Part One

Duo stared down at the new, white Wing-One immersion helmet Doctor J had handed him with smirk. Someone had painted a rather elaborate calligraphy-style blue "W" that was surrounded by an "O" and flanked by silver, feathery angel wings on the front of the opaque, matching pearl white visor. He looked up from the Lucifer cockpit to eye the two scientists. Professor G immediately turned away and began to study some hidden detail somewhere within the masked face of Lucifer above them. Duo couldn't help but grin.

"Heh, nice little touch there, G." He turned the helmet over in his hands and resisted the urge to tease the clearly uncomfortable man any further. He leaned back into the pilot seat and stretched his legs out against the compressive fabric of the black ferroelectric flight suit. It had been a while since he had worn one or had connected to Wing-One for that matter.

Part of him was excited to get to work with the system again, but with that excitement came the dull ache that filled the empty part of him where Heero's presence used to reside. Had his partner been there they would have connected to the system together.

"So once you put that on you'll connect to Wing-One as usual. It's been modified to fit your current brain activity and will present the appropriate track that corresponds to your current beta wave level," Professor G explained as he continued to avoid making eye contact.

"Cool. So it's like having a custom soundtrack," Duo reasoned with a smirk. "I hope it has some AC/DC on it. This thing is gonna put you out of business, Haro."

The orange, now very irritated robot swiveled in its dock on the control panel and flashed its red eyes at him. Duo chuckled and reached out to affectionately caress the top of the ball with a black gloved hand. "You know I'm foolin' with ya," he said with a smile.

"DUO, MEAN. DUO, MEAN!" Haro whined.

"I'm the worst. If you hate me so much you don't gotta stay. I'm sure Demo would love to take your place." Duo taunted the ball. He watched as it flapped its earflaps frantically and screeched.

"NO! NO! LOVE DUO! STAY! STAY!" Haro pleaded. Duo nodded and pat its top.

"Okay, if you put it that way," he said. "You can stay."

"Wing-One itself operates as a simple, low level A.I. It will compose the neutralizing music for you based on your neural output." Doctor J resumed his explanation with a wicked cyborg grin that gave Duo the creeps. He couldn't help but wonder how Heero would look with those two vintage, robotic eyes. Imagining his lover grinning like a madman gave him the willies.

No. Just … no. Shit is serial killer creepy. He blinked the image out of his mind before snapping back to the conversation.

"Wait a minute… so it's going to perform something for me? I thought it was gonna use my own music?" Now he was confused. "What did ya need my music for, then?"

"To familiarize it with your brain's response to sound. It will take aspects of various music you already prefer and will apply the instrumentals, tempo and lyrics based on whatever the enemy broadcast throws at you to keep your beta wave levels high enough to combat it's gamma output." Doctor J explained with excitement. It was clear that he was enthusiastic about their new invention.

"So if it combats gamma, won't that make it so I can't bond with Heero? His thing is gamma waves, right?" Duo deduced with a frown.

"Unfortunately, yes. However, if we get Yuy back-"

Duo bristled and scoffed loudly. "You mean WHEN," he corrected Professor G with more venom than he truly intended. He knew that he was having a knee-jerk reaction but at this point he didn't care. He hadn't given up on Heero yet and he would be damned if anyone else did.

"WHEN we get Heero back," Doctor J said calmly, "you won't be able to use this version of Wing-One to bond with him, or anyone for that matter. It's solely for neutralizing the effects of that subsonic broadcast. You can still use the black helmets. Those are primarily Wing-One immersion without this neutralizer."

"Okay," Duo replied. "So I put this thing on, and then what?"

"We're going to run the simulator and have it assess your baseline, and then we're going to broadcast the subsonic wave into your cockpit and see how Wing-One NEU adjusts to to the wave attack." Doctor J was beaming. Duo rolled his eyes and sighed.

"Neeuuuuwww? What kind of dorky name is that?" He teased playfully. He saw Professor G stiffen and scowl at the comment.

"Alright," Duo said with a sigh as he lifted the helmet over the top of his head. He slid it down carefully over his face. Soon his vision was filled with a soundless, colorless plane. Rather than have his vision go dark as the black helmet often did, the internal screen of this helmet glowed with a bright, irritating white light.

He heard a faint buzzing and clicking noise in his right ear, which was then followed by a mild static shock that slipped from his ear, down through his scalp and into the base of his neck. The black, stretchy ferroelectric flight suit suit twitched against his bare skin before it systematically began to squeeze up his calves, thighs and torso to establish his baseline

"Well," Duo said faintly from within the helmet. "Here goes nothin'."

Part Two

Heero fingered the basic data tablet the organization had provided for him to review their pilot's file and test results. The information provided was limited to performance statistics only, and contained no information about the pilot's origins, his/her name or anything personal about the individual.

He frowned as he scrolled through mass of raw information. The NR-CLO had continued to use the same training techniques and methods that he had trained with years ago for Operation Meteor, along with some new types of conditioning Heero had never heard of before. He tried to speculate what they could be, and concluded that what was labelled 'neural artifact exposure' had something to do with the battle system they wanted him to train the pilot on.

It's probably something fused with ZERO , he surmised. Surely the NR-CLO had access to the plans for ZERO. It was through funding by that organization that Doctor J and the other scientists had finalized its development. Heero knew that at one point Doctor J had worked with the Alliance to develop weapons, but as Heero understood it the ZERO system was in its concept stages at the time. It was only when Heero had trained on Wing that ZERO was finalized, though it never was installed on his original Wing Gundam.

Heero wasn't sure why the CLO didn't trust him to use ZERO initially, especially considering all of the time he had spent training to interface with it.

He set the tablet down on the bed beside him and rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers. He could feel the distinct difference of resistance of the fleshy, natural organic eye compared to the hard, fixed sensation of his bionic one.

He was reluctant to make the decision to train the pilot. Soris had said they would kill him if he refused. He didn't doubt that they would. He knew too much about their location on MO-V and their membership to be allowed to leave freely. He didn't want to train the pilot. He didn't want to become involved with their plans, whatever they were. He didn't want to be the guiding hand of a weapon or a killer.

He straightened his back and turned his face up to stare into the black surveillance camera over his head and knew that if he wanted to get out of this alive would have to accept their terms and hope for an opening for escape.

"I'll do it," he finally said up at the ceiling. A minute later the door to his room unlocked, swung open and revealed the figure of his predecessor, Soris.

"Good, now let's go. You've wasted enough of our time."

Part Three

Duo was laughing. He couldn't believe what was coursing through his ears. He jerked the thrust controls to throw his simulated mobile suit into a barrel roll. As he did the upbeat, house-style electronica music in his ears buzzed with a variety of melodic tones and quickened in tempo. He straightened out, shot at the incoming unmarked simulation Taurus mobile suit and brought his Gundam to a halt. The music in his ears shifted and the tempo dragged with his sudden stagnation. A man's voice chanted "adventures in time … and … and andandand-" in response. The end of the statement hung on and stuttered as it waited for his next move. As he kicked the suit into full thrust and jerked it around to face the opposite direction for a hard lock on another incoming target the man's voice in his ear swam with the music, floated and bobbed for a moment on a tide of heavy bass and then exclaimed "-space!" as he shot the second target. He cackled loudly as the simulated enemy disintegrated.

Cobra Commander, all targets have been destroyed. Wing-One informed him in her usual logical, sexy computer voice.

He smiled broadly within the shielded helmet and rolled his shoulders to ease the tension that had built in them from the prolonged pressure of the ferroelectric suit.

"That's it? Let's do one more," he asked the system with excitement. He could feel the vibration from the subsonic weapon broadcast emanate from beneath his pilot seat as it was being presented by a series of speakers and subwoofers throughout his cockpit, but he experienced no ill effect by it. It felt like a pleasant, numbing massage and nothing more. Whatever the two scientists had installed in his new helmet was doing the trick. "One more simulation. Load program, random."

Simulation random load. Activated. Wing-One complied.

Part Four

Heero followed Soris and the two monitors down through the heart of the complex. As he walked behind her, flanked by his two white-clad escorts, he felt the eyes of the other soldiers and personnel. He knew that he stood out with his control collar on, but the way they were looking at him made him uncomfortable. It was as if they knew who he was and were disappointed with what they saw.

Heero knew this wing of the complex well. It had been where he spent most of his time in training. He could hear the pneumatics of the simulation PODs and smelled the tangy scent of the grease from the pistons that controlled the simulator's tilt and movement. A group of young men and women of varied ages and statures dressed in matching grey flight suits stood outside the simulation hangar door. They ducked together and whispered as he passed by. Heero could see the dark gunmetal grey and black simulation PODs in use behind them as they bobbed and weaved violently while their users tested their new skills.

He knew that they weren't going into the main hangar. He had never trained there. If this pilot was special, he/she would require a more complex form of simulation than the rudimentary mobile suit PODs.

They passed the main training hangar and led him down a small side corridor to a closed, massive white door with the Greek symbol "γ" stenciled in green. Soris paused beside the keypad to the right of the door and punched in a long sequence of numbers. The door hissed and slid away to reveal what Heero knew to be the isolation training area and lab. The same place he had once trained.

As he was led inside he took in his familiar surroundings. The medical lab was to the right with its clear, thin glass walls that displayed a simple white exam table and a wall of tangled wires and blinking lights Heero that recognized as the reprogramming server. To the left was an area filled with exercise equipment such as treadmill, free weights and resistance machines. In the center of the massive white room was what had once been his ZERO interface and simulation POD, except now the white egg-shaped chamber appeared sleeker, more stylized and complex. Rather than the pneumatic movable frame that had once manipulated his old POD, this one free-floated a few feet in the air above a large blue glowing disc. Shimmering ambient light filled the space between what Heero assumed was a control platform for the egg-shaped POD itself. He recognized the glisten in the air and assumed that the POD was being tilted and turned upon a fog of nanomachines. He watched in awe as the POD soundlessly spun and twisted within the aura of light as the pilot within interacted with the simulator. He was impressed. The old forms of simulation were often limited to the range of the pistons, but this appeared to have the ability to rotate 360 degrees. The speed at which the POD shifted was shocking. The way the old piston system moved was clunky and similar to that of a mobile suit within the grasp of Earth's gravity. This appeared to have no limitation at all.

Heero felt a strange, uncomfortable tension overcome his body as they made their way into the center of the room. Soris was grinning at the silently spinning POD with look of satisfaction. He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to calm himself. He knew that it would be difficult for him to return to this place, but he hadn't expected to feel as if the walls were coming in on him. He shifted his weight and watched as the POD's turns and spins began to slow. Eventually it stopped moving, turned itself upright and dropped down to rest against the pulsating platform. The azure light faded and a loud hiss announced the presence of the pilot.

Heero saw a slight, short figure slip out from the black opening that had parted the POD down the center. He could make out the faint, dark outline of the internal controls and pilot seat. The pilot took the three metal steps lightly to meet them on the floor.

He watched as Soris reached over to grab the shoulder of the small pilot clad in a clingy white flight suit. He couldn't make out a face beneath silver tinted reflective visor. The pilot turned his/her white helmet to face him.

"Gamma, I want you to meet Beta. He's going to be your new instructor," Soris explained as she gestured carelessly in Heero's direction. He watched the pilot raise his/her hands to remove the helmet.

Heero stared wide-eyed as a replica of his own childish face was revealed. He reflexively took a step back as his jaw fell agape at the sight of himself; a nearly exact copy of his ten year-old self. Everything about this person was identical to his boyish self except that this individual's hair was buzzed short.

"A clone," he murmured in surprise. He felt a surge of anger activate within him. The force jolted him out of his shock and brought the situation to clarity. They had cloned him again and now they wanted him to train his clone.

His hands were balled so tightly he could feel his fingernails piercing the flesh of his palms as his rage rose quickly and exponentially. His glare locked with the clone's two intense cobalt eyes. Heero's ocular implant revealed a shimmer of bright blue light coursing like lightning across the backs of the clone's widely dilated pupils.

He felt his self-control slip with every nanosecond that passed.

They can't do this. I can't let them do this.

"Duh, that's obvious. I'm starting to think that making a clone of you was a mistake, though, if the end result is… well," Soris taunted him with a wicked smile. "You know, we assumed that when he grew up he'd be a little taller."

I'm a weapon. They've made another weapon. There can be no peace while this weapon exists , his brain was rampant with the memories of his own violent boyhood before Operation Meteor.

Heero snapped. He lunged at the clone. His punch was blocked by the helmet as the smaller version of himself reacted with lightning quick reflexes, ducked and swung back with his free hand. Heero blocked the tiny incoming fist with his right forearm and attempted a counter strike at his clone with an uppercut to the torso. The clone jumped back and spun in an attempt to smash the helmet against the side of Heero's head. Heero ducked. He felt the helmet rustle through the top of his hair at the close call.

"SOMEONE WRING HIM!" Soris screamed from behind the clone. Heero ducked another swipe with the helmet as his clone came at him with fearless ferocity.

He went on the defensive and shuffled backward. The clone fell into a stance that Heero immediately recognized. The boy pivoted his body and began to turn his back to Heero with his right leg raised as if he were about to initiate a roundhouse kick. Heero recognized that the speed and energy behind the movement was intended for something more. He raised his fists and prepared to duck as the boy launched himself with a loud kiai* into a bolley kick^ in an attempt to land a foot to Heero's face.

Heero ducked, sidestepped and struck the clone's back as he spun in the air and sent him face-first into the floor. Just as he was about to stomp on the kid's neck the collar around his own neck constricted rapidly and cut off his airway. The sudden choking sensation caught him off-guard and made him hesitate long enough for his clone to scramble across the floor and leap to his feet a safe distance away.

Heero's vision tunneled as the blood flow to his brain dwindled. His legs gave out from beneath him and he fell to his hands and knees. His body raggedly gasped and gagged for air.

"You're a fucking idiot," Soris snarled as she stomped up to him and kicked him in the side. "Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

The last thing Heero saw before he blacked out was Soris's foot coming towards his face as his stoic clone looked on from behind.

Part Five

"I looked out this morning and the sun was gone

Turned on some music to start my day

I lost myself in a familiar song

I closed my eyes and I slipped away

It's more than a feeling (more than a feeling)

When I hear that old song they used to play (more than a feeling)"

"More Than a Feeling" by Boston blared loudly within the helmet of his spacesuit to effectively drown out any thoughts that Duo could had possibly had aside from his current task. Shield repair. He made a clumsy gesture with a thick, padded glove at Haro and Demo as they floated cheerfully beside him. Demo whipped out its cable arm and reached into a toolbox that was magnetically attached to the panel in front of Duo to retrieve the drill he needed. He nodded his thanks, adjusted the bright white light of his headlamp and continued his repair of the damage he had inflicted on the Zan with Lucifer during his wild trip on Eyeshine. The two robotic balls fluttered around in the zero-g and waited for further instruction.

"When I'm tired and thinking cold

I hide in my music, forget the day

and dream of a girl I used to know

I closed my eyes and she slipped away

She slipped away..."

He absently hummed the tune as he carefully replaced the protective panel over the fully repaired shield generator and proceeded to tighten its four bolts firmly in place. His stomach growled to get his attention and began to vibrate angrily against the warm, clingy inner lining of his suit.

"Yeah-yeah, I hear ya…" he mumbled as he reached out to slide the external panel back into place. He watched as it sunk down and fell onto its magnetic rails to fuse seamlessly against the hull. He smacked his bulky gloved hands together as if to dust them off with accomplishment before he removed the tether and magnet that had kept him from floating away from his work. He pocketed it, replaced the drill within the small, square toolbox and closed it. He attached it to his hip with a strip of velcro, grabbed the EMU controls and boosted himself with a blast of air to the topside of the Zhanshi. Upon reaching the top he stuck the toolbox to the ship, tethered himself and adjusted his position with the EMU so that he floated with his back facing the faint ambient light of the Sun. He tilted his head to the right and groped around with his lips for his water nozzle. He found it, took a long drink from the hidden water pouch and leaned down to the neck area of his suit. He bit into a fruit bar wrapped in rice paper he had wedged into a small slit beneath the helmet connection ring. He chewed thoughtfully as he peered through the debris of the asteroid belt in the direction of Jupiter, who was somewhere else on his orbit and nowhere to be seen.

The music within his helmet paused as his playlist ended, and a new one took its place. Duo immediately recognized the song as one that Heero had chosen for its BPM and melodic content when he first started training to effectively interface with ZERO. His lover had been methodical about his choices, but in the end Duo enjoyed every track and liked to think they meant something more than just 4/4 time and music math.

" If I could save time in a bottle,

The first thing that I'd like to do,

Is to save every day,

'Til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you." +

He recognized the song as Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle". He closed his eyes and let the alternating plucking of acoustic guitar dance over his ears. The singer's soothing, poignant voice slipped over his body. The song picked up his sadness and forced it up to the surface of his thoughts to form a dark blue, flickering orb. He faced it, took a deep breath and let his mind envelope the sadness with the glowing, pink warmth of a memory; Heero sitting at his laptop with his "mission mode" face as he uploaded this song onto his media player. It felt like an eternity ago that they were doing such simple, normal things like that.

This was the first time that he had stopped moving since he woke up. Training on Wing-One NEU had been a blast and had put him in a positive mood. He needed that. He needed to feel like he had accomplished something today. When Wufei began complaining about the damage Duo had caused his ship he had jumped at the chance to make it up to him. His spacewalk had lasted nearly six hours now. He was tired and he needed to to take a leak, but he could bring himself to go inside.

" If I could make days last forever,

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure and then,

Again, I would spend them with you."

The asteroid belt was drab and boring. Other than the occasional loose rocks banging together there was hardly anything of interest out there, but he kept finding himself drawn to the darkness beyond it. He shrugged, opened his eyes and took another bite of the bland fruit bar.

Give me a sign. Tell me where you are. I'm listening. he thought hopefully. He closed his eyes again and felt the tether tug lightly against the waist of his spacesuit. He wondered if he thought hard enough if Heero could hear him. Weirder things could happen, right? He was getting desperate and had run out of options. Quatre's facial scanning system hadn't detected anything so far. There were no signs of Heero or his captors on any of the videos they had collected. No ransom call or note. Nothing. Aside from calling a psychic or throwing a message in a bottle out into open space Duo had done everything he could think of to find his lover.

"But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go

Through time with"

When he had bonded and joined with Heero through Wing-One Duo had been convinced that he had touched Heero's soul. He felt closer to him than to anyone. He knew what Heero's thoughts sounded like from inside his head. Duo got to hear how Heero perceived his voice. He had experienced how Heero felt from within as he became drunk with pleasure when they had bonded and had sex while connected to Wing-One. He knew the guy inside and out, so would the idea of having felt the very essence of his lover's being be such a farfetched idea?

"If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true,

The box would be empty

Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you..."

The only problem with having connected with someone so deeply was that their absence became more noticeable. Duo felt like he was merely a fraction of who he had once been before bonding with his friend. Now he felt inadequate without him around. It was like having half of a hug; one arm draped limply over a shoulder without the complete circle of a true embrace. He felt loose, detached and strangely empty. He was sad, upset, and scared that he'd never see him again, but those feelings now served as fuel for his determination to find him.

He opened his eyes and saw a distant star wink encouragingly at him. From his peripheral vision he spotted movement to his right and turned to see Haro and Demo floating close together beside him. He blinked and smiled once he realized they were holding hands.


Footnotes:

* Kiai: "short yell or shout uttered when performing an attacking move."- Wiki

^ Bolley Kick/540 Kick: "In martial arts the 540 kick (Chinese:旋風腳 ( Xuanfengjiao )) (also known as inside turning kick , jump inside kick , and tornado kick ) is a jump kick move. It involves a rotation of approximately 540 degrees (although when performed correctly the performer has only done a spin of 360 degrees – not including whatever takeoff used)". - Wiki