Chapter Four
1/
Trowa supposed he was still on an L3 colony though he couldn't be sure; the men who had come to collect him from the circus grounds had blind-folded him and forbidden him to remove the thick piece of cloth. He hadn't, confident that if he'd wanted to escape, he could have.
The apartment they'd finally left him in was bare and looked like it belonged in some sort of institution. It surprised him that he missed Cathrine's company so much. But there had been no choice as far as she was concerned--he had to carry out this job in solitude.
Now he secured the small laptop the men (his employers?--it wasn't clear one way or the other) had presented him with in an equally small backpack. He wanted to explore the city, become more aware of exactly where he was, but he knew that wouldn't be allowed--he'd been informed that all of his necessities could be found in this plain, windowless building, and he was not to appear in public unescorted under any circumstances. For Trowa, who had survived weeks of isolation in space, this was nothing too new, but he was very hungry after the long trip, and he didn't plan to stay cooped up in this room if he could help it.
Somewhat to his alarm (though really, he had almost been expecting it), Trowa discovered a man was keeping close watch outside the apartment, a man in uniform who nodded congenially to him as he exited. As he walked to the nearest elevator, Trowa noticed the man take out some sort of transmission device and speak quietly into it.
I'm nearly a prisoner, he thought. No freedom or privacy to speak of, and after all, what is a prisoner but someone without these two vitally important things?
And he found himself thinking of Quatre Winner, even as he entered the elevator and it began to drop him a few stories to the first floor. Quatre was smart and handsome and had everything going for him, but he was a prisoner in a pretty little plastic world, and sometimes Trowa wondered what ever had become of him. He noticed a camera blinking almost imperceptibly under one of the ceiling tiles in the elevator, but he tried to ignore it.
2/
By the end of the first week he was bored out of his mind, though since he was a good soldier he would never have admitted it. His assignment was to come up with plans--strategy was his strong point, but it was long, hard work and his employers had no pity. He had an endless number of blueprints of some unknown location--the building itself, and the grounds around it, and he was instructed to find the best locations to enter unnoticed, and a million other things that seemed very suspicious when put in context, but he was just following orders.
3/
He lost all sense of time, and it seemed he'd been an eternity in the tiny apartment and the cramped sterile hallways of the building itself. The blueprints piled up, along with a few colored photographs.
Orders arrived via the Internet, over secure ISPs and private e-mail addresses that changed every time, though the content was nearly always the same: find a way in, find a way out, no one can be seen. Trowa knew nothing else about his job--he didn't know what the information was used for, he didn't know who owned the huge house, he didn't know who exactly his employers were.
All he knew was that he was making major money, and that when this was over he was going to high-tail it back to L3--take Cathrine on a vacation from the circus, tell her how much he'd missed her.
4/
Trouble came knocking at his door in the form of a man in a fancy uniform, who pointed a gun at Trowa and said, "Come out with your hands in the air."
Trowa obediently did so, his face registering no emotion at all. He didn't even glance over at the laptop open on the small cot that had served as both a desk and a bed. He calmly permitted the man to search him for weapons--he had none--and made no protest when a group of similarly uniformed soldiers stormed into his apartment and began tipping over the plain furniture and rifling through his clothes and other personal possessions. They grabbed the laptop, called in a computer expert, and when he couldn't figure out how to get past a powerful security program, ordered Trowa to show them how--"We know you're a spy, and you have valuable information about a client of ours--say something, you little maggot!" A soldier slapped Trowa hard, but the boy only blinked and said nothing.
"Who put you up to this?" When Trowa was still silent, the soldiers commenced beating him, and then dragged him from the building, semi- conscious.
He found himself some time later in a bright cell, and thought dreamily that it wasn't really much different from the apartment in which he'd spent the past few weeks of his life. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying went. At least then he'd been paid for being a prisoner.
He didn't see any exit at first, but upon closer inspection he noticed a tiny rectangle etched into the opposite wall--the door probably slid open electronically, in which case there was no chance of escaping as long as he was confined here. He decided he had better inspect the door regardless, but when he tried to sit up he discovered that his wrists were encircled in thick metal cuffs which chaffed a little when he tried to contract his fingers and free them.
Okay, so there was absolutely no way in hell he was getting out of this place so easily, but he had hoped ... he leaned back against the wall, and tried to come up with a brilliant plan of escape, but none were forthcoming.
5/
Cathrine stood outside the grocery store, which possessed the only free telephone in town. The circus had moved on, but for once she'd stayed behind on this tiny, backwards colony because the rest of L3 (and L4 and all the other colony clusters) held no interest at all for her. Trowa was out there somewhere--or maybe on Earth--but she didn't know where, and the only thing she could think to do was to stay put and wait for him to return.
She'd been working as a waitress because sometimes she got free food, and she had to pay for light and water now that this was a semi-permanent residence. By day she played the super-independent woman, making it on her own, needing help from nobody. At night she thought of Trowa and shivered herself to sleep.
It occurred to her that it was unnatural for her to feel this way--after all, Trowa had disappeared many times before. His life had been threatened, as far as she knew, since he was a child. And she thought of him as a brother. So the ache within her shouldn't have been so sharp, and the world shouldn't have been so dark without him.
She pushed the door open and stepped into the grocery store, waving familiarly at the owner. She bought enough food for one person and went home to her empty trailer.
1/
Trowa supposed he was still on an L3 colony though he couldn't be sure; the men who had come to collect him from the circus grounds had blind-folded him and forbidden him to remove the thick piece of cloth. He hadn't, confident that if he'd wanted to escape, he could have.
The apartment they'd finally left him in was bare and looked like it belonged in some sort of institution. It surprised him that he missed Cathrine's company so much. But there had been no choice as far as she was concerned--he had to carry out this job in solitude.
Now he secured the small laptop the men (his employers?--it wasn't clear one way or the other) had presented him with in an equally small backpack. He wanted to explore the city, become more aware of exactly where he was, but he knew that wouldn't be allowed--he'd been informed that all of his necessities could be found in this plain, windowless building, and he was not to appear in public unescorted under any circumstances. For Trowa, who had survived weeks of isolation in space, this was nothing too new, but he was very hungry after the long trip, and he didn't plan to stay cooped up in this room if he could help it.
Somewhat to his alarm (though really, he had almost been expecting it), Trowa discovered a man was keeping close watch outside the apartment, a man in uniform who nodded congenially to him as he exited. As he walked to the nearest elevator, Trowa noticed the man take out some sort of transmission device and speak quietly into it.
I'm nearly a prisoner, he thought. No freedom or privacy to speak of, and after all, what is a prisoner but someone without these two vitally important things?
And he found himself thinking of Quatre Winner, even as he entered the elevator and it began to drop him a few stories to the first floor. Quatre was smart and handsome and had everything going for him, but he was a prisoner in a pretty little plastic world, and sometimes Trowa wondered what ever had become of him. He noticed a camera blinking almost imperceptibly under one of the ceiling tiles in the elevator, but he tried to ignore it.
2/
By the end of the first week he was bored out of his mind, though since he was a good soldier he would never have admitted it. His assignment was to come up with plans--strategy was his strong point, but it was long, hard work and his employers had no pity. He had an endless number of blueprints of some unknown location--the building itself, and the grounds around it, and he was instructed to find the best locations to enter unnoticed, and a million other things that seemed very suspicious when put in context, but he was just following orders.
3/
He lost all sense of time, and it seemed he'd been an eternity in the tiny apartment and the cramped sterile hallways of the building itself. The blueprints piled up, along with a few colored photographs.
Orders arrived via the Internet, over secure ISPs and private e-mail addresses that changed every time, though the content was nearly always the same: find a way in, find a way out, no one can be seen. Trowa knew nothing else about his job--he didn't know what the information was used for, he didn't know who owned the huge house, he didn't know who exactly his employers were.
All he knew was that he was making major money, and that when this was over he was going to high-tail it back to L3--take Cathrine on a vacation from the circus, tell her how much he'd missed her.
4/
Trouble came knocking at his door in the form of a man in a fancy uniform, who pointed a gun at Trowa and said, "Come out with your hands in the air."
Trowa obediently did so, his face registering no emotion at all. He didn't even glance over at the laptop open on the small cot that had served as both a desk and a bed. He calmly permitted the man to search him for weapons--he had none--and made no protest when a group of similarly uniformed soldiers stormed into his apartment and began tipping over the plain furniture and rifling through his clothes and other personal possessions. They grabbed the laptop, called in a computer expert, and when he couldn't figure out how to get past a powerful security program, ordered Trowa to show them how--"We know you're a spy, and you have valuable information about a client of ours--say something, you little maggot!" A soldier slapped Trowa hard, but the boy only blinked and said nothing.
"Who put you up to this?" When Trowa was still silent, the soldiers commenced beating him, and then dragged him from the building, semi- conscious.
He found himself some time later in a bright cell, and thought dreamily that it wasn't really much different from the apartment in which he'd spent the past few weeks of his life. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying went. At least then he'd been paid for being a prisoner.
He didn't see any exit at first, but upon closer inspection he noticed a tiny rectangle etched into the opposite wall--the door probably slid open electronically, in which case there was no chance of escaping as long as he was confined here. He decided he had better inspect the door regardless, but when he tried to sit up he discovered that his wrists were encircled in thick metal cuffs which chaffed a little when he tried to contract his fingers and free them.
Okay, so there was absolutely no way in hell he was getting out of this place so easily, but he had hoped ... he leaned back against the wall, and tried to come up with a brilliant plan of escape, but none were forthcoming.
5/
Cathrine stood outside the grocery store, which possessed the only free telephone in town. The circus had moved on, but for once she'd stayed behind on this tiny, backwards colony because the rest of L3 (and L4 and all the other colony clusters) held no interest at all for her. Trowa was out there somewhere--or maybe on Earth--but she didn't know where, and the only thing she could think to do was to stay put and wait for him to return.
She'd been working as a waitress because sometimes she got free food, and she had to pay for light and water now that this was a semi-permanent residence. By day she played the super-independent woman, making it on her own, needing help from nobody. At night she thought of Trowa and shivered herself to sleep.
It occurred to her that it was unnatural for her to feel this way--after all, Trowa had disappeared many times before. His life had been threatened, as far as she knew, since he was a child. And she thought of him as a brother. So the ache within her shouldn't have been so sharp, and the world shouldn't have been so dark without him.
She pushed the door open and stepped into the grocery store, waving familiarly at the owner. She bought enough food for one person and went home to her empty trailer.