Demi 2: Samui Yoru Dakara (Part 2)

The basement of Di Cecilia was wide, low-ceilinged, and somewhat damp. It had obviously begun life (if that was the word) many centuries since as the antechamber to a familial or convent catacomb, complete with bas-relief'd buttresses and pillars carved out of the living rock. The architectural style guaranteed the persistence of gothy shadows, which clung to the corners despite whitewash and office-style wall-to-wall carpet that curled where it met the molding. The floorspace was presently filled with rows of cafeteria tables piled high with machines: computers and servers and grey switchboxes sprouting festoons of cables. Someone enterprising had gone about duct-taping these last to the floors so no one would trip.

It was, reflected Duo Maxwell, not unlike a bureaucratic depiction of Hell.

Chang Wufei and Zechs Marquise awaited them in the center of the room. Duo thought their uniforms looked fresher than they: stray wisps had come loose from Wufei's ponytail, and even the perpetually inpeccable Peacecraft eldest arbored smudges of shadow under his eyes. Evidently the Aeonist mission was taking a toll.

Not that Duo himself felt any better. He must be getting old - a mere five-hour nighttime airlift during the war wouldn't have taken the stuffing out of him this way. But then, the price was small compared to some of the dues he'd had to pay in his life. He'd accepted it readily, known that peacetime would rust the skills he'd never need again, he hoped he'd-

And suddenly, despite the fatigue, that itch was there. Deathscythe.

Shit

The two Preventers who'd shown them in saluted their commanders smartly, and melted into the hubbub of their peers. Marquise gave a nod. "Yuy. Maxwell. It's been some time."

"Saa ne" Heero was silent, a wary presence at Duo's side. Natsukashikute just like in the bad old days, damn him. He probably hadn't lost a skill to speak of, either.

Wufei's gaze snagged on the flannel bundle of small boy in Duo's arms. "What is that?" He half-snapped by way of greeting.

Duo, knowing better but too tired and annoyed to care, rearranged his features into a display of devil-may-care amusement customized to tweak maximum irritation from Wufei. "He's your perp, Wu-man."

"My what?"

Duo tapped his slumbering son on the shoulder. "Demi. Kiddo. Wake up n' meet your Uncle Wufei. Chang Wufei, Demi - er - Maxwell-Yuy. Our son. Tell me you're not delighted."

Marquise raised a blond eyebrow, but said nothing. Duo was suddenly reminded that he was Heero's ex-brother-in-law (weird!). No help for that now; the cat was out of the bag. He knew from the movement in his arms that Demi was awake.

"Say hi to Uncle Wufei and Uncle Zechs, kiddo."

"Hi, Uncle Wufei. Hi, Uncle Zechs," Demi repeated obediently, adding as if on afterthought, "Nice t'meet you."

Duo half expected Wufei to blow up, but the Chinese Preventer merely stared at them with the most inscrutable expression on his face.

"Wu?"

"This isn't a joke," Wufei said flatly.

"Wufei, I wish I were other than utterly seri-"

"I know this isn't a joke, Maxwell. You're not this imaginative. I'm still waiting for an explanation."

"I'd rather they save it," said Marquise. Duo turned, startled. "Our servers are locked, and chances are five-to-one that the Aeonists have detected us and are attempting a trace. Time is of the essence. I'd be delighted to hear the story once we're not a standing target for discovery."

Heero spoke for the first time since the beginning of the exchange. "Time?"

"Twenty minutes, projected. We left loose ends; the way the hack interrupted procedures was inelegant."

Heero turned, scooped Demi out of Duo's blanketed arms and marched off in the direction of most server racks per cubic meter. Duo blinked once in surprise - which put him a second behind Wufei and Marquise, both of whom had reached Heero by the time he'd dropped Demi into a bucket seat before one of the terminals.

Philbert the purple dinosaur was floating merrily on the screen.

"-tablish perimeters," Heero was saying. "Exactly as you proceeded earlier this evening through the firewall, but in reverse." Pause. "You have twenty minutes. Do it."

"I did't in two hours," Demi said.

"You don't have two hours."

Heero was using his mission voice. Duo opened his mouth and shut it again, because Demi didn't look in the least bewildered or intimidated. In fact, he didn't look as if he knew he was in trouble at all, and Duo wondered if he should clear up the point for him.

Wufei made a sound through his teeth. "Yuy, whatever you th-"

"J'you have passwords?" said Demi. Wufei stared at him.

"What?"

"Oh-one to oh-five, kibou197," Marquise said. He met Wufei's stunned gaze coolly. "Oh-six and oh-seven, vereiteln. Main firewall, zhengyi. Zed-aych-ee-en-gee-why-aye." Demi began to type.

"Dammit, Marquise, that was third-level-"

"We have next-to-nil chance of bringing the situation under control within the requisite timeframe, and you know it as well as I do. If Heero will insist on a child's skills instead of his own, then so be it. Vereiteln with a v Demi."

"'Kay..."

Eventually they fell silent as virtual lockers opened, and screens careened past at dizzying speed. At four minutes down Wufei muttered to Marquise, "Were you at all aware of the existence of that partition?"

"It must be an artefact of the former OS."

"That is to say, no."

"I'll have a memorandum sent around."

At seven minutes down Heero said, "You didn't clear the v-registers completely."

"Oops," said Demi. Duo detected no hitch in the flow of information across the screen; he sighed and sank down onto the nearest cafeteria bench.

How many years? Four? Five? Since before he and Heero had parted ways - not all that long, in the scheme of things. Maybe the feeling would die for good yet. It had been harder on Wufei than it had been on him. He'd put it from his mind almost immediately, concentrated on getting on with his life. Succeeded in doing so. Just these lapses, every once in a while when he was tired or stressed out. Just lapses.

The problem was physical: the scientists had built the Gundams to be part of them. Bloody ineffable wisdom, that. Pilots on the one hand like any poor sod in a refurbished Leo, and on the other on the other. His very soul given over when he was strapped into that cockpit, his very name gone. Shinigami. Extensions of his own flesh in gleaming alloy sable and silver and explosive power of star-engines, thermic weaponry superheated to incandescence. It had been sweet, like breathing, like making love. How long had it been anyway?

The flesh held its own memory

At nine minutes down he realized Demi's chest was level with the keyboard, turned to look for a cushion of some sort to raise the kid's seat and found that they'd attracted a growing ring of Preventer officers.

"Don't you have terminal banks to tend or something?" he said to the nearest one, who looked somewhat embarrassed at being addressed.

"Er-"

"To stations," Wufei said briefly, glancing behind him, and that settled it.

At ten minutes down Duo found a stack of old telephone annuaries that at least put Demi at proper typing distance. At eighteen minutes down-

Cries of relief went up across the control center. "Network re-established sir! Access normalized!"

"Proceed with countermeasures as outlined in Three-B," said Wufei. He glanced from Duo to Heero, then down at Demi, and visibly revised what he was going to say. "Yuy. Maxwell. Ah-"

"Briefing," Heero said curtly, and Duo suppressed a wince. Geez, he sounds like a situational relapse on two legs

Of course, Duo himself was just the same, wasn't he?

He felt suddenly, obscurely angry. Once an omnicidal Gundam pilot, always - no. The war was plenty over. Maybe if they got out of the bloody federated peacekeeping force's terrorist unit headquarters, he'd stop wanting his hands on Deathscythe's controls now.

Maybe if his little boy hadn't held said terrorist unit hostage for goddamn six hours and a half. And then solved the problem in eighteen minutes.

What the hell just happened?

"Right," he said aloud. "Right. However, I don't think you need the kid until morning. Not physically. How about it? Do I get to put my three-year-old to bed?"

Wufei stared at Duo as if the idea had never occurred to him, which it likely never did. "Need a woman," he mumbled finally, seemingly half to himself.

"What? Wu-chan, you didn't jus-"

Wufei turned and scanned the room. "Schopenhauer!"

As Duo watched, a young blonde detached herself from the gaggle of officers and approached them. "Sir?"

"Show Captain Maxwell upstairs. And rouse up some coffee while you're at it."


About the second thing she said was, "Please, just call me Liesl."

They were wending their way up the basement stairs, which were narrow, winding, uncomfortably steep and stone - the concept of renovation, not to mention elevator installation, seeming anathema to Old World villa-owners. Duo thought that such an offer was unusual, coming from an on-duty Preventer: they struck him on the whole as serious, buttoned-up types, which meant that Wufei probably had no trouble fitting in. Still, there was an air about the young woman which made "Lieutenant Schopenhauer" a little ridiculous. The blond corkscrews, perhaps, or the amiable but slightly confused expression that her dewy blue eyes arbored (Duo suspected) in perpetuity.

"Duo," he reciprocated, wondering what she was doing in the army. But then, he knew better than to judge on appearance. Oh looky there, the bouncy kid with the girly hair across the aisle is actually a terrorist

"I'm sorry about the stairs," Lieutenant Liesl said brightly, interrupting his train of thought. "It's just that there isn't much room."

"Huh? Oh no, just any bed is okay real-"

"I mean, the first floor is all security and the second's filled already with personnel. We have the equivalent of an entire squadron on this mission, although Commander Marquise pulled half from special reserves and tech units. I think there's a couple of bedrooms left on the third - Commander Chang told me to take care of assigning quarters -"

"Sounds like him," Duo said vaguely. The young woman never even marked a pause.

"Thank goodness the house is so big. It's really a lovely place. Villa di Cecilia, it's called, after some saint or other I think, it was a convent once. There used to be servants but they didn't have clearance of course so we had them sent home - most of them anyway - some of them seem to have been part of some paramilitary force before pacification but I haven't really been briefed about that-" Demi stirred in Duo's arms, already sleepy again, and the officer's chatter switched tracks abruptly. "Oh, he's so adorable. I love children. Isn't his mother here, though?"

"The mother's kinda not in the picture," Duo said, too tired to think. Lieutenant Liesl's blue eyes widened.

"Oh, the dear child. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Maxwell. Duo."

Duo sighed. He wanted to go home: ASAP as of this moment, with his son, with the man who was the other father of his son. He wanted one-on-one time to work on the terminology of that last, and he wanted quiet. It wasn't coming.

He had a nasty feeling his bubble had already burst.


--Montreal, June 2000