You know, most colonists have a problem with sunlight. Sure, yeah, we've got our solar collectors, our radiation reflectors, our light shows and shit. The people in control have done everything they fucking possibly could to mimic the world we left behind, to float up here, naked. We've even got winter, here, in this ultimately controlled environment. God, I can't tell you how many fucking times I've cussed out the weather control for authorizing snow. Yeah, you hear all this great romantic shit about it in books, on movies and music. But the truth is, snow fucking sucks. It's cold. Sure, that's fine for all the shits in their fancy homes with their own controlled environment, but quite frankly they don't give a shit 'bout the rest of us. And I'm not just whining 'bout the streetrats, the homeless, the druggies. Though them too. Them especially. But really, everyone else suffers 'cause of it too. They have to waste their already precious funds to keep warm, when they really don't have to. But the people up there don't get that, trying to hold onto what we used to have—get the fucking clue, we don't live there anymore. We're floating in a big-ass tin donut in the middle of nature's most hideous and perfect extreme. We really don't need to be bringing the negative aspects of our old home with us, too.
But they do. And we live with it. Just like all the other wastes of space, the needless hardships, that ultimately we pay for. They're the ones always complaining about cost efficiency, but no, got to have their precious winter. Food? Water? What the fuck is that? Let's just have it rain. So much prettier. Assholes.
So yeah, we've got the closest thing to home these guys can get. And it's still not the real thing. It will never be the real thing. 'Cause for all their valiant efforts, the second any one colonist steps off the shuttle, away from the shielded windows, the carefully moderated filters, they're practically blind for the first few days. We've always had better night vision than Earthers, though.
And, y'know, that's kinda funny. 'Cause… well I didn't have that problem. I've lived my whole life in space. On colonies, ships, stations, whatever. But always in space. And really, no matter how much they try the gravity just isn't the same either. So most colonists feel like two-year old babies for the first few months, too. But I didn't.
Yeah, I noticed the difference, yeah, it took a bit of getting used to. But I did it. Within hours of making landfall on this mudball of a puddle, I was indistinguishable from the natives, in so far as those particular physical clues are concerned. I had the walk down, had the talk. Though my comrades'll object to that, fact is I didn't bother to hide it most of the time. But I could.
Any native with any amount of experience can usually spot a colonist from a mile away. It's in our moves, our gestures, our accents, hell—even in the way we look at things. Our eyes. But I walked straight past guys I knew were looking for it. Good guys, with years practice. And they didn't blink an eye. I betcha it's the same with the others too.
'Cause I know those guys hit Earth 'round the same time I did. I've done the calculations. And maybe that rat J did train Heero to condition to Earth's peculiarities. Maybe it wasn't his first time land. But it was Quatre's. I spent a few weeks with that guy, I know a bit. He'd never hit Earth before, never really been exposed to true sunlight—and sure as Hell wasn't as heavily trained as some of these other guys. Yeah, he's a great fighter; phenomenal, technically. But it's natural. Just like everything else.
I heard these guys talking, a couple of the wierdos who follow Kat around like puppies. Don't get me wrong, their great guys. But it's simple truth, they follow the guy around like puppies. It's, um, kinda cute actually. In a weird, vertigo sort of way.
Anyway, I was over listening to them, and don't look at me. Yeah, you're paper and all, but you're looking at me I can tell. Well shut up, 'kay?
Anyway, I was listening, and I heard 'em talking 'bout Kat. And I'll call him whatever I damn well want. And they were talking 'bout when he first landed. How they could'a sworn the kid had landed before, 'cause he adjusted so fast. Within hours of falling, he was out and about, looking at the flamingos on Sandrock. And man, he got a picture of that I saw, I know it sounds funny but god… I didn't know whether to laugh my ass off or gape in awe. Still don't.
The thing is, even taking all sort of shit into account, the kid landed in a desert. Not just a scrub brush little hell-hole—an actual, dunes of sand no water for miles around Arabian type desert. Like Dune. And I've been out there too, not long of course, but I saw it first-hand.
That shit is bright. I'd been here for a while, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I had to wear sunglasses for the most of it. I mean eventually, yeah, my eyes adjusted; but that's just the thing.
The first time the kid ever makes landfall, ever deals with full gravity, and he lands in one of the most extreme locations this planet has to offer, and he was up and about in vaguely the same time-frame I was. And I can take a money bet, that the other pilots, the other three, got it in just the same amount of time. The Maguanacs themselves, they were normal. They were already here, they'd adjusted a couple years ago. The Sweepers, my guys, they'd already been here, they were normal. It was just us, we set a new fucking record in adaptation. And a whole lot of other things.
We're faster. Stronger. Better at taking pain, better at healing. Our reflexes are quicker, our thought processes tighter. Hell, IQ-wise, we're all technical geniuses. No fucking kid.
Just us. Just the Gundam Pilots.
And it's more than just physical shit, too. Sixth sense is one thing, that don't explain some of the shit I've felt. But it's nothing big, it's just… We're a little faster, a little smarter, a little luckier in situations in which it don't matter shit how strong you are, how smart. Or shouldn't, anyway. Lucky. I guess that's a way of putting it. Terminally lucky, the five of us. And it's not hunches or shit, I know I don't even think about what I do. I just react, then come back and listen to all the guys say how goddamn lucky I was again. How that one shot nearly got me, but I missed it by two inches, etc. They all think it's the machines, they must have some sorta next-generation tech or something. Don't get me wrong, the machines are next-generation tech, but even I get a little wide-eyed when I get to see my battles from camera. The others are the same. And that's not even getting into the… other shit. I mean… Quatre. The kid fucking speaks for himself. It's hard to be pissed around that kid, he'll getcha. Come to you, ask- well, no- know what's wrong, talk about it sometimes. Kid's a psychic, and that's not too strange.
The kid's a psychic fighting in a fucking war. That's strange.
It just… adds up after a while. Makes me wonder.
Hey, Heero's here, gotta go.
Okay, just a sec, I just noticed something 'bout what I wrote. Heero knocked after I said that.