Chasing Impossibilities
Part Six: Truth


"Triton. Triton, wake up."

Triton blinked open his eyes, not expecting to see space in front of him. He had assumed Heero would have waited until they got there before waking him... "What happened?"

"There's an gravitational shield around the colony. There's no way to get on it."

Triton let the impossibility of the situation sink into his head. There was no way onto the colony. They had no gas. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"That's why I woke you up- help me out."

Triton looked over what Heero was doing, and saw that he was running a check over the colony, looking for any weak spots in the shield. It took them ten minutes before Heero's arm shot out across Triton, reaching in front of the other boy to point somewhere on the screen.

"There. There's a station in orbit around the colony, and it's exactly the same width as the shield. The doctors probably use it to get in and out."

Triton nodded, taking over the controls instinctually. He turned the shuttle towards the location, sparing a glance at the fuel gauge. It was beyond empty... they were coasting already. He steered the ship for about five minutes before the handle started getting jerky, and he wound up using both his hands to keep the thing from veering off course. The shuttle kept on track, though, and soon the orbiting station was right in front of him.

"Shit!" Triton pushed the steering wheel forward as the thing lost control, pushing down on the accelerator, hoping they made it in time. Then, in just one instant, he was jerked from the steering wheel as it seemingly flew out of his hands. The two men were slammed back into their chairs as the shuttle spiraled out of the control, hoping for a collision, because at least that meant they wouldn't be stuck floating around space. They got what they wanted: the shuttle slamming against the metal of the station, and the nose was smashed as they kept crashing. It seemed like forever until they stopped, and when Triton opened his eyes he was acing a wall of twisted metal. The shuttle was totaled. "I can't believe we're still alive."

Heero quickly got out of the position he had taken when bracing for the shock. It was almost completely dark inside the shuttle now, and they couldn't see more than a foot in front of them. Triton followed Heero as he made his way towards the shuttle door.

"Give me a hand. It's stuck."

Triton crept over to the other side of the door, pulling with Heero. It took them ten minutes to pry the things open, leaving both their hands raw from the exertion. Triton winced looking at them as they jumped out, making the five foot fall to the ground without event. The room they were in was huge, and judging from the size of the station from outside it couldn't have contained more than three of these rooms.

Heero looked back at the damage they had caused. The station had obviously been rigged with the standard safety precautions. That and a lot of luck explained why they were still alive right now. The entrance was designed to fall away at any sign of forceful impact, and a gate designed to seal off any broken area in the event of crash.

There was an echo in the room, and their footsteps were louder than Heero would have liked. Still, Heero thought there probably weren't any people in the station. Probably being the key word.

They made their way into the second room, still wary of any unexpected surprises. It was just as big as the first. There was a path down the middle of it that lead to what Heero assumed was the third and last room, with scrap metal piled on the sides. Triton walked over to the right, inspecting the chunks of metals.

"Hey. These are machines."

Heero walked over towards the other man. The hulks looked familiar, then he suddenly realized what they were. "They're gundams."

"What?"

Heero walked past a piece of what must have been a head, towards a decimated cockpit area. "They're torn apart and wrecked, but I'm sure of it. They're gundams."

Triton watched as Heero climbed up onto the thing, jumping into a hole in the middle of it. He grabbed onto the metal, making the trek up himself, just in time to see the innards of the machine light up.

"This one's even still functional. Kind of."

Triton looked down into the hole, surprised to see Heero laying down in a seat. Screens flared in front of the prone boy, and Triton was even more shocked when his face appeared in one of them.

"Trowa Barton, pilot 03. The date is May 23rd, AC 195. Five gundam pilots have been confirmed as of today. Whether they are friend or foe is unknown and irrelevant. I have received mission orders from O to destroy the Geneva Oz base; all other issues are secondary until I complete that task."

Triton blinked at the cool, analytical fifteen-year-old that had just fuzzed out of the screen, before another video came on.

"Trowa Barton, pilot 03. The date is May 31st, AC 195. I have made contact with Quatre Raberba Winner, pilot 03 of the gundam Sandrock. He helped to repair Heavyarms and offered me accommodations, and seems to be fighting the same war as I am. I have received no word from the scientists regarding the other pilots."

The screen blinked away, for longer this time, before showing the last surviving video.

"Trowa Barton, pilot 03. The date is December 20th, AC 195. All five gundam pilots are on Peacemillion. We expect the final battle will occur soon; soon, the war will be over, and hopefully, we will have won."

The screen fizzled out, for good this time, and Heero shut off the cockpit. He moved upwards, sitting on the edge of the machine with Triton.

"So... I was a gundam pilot."

Heero nodded.

"You were a gundam pilot."

"I'm pretty sure."

"And when the war was done, the scientists, J, G, O, H, and S, wiped out the war from every one's memories, using some... machine, and gave them all new lives."

"Well done, my boy. Though I expected nothing less from two of our proteges."

Trowa and Heero turned around at the foreign voice, amazed that they had not hear any one enter. They leaped off of the gun as they saw J standing there, Heero drawing out Trowa's gun even as they were in the air, his reflexes unnaturally sharp.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Another man, probably hired help, came out of the shadows, and Heero saw that he was carrying Max's unconscious body, a knife pressed against the man's throat.

"You know, we did this all for you. For the citizens. We gave you all a life without war. We even let you keep your friends, your relative identities."

"You gave us a lie."

"Does it matter? How would it have been any different than any other life, if you had believed in it? And what will you do with the machine, once you get there?"

Both Heero and Trowa had to admit the man had a point. But they had come this far, and they would decide what to do when the time came.

"Now we'll have to take care of your memories, as well as change the memory of any one who knows you. We've already erased Duo's mind again." J gestured over at the limp boy, still held captive. "Why I'm going through so much trouble I'm not sure; it would be so much easier to just kill you all. Now come along and I won't kill Duo."

"Go ahead." Heero swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. "After all, he's not really my husband."

J grinned, motioning at the other man, who then pressed the knife a little tighter against Duo's flesh. That moment, Heero forgot about his earlier convictions, about how Duo really didn't mean anything. The only thought that ran through his head was that Duo was in trouble, and he couldn't let Duo die. He dived at the man with superhuman speeds, knocking him away from the braided man and firing two shots into his body as they both hit the floor. He rolled off the man instantly, turning just in time to see J reach for his gun, and pulled the trigger three more times. When all was said and done, J and the stranger were laying half dead on the floor. They would be gone in mere minutes.

Trowa jogged over to Heero. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Heero looked over at Duo, confused. Had it been the falsely implanted memories that made him save the man, or something more. He shook his head, remembering J's earlier words, realizing it didn't matter. Duo's memories had been wiped out. He wouldn't have the same feelings; he wouldn't love him anymore.

Heero picked up the singer, heading to the third room. Trowa followed behind him. As they both expected, there were short range galaxy transportation transports lined against the wall of the room. Heero opened the door to one, placing Duo inside.

"What are you going to do with him?"

Heero shrugged. "Send him to the nearest colony."

"And that's it?"

"What else am I supposed to do? He won't remember me when he wakes up." Heero finished typing in the destination to the machine, leaning down to brush Duo's bangs out of his face. He wanted to look at him one last time, to file the image away in memory. Finally, he closed the door and sent the unit off into space.

In the meantime, Trowa had secured a two person transport, and had already told it to take them to the colony. "Ready?"

Heero nodded, hopping inside with the other man. "Yeah."

As soon as they were both secured the transport door closed behind them and they started spiraling softly down towards the colony. Heero looked out the window as the fell through one of the colony receivers, taking in the beauty of the artificial beach. In the middle of the sand, right where they were landing, stood a huge device that resembled a satellite dish. They had an easy landing, minimal impact, and they soon found themselves climbing out of the pod and walking towards the supercomputer that controlled the device.

Heero kneeled down in front of the c.p.u., tracing fingers around the monitor.

"I never... I never thought it would have come to this. Yesterday morning, all I wanted was a solution to my memory problems. I never imagined my life would weave itself into such a complex web. I never imagined I would be in this situation. And to think, less than twenty-four hours ago, I was just a normal person." Heero swallowed, moving a hand to turn on the machine. "I think, maybe, I would have been better off if I hadn't started to remember my previous life."

Trowa shrugged at the monologue. "I can't say I want to remember my life in the war; I can understand what the scientists were trying to do. Bloodshed is not an easy thing to live with. But it doesn't matter; fate led us here, and now we have to figure out what we're supposed to do."

Heero nodded, reading through the text that ran rapidly over the screen. He could read lives in the code, the lives of every single person that could be accounted for in the galaxy, and marveled at the fact that this machine could create such an intricate network of stories and identities. Not only that, the machine could account for millions of various factors, such as where a person was located when it was activated, what colonies were inhabited and active, even the personality of every person living. It was as if the scientists found a way to plot destiny out into mathematical equations.

"Do you think Duo and I were lovers before the machine?"

"Does it matter?"

Heero realized, then, that it really didn't. "I don't think we should change anything. We're not here to play God. And even if we could give every one their former lives back, I don't know if we should."

"I agree, somewhat. But the fact is, you are wanted for the murder of Cat Winner. And there's a whole colony here that is both entrenched and hidden in the peoples' minds. We should start it again, one last time, let it take care of those details, let it put new, completely random memories inside every one's head. Fate will sort everything out afterwards. But I think that after, this thing should be destroyed."

"Yeah." Heero read over the machine's memory, reading how to do exactly that. He smiled, sadly, as he put in the commands. "It will activate in thirty minutes, and self destruct once the process is complete. It should take four hours. Every one will fall asleep during that time."

Trowa nodded. "I suggest we get ourselves off this colony, then."

They walked over to the fallen pod, starting it up again to take them to the next colony. When they got there, they had just enough time to get out onto the sand before they were claimed by a deep slumber.

"Duo..." Heero whispered, as he drifted off, "... sayonara... "