Nina often worked late and always forgot how scary the park outside the
Anaheim building could be. Von Braun wasn't as safe as Granada, which had
been savagely cleaned up by Princess Kishiria's Royal Marines. Nina
clutched her briefcase and started down the path. There was plenty of
lighting, but it was just as easy for someone to be hiding in the bushes or
behind trees. There had been rapes in the area. Driving wouldn't have
been any safer as one still had to walk to a car. Once she was on the
street by the bus stop, she'd be okay due to ample amounts of foot traffic.
Twenty feet from the sidewalk, someone slammed into her. A hand covered her mouth as the arm around her neck hauled her into the bushes. Her attacker was wearing a black ski mask (did anyone buy those things to ski in really, or only to commit crimes?) and gloves. Nina swung backwards at his legs with the briefcase, scoring a few blows.
"Cut that out and you won't be hurt!" Her eyes widened as the attacker held a hunting knife up to her face. "Just shut up and let it happen."
Nina knew she couldn't fight her way out of this, she just didn't have the skill. The safety of the briefcase in her hand was the most important thing. She went limp and let herself be dragged back into the bushes. If he let go, she might be able to kick her shoes off and escape.
Next thing she knew she was on her back with her attacker's knee on her chest. He still held the knife but was now lifting her skirt with the other hand. An awkward pose, but not yet one she wanted to risk. She was thinking about slugging him with the case again when suddenly another man crashed through the trees, swinging a fallen branch. It caught her assailant on the side of the head, knocking him down. The cute mailboy grabbed the man by the collar, raised one fist and roared at Nina, "RUN!"
She did. A moment later the mailboy came up behind her, grabbing her hand and towing her behind him to the main thoroughfare and safety.
"Are you all right, Miss?" He panted at her. "Do you want to call the police?"
"Uh, I'm fine. Yes, I think I should." She opened up her cell phone and dialed 111. Police were dispatched. The handsome mailboy went with her to the station and stayed with her as she filed her report. Several hours later, the paperwork was done although Nina didn't think the police were going to be able to do anything beyond increase patrols. She looked at her rescuer and said, "Thanks for saving me. Can I buy you dinner?"
Gato's stomach rumbled in response but he said, "Rescuing you was simply the right thing to do. You don't have to reward me at all. I'll see you home."
They taxi'd and walked back to her apartment building, a secure one in an upscale part of town. At the door Nina said, "I didn't catch your name?"
He smiled enigmatically. "I'm the mailboy." He took her hand and kissed it chivalrously, then turned on his heel and left.
Nina watched him go and smiled to herself. Courageous, romantic, and adorable. She ought to follow up on this one.
On the bus home, Anavel was also doing his share of smiling. That had gone as well as he'd planned. He just hoped that Sgt. Fredo wasn't going to be concussed by the knock he'd given him on the head with that tree branch.
###
"Your solution for the heat panels is very novel, but I'm not convinced it will work," Dr. Vane told Nina as she was in his office the next day. "Tell me why you came to the conclusion that it was the best way to handle the problem?"
Nina heard her doctoral dissertation advisor perfectly well but was distracted by the memory of cool hazel eyes. "Rotating them gives them more surface area," she said.
"While expending energy to do so. I think you should look into..." He leaned forward and waved his hand in front of her face. "Nina, are you there?"
"Sorry, Dr. Vane."
"Look, I didn't know if you'd be up to this meeting after what happened to you last night. We'll re-schedule for now."
"That might be the best thing."
When Nina returned to her office, she sat at her terminal and changed programs. The other engineers were being very quiet around her. It was true that she'd had a hard time sleeping the night before, and telling them what had happened had brought on a crying jag she hadn't expected, but she was traumatized, not dead. She decided that she'd take advantage of their keeping their distance for the moment, then ask them all to treat her normally again.
She called up the company directory. If the mailboy, who had come and gone while she was meeting with her advisor, wouldn't give her his name, the directory would. She looked under "mailroom" and found the supervisor and four clerks. Only one worked her part of the complex and his name was Anavel Gato.
Nina sat back in her chair. Anavel Gato was the name of a famous Jion pilot during the One Year War. He was known for his gentlemanly behaviour in battle as well as his high kill rate.
She changed programs and called up the list of Jion Military Wanted For War Crimes. Giren Zabi, deceased. Kishiria Zabi, deceased. Captain Shin Asakura, Lt. Colonel Cima Garahau, at large. Garma Zabi, deceased. She kept reading to the end. Anavel Gato's name was not on the list.
She switched to a search engine and entered his name. The first web site to come up was an old but still active ".gov.jion" URL for Heroes of the War for Independence. Probably run off a pirate server somewhere, she reflected. She clicked on the link for "Anavel Gato" and was rewarded by a photo of the Anaheim mail clerk in a green uniform, smiling a little "screw you" smile at the camera with a Dom in the background.
"I have you now, my pretty," she murmured, and called up the word processor to write a note. The note went into an inter-office envelope that she handed to him when he came through that afternoon. By quitting time Gato had not responded though, and Nina went home miffed.
One of the mail clerk's jobs was to run the shredder, and the task was much slowed down when Gato had to stop, read, and photograph what he was throwing in.
"Projects Physalis and Zephyranthes," Gato told Tetley. "What goes into my shredder isn't the really hot stuff. I'll have to get that out of Nina herself."
They examined the images from Gato's digital camera on Tetley's laptop. The two of them were sitting in Laetura's apartment on a Saturday morning since she and Kelly had gone out to look at houses.
"The armour on this Physalis Gundam. It's heavy to a bizaare extent."
"It is. That worries me. What enemy are they planning to face who would require them to shield their mobile suit like that? She's received components from none other than Amuro Rey as well, and that worries me even more."
"How likely is it that you'll be able to get information out of Nina Purpleton? Did the staged mugging work?"
"A little too well. I just wanted her to begin to trust me and develop the trust from there. Instead, I got this."
He handed Tetley the note Nina had handed him in the inter-office mail. Tetley read it out loud.
"I know who you are and I owe you for what you did. Dinner?" Tetley handed it back. "Weird, but I encourage you to do it. Just remember that you're working whenever you're with her."
"I don't think that will be difficult, sir."
###
"So, should I consider you my stalker?" Gato asked Nina from across the table. They were sitting in a resto-bar that was non-descript but full of professionals with more money in his pocket than he had.
"No. I'm just a really grateful woman who wanted to know who her knight in shining armour was. I nosed around and found out who you were and what you'd done in the war in no time flat. If you want to be anonymous, you've done a very bad job of it."
"I'm being low-profile but I have nothing to hide. The police raised an eyebrow and did a search when I gave my statement the other night but they couldn't find anything and I walked out a free man."
"My gosh. You put yourself at risk of arrest for me?"
"I had to."
"I see." She sat back as the waitress dropped off mozzarella sticks. Nina dipped one and asked, "What the heck are you doing here, being drooled over by a bunch of dippy girl engineers?"
"What else could I be doing?"
"You could be on Axis. You could go home."
"To the so-called Republic of Jion? No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a royalist. As soon as I set foot back there I'd be imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time, just for being who I am. Then when they decided I was a good boy and not likely to cause trouble, I'd be freed but sent to mandatory anti-Zabi classes until the breaking of my spirit was complete." He nibbled an appetizer. "I believe in my heart that Mineba Zabi, daughter of my former commander Dozel, is the legitimate head of state and that she should be placed on her grandfather's throne in Zum City immediately."
"Wow," said Nina.
"What?"
"The level of passion you feel about this. For a lot of people, it would be only politics."
"You're right. For me it is more than politics. Are the machines you work on just big tanks on feet?"
"Touche'. They're like my children to me." She leaned forward. "We have a number of captured Zakus and other suits. I've been in the cockpits to study them, but tell me what it's like. You don't have to tell me about Solomon, or A Bao A Qu because I know those stories must be painful. Just describe to me what it's like to have one of those magnificent pieces of machinery around you."
That was something Gato was happy to talk about. Nina was well aware of the mechanics of a Zaku II and a Dom, but the experience of flying one was quite different. He ordered another beer and began to tell her. She rested her chin on her hand and listened without saying a word.
This time, Gato did go up with Nina into her apartment. While the building was a luxury high-rise, the apartment itself was less agreeable than Laetura's. At least she had clearly defined rooms whereas this was just a glorified studio. One open space held Nina's bed and books at one end of the rectangle and a living section at the other. It was all very comfortable, but Nina clearly lacked Laetura's imaginination when it came to working with very little. Gato half expected a poster of the RX-78 to be given pride of place over her bed, and was happy to see that there wasn't.
She made coffee and they sat down on the couch. Seeing it as his turn to ask the questions, Gato started. "So what made you so interested in mobile suits?"
Nina tucked one foot under her knee and sipped from her mug. "I've always been into machines. If something broke around the house, I fixed it. When other little girls were playing with dolls, I was building models. When they were fascinated by horses, I was wrenching on cars. I didn't go to my senior prom, I was rebuilding an engine." She said this last as if it were the crowning achievement of high school. "After high school I started working on Ball units. Then there was the Riah rebellion and for the first time I saw Zakus and they were...magnificent." Her eyes became distant at the memory.
"Yes. I remember my first sight of them too. I thought that Jion would certainly conquer when I realized how far ahead we were from the Federation, but I turned out to be wrong."
"I almost moved to Granada, to where the plant was. I sent in my resume' and no less than General Kishiria responded, saying that she thought I might make a valuable addition to the R&D department. My parents wouldn't let me go, though. They said I had to finish school."
"That's certainly our loss," Gato sighed.
"I guess it was. Next thing I know, there's this new mobile suit coming out of the Federation called the Gundam. Did you ever face the Gundam, Anavel?"
"No. If I had, I would have destroyed it."
"A lot of pilots tried."
"Yes, but none of them were ME."
Nina let it slide. "Anyway, after the war, Anaheim Electronics of Irvine bought out Jionic and Zimmad, along with all their intellectual properties. They hired me, and here I am." Her expression was smug. "How did you get hired to Anaheim?"
"I applied. There isn't much work here in Von Braun, so I took what I could get."
"You must be awfully bored."
He nodded. "You have no idea. Plus I'm living in a one-bedroom apartment with a pal and his new ladyfriend in a rotten part of town. I've fallen a few rungs on the ladder of life I must say."
"At least you're alive and well," Nina told him.
"There is that," Gato said, thinking of the maimed Kelly. "I lost a lot of friends out there."
Nina raised a hand to his shoulder. "If there's anything I can do..."
He shook his head. "Not unless you can reverse time, develop a personal force shield for Giren Zabi, or arrange for the Lady Kishiria to have a tragic accident."
Nina tipped her head to the side. "The tragic accident might take some doing. I imagine a Zabi princess has pretty good security."
Gato laughed. Nina was smiling up at him, clearly glad to see him laughing for a change. He pulled her gently into his arms and kissed her.
To his surprise, Nina froze for a moment before slipping her arms around him and responding. Gato, you idiot, he told himself, the woman was just the target of an assault, staged or not. Of course she's nervous. You should know better; this is why you' got this mission and not Aznable.
He broke the kiss and sat back. Nina blinked at him, breathing a little heavily. At that moment he saw something that stirred his blood in quite a different way.
On the desk near the bed sat a laptop. Nina's briefcase sat on the floor nearby. As he stared at them, Nina reached up and turned his face towards hers again.
He couldn't get into the kiss now. Pretty and entertaining as Nina was, the cache of Gundam secrets was too much of a distraction. Now she was the one to end the kiss and say, "Something's wrong."
Gato had to think of something quickly. "I'm just feeling a little depressed. I shouldn't have talked about how much I've lost. You're right; I came out of the war in good health and I have a job and perhaps even a future here. Still..."
"This is too much for your survivor's guilt."
"Yes. No! I didn't mean it that way."
"I understand." She turned back to him and raised a hand to his cheek. "I'll see you at work on Monday."
Gato waited until he was safely in the elevator of Nina's building before proceding to bang his head against the wall.
Kelly was sitting alone in the living room, watching a documentary on humourous homemade robots. Anavel changed into shorts and a t-shirt in the bathroom and came back out.
"There's a couple of beers for you in the fridge," Kelly said. "Laetura doesn't like alcohol in the house, so I bought them at the service station after she went to bed."
Gato took a bottle out. "Snyder's Royal Premium. They're selling this here?"
"Yeah. I guess somebody noticed a niche market for displaced Jions who might want to get drunk on their own native poison. There's a bottle opener nailed to the side of the counter under the microwave. I got bottles because I can't open cans by myself."
Gato twisted open the bottle and got the second one for Kelly. They tapped the bottles together and Gato took a swallow. "Ugh! This stuff is still as foul as ever."
"Missed it, though."
"Oh yes. It makes me think back to how Admiral Dozel used to import cases of this nasty stuff for his troops on holidays."
Kelly peered at Gato. "Surprised to see you back here tonight."
"Issues to the left of me. Baggage to the right of me. Into the valley of neurosis rode the five hundred. And I'm not so sure I'm describing her. Things got weird at one point and I told her it was because I'd been reminded of how much I'd lost during the war. Thing is, it was pretty much the truth."
"You missed a great opportunity to pump her for information, if you catch my drift."
"I do, and forget it. I can't do that to Nina. Besides, ending the date was her idea. I think she's been hurt."
"She's going to be a lot more hurt when she finds out you're a spy for Delaz."
"True. Maybe she won't have to know." Gato leaned back and nursed his beer.
"Oh, I'm sure. Just like I'll forget what it's like to be a pilot, you will too." Kelly glowered at his friend. "You're the Nightmare of Solomon, Gato. If you don't get back into space eventually, you'll go nuts. I know I would, except I don't really have a choice. That's why I'm trying to set up this new life with Laetura." He gazed down at his beer sadly and Gato suddenly found the documentary very interesting.
At work, Nina continued to treat him as she had been for the past few weeks; businesslike but not in any way cold. Two Fridays later, Nina sent a note down to him at the mailroom.
I have a surprise. Meet me in my office at six.
He did as he was told. Nina was there in slacks and a shirt, grinning at him.
"I have something for you."
Twenty minutes later, Gato was staring around himself, open-mouthed. "Nina, this is a mobile suit hangar."
"Points to the boy for being observant! This is where we keep the machines from the One Year War that we're studying." She pointed at the suits in question. "Two Zakus and a Gouf. We've got parts of a Dom too."
"Nina, this is like dangling a steak in front of a starving man."
She took his arm. "I'm about to give you the steak. Reg up in the tower owes me a huge favour. Zaku Unit 1 was already taken out today and Reg has cleared me to have it taken out again."
"I don't think I want to know how you arranged this."
"I wouldn't tell you. It's between me and Reg, who I caught being very naughty." She waved up at a nervous-looking man in the tower. "We only have a couple of hours, so get suited up and let's go."
Getting into a normal suit came as easily to Gato as putting on his briefs in the morning. He was in the pilot's seat with Nina in the jump seat beside him in no time. When the doors were opened and the order given from Reg, the Zaku strode forward from the hangar with a Jion pilot inside for the first time since it had been captured.
"I've never piloted in this sort of lunar gravity," Gato confessed. "Zero gee or colony gravity, but this feels strange."
"Try jumping. You can almost fly in it."
The controls for the mobile suit fit into his hands as if they were the hands of his spouse of 60 years. He'd heard of telepathically controlled mobile suits, but when he was behind the controls of a Zaku they sounded ludicrously redundant. He sent the Zaku jetting forward, flying lightly and swiftly over the lunar surface. This gave him an idea.
"Sit back, Nina. We're going on a field trip."
"It can't be too long, Anavel."
"Don't worry, I'll have us all back safe."
Nina watched his face as he controlled the Zaku. While the Anaheim mail clerk went about his office duties with grace and dignity, it was magnified to an incalculable degree when he piloted. Gato's expression was intense, yet serene. This is what he'd been born to do. Yet seeing him in an unarmed mobile suit, merely taking her on a joyride, was still sad to her, as if she were giving him merely a taste of freedom while still on a long chain.
"There," he told her softly, and pointed out at the viewscreen.
Nina undid her seatbelt and floated up to be beside him. She followed where he was pointing and saw two slowly rotating cylinders in the magnified view from the Zaku's cameras.
"Is that Side 3?"
"Yes," he whispered, lowering his head. "Home. It's 1600 over there. My mother is probably having her tea. That's just one of her quirks. My father went back into active military duty during the war. In January of this year he was alive and back home, but I don't know any more than that. Even if he's sworn loyalty to the new Republic of Jion, that'd be all right. I just want both of them to be well."
Nina looked down at him and realized he was crying. Not over having lost the war, not over his monarch being driven into exile, but over the fact that unless he sacrificed his own freedom, his own principles and all the things that made him who he was, he could never go home.
That, she reflected, was a choice no person should have to make.
"If you need a friend, you know where to find me," she said.
"Nina, you've been the best thing to happen to me since I arrived in this place," Gato told her.
Nina undid the seals of her helmet and let it float upward to the ceiling of the cockpit. She undid his and gathered him into her arms. She kissed him deeply, tasting the salt of his tears on his lips, wanting nothing more than to ease his pain. Gato's arms tightened around her in a silent plea to stay with him.
On his part, all Gato could feel was grateful, yet he had only one thing to offer her in return for this moment. When they'd returned the Zaku to Anaheim and gone back to Nina's apartment, he thanked her wordlessly in the darkness where his expression of gratitutde was joyfully accepted.
The briefcase sat forgotten in the corner all the while.
Twenty feet from the sidewalk, someone slammed into her. A hand covered her mouth as the arm around her neck hauled her into the bushes. Her attacker was wearing a black ski mask (did anyone buy those things to ski in really, or only to commit crimes?) and gloves. Nina swung backwards at his legs with the briefcase, scoring a few blows.
"Cut that out and you won't be hurt!" Her eyes widened as the attacker held a hunting knife up to her face. "Just shut up and let it happen."
Nina knew she couldn't fight her way out of this, she just didn't have the skill. The safety of the briefcase in her hand was the most important thing. She went limp and let herself be dragged back into the bushes. If he let go, she might be able to kick her shoes off and escape.
Next thing she knew she was on her back with her attacker's knee on her chest. He still held the knife but was now lifting her skirt with the other hand. An awkward pose, but not yet one she wanted to risk. She was thinking about slugging him with the case again when suddenly another man crashed through the trees, swinging a fallen branch. It caught her assailant on the side of the head, knocking him down. The cute mailboy grabbed the man by the collar, raised one fist and roared at Nina, "RUN!"
She did. A moment later the mailboy came up behind her, grabbing her hand and towing her behind him to the main thoroughfare and safety.
"Are you all right, Miss?" He panted at her. "Do you want to call the police?"
"Uh, I'm fine. Yes, I think I should." She opened up her cell phone and dialed 111. Police were dispatched. The handsome mailboy went with her to the station and stayed with her as she filed her report. Several hours later, the paperwork was done although Nina didn't think the police were going to be able to do anything beyond increase patrols. She looked at her rescuer and said, "Thanks for saving me. Can I buy you dinner?"
Gato's stomach rumbled in response but he said, "Rescuing you was simply the right thing to do. You don't have to reward me at all. I'll see you home."
They taxi'd and walked back to her apartment building, a secure one in an upscale part of town. At the door Nina said, "I didn't catch your name?"
He smiled enigmatically. "I'm the mailboy." He took her hand and kissed it chivalrously, then turned on his heel and left.
Nina watched him go and smiled to herself. Courageous, romantic, and adorable. She ought to follow up on this one.
On the bus home, Anavel was also doing his share of smiling. That had gone as well as he'd planned. He just hoped that Sgt. Fredo wasn't going to be concussed by the knock he'd given him on the head with that tree branch.
###
"Your solution for the heat panels is very novel, but I'm not convinced it will work," Dr. Vane told Nina as she was in his office the next day. "Tell me why you came to the conclusion that it was the best way to handle the problem?"
Nina heard her doctoral dissertation advisor perfectly well but was distracted by the memory of cool hazel eyes. "Rotating them gives them more surface area," she said.
"While expending energy to do so. I think you should look into..." He leaned forward and waved his hand in front of her face. "Nina, are you there?"
"Sorry, Dr. Vane."
"Look, I didn't know if you'd be up to this meeting after what happened to you last night. We'll re-schedule for now."
"That might be the best thing."
When Nina returned to her office, she sat at her terminal and changed programs. The other engineers were being very quiet around her. It was true that she'd had a hard time sleeping the night before, and telling them what had happened had brought on a crying jag she hadn't expected, but she was traumatized, not dead. She decided that she'd take advantage of their keeping their distance for the moment, then ask them all to treat her normally again.
She called up the company directory. If the mailboy, who had come and gone while she was meeting with her advisor, wouldn't give her his name, the directory would. She looked under "mailroom" and found the supervisor and four clerks. Only one worked her part of the complex and his name was Anavel Gato.
Nina sat back in her chair. Anavel Gato was the name of a famous Jion pilot during the One Year War. He was known for his gentlemanly behaviour in battle as well as his high kill rate.
She changed programs and called up the list of Jion Military Wanted For War Crimes. Giren Zabi, deceased. Kishiria Zabi, deceased. Captain Shin Asakura, Lt. Colonel Cima Garahau, at large. Garma Zabi, deceased. She kept reading to the end. Anavel Gato's name was not on the list.
She switched to a search engine and entered his name. The first web site to come up was an old but still active ".gov.jion" URL for Heroes of the War for Independence. Probably run off a pirate server somewhere, she reflected. She clicked on the link for "Anavel Gato" and was rewarded by a photo of the Anaheim mail clerk in a green uniform, smiling a little "screw you" smile at the camera with a Dom in the background.
"I have you now, my pretty," she murmured, and called up the word processor to write a note. The note went into an inter-office envelope that she handed to him when he came through that afternoon. By quitting time Gato had not responded though, and Nina went home miffed.
One of the mail clerk's jobs was to run the shredder, and the task was much slowed down when Gato had to stop, read, and photograph what he was throwing in.
"Projects Physalis and Zephyranthes," Gato told Tetley. "What goes into my shredder isn't the really hot stuff. I'll have to get that out of Nina herself."
They examined the images from Gato's digital camera on Tetley's laptop. The two of them were sitting in Laetura's apartment on a Saturday morning since she and Kelly had gone out to look at houses.
"The armour on this Physalis Gundam. It's heavy to a bizaare extent."
"It is. That worries me. What enemy are they planning to face who would require them to shield their mobile suit like that? She's received components from none other than Amuro Rey as well, and that worries me even more."
"How likely is it that you'll be able to get information out of Nina Purpleton? Did the staged mugging work?"
"A little too well. I just wanted her to begin to trust me and develop the trust from there. Instead, I got this."
He handed Tetley the note Nina had handed him in the inter-office mail. Tetley read it out loud.
"I know who you are and I owe you for what you did. Dinner?" Tetley handed it back. "Weird, but I encourage you to do it. Just remember that you're working whenever you're with her."
"I don't think that will be difficult, sir."
###
"So, should I consider you my stalker?" Gato asked Nina from across the table. They were sitting in a resto-bar that was non-descript but full of professionals with more money in his pocket than he had.
"No. I'm just a really grateful woman who wanted to know who her knight in shining armour was. I nosed around and found out who you were and what you'd done in the war in no time flat. If you want to be anonymous, you've done a very bad job of it."
"I'm being low-profile but I have nothing to hide. The police raised an eyebrow and did a search when I gave my statement the other night but they couldn't find anything and I walked out a free man."
"My gosh. You put yourself at risk of arrest for me?"
"I had to."
"I see." She sat back as the waitress dropped off mozzarella sticks. Nina dipped one and asked, "What the heck are you doing here, being drooled over by a bunch of dippy girl engineers?"
"What else could I be doing?"
"You could be on Axis. You could go home."
"To the so-called Republic of Jion? No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a royalist. As soon as I set foot back there I'd be imprisoned for an indefinite amount of time, just for being who I am. Then when they decided I was a good boy and not likely to cause trouble, I'd be freed but sent to mandatory anti-Zabi classes until the breaking of my spirit was complete." He nibbled an appetizer. "I believe in my heart that Mineba Zabi, daughter of my former commander Dozel, is the legitimate head of state and that she should be placed on her grandfather's throne in Zum City immediately."
"Wow," said Nina.
"What?"
"The level of passion you feel about this. For a lot of people, it would be only politics."
"You're right. For me it is more than politics. Are the machines you work on just big tanks on feet?"
"Touche'. They're like my children to me." She leaned forward. "We have a number of captured Zakus and other suits. I've been in the cockpits to study them, but tell me what it's like. You don't have to tell me about Solomon, or A Bao A Qu because I know those stories must be painful. Just describe to me what it's like to have one of those magnificent pieces of machinery around you."
That was something Gato was happy to talk about. Nina was well aware of the mechanics of a Zaku II and a Dom, but the experience of flying one was quite different. He ordered another beer and began to tell her. She rested her chin on her hand and listened without saying a word.
This time, Gato did go up with Nina into her apartment. While the building was a luxury high-rise, the apartment itself was less agreeable than Laetura's. At least she had clearly defined rooms whereas this was just a glorified studio. One open space held Nina's bed and books at one end of the rectangle and a living section at the other. It was all very comfortable, but Nina clearly lacked Laetura's imaginination when it came to working with very little. Gato half expected a poster of the RX-78 to be given pride of place over her bed, and was happy to see that there wasn't.
She made coffee and they sat down on the couch. Seeing it as his turn to ask the questions, Gato started. "So what made you so interested in mobile suits?"
Nina tucked one foot under her knee and sipped from her mug. "I've always been into machines. If something broke around the house, I fixed it. When other little girls were playing with dolls, I was building models. When they were fascinated by horses, I was wrenching on cars. I didn't go to my senior prom, I was rebuilding an engine." She said this last as if it were the crowning achievement of high school. "After high school I started working on Ball units. Then there was the Riah rebellion and for the first time I saw Zakus and they were...magnificent." Her eyes became distant at the memory.
"Yes. I remember my first sight of them too. I thought that Jion would certainly conquer when I realized how far ahead we were from the Federation, but I turned out to be wrong."
"I almost moved to Granada, to where the plant was. I sent in my resume' and no less than General Kishiria responded, saying that she thought I might make a valuable addition to the R&D department. My parents wouldn't let me go, though. They said I had to finish school."
"That's certainly our loss," Gato sighed.
"I guess it was. Next thing I know, there's this new mobile suit coming out of the Federation called the Gundam. Did you ever face the Gundam, Anavel?"
"No. If I had, I would have destroyed it."
"A lot of pilots tried."
"Yes, but none of them were ME."
Nina let it slide. "Anyway, after the war, Anaheim Electronics of Irvine bought out Jionic and Zimmad, along with all their intellectual properties. They hired me, and here I am." Her expression was smug. "How did you get hired to Anaheim?"
"I applied. There isn't much work here in Von Braun, so I took what I could get."
"You must be awfully bored."
He nodded. "You have no idea. Plus I'm living in a one-bedroom apartment with a pal and his new ladyfriend in a rotten part of town. I've fallen a few rungs on the ladder of life I must say."
"At least you're alive and well," Nina told him.
"There is that," Gato said, thinking of the maimed Kelly. "I lost a lot of friends out there."
Nina raised a hand to his shoulder. "If there's anything I can do..."
He shook his head. "Not unless you can reverse time, develop a personal force shield for Giren Zabi, or arrange for the Lady Kishiria to have a tragic accident."
Nina tipped her head to the side. "The tragic accident might take some doing. I imagine a Zabi princess has pretty good security."
Gato laughed. Nina was smiling up at him, clearly glad to see him laughing for a change. He pulled her gently into his arms and kissed her.
To his surprise, Nina froze for a moment before slipping her arms around him and responding. Gato, you idiot, he told himself, the woman was just the target of an assault, staged or not. Of course she's nervous. You should know better; this is why you' got this mission and not Aznable.
He broke the kiss and sat back. Nina blinked at him, breathing a little heavily. At that moment he saw something that stirred his blood in quite a different way.
On the desk near the bed sat a laptop. Nina's briefcase sat on the floor nearby. As he stared at them, Nina reached up and turned his face towards hers again.
He couldn't get into the kiss now. Pretty and entertaining as Nina was, the cache of Gundam secrets was too much of a distraction. Now she was the one to end the kiss and say, "Something's wrong."
Gato had to think of something quickly. "I'm just feeling a little depressed. I shouldn't have talked about how much I've lost. You're right; I came out of the war in good health and I have a job and perhaps even a future here. Still..."
"This is too much for your survivor's guilt."
"Yes. No! I didn't mean it that way."
"I understand." She turned back to him and raised a hand to his cheek. "I'll see you at work on Monday."
Gato waited until he was safely in the elevator of Nina's building before proceding to bang his head against the wall.
Kelly was sitting alone in the living room, watching a documentary on humourous homemade robots. Anavel changed into shorts and a t-shirt in the bathroom and came back out.
"There's a couple of beers for you in the fridge," Kelly said. "Laetura doesn't like alcohol in the house, so I bought them at the service station after she went to bed."
Gato took a bottle out. "Snyder's Royal Premium. They're selling this here?"
"Yeah. I guess somebody noticed a niche market for displaced Jions who might want to get drunk on their own native poison. There's a bottle opener nailed to the side of the counter under the microwave. I got bottles because I can't open cans by myself."
Gato twisted open the bottle and got the second one for Kelly. They tapped the bottles together and Gato took a swallow. "Ugh! This stuff is still as foul as ever."
"Missed it, though."
"Oh yes. It makes me think back to how Admiral Dozel used to import cases of this nasty stuff for his troops on holidays."
Kelly peered at Gato. "Surprised to see you back here tonight."
"Issues to the left of me. Baggage to the right of me. Into the valley of neurosis rode the five hundred. And I'm not so sure I'm describing her. Things got weird at one point and I told her it was because I'd been reminded of how much I'd lost during the war. Thing is, it was pretty much the truth."
"You missed a great opportunity to pump her for information, if you catch my drift."
"I do, and forget it. I can't do that to Nina. Besides, ending the date was her idea. I think she's been hurt."
"She's going to be a lot more hurt when she finds out you're a spy for Delaz."
"True. Maybe she won't have to know." Gato leaned back and nursed his beer.
"Oh, I'm sure. Just like I'll forget what it's like to be a pilot, you will too." Kelly glowered at his friend. "You're the Nightmare of Solomon, Gato. If you don't get back into space eventually, you'll go nuts. I know I would, except I don't really have a choice. That's why I'm trying to set up this new life with Laetura." He gazed down at his beer sadly and Gato suddenly found the documentary very interesting.
At work, Nina continued to treat him as she had been for the past few weeks; businesslike but not in any way cold. Two Fridays later, Nina sent a note down to him at the mailroom.
I have a surprise. Meet me in my office at six.
He did as he was told. Nina was there in slacks and a shirt, grinning at him.
"I have something for you."
Twenty minutes later, Gato was staring around himself, open-mouthed. "Nina, this is a mobile suit hangar."
"Points to the boy for being observant! This is where we keep the machines from the One Year War that we're studying." She pointed at the suits in question. "Two Zakus and a Gouf. We've got parts of a Dom too."
"Nina, this is like dangling a steak in front of a starving man."
She took his arm. "I'm about to give you the steak. Reg up in the tower owes me a huge favour. Zaku Unit 1 was already taken out today and Reg has cleared me to have it taken out again."
"I don't think I want to know how you arranged this."
"I wouldn't tell you. It's between me and Reg, who I caught being very naughty." She waved up at a nervous-looking man in the tower. "We only have a couple of hours, so get suited up and let's go."
Getting into a normal suit came as easily to Gato as putting on his briefs in the morning. He was in the pilot's seat with Nina in the jump seat beside him in no time. When the doors were opened and the order given from Reg, the Zaku strode forward from the hangar with a Jion pilot inside for the first time since it had been captured.
"I've never piloted in this sort of lunar gravity," Gato confessed. "Zero gee or colony gravity, but this feels strange."
"Try jumping. You can almost fly in it."
The controls for the mobile suit fit into his hands as if they were the hands of his spouse of 60 years. He'd heard of telepathically controlled mobile suits, but when he was behind the controls of a Zaku they sounded ludicrously redundant. He sent the Zaku jetting forward, flying lightly and swiftly over the lunar surface. This gave him an idea.
"Sit back, Nina. We're going on a field trip."
"It can't be too long, Anavel."
"Don't worry, I'll have us all back safe."
Nina watched his face as he controlled the Zaku. While the Anaheim mail clerk went about his office duties with grace and dignity, it was magnified to an incalculable degree when he piloted. Gato's expression was intense, yet serene. This is what he'd been born to do. Yet seeing him in an unarmed mobile suit, merely taking her on a joyride, was still sad to her, as if she were giving him merely a taste of freedom while still on a long chain.
"There," he told her softly, and pointed out at the viewscreen.
Nina undid her seatbelt and floated up to be beside him. She followed where he was pointing and saw two slowly rotating cylinders in the magnified view from the Zaku's cameras.
"Is that Side 3?"
"Yes," he whispered, lowering his head. "Home. It's 1600 over there. My mother is probably having her tea. That's just one of her quirks. My father went back into active military duty during the war. In January of this year he was alive and back home, but I don't know any more than that. Even if he's sworn loyalty to the new Republic of Jion, that'd be all right. I just want both of them to be well."
Nina looked down at him and realized he was crying. Not over having lost the war, not over his monarch being driven into exile, but over the fact that unless he sacrificed his own freedom, his own principles and all the things that made him who he was, he could never go home.
That, she reflected, was a choice no person should have to make.
"If you need a friend, you know where to find me," she said.
"Nina, you've been the best thing to happen to me since I arrived in this place," Gato told her.
Nina undid the seals of her helmet and let it float upward to the ceiling of the cockpit. She undid his and gathered him into her arms. She kissed him deeply, tasting the salt of his tears on his lips, wanting nothing more than to ease his pain. Gato's arms tightened around her in a silent plea to stay with him.
On his part, all Gato could feel was grateful, yet he had only one thing to offer her in return for this moment. When they'd returned the Zaku to Anaheim and gone back to Nina's apartment, he thanked her wordlessly in the darkness where his expression of gratitutde was joyfully accepted.
The briefcase sat forgotten in the corner all the while.