Chapter Three:

The campus was crawling with police. Duo approached the blockade that had been set up in front of the college's main grassy quad and flashed his ID to the nearest officer. A large, burly but tired looking CPD officer had insisted on escorting him to his office. It was eerily quiet on campus. They passed a bomb sniffing dog and his handler on the way down the hall to the System Maintenance department. The door had been propped open and a tall, thin Maganac was standing in the doorway beside a familiar blond figure in a sharp, cream-colored suit. They were looking down at a printout. They hadn't seen Duo as he approached.

"I see they called in the big guns," Duo said cheerily as he grew closer. Quatre's head snapped up from the printout, his reflective blue eyes wide with surprise.

"Duo!" The blond businessman wasted no time closing the distance between them. Before Duo knew it Quatre had wrapped his arms around him for a friendly hug. Duo was shocked. Quatre was huge! It had been almost a year since he had seen his old friend. The last time had been at Relena's Christmas party in Cinq. Quatre had already changed in appearance the last time Duo had seen him. He had been a small waif of a boy during the wars, and at the Christmas party he seemed to mature and grow a little but now he was enormous. He was a full inch taller than Duo and from the feel of his arms around Duo's shoulders he was build like a rock.

"Holy crap, Quatre. Lay of the steroids, will ya?" Duo chided with a grin. He hugged the blond back firmly and smiled. He was genuinely happy to see the former Sandrock Gundam pilot. Quatre laughed and took a step back to give Duo a once over.

"No steroids! I just started training for competitive psicobloc." Quatre smirked and pulled the jacket of his suit closed over his trademark pastel pink oxford. Despite his clearly amazing physique Quatre was still just as humble and modest as ever.

"Psicobloc?" Duo had heard of that sport just recently. It was another name for what was called "deep-water soloing". He recalled watching something about it online where solo climbers would scale enormous inverted cliffs set over water at high tide. It was an extreme sport. No wonder Quatre was so buff.

"Yeah, Trowa got me hooked." Quatre replied. "We were just on the planet in Spain to train. Wow. How good it is to see you. You look great." Quatre's smile was infectious. Duo couldn't help but laugh.

"You liar, I look like shit. Enough about me, tell me what you guys are trying to do here. Let me know how I can help." Duo stepped into the office with Quatre in tow. Inside his techs were all sitting with local law enforcement and a few men with Winner Corporation Technologies polo shirts on, mulling over their consoles and discussing various intricacies of their trade. Quatre took the printout he had been discussing with the Maganac and handed it to Duo. Duo looked over it carefully. It was a proposal for just the system Wufei had said, a surveillance program that would be triggered by a threat to the school. It would be able to trace the call to the exact location it had been made on X-18999 and would start recording images within a specific radius by using local surveillance cameras.

"So, how exactly does this work? What if someone is inside a building at the time when they make the call? How could you know where the call came from?"

Quatre nodded and took a seat across from Duo's desk. "Obviously those are circumstances where we wouldn't be able to track the caller. Basically my idea is that if the caller were nearby we can start recording people as they pass in front of the cameras, let's say, for an hour after the call was made. Using face recognition technologies developed by the police we can identify the people in those areas at the time. Then we can send those identities through a computer to analyze whether they have motive, are associated with an organization, and are part of a law enforcement watch list, etc. It isn't a perfect system but it's a start."

"So…" Duo scrunched his nose and stared down at the proposal. "How is this legal?"

Quatre frowned and shook his head. "It is pretty invasive. It is only a proposal right now. We have sent it to the colony council to be reviewed and have the appropriate lawyers assess whether it violates any privacy rights." Quatre shrugged and tapped the printout with a finger. "It will merely use data that the colony is already collecting. Public spaces are open to filming and surveillance. The issue we are trying to work out is whether it is legal to give the college access to this information for their own surveys and reports."

Duo nodded and looked over at Esme and the team. They were all poring busily over their computers. "Well, it is great that you are helping the college out, Quatre. This false threat stuff is starting to get out of control."

"Anything to help the colony," Quatre said in a way that reminded Duo so much of the dutiful politicians on the colony council. Quatre had grown up so much. He appeared so responsible and professional. If Duo hadn't known him from their years together during Operation Meteor he would have felt intimidated by him. Especially now. He wasn't the young, baby-faced kid in a flight suit he had once known. Now he was in a designer suit, commanding the corporation responsible for the infrastructure of an entire colony.

"So, I guess before we install anything we have to wait for approval, yeah?" Duo said quickly. "You got time to take a break for a little while?"

Quatre's eyes lit up. Without a moment's hesitation he blurted, "of course I do."

"Well, come on then." Duo wasted no time hopping up from his desk. He grabbed Quatre by his arm and led him out of the office. The Maganac assistant began to follow them.

"Master Winner, what about the meeting with the-"

"Sorry, Ahzar! Let them know I will have to reschedule. I'll be back in a little it. I really am sorry!" Quatre apologized profusely at the stunned looking assistant as he was being dragged out of the building. Duo smiled. Quatre may look more imposing than he used to but he was the same sensitive, polite kid he had always known.

They hurried past the police blockade. Quatre was chuckling as Duo led him down the street towards the cafes and past the metro stop to the bookstore where he had left Wufei a half an hour before. As they approached Duo spotted Wufei sitting at a small café table beside the shop with three books spread out in front of him, his round reading glasses on, tracing a finger over whatever he was reading.

"Hey, Chang! Look who I found."

Wufei looked up from his books and upon seeing Quatre he smiled. "Hello, Quatre." He had taken his glasses off and set them on the table before standing up to hug the tall blond in greeting. "It has been a long time."

Quatre nodded and took a seat across from where Wufei was seated at the table. Wufei returned to his seat and carefully closed the books he had been studying to stack them out of the way and make room for Duo to join them. "It has," Wufei replied. "I am sorry I haven't tried to come see you."

Quatre waved a hand in the air to dismiss the idea. "No, no. It isn't your fault. I should have come to see you when I heard you had taken a teaching position here. I should be the one who is sorry."

Duo rolled his eyes. Quatre and Wufei could always be so formal. "You both are horrible friends," Duo added with a sly grin. Wufei sighed and Quatre laughed.

"If I didn't know any better I would think that Wufei was the one calling in these bomb threats. It seems you are enjoying your day of cancelled classes," Quatre chided with a smile.

Wufei smirked and shook his head. "Sadly it isn't me. My career as a domestic terrorist is over. I am happily retired."

Quatre nodded and gestured to the stack of books. "Well, you seem pretty content in your retirement."

"I am." Wufei set a hand on the top book, entitled Planck: Driven By Vision, Broken By War and sighed, his face taking on a thoughtful expression. "How are you enjoying your work here on the colony? It seems your construction projects are all complete."

Quatre sat back in his chair and started to straighten the sleeves of his jacket. "Yes, finally. There were so many delays I thought they would never be completed. We are beginning to move our manpower off colony to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In fact, that is where Heero is right now with Rashid. We have them collecting data there for a project Relena is trying to start. She wants to establish and Earth and Colony trade arrangement and she is hoping that the asteroid belt produces much needed minerals that Earth needs for energy synthesis." Quatre's eyes settled on Duo, who upon hearing Heero's name shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I heard about what happened in Cinq."

Duo shrugged and shook his head. "What's in the past stays in the past."

Quatre sighed and a frown crossed his face. He locked eyes with Duo and was silent for a long moment. In that silence Duo felt Quatre judging him. "I know he misses you."

Duo blinked and broke the stare. He balked and crossed his arms over his chest. "He shouldn't have fucked me over, then."

"Is that what really happened?" Quatre asked, his tone challenging. Duo felt suddenly very uncomfortable.

"Why don't you ask him?" Duo blurted. He saw Wufei shake his head but the former Shenlong pilot didn't speak. Quatre reached out a hand to grab Duo's wrist in a comforting but firm gesture. Duo couldn't help but look up at Quatre's steady blue stare.

"You two were very close. It would be a shame throw that away," Quatre said softly. Duo grit his teeth and felt his annoyance rising. Why was Quatre pushing the issue? He desperately wanted to change the subject.

"So anyway," Duo said tersely, shaking the blonds' hand off of his wrist. "Quatre's plan to catch the school faux-bomber is pretty promising."

Quatre leaned back in his seat and smiled. "Well, I can't take all of the credit. My team developed the idea. I am just the guy who sells it."

They continued to talk about Quatre's proposal well into the afternoon. They had gone to the neighboring café for sandwiches and coffee before parting ways. An hour after Quatre had left with his Maganac assistant they received approval to install the surveillance program. The install took most of the evening.

Duo had left work well after the campus was closed. The police had determined that there were no explosives on the grounds but the classes had remained cancelled for the rest of the day anyway. He rode the metro home and upon entering his apartment he was greeted by Milo, eager as ever for dinner and back rubs. He sat down on his secondhand couch and stroked the tabby's shaggy back while he skimmed through the news on his tablet. The bomb threat had made it not only on the local colony news but some tickers on the planet as well. He took a long gulp of pale ale he had bought on the way home and browsed the Internet for a few hours. A few drinks later he was writing an e-mail.

I saw Quatre today. I am living on X-18999. If you ever end up on the colony stop by.

213 Terrace Place
Apt H, X-18999
L3 Cluster, Colony Space Terra 1
19211-2122-0373.

-Duo

He stared down at the e-mail and let his hand ghost over the send key. He looked over at his cat who was now curled up on the back of the couch sleeping contently. He scanned his sparse apartment, the dim light from the kitchen, and the empty six-pack of ale on the coffee table in front of him.

He deleted the e-mail.