at the terminal, he rested the palms of his hands flat over the cool metal and let his head drop forward in a cascade of blond strands.

"Noin..." he whispered, his voice hoarse, "I should be the one to understand her...why she did...what she did...but I don't..."

Noin shook her head. "What makes you think that, Zechs? I'm closer to her than you are, or at least, I think so, but I didn't know about it either!" She crossed the distance between them, placing one of her hands on top of his, gently squeezing.

"Noin...was that...how you felt?" He paused, looking up into her eyes, hoping that this time he wouldn't try to look away,

She was silent for a moment, considering her words. "How...I felt? Maybe, Zechs...maybe. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes...I wouldn't have been able to believe that she was the one responsible. Never."

He shook his head. "I meant...when I...The Earth, the Colonies, Treize...even you..." Zechs brought a hand to Noin's face and brushed her cheek with a finger. I betrayed you. I betrayed all of you. And I still don't know why.

Noin smiled, hand reaching up to intercept his after he brushed at her cheek. "Four years...Zechs...four years. It's over. It was a confusing time... for everyone. Right now... we have other problems to face, and questions to ask... and I think Ann would appreciate it if we were the ones to do the asking."

Zechs slipped his hand out of her grasp. "Who am I to ask, who I am to judge?" He turned back to the terminal and typed in the commands for a data dump, writing the contents of the RAM to file. They had to figure out what she sent. And to whom. Anything to avoid confronting her.

Noin looked at him, watched as he leaned over the terminal, his blond locks framing his face just perfectly, watching as his hands flew across the keyboard, typing in the commands for a data dump. The slight annoyance she felt gave way to something greater. He was ready to investigate... ready to do anything... other than confront Ann. Why couldn't he see that she needed them now, more than ever?

Her hands balled into fists. Sometimes, Zechs was a fool...

Without warning, she reached up, one hand grabbing hold of the front of his Preventer jacket, yanking him to face her direction. The suddenness of her actions had caught him by surprise, a surprise that was mirrored in his eyes. It was a good thing that she had the element of surprise...she doubted she'd have even budged him had he been ready. Her other hand came up, and the resounding sound of a slap reverberated across the room. Not letting him react, Noin looked straight at him, letting a hint of adamancy creep into her voice, letting him know she was serious.

"Zechs... listen to me. Ann needs us, now more than ever. Can't you see that? You saw how that Preventer treated her! We're her best bet now...all she can really trust fully anymore. We need that trust, Zechs...if we're going to get to the bottom of this."

Zechs cradled his red cheek with a hand to ease the sting. Not as much the physical pain...He tried to catch her eyes with his, to tell her with his gaze what he could not with words. That he was weak. That he could not face Ann and wonder if he would see in her what he was. That he could not stand having her look at him that way. She had never looked at him that way. Not even in the midst of the war in space. She had always been his strength

She did not understand. He could see that reflected in her eyes. He always expected too much of her, like he expected too much of himself. Zechs tore his eyes away and reached into his Preventer jacket and took out a disk he inserted in the terminal, copying the files to it. A few more keystrokes and he had sent a trace.

"Gundam frequency 01. She sent a message to Heero Yui."