Part 10 Birth of Name
//What is a name? A signifier of who you are? Something deeper and more profound? Does the name of a man tell you who or, more importantly, what he is? If I claim a new name does that old named part of me whither and die? Can I really become someone else by changing something that is the very essence that is me?//
Jeremy takes me across the campus pointing out all the
areas he finds important: locker rooms, cafeteria, and of course the mobile
suit simulation arena. He explains in
great detail about how the simulator actually felt like being in a real
cockpit.
"So you've flown before?" I question him.
"Well no, but my brother is one of the best pilots
around. He let me sit in one once,
didn't get to fly it though. Maybe
someday you'll get to meet him. He'll
be graduating soon, top of his class."
"Yeah, maybe."
We pass by countless classrooms, void of all occupants they
feel like gateways to a new dimension. We come across the school's shop. The clerk gives me the once over before coming over to offer assistance.
I can tell by the look on her face that
she's concerned that I might steal something.
"Can I help you with something?"
"My buddy here is a new student. He'll be needing books, uniform, the works."
"I see, we might as well get started now before this task
takes us beyond closing time."
The clerk, Hope was her name, seemed to transform within a
matter of minutes. Now she is a kind
and extremely helpful person, as opposed to someone who looked about ready to
pull out the nearest weapon if you so much as looked at her merchandise
wrong. The name Hope seems to fit her
well. She is the type of person who can
instill a sense of well being into someone, regardless of who they are.
We are just about to leave, my new supplies in hand, when a
semi-familiar face passes by the front entrance. It's no one who I can name, but the face is eerily similar to…
"Yo, new kid! Are
you just gonna stand there or are we gonna go back to the room?" Jeremy says
with his hands on his hips, an impatient look in his eyes.
"Uh, yeah. We
should go." I can't place the face, but
I know I had seen that man before.
"Have you come up with a name yet? This new kid stuff is getting old quick."
Jeremy pries as we walk through the empty corridor.
"I haven't had a name in six years."
"Wow, what about before then?"
"I'd rather not remember."
"There you go again."
"There are just some things that should remain in the
past."
"Gotcha, so what about a new name? Want it to strike fear into the hearts of
your enemies like…. Maximum Power?"
"The only thing that name would strike would be the enemy
laughing me down."
"Well you have to choose something, what did they call you
during these last six years?"
"Nothing much, and definitely not something to conjure up
any semblance of fear at it's utterance." Six years of forgetting about the six years I spent as Milliardo
Peacecraft. "Six, my life revolves
around that number."
"I hate to break it to you, but six isn't a good name."
"Zechs."
"All that is is another word for six."
"It's better then six isn't it?"
"Well yeah, I guess it has some potential. Zechs the killing machine, it has a nice
ring to it."
"Only to your deaf ears."
"What's that suppose to mean?"~~
Jeremy was a good friend, but a lousy student. I'm surprised he lasted long at the academy. I'm tired now. My fight against remembering my past is a loosing battle. So many memories that I've tried so hard to put behind me, bubbling out of the recesses of my brain.