Title: Never Turn Your Back on the Sea (12)
Section Title: Preparations
Author: Alleyprowler
Pairings: (None for this section)
Rating: R for language

Summary: Different people dealing with stress in sometimes not-very-productive ways.

"I spy with my little eye..." Duo said as he stretched his legs out comfortably. He placed his left index finger casually under his left eye and stared at a spot on the ceiling. Quatre glanced in that direction and saw a pair of surveillance cameras embedded near the emergency lights, black and shiny as beetles' wings. They could have been specks of soot but for their telltale glassy reflection.

"The vents on every aisle, as well" Quatre observed, pointing upward with his index finger as he pretended to scratch the side of his nose. He spared them only the merest glance before tipping his head back on the well-padded seat with a sigh.

Dull décor and bugs aside, the government shuttle was actually quite comfortable. The swiveling, reclining seats in the cabin were arranged in facing pairs with a fold-down table in between so that the passengers could socialize if they chose to, or they could swing the seats around, away from the table, if they desired privacy. Come to think of it, the shuttle probably was a retired tourist liner, bought on the cheap and painted battleship grey to make it look more official. Sometimes budget restrictions could be a good thing.

Duo ran his fingers over the controls embedded in the front of the armrest. "What do you want to bet the sound system works both ways?"

Quatre grinned. "I'm not going to bet against that."

Wufei stalked back from the self-serve bar in the back of the passenger cabin, looking scandalized, and sat down stiffly in one of the seats opposite Quatre and Duo. "There's a /microphone/ in the /washroom/!"

Quatre wasn't surprised by that; he'd been expecting it, actually, and would have been disappointed if there /hadn't/ been some sort of surveillance in the head. "At least there weren't any cameras."

Next to him, Duo chuckled. "They've been watching too many spy movies," he said. "That old cliché where the conspirators gather in the bathroom and turn on all the taps so they can foil the bugs and plot and scheme in secrecy."

"Right. Like background noise can't be filtered," Wufei said, and then he winced as Duo kicked him underneath the table.

"Hey, don't give them any ideas!"

"I'm not giving them any ideas they haven't had before," Wufei said coolly as he opened his bottle of fruit juice, "And if you don't want those great big boots of yours stuffed down the waste disposal unit, you will kindly keep them away from my ankles in the future."

"Guys, please. A little decorum for the cameras," Quatre said, trying to sound stern and not at all amused. He wasn't sure if he succeeded.

Wufei scowled painfully, as if he'd developed a sudden toothache. "The /washroom/, of all places..."

"Might as well get used to it, Wufei. We're living in a fishbowl from now on," Duo said with a philosophical shrug.

"That doesn't mean I have to like it," Wufei said, and Quatre had to agree. Between the three of them, they probably had at least half a dozen ways to foil the tiny cameras and microphones without making it look like they had been tampered with, and indeed that had been his first reaction upon discovering the bugs. The only thing that stopped him was the realization that the surveillance was for his and his companions' benefit. The tiny cameras and microphones were a safety measure, not a threat. But, as Wufei said, that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Hey, is that the Admin Center?" Duo asked, leaning toward the porthole. "It looks...weird, somehow."

Leaning forward, Quatre could make out the giant wheel of the L2 Administrative Center turning slowly in the middle distance. This was the first time he'd seen it completed, and he felt a spark of pride knowing that he'd had something to do with it. "That may be because its hull is nearly brand new--it was one of the first major government contracts the Maguanac secured, and let me tell you, it was a challenge to restore it!"

"It seems small," Duo said. He had his nose pressed flat to the cold glass of the porthole. "Or is that just my imagination?"

Quatre shook his head. "It really is small, and that was one of the challenges. It's only eighty percent the size of a standard residential colony, so we couldn't use any prefabricated parts. We had to manufacture every single plate from recycled bits and pieces, most of which were purchased from Sweepers III."

The look on Duo's face when he whipped around to face Quatre was most gratifying. "You're kidding me! The Administrative Center is made up of my scrap?"

"The hull is made up of material from old Taurus and Space Leo dolls. It seemed fitting, since most of the damage was done during the Libra battle. It's a good thing most of it was superficial or it wouldn't have held for the last ten years. Did you know that that colony is just over two hundred years old?"

Duo raised an eyebrow. To the spaceborn, two hundred years ago was practically prehistory. "Seriously?"

"Yes, it's one of the oldest colonies still in use. Some of the more important buildings, like the High Court, are actually pre-Colony buildings transported from Earth, stone by stone, when the colony was built."

Duo frankly gaped at him. "Stone buildings on a colony? Were they insane?"

Quatre shrugged; maybe they were and maybe they weren't, but the original architects were long dead by now and beyond any reproach. "I suppose expense took a back seat to tradition in those days."

"Weird, but impressive. I wonder what it's like inside?"

"We'll find out in about ten minutes," Wufei said, checking his watch.

The shuttle was changing its approach now, circling in on the colony's shuttle bay. Just before the colony disappeared from view, Quatre could see the shuttle bay hatch sliding open like an enormous pair of jaws. He turned his head away. This was going to be his first real encounter with the criminal justice system, and he couldn't help thinking that if circumstances had been just a little bit different, he would have been experiencing it from the other side.

"Hey you! New guy!"

"Tom."

"Tom, then," the assistant chef said dismissively, waving his hand, "get a couple loaves of that foccacia out of the cooler and set 'em in the proof box, and chop up an extra bucket of spuds, willya?"

"Sure thing" The new assistant prep cook gave the sweating man a nod and jogged off to the cooler to get the bread. Everything was done at a jog--the High Court was a busy place, and its kitchens were no exception. Tom, as the nameless man was now calling himself, had nearly gone into sensory overload the first few days he had worked there. The noise, the heat, the smells, the endless ordering about had been just about all his already frayed nerves could take.

However, he was an adaptable person. He soon found his rhythm, extracted order from chaos, and discovered that he actually liked the work--"Hey, new guy!"--except for the fact that the other workers could not seem to remember his name, which he had chosen explicitly for its simplicity.

"What is it, Carlos?" he asked, turning around to face the short, grinning man who had hailed him.

"I just wanted to give you the heads up, we got some visitors just came in."

Tom tried not to let anything show on his face, but his heart began to race. "Visitors? Like tourists?"

"Tourists? Here?" Carlos looked at him as if he was simple. "Nah, got a big trial coming up, High Council and all. Very hush-hush. Anyway, it means a few sad citizens are getting themselves sequestered, meaning they can't eat in the cafeteria. They gotta order from their rooms, see."

Tom raised an eyebrow and pushed his black rimmed spectacles higher on his nose. "Room service?"

"Sort of, yeah. Anyway, I was wondering if you could kinda keep an ear out for the phone by the prep station. I'd ask Artie, but that old bugger's more'n half deaf and too vain to admit it."

A faint smile was all Tom would show of the euphoria growing in his chest. "I guess I can do that. Do you want me to run the meals up, too?"

"Nice of you to offer, kid, but we got a dumbwaiter system for that. The food gets there fast and hot and nobody's gotta run up and down the damn stairs."

Tom had noticed compartments and the keypads along the back wall of the kitchen, but since they had been passed over during his orientation, he hadn't given them a second thought. "Those go right up to the rooms, huh?"

"Yep. Works right nicely too."

/Not for long,/ Tom thought, narrowing his green eyes at them. /Not for long at all./

"My ears," Duo declared, "are enormous." He scowled viciously at the laminated ID card he had been issued by some faceless Administrative Center lackey. More specifically, he scowled at the photo on it.

"Your ears are fine," Quatre said. He sat down on his bed next to his suitcase and contemplated putting his things away in the chest of drawers, but he couldn't quite summon up the will to do it. He wanted lunch and a nap. What he was getting was a Duo-induced headache.

"They're huge! Seriously, I look like a freak." Duo peered at his reflection in the tiny mirror over the nightstand and poked at his ears. "Look how they stick out--how come nobody ever told me how huge they are?"

"Because they're perfectly ordinary ears, Duo," Quatre explained with forced patience. Maybe holding a rendezvous in his suite hadn't been such a good idea after all. At least, not till after they'd had a chance to rest and eat something. They had spent what was left of the morning being photographed, fingerprinted, lectured to, and admonished not to leave the seventh floor without a guard so many times that Quatre felt like breaking into one of the other floors out of sheer spite.

Duo yanked on his ear again. "This is awful. Did you know that your ears and nose keep growing your entire life? By the time I'm sixty I'll look like a damn elephant. Hey, maybe I can learn to wiggle them! Do you think I could fly?"

"Duo, you're talking nonsense," Quatre said.

Duo grinned at him. "Sorry, man, it's low blood sugar. I rushed through breakfast this morning and I'm starving--it makes me a little crazy." He sat down on the bed next to Quatre and flopped onto his back with a gusty sigh. "What the hell is Wufei doing, anyway?"

"Probably checking his things. He really didn't like it much when they went through our bags," Quatre said, looking at his own unpacked suitcase. His headache stepped up a notch.

"He should've expected that. Me, I'm just glad they didn't do a cavity search. Although," he said, sitting up and jabbing Quatre in the ribs, "you might have enjoyed that, huh?"

"Duo..." Quatre wanted to tell him to shut up, to take his big floppy ears and go back to his own room, or perhaps throw himself out the window, but he suddenly didn't have the heart to do it. Duo probably felt the same way he did--tired, hungry, edgy, bewildered, and not a little put out--and honestly hadn't intended to mean any harm, but Quatre's patience was about as thin as the cheap toilet tissue in his ensuite bathroom, and he just couldn't take much more. He hunched over his knees and began to massage his temples, trying to block everything out. Duo, the anonymous and sterile suite, the general situation...everything.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Duo said, sounding genuinely contrite. "That was a rotten thing to say. Here, lay down and I'll rub your head for you."

Sighing a little, Quatre arranged himself on the bed with his head in Duo's lap. Duo had a grip of iron and could practically crush rocks to powder with his bare hands, but he had a wonderful touch and gave excellent massages. Tense muscles practically melted under his fingers, and Quatre gradually felt his headache begin to give up and slink away in defeat. "Thanks, Duo," he said, feeling much better now that his shoulder muscles weren't so tight.

"No problem. Are you sure my ears aren't too big?"

"They're fine."

"They're not, you know, too sticky-outy?"

Quatre decided the only way to get Duo to shut up about his ears was to play along with him. "You have wonderful ears. Really, they're beautiful. They're the Platonic ideal of ears. Sonnets could be written about them, portraits painted, ballads sung. You should have them cast in bronze so that future generations can gaze in wonder at the miracle of perfection that are your ears."

"If I'm interrupting something, I can come back."

Quatre hadn't heard Wufei entering the room, probably because Duo was snickering madly. The scene probably did look a little peculiar from Wufei's point of view, and Quatre felt his cheeks getting warm as he sat up and smoothed down his rumpled hair. "What took you so long?" he asked, reasoning that putting Wufei on the defensive would probably forestall any embarrassing questions.

"I had to check my gear, and I took a quick shower while I was at it." He helped himself to one of the club chairs in Quatre's bedroom. "Nothing was damaged or stolen, thankfully."

Quatre, who had only brought over things on the officially approved list, wondered what Wufei had brought that could possibly be damaged or stolen. According to the notice they had received, they were not allowed to have any electronic devices, including but not limited to data storage, media recording-playback, or portable gaming systems. Any jewelry aside from wristwatches were banned as well. Medications needed to be accompanied by proper documentation from an established medical authority.

There were other things on the list, but Quatre had decided he was safe with packing a weeks' worth of clothing and basic toiletries. If they had problems with his choice of toothpaste, he would deal with it when the time came. "That's good, Wufei," he said with a pasted-on smile. "Shall we order lunch?"

Duo was one step ahead of him. He pushed a faux-leather booklet into Quatre's hands and settled down near the head of the bed by the phone, which was a curious affair with only a handset and three buttons. Quatre assumed the red one was for emergencies, but he hadn't got around to investigating the other two. "I already know what I want. Fish and chips--the gold standard of any Colony restaurant worth its weight in rating stars."

Wufei chuckled. "You're braver than I am. Colony fish are more than I want to gamble. I'll take whatever special they're having, as long as there's no seafood involved."

Quatre frowned at the menu, his vision rendered blurry by fatigue and hunger. "The special is some kind of pasta dish...vermicelli with pesto sauce and salad on the side. Are you sure that's okay?"

Wufei nodded. "That sounds fine."

Quatre looked back down at the menu, especially at the photograph of the daily special. The steaming plate of thin pasta covered in pesto sauce made him feel a strange mixture of revulsion and longing that he couldn't quite understand. His stomach seemed to do a slow, lazy barrel-roll and he studied the picture more intently. The pesto sauce glistened green with basil and walnut oil on the long pasta strands; the steam vented out of the top of the picture in enticing white clouds. He sniffed, trying to catch the elusive scent...

...and then Duo yanked the menu out of his hands. "I suppose you want the special, too?"

"No!" Quatre jerked himself out of his reverie and took back the menu. "No, I hate pesto." He frantically scanned the other menu items, comparing their illustrations to their descriptions. "Let me see...oh, the number seventeen looks good. I'll have that."

Duo took the menu back and scanned it while he picked up the phone. He shot a dubious look at Quatre. "'Select marinated and roasted vegetables on olive-oil brushed foccacia?' In other words, you want veggies and bread?"

"Yes."

"You're weird, Quatre."

"Whatever you say." Quatre was too tired to argue.

Duo snorted and picked up the phone. "Yes, hello, is this the kitchen? Great. I've got an order for you."

Tom scribbled down the order, pausing to clarify things to the caller. "The fish is local cod, sir, farmed just this morning from a local hatchery. The potatoes are Idagolds imported from Earth, very firm and delicate, if I may say. The frying oil is quite pure, yes. I can assure you that your chips will be done to a turn. Good day, sir, and may you enjoy your lunch."

Tom wiped his brow without dislodging the round white cap that kept his hair out of his face. He tore the ticket up into careful thirds and posted each one at the appropriate stations. That done, he dashed off to fetch a fresh notepad. He paused, doubled back, and ran to the standing rack that held the wrappings. Metal foil, plastic, parchment, cheap white greaseproof...he tore off a strip of baking parchment and ran back to his station.

Colony buildings do not , as a rule, have basements. The larger ones have support stanchions that penetrate the foundation all the way through the deck plating, which was really more than enough to keep them stable. The L2 Administrative Center was unique in that it had levels underneath the building, and even underneath the deck plating, levels that went outward to the colony hull.

Normally, the sealed cells between the hull and deck plates on a colony was simply a dead-air buffer, a safety feature in case of a hull breach. Some sections held the larger machinery a colony needed to survive, like the environmental controls and drift compensators, and of course there was the elaborate arrangement of pipes, tanks and filters that made up the water recycling system.

The null space between the life-rich colony interior and the cold vacuum of the cosmos was rarely used for human habitation. That is, unless the humans in question were being either paid huge amounts of money or were being punished.

The guards in the L2 holding station were paid an awful lot of money. They spent long shifts in the dim, stuffy, stinking metal tombs beneath the Administrative Center overseeing the security of the most reviled lot of local humanity, so they deserved the pay.

Sometimes, though, money wasn't enough.

Warder Gil Hammins sighed and made his way to the steel door where all the banging was coming from. It was one of twenty, lined up in rows of ten on either side of the short corridor on his cell block, and it was by far the noisiest.

"What is it /now/, Yates?" he asked through the coin-sized square of metal mesh set deep in the thick door.

"It stinks in here!"

Hammins sighed patiently. "That's because we're right under the sewage treatment tank for this sector. You'll get used to it."

The man seemed to be having an apoplectic attack judging by the amount of outraged spluttering that came from behind the door. Only a few coherent words came out, and they were all words that Hammins would have taken his own son over his knee for using. Unfortunately, one could not use such physical punishment for prisoners.

There were, however, other ways.

Hammins tapped one of the buttons beside the door and was gratified when the half-mangled curses stopped. "Half an hour for language," he informed the prisoner.

"Give me the lights back! I can't see a goddamned thing!"

"That's the point," Hammins said, examining his nails.

"What do you mean? I have my rights! You can't do this to me!"

Hammins wondered if it was too late in life to take up another career. Gardening, perhaps. "I can assure you, Mr. Yates, that turning off the lights is no violation of your civil rights. Mainly because you don't have any. You, /sir/, are a prisoner charged with crimes against humanity, which is why you are under lock and key. Your so-called rights were revoked once the authorities decided they had enough evidence against you to put you away. Or didn't they explain that when they charged you?"

"Brutality...my lawyer...I have rights...I AM GOING TO SUE YOU!"

"That's nice," Hammins said. He was beginning to get bored. He received highly creative death threats at least three times per shift; the threat of a lawsuit was almost laughably tame by comparison. He wondered if there was anything interesting on television.

"Hey..." Yates said in a calmer tone of voice.

"Yes?"

"Look. I'm a reasonable guy. You seem like a reasonable guy. We're a couple of reasonable guys, right?"

Hammins snorted laughter. He didn't believe that Yates was trying the 'let's be friends' act so soon after the 'toddler-style tantrum' act. "No, sir. I am a reasonable man, as you say, but you, by all accounts, are a psychotically greedy bastard with no sense of right or wrong. The newsfeeds are calling you a modern plague, and I suspect they haven't even gotten the whole story yet. Making friends with me won't work. I don't like you. The media doesn't like you. The public doesn't like you. The law especially doesn't like you. That is why you are on one side of that door and I am on the other. The light controls happen to be on /this/ side, and you have half an hour in the dark. Enjoy your stay."

Gardening, yes. Or maybe bicycle repair? Hammins weighed his options as he strolled back to his station.

The light above the quaint little cupboard blinked twice and there was a pleasant chirping sound as the dumbwaiter arrived. Quatre, feeling a little lightheaded from hunger, lay back on the bed and groaned.

"What the hell?" Duo asked.

"Food," Wufei said laconically. He pulled himself out of the club chair and opened the doors of the dumbwaiter. "Here's you, er, fish, Duo," he said, passing a covered plate to Duo, who took it with a suspicious frown.

"It had damn well better be fish for what they're charging," he muttered under his breath.

"Since you're not actually paying for it, that's a pretty lame threat," Wufei pointed out. He peeked under the cover of the second dish and held it out toward Quatre. "Your sandwich," he said.

"I'm not paying for it?" Duo said. "Who says?"

Wufei chuffed in irritation. "Did you sleep through the whole orientation?"

"No, just the boring parts," Duo said, poking his fish with a fork. He seemed relieved when it didn't try to fight back.

Wufei raised an eyebrow. "Three hundred credits per diem for food and supplies is boring?"

Duo dropped a chip on the floor. "We have a per diem?"

"Is there an echo in here? All potential witnesses at a High Council get a per diem to offset loss of income while under sequesterment. Quatre, take your damn sandwich already."

"I'll wait till your food gets here," Quatre said.

"Fine." Wufei set the plate down on the bed next to the reclining man and waited somewhat impatiently for the dumbwaiter to return from the kitchen.

"We have a per diem and I didn't order caviar?" Duo regarded his fish with disappointment.

"You hate caviar," Quatre pointed out.

"It's the principle of the thing."

"You can go nuts ordering from the commissary," Wufei said.

The dumbwaiter chimed, and he took out his own lunch, plus three tall glasses containing their drinks. Only when Wufei had seated himself and settled his drink at his elbow did Quatre sit up and begin to attend to his own lunch.

As with everything else he'd encountered since arriving on the colony, Wufei was mildly impressed with his meal. It was competently, if not imaginatively prepared, much like the suites were adequately clean and comfortable without being frivolous. From what he could tell, the safety and security measures were sound. Everyone who had any business above the lobby level of the building was required to wear a laminated ID badge on a lanyard at all times, and the badge also acted as a keycard that would only operate in areas in which the owner had legitimate business.

Wufei's badge, like Duo and Quatre's, had a thin yellow and black checked border around it. Yellow, he knew from a pamphlet he'd read during the orientation, was the color for visitors, who were restricted to the areas completely covered by scrutiny of both the electronic and human variety. He supposed the black somehow modified the yellow and allowed the three of them to have a degree of freedom above the normal rabble...that is, as long as they stayed on the seventh floor.

"We're going exploring after lunch, right?" Duo asked. He'd apparently been convinced that his fish was, indeed, real fish and not surimi or something equally as repulsive, and was packing it away with satisfaction.

"We don't have anything else to do till tomorrow morning," Quatre said, who was also making significant headway on his own lunch.

"No more orientations?"

"No, we got here a day ahead of the Chief High Justice, so we have the rest of the day to ourselves," Quatre said, and took another large bite of his sandwich.

"Good," Duo said. "I'm kind of curious about the entertainment facilities they have around here. There's supposed to be a gym, and a media center, but I kind of doubt there's room for--Quatre? Are you okay?"

Wufei set his plate aside and moved to stand up as Duo began to whack Quatre on the back, but Quatre was not choking. He had made an awfully strange noise, though, but Wufei thought it sounded more like surprise than distress.

He was pulling something out of his sandwich with his teeth. It was a long, thin, flat something, obviously not a food item since Quatre's teeth hadn't been able to penetrate it. Was it metal? An explosive device? Some kind of poison? Whatever it was, it didn't belong in a sandwich.

Alarmed, Wufei said, "Spit it out!"

Quatre ignored him and pulled the rest of the object out with his fingers. "It's some kind of paper," he said, and began to unfold the thin sheets.

Duo, practically hanging over his shoulder, frowned. "Is that a note inside?"

"Yeah," Quatre said, taking a slip of blue-ruled paper out of the wrapping. Wufei saw his pupils constrict and then dilate as he read what was written there.

"What is it?"

Quatre was nearly as pale as Duo's fish. "Trowa's here," he said, staring at the note, "and I think he's gone insane."

#TBC#