PART TEN:
Disclaimers: Since this story is set about three hundred years after the Gundam characters existed, there isn't much here I don't own. Except maybe any characters I use in flashbacks or the actual names of the characters, which pop up a few times. Some OOC, but no yaoi.
Author's Note: this chapter is a present to NK-sama because I missed her birthday this year--and because I started this chapter on the day of her birthday (September 23). Sorry I couldn't do more, NK-sama!!!
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It was later that evening before Via got to see the Gundams again. Neither she nor Chance had mentioned the disks--or Duo's poem--since the episode in the taboo room and that was just fine with Via. Shatajit had been more than happy to cook something up for the two of them, mentioning that Chance was going to be in a lot of trouble with Natasha and Khans and that many people were still very uneasy around Via because she carried the "Maxwell brand." Via had been too busy eating to ask about that--Chance had said something a little like it earlier, hadn't he?--but by the time she was able to talk again the subject had shifted to other things and she'd forgotten.
Now, on the platform outside Deathscythe's cockpit, Via frowned, watching Chance try to force open the cockpit door manually since he didn't have the access code for it, and wondered what the "Maxwell brand" was supposed to be. Exactly what was so awful about being a Maxwell? Sure, they tended to eat a lot and had big mouths sometimes, but Via didn't think that was anything to be afraid of. And they were often sinfully beautiful (and occasionally self-centered), but that wasn't much of a reason to hate an entire family name. Why was the Maxwell name so feared in this place?
Chance cursed as a piece of metal scratched his hand and he jerked back, holding his hand to his chest. "Damn Gundam," he muttered with a scowl.
"Are you okay?"
"It's just a scratch," he told her with a shrug and a sigh. "I wish I'd gotten the access code for this thing before we pissed Natasha and Khans off."
"Too late for that now." Via smiled. "Can I try?"
"Sure, go ahead. Give it your best shot." He stood back. "Although I don't know what you'll be able to do that I can't."
"Ahuh." Via reached over to the right side of the door and pushed against it, making it move a few inches. When there was enough room for her to fit her hand in the opening, she pulled it open all the way with only a little bit of effort. "You have to move it over first, Chance."
Chance blinked. "Oh."
Via scrambled inside the cockpit, collapsing into the black seat, the rough material and cloth cover irritably rubbing against her skin. "Do you people never reupholster these things or what?"
"We don't use Deathscythe enough to worry about it," Chance told her, smiling as he climbed in the cockpit behind her and shut the door. There seemed to be a little bit more room inside the Deathscythe than there had been in Heavyarms. "Try turning the Gundam on like you did before. We'll see if you can figure out what's wrong with it just by doing that."
"Turn it on. Right." She frowned. "How do I do that again?"
"The little red button and the small pedal by the door. And then there's a button behind and above you, remember?"
"Kind of." Via searched around for the red button, pressing it carefully and pushing against the pedal by the door--there was only one pedal in this Gundam, unlike the three in Heavyarms, which Via made a note to ask about later--and then reached up to search for the last button. When she found it she whacked at it with her fingertips--this one was a lot closer to her than the one in Heavyarms had been--and listened to the power source turn on. The lights flashed and the engines roared to life for a minute before everything shut down. Via frowned.
"What did I do wrong?"
"Nothing," Chance told her. "Deathscythe won't start--that's what's wrong with it. If we're lucky it will run for five minutes at a time, and that's only on a good day. Most times it won't turn on at all."
"Wow. That sucks."
"Sometimes." Chance smiled. "So now that you know what's wrong, maybe you can figure out how to fix it." There was a brief pause. "What are you thinking about right now?"
"Why Khans and Natasha can't figure out the poem riddle."
"Oh." Chance shrugged. "Did you know that they've searched this suit at least sixteen times, looking for a clue to help them figure it out? They couldn't find anything." Her face vaulted and he gave her a sad smile. "Is that what you were thinking about it?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Right." He sighed. "So what else are you thinking?"
"That I need something to eat." She laughed at the look on Chance's face. "Just kidding. I'm actually wondering how many Maxwell's have sat in this seat before me."
"Four, according to what Shatajit and Khans have told me."
Via frowned. "Who were they?"
"Duo, for one."
She rolled her eyes. "Besides him."
"Your great-grandfather and your grandfather," Chance continued. "And your dad." He smiled. "Four Maxwells. You make five."
Via frowned. "My dad knew about this place?"
"And your mother. They were both pilots for a little while, so of course they--" Chance paused. "You didn't know, did you?" He sighed. "You know, when you first told me that you knew about my heritage--Kit Grien and all that, I assumed you knew about this place. I figured Duo would have mentioned it in his disks--it's not like he didn't know about it." He looked at her, all the humor gone from his face. "They died here, Via. Both of them. Khans told me that last night, after we left your house with the disks. Your parents were killed by the remnants of the OZ group, the group that we're after. And we have their wills and testaments here; Shatajit told me this morning that technically this organization was supposed to get custody of you after they died but we never took action on it."
Via bit her lip. "I was told they died in a plane crash. That's why I never go on planes now." She stared down at her feet. "My uncle told me that. I'd been staying at a friend's house when it happened--my parents were busy and had to leave on business a lot. At least, that's what I was told. I guess they came here, didn't they?" She shrugged. "I was only four or five years old at the time and my uncle came to the neighbor's house and he told me what happened. Then he brought be back to his place, saying that he had custody of me now, and he yelled at me when I started to cry about what had happened. He said that he was the only parent I was going to have from now on and that if he caught me crying about anything he'd really let me have it. Because you can't change things. And because big girls don't cry." She tried a laugh. "So I didn't."
"Via…"
"You know that he never wanted to keep me with him? He tried to leave me at grocery stores and stuff, but after awhile I learned not to let him get too far ahead of me because he'd never let me catch up to him. And I learned to stay away from him whenever I could, especially when he was drinking. I mean, why stay around the house and go to school the next day with a bloody lip when you can be out with some people you call friends trying to have a good time?" She gingerly touched her right eye, which was still covered by an ugly blue and black bruise. "I needed some counseling when I started high school but he wouldn't sign the paper that gave the guidance counselors permission to mess with my head. So it ended up being Mister Aristo who helped me--I had him as a history teacher every year; I think he wanted to keep an eye out for me. I've been counting the days until my eighteenth birthday, when I can finally leave my uncle's house." She started to laugh a little. "And now I find that my uncle has lied to me all along and that I never had to go through that hell in the first place. That's just great."
She felt Chance's hand rest on her shoulder but shook it off. She knew that if she looked at his eyes right now she would start crying and that she would not be able to stop for a long, long while. She'd never told anyone all of that before; Via wasn't entirely sure why she'd told Chance all of it now. He didn't need to know--it didn't concern him.
"Via, look at me," Chance said gently. When she didn't look up he reached over and put a hand under her chin, moving her to face him. The look on his face was apologetic and pitying but strangely comforting nonetheless. He moved some hair out of her violet eyes and she bit her lip, trying not to meet his gaze. He edged closer to the cockpit seat, embracing her loosely. His hand caressed the back of her head, fingers brushing through her short hair.
"Via, it's okay to cry."
That was all the permission she needed. Clinging tightly to Chance, she started to weep into his shoulder, desperate for someone to understand what she was thinking and desperate to understand why the world had suddenly turned upside-down.
It was much later that night, after Via had been put to bed in what would be her room for the next few days, that she decided what it was she would have to do. For her parent's sake, and for Chance's, and even for her own. She had to do it.
She needed to reawaken Deathscythe and learn what she could do to get revenge for the death of her parents and the hell she'd been going through over the past thirteen years. And then maybe--just maybe--everything would be okay again. She had to do it; aside from being beautiful and hungry, the Maxwell's were vengeful people and not even four generations of peace and family was going to change that. That was on thing that no one could take away from her, not now not ever, because she wouldn't let that go. She was a Maxwell. It was about time she started acting like one.
Via slipped from beneath the covers of the bed and stood up, flicking on the light switch as she searched the floor for the clothes she'd discarded earlier, after changing into the pajamas that she'd been allowed to borrow from Amber. She had a good idea of where Duo had hidden those plans for Deathscythe and since everyone else was supposed to be sleeping, why not go ahead and look to see if she was right? If she was caught she could always say that she got lost on her way to the kitchen and had wanted to see what the Gundam was like. The only person who wouldn't believe that story would be Shatajit, who had already told her how she could get from her room to the kitchens without any trouble--it was two corridors over to the left--so that she could meet Chance there in the morning before breakfast, as they had planned. The two of them had decided that, being the only two kids in their late teens on the ship, they had to stick together. Especially since Khans and Natasha were still acting very cold towards the both of them, displeased with their uncooperative mannerisms.
Turning off the light, Via opened the door and padded down the hall carefully, trying to pick out even the smallest of noises in case she was about to be found. It was hardly quiet here at night--the hallway was buzzing with the careful whir of electricity and motors and the running equipment. The whole thing was in space, so Via supposed that it all made since. The oxygen filter and the cloaking as well as the locked engine which kept the ship thing from being pulled into a gravitational curve had to be running constantly, else everyone would be dead before they could fix the problem. It was hard to trace anyone's movement over the noise.
She pressed against the wall when she turned a corner and saw the glow of a light shining from beneath a door onto the hall tile. Via edged closer, hearing voices filter out from behind the light, curious as to who was there, and pressed her ear to the outside of the door.
"So what do we do with her now? She won't cooperate, I can tell you that much right now, and she hasn't been much help to us at all so far." The voice sounded like Natasha's. Via edged closer still.
"Use the boy." That sounded like Khans. Via recognized where she was now--this was the door outside of the taboo room, which meant that Chance probably wasn't inside. She was close to the hangar now, she knew… It wouldn't be all too far…
"Subduar won't kill her, you know that as well as I do. He'll take out the gun and he may hold it to her head or wave it in the air, but you won't convince him to pull the trigger on that thing. And we don't want to kill her--we want her to cooperate and help."
"That is not what I meant," Khans said quickly. "They're around the same age and seem to have gotten very close since they met during the boy's mission on the colony. Give him the assignment of wooing the information out of her. We've already been told about her attachments to--"
"That's true," Natasha interrupted. "What does she call him? Chris? Canter? Charles?"
"Chance." Via didn't recognize this voice at all. "Young Miss Via calls him Chance."
"Why?" There was a brief pause. "Never mind. So what now?"
"The boy gets as much information as he possibly can. I don't like the idea of giving him such a responsibility, but I doubt that she would tell us anything of importance, considering the lack of trust she holds in either of us."
"For a good reason," Natasha said with a sigh. "I don't like keeping her here against her will--it's against my ethical code. It's cruel and she's gone through a lot as it is without us. But at least this way…"
"We won't be hurting her too much?" Khans said, finishing the sentence. "We'll be hurting her plenty no matter how we do this; my way is just the simplest." There was a brief pause. "The boy won't like it," he observed.
"None of us will," the stranger said carefully. "But it is necessary if we want our organization to survive these attacks. As it is she doesn't seem to understand that we're the good guys here. We are the ones being ruthlessly attacked--the sake of the colonies rests on this girl, not on us this time. This is a war, you know. We can't let morals and ethics get in our way."
Biting her lip, Via continued quickly down the hall, not able to bear hearing any more. She was half-sure that Khans or Natasha would jump out from behind the door and catch her and drag her in there. It was good to know that Chance wasn't going to kill her after all, but…
She sighed, finally reaching the door of the hangar and punching in the code she'd seen Chance use earlier: "PEACE." The door slid open with a 'whoosh' sound and Via stepped hesitantly inside, looking around the green room. The lights were on, which she'd expected; Chance had mentioned earlier that someone was in this room 24-7 to observe the scanners and such that traced the sky for the enemy's ships, but Via didn't see anyone in there now. Perhaps they'd stepped out for coffee. Or were the other person in the taboo room, with Khans and Natasha. Wherever or whoever they were, they were making this all convenient for her.
She crossed the room to face the numbers on the wall--74282B. She was almost shocked that Natasha or Khans hadn't been able to figure out Duo's riddle on the disk--it really wasn't that hard, when you thought about it. Not really. She traced the numbers with her fingertip. The first few were written in Duo's handwriting, that was for sure, but the last two digits were in the same block lettering that she'd seen on the box in the attic. And what was it that Duo had said about Heero? "If you can find the end, you'll be a better scavenger than Heero is," wasn't that it? She smiled, deciding that her earlier assumption had been right, then sprinted over to the side of the room where Wing Zero was supposed to be stored.
Chance had told her that Deathscythe had already been searched countless times, so where else would Duo hide the plans that he knew would be kept safe, with the Gundams, forever? After all, where better to hide a Gundam's blue prints than with the Gundams themselves? And it would have to be the ideal Gundam, too. Not Altron, that was for sure--Wufei was too possessive of his Gundam for that--and probably not Sandrock or Heavyarms, considering his relationship to those pilots. He and Quatre had gotten along great, for the most part, sure, but there was a rift between them that neither would ever be able to cross: Quatre was a rich kid and Duo had grown up in the worst living conditions known to man, with a natural instinct to distrust the wealthy folks who had done nothing to help him. Trowa was too quiet for Duo's tastes--the boy had said so on several occasions--and Duo wouldn't have hidden it there. So where else would it be, if not those?
Wing Zero. Via smiled. To think that the plans had been under their noses all along and they'd never realized it! What maroons... She'd narrowed it down real quick, but they couldn't figure out that the plans weren't hidden on Deathscythe!
Now her only problem was figuring out where on Wing Zero they'd been hidden. It wouldn't be someplace obvious--Chance or one of his descendants would have found them long before now if it had been--but it probably wasn't any place too discreet, either. Duo's mind didn't quite work that way. He had been the kind of person who would hide in plain sight if he could but keep it so cleverly concealed that only the sharpest eyes would be able to detect it.
Or the most highly tuned brains. Via grinned, walking around the suit. Where would it be? Someplace fairly easy to reach, surely--Duo had been short, probably due to malnutrition as a child, and hadn't grown past five feet four inches, a height Via easily surpassed with her own five feet eight inches--and he didn't have access to the platform that the people here used. If Via could trust her information, the original pilots had used some sort of rope device, but it didn't do anything more than take a person up to the cockpit. It would have been hard to stop it halfway up or to move it around the suit. So it was probably within reach from where Via was now.
She must have walked around the suit seven times, twining between the legs when she thought about it, and never once caught sight of anything amiss. Groaning, Via leaned against the back of the suit's right leg, sinking to her feet. Where was the thing? Had she been wrong?
No, that was impossible. A Maxwell was never wrong. It had to be there somewhere! She let out an angry grunt, banging her head against the suit, the wrong thing to do. It hurt.
"Ow!" She held her head in her hands, rubbing the area that would undoubtedly be a bump by the next morning. Wincing, she listened to make sure no one had heard her cry out and was coming to find out what was going on. The echoing sound that met her ears startled her and she got to her feet, turning around. She frowned and knocked on the metal in the approximate place where she'd hit her head, and the echoing sound came again.
"Yay," she whispered triumphantly. "I think I've done it." She brushed her fingers against the metal of the suit's leg, feeling the indentations that had probably once been part of the poem. It wasn't too long before she hit a button of sorts and the indentations lit up, displaying the entire poem.
Look at me. In the eyes Tell me the truth No more lies.
No more sorrows No more pain Look at me
I am nothing. I am a shadow. I am a dead thing that walks this earth.
I am no more than a mirror A mask Of my true self Look at me
I want to be free. I want to get rid these bonds. I am lost
Never to be found. I am trapped.
Forever.
~Kali-Loai
She could have cheered, stopping herself from doing so only because of the risk of being found. She pried at the corner of the panel, finally seeing the faint lines that proved there was a door in the suit, and tried desperately to open it. It didn't take too long--the door was old but it was still a work of art, concealed by the centuries--and Via reached inside the opening she had uncovered. Her hand met a square thing and she pulled it out, blowing away the dust.
It was a disk.
--to be continued--