Disclaimer: I'm not stealing GW. I'm amusing myself. In fact, writing fics could occupy time that I would otherwise use to pursue a life of crime! So don't sue me and take away the rights of us fanfic authors. It's up to you to prevent the corruption of today's youth!
Disconnect - Part 2
By Zero's Wings
The next morning, Rasid woke Quatre and took him into a small room with a lot of computer equipment. There was a large monitor tilted down at the floor on the wall in the front of the room.
"We are going to speak with your father, kid. He happens to be one of the high rollers on our list for hostage settlements," Rasid explained. "You can see him here if you want, but stay about five feet back and he won't be able to see you."
"I'm sorry, sir," Quatre said quietly, "but I don't think I'll be of much worth as a hostage except as a collection of organic chemicals. You see, I was born by artificial means. My father doesn't love me. No one loves me." Quatre's face fell into darkness. "And I don't love anyone either."
Mr. Winner's image slowly faded in with a hint of irresolute silver. Rasid stepped up to the monitor and began making arrangements with him to protect the corps and their hostages in exchange for the life of his son. To Quatre's amazement, Mr. Winner accepted all of their conditions without a word of argument. He then asked if he could see Quatre, which surprised the boy even more.
Quatre strode up to the monitor and looked at his father with a hateful glare.
"What do you want?" Quatre asked in a snotty voice. His father looked at him in confusion.
"You aren't imprisoned or at least tied up? This man, Rasid, certainly takes good care of his hostages."
"Not that you care," Quatre said in his most vilifying tone. His father looked down at him, disconcerted. Quatre's tightly pinched mouth issued a horrible laugh, a laugh terrifying because it was so much bigger than him, and contained so much more hate than his kind, little heart could bear. Perhaps his heart spat forth that laugh only to drive it from his untouched soul. "Oh," he said in twisted sarcasm, the laugh still echoing in the room as the evil dissipated, "you're surprised one of your tools did something on it's own, aren't you?"
"You...You're still talking like that?"
"Of course!" Quatre exploded, choking back tears in the process. "You created me and my sisters to suit the needs of the Winner family. You don't give a damn about any of us!! I'm just one of your stupid pawns! You can make as many of me as you want. All you people wanted was a bunch of dumb robots who would do exactly as told!"
"Quatre, that simply isn't true."
To Quatre's shock, Rasid grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, spun him around, and slapped his face hard.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Quatre asked vehemently. Rasid, however, was equally angry.
"I don't know what your problem is, kid, but why don't you stop feeling sorry for yourself and show a little pride in who you are. God made all of us. It doesn't matter how." Rasid had a very serious look on his face. "We Maguanacs were all conceived in test tubes. It doesn't matter though. Even if we have fewer things that we can call our own, we will achieve more in our lifetimes than that man ever will!" He yelled defiantly, his voice booming and his massive hand pointing to the man on the video screen.
"Don't listen to him, Quatre," Mr. Winner said softly. "You will always be better than them. You are my one and only son, and the only child born from my wife's womb. She died having you, but she was brave and proud of who she was, just as you should be."
I knew. Somehow, I always knew, Quatre thought in wonderment. Then his face turned back to cold anger. The nightmares are real, then. How could you have said that to me? I was a mere child.
"Father, I remember that day, the day I entered this world. I know what you said." Mr. Winner fell backwards, his eyes widening. It was as if he was being revisited by an old nightmare.
"How could you do that. You must be even colder than I am, to have the first words a child hears in his life be that he had just killed his mother."
"I regret those words to this day, Quatre." The man, caught in his old sins, hung his head in sorrow. "However, you must believe me when I say that you are not cold, not in comparison to me or anyone else. You have so much kindness in your heart."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Quatre cried, covering his ears with his hands. "I hate my kindness, my disgusting and unnecessary kindness, even more than I hate you! It just gets in my way!" Quatre turned to a small computer screen projecting his father's face. He brought his head back, then slammed it with as much force as he could muster into the screen. When he brought his head back up, the glass had shattered and blood ran from his forehead down his face, and into his eyes, as well, blocking his vision occasionally with dark, floating shapes.
"Quatre..." his father said desperately from the overhead monitor, but the enraged child couldn't even hear him.
Quatre grabbed a chair up from one of the computer stations and threw it at the image of his father. It struck the monitor, which exploded into a crystal rain of shards and white sparks. Quatre fell to his knees, empty and exhausted. Tears fell from the dark space of his face, his eyes concealed by shadowy locks of matted, blonde hair.
Quatre was thrown back in his cell, where he remained for several days. He was left with no human contact other than an occasional hand that shoved a tray of food through the narrow slot in the door. At last, a new prisoner was escorted in, this one by Rasid himself. He had never bothered to ask Quatre what happened to his first cell mate, the clown boy was of no use to him anyway. This prisoner was an older man, though, with a thin, waxed mustache. He was wearing a lab coat that accentuated his swelled belly.
Rasid slammed the door again, plunging the two of them into relative darkness, except for a small, flickering light on the distant ceiling above.
"Where did they find you?" Quatre asked with a passing interest.
"I came off a science vessel. I was carrying some dangerous chemical compounds onboard and there was a containment leak. These Maguanac...they're unusual men. I didn't ask for their help, but they came to my rescue regardless. I'm not really a hostage like you."
"I don't mind being here. These men are more of a family then I ever could've hoped for back on the colony where I was born."
"Well then, I pity you," the scientist said. He looked at Quatre with small beady eyes that poked out from under folds of thick skin, full of wrinkles and fat. Even so, there was a lot of kindness in those eyes.
"If you wish, child, you may call me by my codename, which is H. My real name isn't important."
Great, Quatre thought, he's delusional.
"Actually, I would prefer if you put my doctorate before it, but that's a small matter."
"No problem," Quatre replied, bored and half-asleep. For awhile the man just sat there, occasionally studying Quatre or simply wrapped up in his own contemplation.
Late in the night, when Quatre was fast asleep, Dr. H crept over to him and shook him gently to wake him.
"Hey, are you awake, child?"
"My name is Quatre," he said groggily, but still with a hint of exasperation.
"How would you like to come to Earth with me?"
"I was trying to get there on my own before these Maguanacs found me."
"You can escape with me tomorrow, then. They said the repairs to my ship would be done soon, and I'm sure I can smuggle you onboard."
"Thank you for the offer," Quatre said, "but I don't want that. These people may need my help."
"The Maguanacs?" Dr. H asked. The old scientist chuckled when Quatre nodded his head. "I'm sure they can manage on their own, Quatre."
"No, I mean that. I feel indebted to them some how. They took me in--"
"They kidnapped you," Dr. H corrected.
"They were kind to me. Just as you said, they didn't need to take us in. I'm useless to them. They could've just as easily blown me up along with my ship."
"I fail to see how that would make you feel indebted to them," Dr. H said, puzzled. But, if you would rather stay and be shot to pieces by the Alliance military, feel free to do so. I'm just offering you a way out. Perhaps..." With that the old man fell silent, and was asleep a few seconds later. Quatre did the same, but was now confused at his own feelings of loyalty to the Maguanacs and wondering what is fate would be.
*****
In the morning, Quatre was awoken by the loud calls of alarms. This was followed by a series of explosions that wracked the MO-III satellite. The door to Quatre's cell slid open along with all the others in the cell block. Dr. H was gone. Rasid's voice bellowed through the loudspeakers in the hall.
"All able-bodied men are to proceed to the docking bay! We are under attack from the Alliance military!"
"What I get for sleeping late," Quatre mused.
Quatre walked into the docking bay, which had become a hellish scene of chaos and destruction. Apparently, one of the mobile suits' engines had exploded during takeoff and its wreckage was now blocking the other suits from leaving and defending against the onslaught of the Alliance Space Leos.
Quatre ran to Audah, who was climbing into the cockpit of his mobile suit.
"Let me help! I can pilot a mobile suit!" Quatre cried up at the Maguanac. Audah ignored him, continuing into the guts of the massive piece of machinery.
"Forget it, kid! You'd just be in the way!" he yelled to Quatre. At that moment, Rasid walked into the docking bay. He placed his hand on Quatre's shoulder. The Maguanac leader had a soft splint around his arm, with bandages packed tightly all over his shoulder.
"My arm was hurt by a piece of shrapnel when that mobile suit exploded. You can have my suit." Quatre looked up at him in wonderment, his eyes bright and joyful for the first time. The other Maguanacs looked at their leader, astonished.
"Sir, are you really sure that's a wise thing to do?" Abdul asked. Rasid just smiled.
"He has had a great amount faith in us, and I think we should put an equal amount of faith in him." Rasid then turned on his universal comm and addressed the entire corps.
"I will not be participating in the battle today. I would only be a nuisance to all of you with my injury. This boy will take my place. He will give commands, so you should all refer to him as 'Master Quatre' from now on. Understood?" Quatre's face beamed with excitement. He turned off the comm and spoke to Quatre alone. "Don't do anything reckless out there. Just try to keep everyone alive and organized."
"Roger!" Quatre began to head for the Rasid's suit, an unusual one that seemed to have been upgraded by a mishmash of weapons and spare parts from other suits. It had one grotesquely oversized arm that made the suit seem somehow deformed. The other arm was equally strange, as it held an extendible dobergun, and the pole-shaped barrel of it was nearly twice as long as the suit itself. Quatre grabbed onto a long cable attached to a hook above the cockpit. The cable began to reel in, bringing him up higher against the mobile suit.
"Master Quatre, catch!" At first Quatre didn't recognize himself by his new title, and then he glimpsed an object being hurled toward him. He caught it in mid-air. It was a pair of flight goggles, much like the pair he had when he raced mobile suits through the deserts on the outskirts of his hometown. He looked down to the ground, which was rapidly dropping out from underneath him, and saw Rasid smiling.
"My father gave me those," Rasid called up to him. "I never go into battle without them!"
"Thank you...I will cherish them," Quatre said softly, holding the goggles close to his heart.
*****
The mangled wreckage that was caught in the primary docking bay was suddenly thrust out an airlock with explosive force. Several Maguanac suits followed the debris out and were quickly sucked into the vacuum of space and the heart of the battle.
To Quatre, the entire battle flashed around him in a blur. He pulled the thrusters up and his suit narrowly cut through a huge salvo of white, comet-tailed missiles. Explosions lit up his cockpit, and he swerved around expanding clouds of fire, past hailstorms of bullets and whirling trails of ejected shell casings.
A light from behind caught Quatre's eye. He swiveled the torso of his mobile suit to see the blinding object behind him. As Quatre turned, the light was revealed to be coming from the thrusters of a Leo that had snuck up on him. It was too late. He was caught.
The Leo raised its rifle and prepared to fire at him. But just as it was about to pull the trigger, its upper body twisted backward and its arms flailed helplessly behind it.
Quatre slowly opened his eyes back up, then his expression changed from terror, to surprise, to a triumphant grin. Unintentionally, Quatre had impaled the Leo on the barrel of his oversized rifle when he turned around. He flipped up a switch on the main trigger, pressed the button underneath, and watched as the Leo was sucked off the end of the barrel and vaporized in a tremendous, arching incandescence.
When the pilots returned to the docking bay, there were cheers all around. There was singing and laughter and huge festivities, despite the fact that the Maguanacs had claimed victory for little more than themselves and a ship that was empty with the exception of a few scared hostages. Quatre, who had destroyed five Leos amidst the confusion, was thrust into the air and cheered for. It was unquestionably the happiest moment of his life.
The Maguanacs pressed on with renewed spirits, and continued to the Earth, fighting the Alliance as it came, and savoring their victories, in many of which Quatre single-handedly turned the odds in their favor. For his piloting skills, Quatre kept his title of 'master,' and gained respect amongst Rasid and the entire Maguanac corps.
The Maguanac corps landed in a deserted area on the Ivory Coast, in the United States of Africa. They hid their suits in the shallow waters of the coast and set up a large base camp. They would live there until they could find a way of getting to Baghdad undetected, where Rasid had a few partners in the trading business who could give the corps shelter, provisions, and transportation for the passengers to each of their families.
One night, Quatre wandered out past the camp to explore the vast, empty beaches. He walked up over a small inclined hill to relieve himself and saw something in the valley below: a massive, twenty-two-wheel truck. Quatre rushed up to it to investigate. An envelope had been posted on the windshield, addressed to Quatre. He pulled it from the glass surface in complete disbelief. He studied it, reading his name over and over, as if the envelope could not be real. When he finally shook off the surreal feeling, he opened the envelope and took out the letter inside. It was written in a graceful, spidery hand, almost like calligraphy. The note read:
Dear Quatre,
I am sorry I could not be here to greet you. I hope you find my present; I could only approximate where your ship would land from an offshore outpost's radar trackings. I won't bore you with such things though, I'm sure you are anxious to unwrap your present. You are a very kind person, Quatre, and I feel that you can take on this great amount of responsibility. You are very mature for your age, I can tell that there is far more to you than what lies on the surface. I will see you again some day, I can guarantee you that, but until then, this is my gift to you.
Sincerely,
Dr. H
Quatre folded up the note and put it in his vest pocket. As he circled the truck, he realized that it was attached to a gigantic flatbed, really more like a barge on wheels. And there was a brown tarp that covered the entirety of the flatbed. And there was something beneath that tarp. Something huge...
Disconnect - Part 2
By Zero's Wings
The next morning, Rasid woke Quatre and took him into a small room with a lot of computer equipment. There was a large monitor tilted down at the floor on the wall in the front of the room.
"We are going to speak with your father, kid. He happens to be one of the high rollers on our list for hostage settlements," Rasid explained. "You can see him here if you want, but stay about five feet back and he won't be able to see you."
"I'm sorry, sir," Quatre said quietly, "but I don't think I'll be of much worth as a hostage except as a collection of organic chemicals. You see, I was born by artificial means. My father doesn't love me. No one loves me." Quatre's face fell into darkness. "And I don't love anyone either."
Mr. Winner's image slowly faded in with a hint of irresolute silver. Rasid stepped up to the monitor and began making arrangements with him to protect the corps and their hostages in exchange for the life of his son. To Quatre's amazement, Mr. Winner accepted all of their conditions without a word of argument. He then asked if he could see Quatre, which surprised the boy even more.
Quatre strode up to the monitor and looked at his father with a hateful glare.
"What do you want?" Quatre asked in a snotty voice. His father looked at him in confusion.
"You aren't imprisoned or at least tied up? This man, Rasid, certainly takes good care of his hostages."
"Not that you care," Quatre said in his most vilifying tone. His father looked down at him, disconcerted. Quatre's tightly pinched mouth issued a horrible laugh, a laugh terrifying because it was so much bigger than him, and contained so much more hate than his kind, little heart could bear. Perhaps his heart spat forth that laugh only to drive it from his untouched soul. "Oh," he said in twisted sarcasm, the laugh still echoing in the room as the evil dissipated, "you're surprised one of your tools did something on it's own, aren't you?"
"You...You're still talking like that?"
"Of course!" Quatre exploded, choking back tears in the process. "You created me and my sisters to suit the needs of the Winner family. You don't give a damn about any of us!! I'm just one of your stupid pawns! You can make as many of me as you want. All you people wanted was a bunch of dumb robots who would do exactly as told!"
"Quatre, that simply isn't true."
To Quatre's shock, Rasid grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, spun him around, and slapped his face hard.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Quatre asked vehemently. Rasid, however, was equally angry.
"I don't know what your problem is, kid, but why don't you stop feeling sorry for yourself and show a little pride in who you are. God made all of us. It doesn't matter how." Rasid had a very serious look on his face. "We Maguanacs were all conceived in test tubes. It doesn't matter though. Even if we have fewer things that we can call our own, we will achieve more in our lifetimes than that man ever will!" He yelled defiantly, his voice booming and his massive hand pointing to the man on the video screen.
"Don't listen to him, Quatre," Mr. Winner said softly. "You will always be better than them. You are my one and only son, and the only child born from my wife's womb. She died having you, but she was brave and proud of who she was, just as you should be."
I knew. Somehow, I always knew, Quatre thought in wonderment. Then his face turned back to cold anger. The nightmares are real, then. How could you have said that to me? I was a mere child.
"Father, I remember that day, the day I entered this world. I know what you said." Mr. Winner fell backwards, his eyes widening. It was as if he was being revisited by an old nightmare.
"How could you do that. You must be even colder than I am, to have the first words a child hears in his life be that he had just killed his mother."
"I regret those words to this day, Quatre." The man, caught in his old sins, hung his head in sorrow. "However, you must believe me when I say that you are not cold, not in comparison to me or anyone else. You have so much kindness in your heart."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Quatre cried, covering his ears with his hands. "I hate my kindness, my disgusting and unnecessary kindness, even more than I hate you! It just gets in my way!" Quatre turned to a small computer screen projecting his father's face. He brought his head back, then slammed it with as much force as he could muster into the screen. When he brought his head back up, the glass had shattered and blood ran from his forehead down his face, and into his eyes, as well, blocking his vision occasionally with dark, floating shapes.
"Quatre..." his father said desperately from the overhead monitor, but the enraged child couldn't even hear him.
Quatre grabbed a chair up from one of the computer stations and threw it at the image of his father. It struck the monitor, which exploded into a crystal rain of shards and white sparks. Quatre fell to his knees, empty and exhausted. Tears fell from the dark space of his face, his eyes concealed by shadowy locks of matted, blonde hair.
Quatre was thrown back in his cell, where he remained for several days. He was left with no human contact other than an occasional hand that shoved a tray of food through the narrow slot in the door. At last, a new prisoner was escorted in, this one by Rasid himself. He had never bothered to ask Quatre what happened to his first cell mate, the clown boy was of no use to him anyway. This prisoner was an older man, though, with a thin, waxed mustache. He was wearing a lab coat that accentuated his swelled belly.
Rasid slammed the door again, plunging the two of them into relative darkness, except for a small, flickering light on the distant ceiling above.
"Where did they find you?" Quatre asked with a passing interest.
"I came off a science vessel. I was carrying some dangerous chemical compounds onboard and there was a containment leak. These Maguanac...they're unusual men. I didn't ask for their help, but they came to my rescue regardless. I'm not really a hostage like you."
"I don't mind being here. These men are more of a family then I ever could've hoped for back on the colony where I was born."
"Well then, I pity you," the scientist said. He looked at Quatre with small beady eyes that poked out from under folds of thick skin, full of wrinkles and fat. Even so, there was a lot of kindness in those eyes.
"If you wish, child, you may call me by my codename, which is H. My real name isn't important."
Great, Quatre thought, he's delusional.
"Actually, I would prefer if you put my doctorate before it, but that's a small matter."
"No problem," Quatre replied, bored and half-asleep. For awhile the man just sat there, occasionally studying Quatre or simply wrapped up in his own contemplation.
Late in the night, when Quatre was fast asleep, Dr. H crept over to him and shook him gently to wake him.
"Hey, are you awake, child?"
"My name is Quatre," he said groggily, but still with a hint of exasperation.
"How would you like to come to Earth with me?"
"I was trying to get there on my own before these Maguanacs found me."
"You can escape with me tomorrow, then. They said the repairs to my ship would be done soon, and I'm sure I can smuggle you onboard."
"Thank you for the offer," Quatre said, "but I don't want that. These people may need my help."
"The Maguanacs?" Dr. H asked. The old scientist chuckled when Quatre nodded his head. "I'm sure they can manage on their own, Quatre."
"No, I mean that. I feel indebted to them some how. They took me in--"
"They kidnapped you," Dr. H corrected.
"They were kind to me. Just as you said, they didn't need to take us in. I'm useless to them. They could've just as easily blown me up along with my ship."
"I fail to see how that would make you feel indebted to them," Dr. H said, puzzled. But, if you would rather stay and be shot to pieces by the Alliance military, feel free to do so. I'm just offering you a way out. Perhaps..." With that the old man fell silent, and was asleep a few seconds later. Quatre did the same, but was now confused at his own feelings of loyalty to the Maguanacs and wondering what is fate would be.
*****
In the morning, Quatre was awoken by the loud calls of alarms. This was followed by a series of explosions that wracked the MO-III satellite. The door to Quatre's cell slid open along with all the others in the cell block. Dr. H was gone. Rasid's voice bellowed through the loudspeakers in the hall.
"All able-bodied men are to proceed to the docking bay! We are under attack from the Alliance military!"
"What I get for sleeping late," Quatre mused.
Quatre walked into the docking bay, which had become a hellish scene of chaos and destruction. Apparently, one of the mobile suits' engines had exploded during takeoff and its wreckage was now blocking the other suits from leaving and defending against the onslaught of the Alliance Space Leos.
Quatre ran to Audah, who was climbing into the cockpit of his mobile suit.
"Let me help! I can pilot a mobile suit!" Quatre cried up at the Maguanac. Audah ignored him, continuing into the guts of the massive piece of machinery.
"Forget it, kid! You'd just be in the way!" he yelled to Quatre. At that moment, Rasid walked into the docking bay. He placed his hand on Quatre's shoulder. The Maguanac leader had a soft splint around his arm, with bandages packed tightly all over his shoulder.
"My arm was hurt by a piece of shrapnel when that mobile suit exploded. You can have my suit." Quatre looked up at him in wonderment, his eyes bright and joyful for the first time. The other Maguanacs looked at their leader, astonished.
"Sir, are you really sure that's a wise thing to do?" Abdul asked. Rasid just smiled.
"He has had a great amount faith in us, and I think we should put an equal amount of faith in him." Rasid then turned on his universal comm and addressed the entire corps.
"I will not be participating in the battle today. I would only be a nuisance to all of you with my injury. This boy will take my place. He will give commands, so you should all refer to him as 'Master Quatre' from now on. Understood?" Quatre's face beamed with excitement. He turned off the comm and spoke to Quatre alone. "Don't do anything reckless out there. Just try to keep everyone alive and organized."
"Roger!" Quatre began to head for the Rasid's suit, an unusual one that seemed to have been upgraded by a mishmash of weapons and spare parts from other suits. It had one grotesquely oversized arm that made the suit seem somehow deformed. The other arm was equally strange, as it held an extendible dobergun, and the pole-shaped barrel of it was nearly twice as long as the suit itself. Quatre grabbed onto a long cable attached to a hook above the cockpit. The cable began to reel in, bringing him up higher against the mobile suit.
"Master Quatre, catch!" At first Quatre didn't recognize himself by his new title, and then he glimpsed an object being hurled toward him. He caught it in mid-air. It was a pair of flight goggles, much like the pair he had when he raced mobile suits through the deserts on the outskirts of his hometown. He looked down to the ground, which was rapidly dropping out from underneath him, and saw Rasid smiling.
"My father gave me those," Rasid called up to him. "I never go into battle without them!"
"Thank you...I will cherish them," Quatre said softly, holding the goggles close to his heart.
*****
The mangled wreckage that was caught in the primary docking bay was suddenly thrust out an airlock with explosive force. Several Maguanac suits followed the debris out and were quickly sucked into the vacuum of space and the heart of the battle.
To Quatre, the entire battle flashed around him in a blur. He pulled the thrusters up and his suit narrowly cut through a huge salvo of white, comet-tailed missiles. Explosions lit up his cockpit, and he swerved around expanding clouds of fire, past hailstorms of bullets and whirling trails of ejected shell casings.
A light from behind caught Quatre's eye. He swiveled the torso of his mobile suit to see the blinding object behind him. As Quatre turned, the light was revealed to be coming from the thrusters of a Leo that had snuck up on him. It was too late. He was caught.
The Leo raised its rifle and prepared to fire at him. But just as it was about to pull the trigger, its upper body twisted backward and its arms flailed helplessly behind it.
Quatre slowly opened his eyes back up, then his expression changed from terror, to surprise, to a triumphant grin. Unintentionally, Quatre had impaled the Leo on the barrel of his oversized rifle when he turned around. He flipped up a switch on the main trigger, pressed the button underneath, and watched as the Leo was sucked off the end of the barrel and vaporized in a tremendous, arching incandescence.
When the pilots returned to the docking bay, there were cheers all around. There was singing and laughter and huge festivities, despite the fact that the Maguanacs had claimed victory for little more than themselves and a ship that was empty with the exception of a few scared hostages. Quatre, who had destroyed five Leos amidst the confusion, was thrust into the air and cheered for. It was unquestionably the happiest moment of his life.
The Maguanacs pressed on with renewed spirits, and continued to the Earth, fighting the Alliance as it came, and savoring their victories, in many of which Quatre single-handedly turned the odds in their favor. For his piloting skills, Quatre kept his title of 'master,' and gained respect amongst Rasid and the entire Maguanac corps.
The Maguanac corps landed in a deserted area on the Ivory Coast, in the United States of Africa. They hid their suits in the shallow waters of the coast and set up a large base camp. They would live there until they could find a way of getting to Baghdad undetected, where Rasid had a few partners in the trading business who could give the corps shelter, provisions, and transportation for the passengers to each of their families.
One night, Quatre wandered out past the camp to explore the vast, empty beaches. He walked up over a small inclined hill to relieve himself and saw something in the valley below: a massive, twenty-two-wheel truck. Quatre rushed up to it to investigate. An envelope had been posted on the windshield, addressed to Quatre. He pulled it from the glass surface in complete disbelief. He studied it, reading his name over and over, as if the envelope could not be real. When he finally shook off the surreal feeling, he opened the envelope and took out the letter inside. It was written in a graceful, spidery hand, almost like calligraphy. The note read:
Dear Quatre,
I am sorry I could not be here to greet you. I hope you find my present; I could only approximate where your ship would land from an offshore outpost's radar trackings. I won't bore you with such things though, I'm sure you are anxious to unwrap your present. You are a very kind person, Quatre, and I feel that you can take on this great amount of responsibility. You are very mature for your age, I can tell that there is far more to you than what lies on the surface. I will see you again some day, I can guarantee you that, but until then, this is my gift to you.
Sincerely,
Dr. H
Quatre folded up the note and put it in his vest pocket. As he circled the truck, he realized that it was attached to a gigantic flatbed, really more like a barge on wheels. And there was a brown tarp that covered the entirety of the flatbed. And there was something beneath that tarp. Something huge...