Disclaimer: Don't own Gundam Wing or The Parent Trap.

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The Maxwell Trap

by Dorothy Winner

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"What is she doing here?!"

Sydney gave Wufei her most impudent smirk. "Hi, Uncle Wu!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "Didja miss me? Huh huh huh?"

"Be quiet, you obnoxious child!"

"I'm supposed to be off-duty, remember?" said Hilde. "I just came back from an extended mission. And Heidi's been away at camp all summer. I didn't want to leave her behind on her first day home. Now what's the problem?" she asked, noticing the black screens on most of the computers.

"The cadets were doing an exercise on code breaking using some computers connected to the main network," explained Sally. "One of them somehow got into the operating system and scrambled some of the program codes that run the main network. Now everyone's computers are frozen, or worse, won't even turn on, like Wufei's."

"Silly onna cadet! They should not allow incompetents like her onto the main network!"

"Don't be so hard on the cadets, Wufei; they're still learning." Hilde sat down at a computer that still had a blinking cursor and began to type. "Hmmmm… Heidi?"

"Yeah Mom?" Sydney asked, hoping it wasn't a computer question.

"Could you go back to the car and get my laptop bag for me? I have a disk with an algorithm that I think just might fix this."

"Sure, Mom. Um… what's the way out?" asked Sydney.

Hilde was too engrossed in the computer to notice Sydney's lapse. "Oh, you take that elevator over there all the way down to the main floor. Take a left and you'll be right in the main foyer. You can just go out the front doors, they'll know who you are. Here's the keys," she said, handing the car keys to Sydney.

"Thanks Mom." Sydney took the elevator downstairs and walked out the main doors. She went to her mom's car and opened the driver's side door, retrieving her mom's laptop bag from under the seat and shutting the door, locking the car. Sydney turned to head back inside when she spotted Chang Wufei's Preventer-issued, spotless black SUV in the space directly in front of her mother's car.

Sydney suddenly had an idea.

Pulling out the bobby pin she always kept in her hair, Sydney picked the driver's side door open. After several tries, the lock clicked and she hopped inside.

Sydney marveled at the SUV's interior, running her fingers over the black leather seats. "Nice wheels… almost a shame to do this to such a nice car. Still, I can't pass up an opportunity like this…" Reaching under the wheel, Sydney popped open a panel and felt for the right wires in order to hot-wire the car. When she found them, she severed them in half and twisted two of them together. The engine roared to life. Chuckling evilly, she put the car into drive and drove the car to an empty area in the parking lot.

"Bet Heidi never did anything like this…" Sydney put the gearshift into reverse and turned the wheel sharply to the left. She opened the car door and jumped out as the car began to turn. She ran out of the car's path and looked back to survey what she had done.

Wufei's SUV was now slowly turning backwards in circles…

~*~

"Sorry mom, I had trouble finding the car in the parking lot," Sydney said breathlessly as she gave Hilde her laptop bag.

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Hilde, pulling a black disk out of one of the pockets and putting it into the computer. Her fingers began flying over the keys and Sydney, watched, amazed, as the Preventers home screen popped back up on the computer and all the ones around them a few moments later. "There, the entire network should be back up now."

"Finally, onna," Wufei said irritably, pushing Hilde aside and logging in. "I can't believe this! Only two sentences of my report are still on here!"

"I hope you've learned your lesson, Wufei," quipped Sally. "Always save your work."

"Do not mock me, onna…"

Just then Lady Une came up to their desk. "Preventer Chang, I think you'd better see this."

"What now?" Wufei huffed angrily, looking up.

"Look out the window."

Wufei got up and went to the window. "Why is that car driving backwards in circles?"

"Um," said Sally, recognizing it, "it looks like your car, Wufei…"

Wufei narrowed his gaze. "That is my car? That is my car. That is my car. THAT IS MY CAR!!!" He turned around to see Sydney trying to hide behind Hilde. "YOU!!!" he yelled furiously.

Both Sally and Lady Une had to hold him back. "Calm down, Wufei!" Sally exclaimed.

But Wufei would have none of it. "Check the surveillance cameras! I know she did it!" Wufei shouted, spit flying from his mouth.

Hilde looked down at her daughter. "I'm pretty sure she did it too," she said. "Leave her alone, Wufei; I'll deal with her…"

Sydney swallowed. It looked like she was about to get her first punishment from her mom…

~*~

"Explain yourself."

Sydney looked imploringly into her mom's eyes with what she hoped were her best cow eyes. "Well, it's just that I've been away at camp, and I needed something big to make up for all the times I didn't crash his computer this summer. And I just saw his car sitting there; I couldn't resist…"

"You know I'm immune to that look, young lady. Now what kind of a reason is that?"

"Well, it was worth a try," said Sydney. 'Shoot, that look always worked on Dad…'

"Where did you learn to hot wire a car, anyway?"

"Huh? Um… they taught us at camp," said Sydney.

"Really?" said Hilde, raising an eyebrow.

"Um, yeah, you know, if one of your parents loses their keys and you're stuck out in the wilderness somewhere," Sydney said lamely. "So… how did they get the car to stop?"

"They had to climb over the hood and smash a window to get inside!"

Sydney burst out laughing, but quickly desisted at her mother's stern look. "I'm sorry, Mom, I really am," she said earnestly. "I can't help but wonder though, where do I go from here?"

Hilde shook her head. "Utterly remorseless, as usual. You're incorrigible, just like…" She suddenly drifted off.

This was exactly the kind of opening Sydney wanted. "Like… my father?"

Hilde sighed. "Yes, like your father."

"So what was he like?"

"When did this conversation turn to your father? This is supposed to be about you, remember? Don't go changing the subject on me…"

"I'm not trying to evade punishment or anything," said Sydney, "but you can't blame a kid for being curious, like why you never mention him or anything."

Hilde seemed to get a faraway look in her eyes. "You know, this part of you reminds me of him. Always asking questions. Well, what do you want to know?"

"How did you fall in love with him?" asked Sydney. "When was your first date?"

"Well, when I first met him, I knew my life would never be the same. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be just another dead OZ statistic. I was working in an OZ facility on one of the colonies when I saw him, wearing those damn sunglasses, lounging in that chair with that annoying smirk on his face. It was unnerving. I knew he was trouble, that he was dangerous, which scared and attracted me to him at the same time. I gave him my recruiting spiel and left, somehow knowing it wouldn't be the last time I would see him. I ended up letting him escape in one of our suits, and later going on one insane mission after another, all just for him.

"Now, our first date… we didn't even go out on a date until after the war ended. We'd been living together, as friends, at his scrapyard business on L2. I came home after buying groceries one day and found a large white box and a note, telling me to put on what was inside and go downstairs. I opened it and found this very short, very sexy, nearly backless red dress and a pair of strappy red sandals. I was infuriated at first, the nerve of him, giving me something like that to wear, but something made me put it on anyway. So I went downstairs, looking for him, when all of a sudden he came up behind me and blindfolded me, of all things. When I refused to move a single step unless he took off the blindfold, he picked me up and tossed me into his car. We drove for about fifteen minutes before he stopped and let me out, finally removing the blindfold.

"It was the sweetest thing he'd ever done for me. We were in front of Francesca's, an upscale Italian restaurant that I had always wanted to go to, but he had always dismissed it because he said he didn't like snooty fancy restaurants, and besides they always ripped you off anyway. But there he was, in a nice suit and tie, which for him, was a lot, and a gorgeous candlelit dinner on a balcony outside under the artificial moon. The dinner was going very nicely until he spilled red wine all over his suit. I wouldn't stand for letting the stain soak in, so we went home early. I started helping him with his clothes, and…" Hilde suddenly blushed. "Anyways, that was our first date. Are you happy now that I've told you something about your father?"

"That's so adorable, Mom," said Sydney. "Dad sounds like such a romantic. I wish I could meet him someday."

"Yes, well, he could be anywhere by now, I don't know where he lives anymore," said Hilde, although she avoided Sydney's eyes when she said that. "Okay, enough about your father. Now about what you've done to Chang Wufei's car…"

Sydney tuned out her mother's lecture. 'She's obviously still in love with him,' she thought, remembering how her mother's face had lit up as she recounted the story. 'So why did you break up?'

~*~

TBC…