Title: Never Turn Your Back on the Sea (14?)
Section Title: Conciliation
Pairings: 3x4x3
Rating: M
Warnings: Jenn warning
Archive: Gundanium Line
Summary: Chapter 14, in which Quatre uses his strange Newt Type abilities to rescue Relena from the underwater lair of the sewer-dwelling mutant zombie ninja pirates...oh, wait, wrong fic.
This chapter is mostly about a trial. There are no lawyer jokes, sorry.
Council McInnes, solemn, authoritative, and grim, seemed like a fitting representative of the EarthSphere justice system. Had Wufei's mood not already been rather subdued, it would have become that way as soon as the man strode in the door and greeted the three witnesses. As it was, it became downright oppressive.
Wufei was feeling jittery and a little nauseated by the absurdly strong coffee Duo had dosed him with, and he only listened with half an ear while McInnes greeted them and went over the protocol of a closed trial. He already knew the drill. What went on in that room stayed in that room, and the bailiff (and her dog, presumably) were there to enforce the rules. Wufei glanced at the bailiff, then at the dog . Much like its mistress, it looked athletic, alert, and terribly keen on doing its job.
"However," McInnes said, setting his briefcase down on the low table in front of them and snapping open the clasps, "I have been granted permission to give you these information packets, on the condition that they and their contents never leave this room. At the end of each day, the packets will be handed in to Bailiff Stringer, who will return them to you in the morning. Any discussion of their contents with outsiders will result in immediate confiscation of the packets and revocation of your rights to the recreation area--"
"What?" Duo broke in, but McInnes wasn't listening to him.
"And you will each be fined ten thousand credits. Please understand that this is a very special privilege, and I trust each of you to use it accordingly. Is that clear?"
"We understand," Quatre said. "Thank you, Council."
"Speak for yourself," Duo muttered under his breath, but he accepted the thick folder anyway.
McInnes walked to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase and tipped back one of the leatherbound books, but as Wufei had suspected, the books weren't really books. The spine of the book was actually a lever of some sort that sprang back into place as soon as the council released it. With a quiet purr of hydraulics, the bookcase sank into the floor, revealing a shallow niche containing very expensive media center, complete with one of the new Diamondflex video screens that were reputed to be so sharp that one could count the pores in one's favorite cinema star's nose, if one were so inclined.
McInnes pressed a button on the control array under the screen. The Diamondflex went blue for a moment, then showed an image of a vast, wood-paneled chamber. A red carpet ran down the center of the floor, which was taken up with row seating. Tiers of long wooden tables rose at one end, and a pair of liveried guards stood by the tall, ornate doors at the other. Aside from the guards, there was no one in the chamber.
From speakers set high in the chamber walls, the slow, stately strains of the L2 anthem 'Courage and Vision' started up. Duo grunted patriotically.
McInnes lowered the volume. "The High Court consists of two representatives from each of the L2 colonies, and four from Earth," he informed them. "His Honor William Cabot Crothbauer will be presiding."
The name rang a bell with Wufei. "Crothbauer? Didn't he direct the war criminals tribunal back in ninety-six?"
"He did indeed."
"Then this is a great honor," Quatre said, which seemed to please McInnes.
"Yes, it is," he said, closing his briefcase. "If you have any questions for me, I'll have to ask you to hold them till the noon recess. I'll see you then." He gave them a polite nod and left the room.
The second verse of the L2 anthem started up, rather more loudly than the first one, and on the screen, the liveried guards opened the doors to the chamber. Wufei watched as a long line of men and women in long black robes began to file in, solemn as a funeral procession. He had seen a lot of judges in his time with the Preventers, but never so many in one place, and he wondered if that would make the proceedings go faster than they normally would, or if it would cause them to go on forever. Much as he wanted to see Yates and Ervy nailed to the wall, he wanted to get back to his life even more. Preferably before he reached retirement age.
He waited impatiently as fifty-four black-robed L2 representatives, four blue-robed Earth representatives, and one four-hundred year old gnome in scarlet robes filed into the chamber. The gnome leaned heavily on a pair of canes and took a full minute to cross the chamber. Wufei had never seen anyone so ancient before, and that included Master Long, who had been well into his twelfth decade of life before dying honorably in the Eve War.
"Who's the corpse?" Duo asked.
"Crothbauer, I guess," Quatre said. He had already opened his information packet and was scanning the contents rapidly.
"He's Crothbauer? Jeez, he looks like could kick it any minute."
Just then, though, Crothbauer began to speak, and his voice was as powerful as his body was frail. "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Today the High Council convenes to try Raleigh Peter Yates of Green Earth Reclaim. Council McInnes, Council Milkiss, and the defendant Raleigh Peter Yates may enter the chamber."
Two doors in the side of the chamber opened. Council McInnes entered from the left, followed by a young woman who was probably his assistant. On the right, the door opened to reveal a thin, nervous-looking woman in a shocking red skirt suit and ridiculously high-heeled shoes.
Behind her, two guards escorted Yates in. He looked very different from the last time Wufei had seen him. His ridiculous Western gear had been replaced with an orange prison coverall, and without his hat, his silvery-grey combover fell in an unkempt straggle over one side of his face. Though he was walking with an exaggerated limp, he held his head high and kept his shoulders thrown back as far as his wrist-and-ankle manacles would allow and seemed to be trying to give an air of unjustly wounded dignity. Wufei didn't think it was fooling anyone.
"Ada Milkiss," Quatre said, reading from a sheet of paper. "Graduated in AC 203, ranked forty-nine in a class of fifty-five. Passed the L2 bar in AC 205 on her third exam...hm."
Wufei ripped open his own packet and shuffled through the papers within. The first stack was basically a dramatis personae, listing the players and their credentials. As Quatre had implied, Ada Milkiss didn't look any more professional on paper than she did on the screen. McInnes and his assistant, Miss Dubois, were reassuringly solid, much to his satisfaction.
"Ah, here's my testimony sheet," Duo said, examining another set of papers. He skimmed over the text and frowned. "Hey, what happened to all the adjectives?"
"Quiet, Duo, they're reading the charges," Quatre said.
"...tax evasion, three counts of biohazardous waste dumping, and one count of conspiracy to attempt murder." Crothbauer dropped the charge sheet and raised his eyebrows at the defendant. "My goodness, you certainly have been busy."
Yates's eye twitched, but he said nothing.
Crothbauer set the papers aside and folded his bunched and knotted hands. "Before the festivities begin, I suppose I should ask the council for the defense for the official plea. Miss Milkiss?"
The woman in the red suit shot to her feet. "The defendant pleads not guilty, Your Honor!"
The justices seemed amused by her pronouncement--a few of them actually chuckled. Crothbauer raised one ancient hand for silence and got it immediately. "Not guilty of all charges, Miss Milkiss?" he asked, gazing at her with polite interest. "Are you sure about that?"
"Yes, Your Honor. My client was falsely arrested under very doubtful conditions, and none of the charges can be substantiated. He is a victim, and it is a travesty of justice that he is sitting here today, an honorable and innocent man whose reputation has been irrevocably tarnished by an unfair and--"
"Yes, Miss Milkiss, that will do," Crothbauer said. "Please be seated."
"But Your Honor!" Ada Milkiss obviously had a great deal on her mind and wished to speak it urgently.
"Sit."
She sat. He back was straight as a ramrod and she appeared to be biting her lips to keep her righteous outrage at bay, but she managed to maintain her silence. Beside her, Yates was slowly turning purple.
Crothbauer turned his attention to McInnes. "Council, Miss Milkiss has expressed the opinion that Mr. Yates's arrest was somewhat less than lawful, and she does have a few valid points. For instance..." Crothbauer shuffled through his papers, found the correct one, and began to read. "Without prior warning, the premises of Green Earth Reclaim were surrounded by numerous Preventer agents, which expressly contradicts the ESUN edict that no individual or organization shall be the target of a police state, which is defined in Code Twelve, chapter four, paragraph two?"
McInnes stood. "Yes, Your Honor. However, as there were only three Preventer representatives on the premises, I believe this falls short of the definition of a 'police state' by several individuals."
"But there were Preventers all around the perimeter!" Ada Milkiss burst out. "I have names! Benguela, Phipps, Delacroix, Fapworth..."
"None of whom are actually employed by the Preventers," McInnes said coolly. "We ran a check of all of these names, and the only connecting link we could find between them is that they are all the names of--ahem-- adult film stars."
An amused titter sounded through the chamber, and Wufei could feel two pairs of eyes staring at him. "Do not ask questions," he said, keeping his eyes firmly on the screen in front of him.
Duo and Quatre, showing some interest in self-preservation for a change, chose not to comment.
"So, you're saying," Crothbauer asked McInnes, "that only Agent Chang and his two, er, deputies were on the premises?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Two illegal deputies!" Ada Milkiss interjected.
Crothbauer gave her a decidedly cool look, but McInnes seemed unruffled. "Actually, Agent Chang was perfectly within his rights to deputize the two civilians. It's been on the books since the Preventers were first formed--any agent needing immediate backup may deputize a civilian, providing that the civilians will not be placed in any unreasonable danger, in order to uphold the peace."
"Yes, I see you've made a note of it here," Crothbauer said, running an ancient fingertip across the report. "Agent Chang and the two deputies employed a ruse involving a voice distortion unit and a two-way radio to make it seem there were more agents on the scene...hm. Unusual."
"Unusual, but not unlawful," McInnes said mildly.
"Very, er, creative. Miss Milkiss, you also seem concerned that your client was not properly informed of his rights."
"Yes, Your Honor. My client has absolutely no recollection of being informed of his rights as a citizen under EarthSphere Unified Nations Penal Codes--"
"Yes, Council, I believe we all know that those rights are. Mr. McInnes?"
"Preventer Chang informs me that he had read those rights to Mr. Yates, Your Honor. Twice, in fact, since he was unable to finish the first time due to the accused's assault on his person."
Council Milkiss was nearly as red as her suit. "The second reading came right after my client was shot!"
"Yes, as he was trying to escape," McInnes said.
"Shot," she continued, "by one of the so-called deputies, who was illegally carrying a firearm--"
"Now, now, that will do," Crothbauer said. "We have already established from the trajectory analysis and the ballistics report that Agent Chang did not fire that shot, and neither Winner nor Maxwell were armed."
"Winner had in his possession a twelve millimeter EagleEye autoloader, Preventer-issued, registration number 129905-V to Chang Wufei, recently fired. It had Mr. Winner's fingerprints on the trigger and barrel and the bullets were the same caliber as the one extracted from my client's leg." She slapped the paper she had been reading from on the defendant's table. "What more do you need?"
"Quatre, stop biting your nails," Duo said quietly.
"I'm not biting my nails. I have something in my teeth."
"Yeah, right."
"That would have been very incriminating," McInnes said, "had Winner's pistol actually been loaded and had he been conscious to fire it."
Ada Milkiss put her fist on one hip and glared at McInnes. "Oh, and I suppose that bullet just came out of nowhere, then?"
"Gang warfare in that sector isn't entirely unknown."
"Civilians with guns? Random shootings? Please, I find that very far-fetched."
"Forgive me, Ms. Milkiss, but that's a rather, shall we say, ingenuous attitude."
Crothbauer's gavel came down with a sharp bang. "That will do. I will not have you two squabbling like schoolchildren. Sit down, and we will have a ten-minute recess after the vote."
They sat. Wufei thought he saw a hint of smugness on McInnes's face, but that could have been his imagination.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the High Court, do you agree that Raleigh Peter Yates was lawfully arrested?"
One by one, small green lights from the voting indicators lit up. Some came on at once, some after a few seconds of deliberation, but in the end, the entire panel was unanimous. The bust had been righteous after all, at least in the eyes of those who mattered.
Wufei tried not to faint in relief.
"Very good," Crothbauer said, his face crinkling into countless wrinkles as he smiled. "We will reconvene in ten--no, make that fifteen minutes." The gavel came down again and the Diamondflex screen went dark.
"God, I need more coffee," Duo said, and practically shot out of his chair.
Deep in the bowels of the Judicial Administration Center, Warder Gil Hammins was awakened from a perfectly pleasant mid-morning nap by the bleating of the override request alarm.
"Yes, what is it?" he said, toggling on the communications switch with a stockinged toe.
"Prisoner transfer, sir," said a sharp, tinny voice from the small speaker grille on the desk unit. "Serial number eight-stroke-one-niner-five-charlie-echo--"
"Oh, so Coe Ervy has arrived. Override accepted, please bring him in." Hammins punched in the override code and slipped his feet back into his shoes. He considered tucking his shirt in and straightening his tie, but what was the use? The flyboys didn't care, and neither would the prisoner. Midday inspection was two hours away, which gave him another hour and forty-five minutes for another solid nap. No, there was really no point.
He stood and smiled mildly as four heavily-armored guards ushered in a short, bedraggled-looking youth wearing the typical orange coverall and manacles of a maximum-security prisoner. "He's awfully young, isn't he?" Hammins asked, taking in the pale, downcast face behind a web-like tangle of long brown hair.
"Eighteen, sir," said the lead guard. "Here's his file. Where do you want him?"
"Last door on the left, if you don't mind." Hammins trailed behind the guards as he flipped through the file. He'd overseen prisoners this young on occasion, but usually they were violent, foul-mouthed little bastards who fought like the very devil and cursed to wake the dead. This boy seemed quiet, almost reserved.
On the third page of the file, he discovered why. Good Lord, the kid was on enough tranquilizers to sedate an elephant! Not just tranquilizers, but antidepressants, antipsychotics, and a few other drugs with very long names that he suspected were some other types of psychiatric medication.
He hung back as the guards sat the boy down on his bunk and unlocked his shackles. The kid took it all passively, only giving his wrists a quick rub before letting his hands flop down to his sides. "He shouldn't be any trouble, sir," said the lead guard.
"Of course not, with all this in him," Hammins said, pointing to the medication sheet.
The guard merely shrugged--his job was to get the prisoner safely from point A to point B, and whatever weird chemicals they had floating around in their system was of no consequence to him. "We'll see you later, sir."
After they were gone, Hammins loitered by the prisoner's door, staring at him through the small round grille. His own son was only two years younger than this boy. A child.
He was going to be eaten alive.
This was so gross.
Duo really wished he hadn't had so much coffee before the break, because the pictures on the Diamondflex screen and the corresponding photos in the information packets were completely unappetizing and the black coffee only made his stomach hurt worse.
He had been glad that the focus of the High Court trial had moved away from the arrest bit. Wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him, but he'd been worrying about that for quite some time now. It was nice to have it out of the way.
It was not, however, nice to be looking at the photos and listening to the expert witness who was describing them in stomach-churning detail. The current photo was of, if the expert could be believed, a cricket. A cricket with far too few legs and one too many antennae. It also appeared to have an extra eye, but that was probably a tumor or something. Its wings were shriveled little nubbins on its back, and its carapace was a dirty white. It was a mutant.
"We found five of these specimens in a one-kilometer area," the professor, a woman in her thirties with a brisk, no-nonsense air about her was saying. "All of them were damaged in some way. Three years ago, the biology department at the University of St. Francis did a survey of the wildlife in this same one-kilometer area and estimated the cricket population to be at about thirty thousand."
"Crickets don't simply vanish into thin air, I take it," said a dry-voiced justice seated a couple of tiers above Crothbauer.
"They might migrate when they run out of food," said the woman, "and populations fluctuate considerably from year to year, but five individuals in one square kilometer of perfectly fertile land indicates some other source of mortality.
"Speaking of which, if we could move on to the next photo..."
Duo flipped over to the next picture and immediately wished he hadn't. It was horrid. Beside him, Wufei bolted up from his chair and made a beeline to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Well, it was nice when someone shared your sentiments.
"This is a female desert fox, Vulpes zerda. The large, batlike ears are normal, but the baldness on the back and muzzle are not. The golfball-sized lumps along her spine are tumors. The oily black substance behind her is not excrement--those were her kits. They were stillborn, obviously. Note her milky eyes and the discoloration of her tongue..."
Duo thought about joining Wufei in the bathroom, but the twinge of nausea passed soon enough. He turned his head to his left and looked at Quatre. "How are you holding up?"
Quatre gave him a rather anemic-looking smile. "I'm all right. You?"
"I'm just glad they did this before lunch, or else I'd probably be wearing it."
Quatre laughed quietly and placed the photos face-down on his lap. It seemed like a wise idea. So far, they had gone through mutant moths, mutant bats, mutant crickets, and now mutant foxes. Duo didn't know how many other types of wildlife there were in the Tunisian desert, but he hoped for his sanity's sake that the professor would make her point soon.
Apparently Ada Milkiss thought so as well. "Professor, I'm sure this is all very interesting, but what does it mean?"
"These mutations are usually caused by heavy-metal contamination, which seemed like an odd thing to happen in an area that doesn't have a very dense human population or a history of manufacturing. We were able to map the area for highest and lowest instances of genetic mutation and narrowed it down to an area you can see on page three of my presentation--" she paused while the robed figured turned to the appropriate page. Quatre did so as well, but Duo didn't feel the need. Wufei wasn't back yet, or he would have too.
"We did soil testing to narrow the area down further, and then we began to dig. Ten meters under the surface of the sand, we found five spent Vernier solid fuel core rods...uncontained."
"Oh my God," Duo said softly, almost reverently.
"Raw fuel rods?" Quatre said, sounding utterly appalled. He scrambled through the papers in his lap until he came up with the map the professor had mentioned. "Buried just two kilometers from the Mediterranean...oh crap."
"...and by analyzing the core rods and what was left of the local wildlife, we have determined that the rods were the cause of the contamination."
"And this pertains to my client...how?" Ada Milkiss asked with saccharine sweetness.
"I'm glad you brought that up. Vernier fuel rods come stamped with a serial number," said the professor. She went to the defendant's table and pointed to a diagram in front of the council. "Here, here, and here. Unfortunately, the stamps had all been carefully removed."
"Proving nothing."
"Hardly. They also come with unique radioisotope signatures integrated in the core. These are unremovable. They are also unreadable unless one has a G-2 Geiger-Newcastle isosignograph." She gave Yates a puzzled look. "Most salvage and reclaim dealers who handle this sort of thing have one. I wonder why GER didn't."
Yates went red, then purple, then back to red. It clashed horribly with his orange jumpsuit. Ada Milkiss tried to pull him back from the microphone, but everyone could still hear his protest: "I don't deal in that toxic crap. There's no percentage. The government pays shit for that."
Duo snorted. It was true that the ESUN Environmental Safety Ministry did little more than cover the cost of containment and disposal of such highly dangerous matter, but there was a little something called 'moral responsibility'; a concept that seemed to have escaped Raleigh Yates entirely.
"I don't like where this is going," Quatre said in a low voice.
"You and me both," Duo agreed.
"According to union records, these rods were purchased by Green Earth Reclaim in April of 204 from Five Point Salvage, and there is no record of them after that. They were never reported destroyed. They simply disappeared until they turned up buried under the Tunisian desert nearly a year later. This is all highly unusual, especially since the government pays a bounty to any service, on or off Earth, that wishes to take responsibility of this sort of thing and dispose of it properly. There are also penalties for failing to record transactions of any type. Buying, selling, trading...anything."
"You still can't trace those fuel rods back to my client," Milkiss said.
"Nor can they be traced back to anyone else," McInnes said.
"This is highly unusual, as I said," the professor reiterated, shuffling through some more papers. "We wouldn't have thought too much about it if our North American agents hadn't come across a similar case in Nova Scotia. If you would all kindly open the packets marked fifteen-B, there are some more things of interest there."
Against his better judgment, Duo did so. He was relieved to see that the packet did not contain images from a madman's nightmare, only maps with amoeba-like shapes drawn in varying shades of red. The irregular but concentric lines were purple, crimson, pink, and near-white, and were concentrated in one area. "Elevation maps?" he guessed.
"Statistical maps," Quatre said.
Duo unfolded the paper and skimmed over the legend at the bottom to see what the maps were recording.
Stillbirths. Spontaneous abortions. Birth defects. Cancers of the pancreas, liver, and throat. "Horrible," he whispered, not trusting his full voice.
"Yeah," Quatre said.
Wufei finally came back from the bathroom, looking damp along the hairline and very pale, but calm. He slipped into his chair but made no move to gather his packet. "If I missed anything important, I don't really want to know about it right now," he said.
"I think the worst part is over," said Quatre. "That little display at the beginning was just to illustrate a point, and the rest of this is just statistics."
"I hope you're right, Quat," Duo said.
As it turned out, he was. The professor pointed out that the fuel rods in the second location were in the same condition as the ones in Tunisia, and according to the core signatures, the paper trail on them dead-ended with the sale to Green Earth Reclaim.
Ada Milkiss seemed to be having a tough time of it. Yates kept whispering in her ear furiously and she kept whispering back, patting his meaty forearm in an attempt to reassure him, but whatever she was saying wasn't doing its job. Duo, who had lost interest in the professor, leaned forward in his seat to get a better view of the two of them. He had the feeling something very interesting was going to happen.
Crothbauer's gavel came down. "Thank you, Professor Englewood. Your testimony has been most enlightening. We will now adjourn for our midday break and reconvene in two hours. Have a pleasant lunch, ladies and gentlemen."
The venerable Justice began to rise from his chair, but before he had gathered his walking sticks, the heavy oaken defense table was pushed over with a resounding crash. Duo jumped in his seat at the unexpected noise. He heard Wufei take in a sharp breath as the images on the screen caromed left and right, up and down before settling on the red and sweating face of Raleigh Yates.
"I DON'T FUCKING THINK SO!" Yates roared. His long, sparse grey hair bristled around his head in an uneven corona.
"Raleigh, please," Ada Milkiss said, clutching her briefcase to her chest like a shield. Her eyes were huge and frightened behind her glasses.
He paid no mind to her. Clanking in his chains, he strode up to the seated Crothbauer until he was nearly nose-to-nose with him. "I bought that shit," he snarled into Crothbauer's ancient face. "I bought those fucking Vernier fuel cores as part of some other cargo--I didn't know they were there!
"That's as may be," Crothbauer said calmly, "but you still bought them."
"But you can't prove I dumped them!"
"Proving is not my job," said Crothbauer, folding his knotted hands over his stomach and leaning back comfortably in his chair. "I merely hear evidence and judge based on it."
"I suppose you think I dumped them?"
"That, or you've rid yourself of them in some other mysterious, yet legal, way."
Yates was breathing through his nose so hard that his nostrils flared on each exhalation. Wufei was reminded forcibly of the one time he had seen a rutting bull thwarted from his goal by a younger and more virile male, and he could almost predict what happened next.
Yates jabbed his right hand out toward Crothbauer, his large knuckles nearly the same size as the venerable justice's windpipe, but the blow was deflected by some invisible yet powerful deterrent shield mere millimeters from the old man's skin. White sparks flew, and Yates howled in pain and clutched his hand to his chest.
"Raleigh, I told you--"
"You're fired, Ada!" Yates shouted.
Council Milkiss looked shocked for a moment, but she rallied quickly. "You can't fire me, I quit! You're a liar and a cad and I wouldn't represent you if you were the last criminal in the EarthSphere!" She stomped off.
"Criminal?" Yates shouted after her. "You bitch, you were supposed to--hey, what is it with you guys?"
Two liveried guards took hold of Raleigh Yates and wrestled him away from the chamber. Crothbauer watched the scene with an expression of mild interest. Behind him, the other justices began to gather their papers and file out of the chamber from exits hidden behind the curtains.
Crothbauer looked directly into the camera, smiled, and brought his gavel down again. "Well, this has been most interesting, hasn't it? We will reconvene in two hours. I do hope you have a nice lunch."
The screen went dark.
They did not have a pleasant lunch. None of the three witnesses had much of an appetite after the professor's testimony, and Yates's little display had disturbed and embarrassed them.
"Can he really do that?" Duo asked, stirring his soup. "Just fire his representative with no warning?"
Wufei wasn't even pretending to eat. He'd thrown himself down on one of the long leather sofas in the recreation lounge and lay there with his arm over his eyes, shading them from the low light. "Technically, she is his employee," he pointed out.
"That's true, I suppose," Duo said. "It just seems like such a massively stupid thing to do."
Quatre let out a dry bark of laughter. "I think we've already established that Raleigh Yates isn't the brightest bulb on the chandelier."
"Yeah, I suppose so. So what will the justices do now, appoint him a new council?"
"They will have to offer him one, of course," Wufei said, cracking one eye open, "but I doubt he'll accept. Knowing what I know of him, he will probably insist on representing himself."
"And you know what they say about people who act as their own council," Quatre said.
"What do they say?"
"That they have a fool for a client."
"Oh dear God, he's going to lose it again," Duo said.
Wufei sat up straight in his seat. His mind had wandered off again. He looked around guiltily, but Duo and Quatre had their eyes glued to the Diamondflex and were paying him no attention at all.
"Five million credits!" Quatre exclaimed. "I wonder where his accountant learned how to hide that much?"
"Some penitentiary, I'll bet," Duo said. "I've heard you can get quite an education in those places if you know where to look."
"You're probably right."
Wufei didn't want to appear inattentive, but he needed to ask: "What's going on?"
"The finance expert--I forgot his name--just uncovered the missing millions," Duo said.
"His name is Buckett, and he's very good. I'll bet he could give Heero some competition," Quatre said staring raptly at the screen.
"What missing millions?" Wufei asked.
"The millions that the former Mrs. Yates claims Mr. Yates has been hiding from her," Quatre said.
"Oh, the alimony."
"He's going to blow," Duo said. "See that vein in his forehead? I give him five."
"Four," said Quatre.
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
Yates blew up quite spectacularly. It took three guards to wrestle him away from the defendant's table, his arms and legs were flailing so violently. A steady stream of curses issued from his slobbering mouth as he fought and twisted, mad with rage. Duo began to take notes. "Stumpy puppyfucker--I'll have to remember that one," he murmured quietly to himself.
Privately, Wufei thought that 'sperm-gurgling gutterslut' was better, but he held his tongue. He had his standards, after all.
Quatre stood up from his chair and gathered his papers. "I think I've had enough drama for one day. I'll see you at dinner."
"See ya, Quat," Duo said, scribbling madly.
The hot shower washed away most of Quatre's nervous tension, but he still had a headache from the stiff muscles in his neck and shoulders. What a day! Although he had done nothing but sit around and stare at a video screen, he felt wrung out and exhausted--and this was only the first of what looked like a long stretch of similar days.
He wiped condensation from the bathroom mirror and stared at his reflection, pleased to see that he didn't look nearly as old as he felt. Raking his hands through his damp hair, he faked a bracing smile. "That wasn't so bad, now, was it?" he asked himself. It damn well was, he replied mentally, and the expression soured. He had never been very good at lying, even to himself.
He pulled a loose nightshirt over his head and opened the bathroom door, shivering a bit as the cool air of the bedroom hit his skin. The Colony dusk had fallen while he had been in the shower, and the suite was dark. Scuffing his feet, he made his way towards the bed and felt around for the bedside lamp. He nearly knocked it over before he found it and turned on the switch.
He had planned on crawling under the covers and reading a novel until he got tired enough to sleep. The plan changed drastically when he discovered that Trowa was sitting at the foot of the bed.
At first Quatre thought it was a hallucination. He'd been under enough stress lately that it wasn't too much of a stretch to believe he was just imagining Trowa sitting there with his back bowed and his elbows resting on his knees. Just imagination. But then Trowa looked up, gave him a minute smile, and said: "Hello."
Not his imagination, then. His imagination would never conjure up anything this bizarre, no matter how fatigued he was. "Trowa? How...?"
Trowa's smile widened a bit, but his eyes were sad. "It's not really important," he said.
"The surveillance..."
"Has been taken care of."
Quatre passed a hand over his own eyes. "Of course it has."
Trowa patted the bedspread. "Sit down," he said, "please?"
Quatre sat, but not on the bed. He pulled up one of the club chairs and sat down in that instead while he waited for Trowa to speak.
Silence spun out, long and awkward. It was strange, he thought. They had always been able to communicate so easily, if not in words, then in touch, or a glance. Now they were sitting across from one another like a pair of statues, unable to look at each other, silent and still. There might as well have been a brick wall between them.
"This isn't easy," Trowa said at last. His voice was thick.
"No."
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I know."
"I'm so sorry."
"So you said."
"God." Trowa whispered the word in a succinct prayer.
"Trowa, why are you here?"
Trowa buried his head in his hands.
Quatre said nothing. He wished he could have, but he could not find the words. He hadn't meant to make it seem like he was accusing Trowa--Trowa, who had been putting himself in danger trying to apologize. Who was, even now, risking his freedom just so he could be there to talk in person. Quatre' s shock slowly melted away, only to be replaced by a storm of emotion. Grief, guilt, and anguish that tore at his gut like a sickness, and somehow he couldn't tell if they were his own feelings, feelings he was projecting onto Trowa, or both. All he knew was, it hurt.
Seeing him sitting there in that defeated posture, so sad and repentant, made Quatre want to break down. This wasn't the Trowa who had behaved so coldly toward him when he'd been ill, this was the real Trowa. His Trowa. The one who liked to tinker with his motorbike on his off afternoons, who liked long, hot baths after a hard day, who made ridiculously huge breakfasts on Sunday mornings and brought them up to bed, who was so wonderful to wake up to in the morning with his lazy smile and the scent of his bedwarm skin...the feeling of being loved. The feeling of being home.
He got up shakily and closed the distance between them. "Trowa?"
Trowa looked up. Moisture glimmered along his lower eyelids. Though his lips were parted, he seemed to be unable to speak.
Quatre took another few steps until he was standing between Trowa's knees, and he gently pulled him forward till Trowa's forehead was resting against his own chest. "It's okay," he whispered, running tentative fingertips through Trowa's hair.
"No, it's not," Trowa replied, which was true. His arms went loosely around Quatre's waist anyway. He was trembling.
Quatre opened his mouth to protest, to say something inane and soothing, but a dry laugh came out instead. "You're right. It's not."
"I screwed up," Trowa whispered. "I ruined the only good thing I have ever had, and now I don't know what to do."
"Trowa..." Quatre began, but then he closed his mouth. Sometimes words just didn't do the job. He rocked his body gently from side to side, still stroking Trowa's hair. Warm dampness was beginning to spread through his shirt, but he didn't care. Tears had never fazed him.
He realized that he didn't feel angry, or resentful, or even hurt anymore. The little knot of angry pain that he'd been carrying around in his heart seemed to have melted away, and he simply felt tired and a little sad. "Maybe it isn't okay now," he murmured, "but things change. Life has a way of going on."
Trowa sighed, sounding infinitely weary. "Does it?"
"Of course it does," Quatre said, slowly stroking Trowa's head, his neck, his shoulders. He knew Trowa's body almost as well as he knew his own, and his hands went automatically to the areas where Trowa tended to store up stress. He began to knead the tense muscles gently. Some of his own lingering tension drained away as Trowa slowly relaxed, his head growing heavy against Quatre's chest.
"This feels good," Trowa murmured a minute later, meaning more than the massage.
"Yes, it does."
"I should go," Trowa said, though he made no move to do so.
"Stay," Quatre said without thinking. He cupped one hand against the back of Trowa's neck. "Please?"
The loose embrace around Quatre's waist tightened a bit. "I will stay," Trowa said, shifting slightly to kiss Quatre over his heart, "as long as you want me to."
And he did.
The dumbwaiters had been repaired. Wufei felt infinitely grateful for that; it meant he could eat his breakfast in peace rather than jumping at shadows that might or might not contain crazed ex-terrorists.
But then, there was Duo. Duo, who had barely sat down before getting back up again and going to Quatre. With an expression of intense concentration, Duo took Quatre's face in his hands, turned it from side to side, felt his forehead, and pulled down his lower lids to look into his eyes. "Dude, are you glowing?"
If Quatre was startled by this bizarre treatment, he didn't show it. He just smiled and nodded and sipped his coffee as if having his head molested by Duo Maxwell was something that happened every morning.
"When did this happen?" Duo demanded.
"Shortly after dinner...and again around midnight, and early this morning."
Duo let out a low whistle. "That must've been one hell of an apology."
Quatre smiled and looked more relaxed and serene than he had any right to be given that they had another full day of watching the High Court judges pick apart testimonies word by word ahead of them. It was quite annoying.
"Would anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Wufei enquired.
Duo turned on him with a grin that was more mischievous than friendly. "Trowa and Quatre made up. A lot."
Wufei's coffee went down the wrong way.
"Breathe, Wufei, breathe!" Duo said, clapping him enthusiastically on the back.
Quatre fetched a glass of water which, after much choking and hacking, he was able to take a few sips to clear his throat. "Where is he?" he rasped out as soon as he could take a breath without coughing.
"Are you okay?" Quatre asked.
"I'm fine. You can stop assaulting me, Maxwell. Where is Trowa? And for the love of mercy, don't tell me he's still in the bedroom."
Quatre shook his head. "He's not in the bedroom. He might not even be in the building by now. I finally convinced him that it wasn't safe for him to be here, so he said he was going to go back to Heero and Relena's for a while..." Quatre paused and frowned. "He also said something about not killing any spiders."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Duo asked.
"I don't know. He just said it was important that if we saw any spiders in the conference room, we should leave them alone." Quatre shrugged, apparently unconcerned, and began to spread jam on his toast.
"Speaking of," Duo said, glancing at his wristwatch, "aren't we supposed to be there in a few minutes?"
He was right. They had time to bolt the remainder of their breakfasts and have a quick wash before they gathered outside the conference room door, each of them slightly breathless. "We ready?" Duo asked. The other two nodded, and he knocked on the door.
Same dog. Different bailiff. This one was a young, plump fellow with a friendly face who smiled at them as he passed them their information packets. Even the dog seemed friendlier, and it gave their hands a casual sniff as they passed it by. Quatre even went so far as to pat it on the head and call it a good boy, an action that made Duo want to tackle him to the ground and enquire at the top of his lungs about Quatre's mental state, but the dog seemed to take it well enough.
"You three will have to work the video screen yourselves this morning," said the bailiff. "Council McInnes has been in meetings for three hours now and can't get away, but he sends his regards."
Quatre scratched the dog's ears. "Is there a problem?"
"Nothing to worry about," said the bailiff. "There's been a bit of commotion over Yates's outburst, that's all. Take your seats, I'm sure you won't have too much of a wait."
The dog's heavy, blocky head was now resting against Quatre's knee and it was gazing up at him with adoring eyes. Quatre gave it a few more pats before going off in the direction of the viewing area, and Duo swore the dog heaved a lovelorn sigh.
"Sorry, pup, but Quatre's a one-man kind of guy, you know?" Duo told it.
The dog gave him a reproachful kind of look and turned its back on him. Duo merely shrugged and went to the viewing area. Life was rough and love was complicated, but how could you explain that to a dog?
Fortunately, the Diamondflex screen was much less complicated than a dog's psychology, and Wufei had already managed to set it up.
"The show must go on, I suppose," Duo said, falling into his seat.
"As if nothing else will," Wufei said.
This time whoever was running the show didn't bother playing the L2 anthem, for which Duo was grateful. There was only so much pomp and circumstance he could stand, and he spent most of his yearly quota at Hellcat home games.
The justices filed in and took their seats quickly. The venerable Crothbauer hobbled in last, as usual, but he hobbled with energy and purpose. There was a general air of rush and bustle in the courtroom that hadn't been there the day before--even the guards seemed to be crackling with energy, and all they were doing was standing by the doors looking ceremonious.
Crothbauer's gavel banged down almost as soon as his venerable behind hit the seat. "Council McInnes and Mr. Raleigh Yates may enter the chamber," he said.
McInnes and his young assistant strode in briskly, looking sharp and fresh in spite of what must have been a grueling night. They nodded respectfully at the justices (some of whom looked rather sleep-deprived) before seating themselves.
The gavel banged again. "If the guards would be so kind as to escort Mr. Yates in."
Yates looked even more pissed off than he had the day before, and that was saying something. He clearly did not appreciate being held by the elbows by two guards as he entered the chambers, and he nearly seethed when one of them secured his wrist restraints to a steel eyebolt screwed into the defendant's table. Duo was almost certain the bolt hadn't been there before.
Crothbauer didn't look any happier than Yates did. "Raleigh Peter Yates, you have decided to do away with outside legal council and have chosen to represent yourself. For the record, is this true?"
Yates tried to stand as he answered, but the best he could manage with the manacles bolted down was a kind of hunchbacked crouch. "For the record, Your Honor, it's true."
"You need not stand. I also read here that you wish to change your pleas in exchange for a consideration of expediency."
Quatre made a very weird noise. It sounded like he'd tried to clear his throat and yodel while simultaneously choking on a ham sandwich.
"Um...bless you?"
"Consideration of expediency? He's got to be joking!" Wufei said in a tone somewhere between amused and deeply confused.
"What's consideration of expediency?" Duo asked.
"A ploy to get the trial moving along as fast as possible," Quatre said. "It means he'll plead not guilty to everything he thinks he can get away with, and if he can get a two-thirds majority to agree, then those charges will be dropped completely."
"That kind of sucks," Duo said. He was actually thinking of it in much stronger terms, but this did not seem like the kind of place to flaunt the full extent of his vocabulary.
"If the majority do not agree," Wufei continued, "then he will receive the maximum penalty for that particular charge with no chance for reduced sentence. It's the same as a guilty plea."
"Only without admittance of extenuating circumstances," Quatre picked up. "No new evidence will be allowed, no retrials will be granted. The arguments are over."
Duo suddenly understood how Quatre had made that weird noise because he was on the verge of making it himself. "That's got to be the stupidest gamble I've ever seen anyone take, and I play poker with Heero. What isn't he guilty of?"
"My guess is he's going to try to get out of the conspiracy to attempt murder charge," said Wufei. "Everything covered yesterday was a six-month maximum sentence."
"But they haven't even argued that one yet," Duo said.
"Oh...that's right," said Quatre. "Do you know how that works, Wufei?"
"They simply shelve it until--or unless--the defendant serves his time. In this case, that will be a maximum of three years, which is...shit!" Wufei suddenly sat up ramrod-straight in his seat.
"Wufei, what is it?"
Wufei had turned a very unhealthy color. "Three years...he's hoping for three years!"
"Wait, wait," Duo said, feeling his tenuous grasp on the matter slipping away. "Do you mean he's trying to get himself sent to prison?"
"Yes, but only for three years. That's the statute of limitations of a conspiracy charge. By the time he got out, that charge will be null and void."
"No, Wufei, it's seven years for attempted murder...isn't it?" Quatre sounded heartbreakingly uncertain.
"Normally it's seven, but if the defendant represents himself, it's only three. It was changed during the war crimes tribunal...Crothbauer himself pushed it though, as I recall."
Duo's stomach felt like it had suddenly exchanged places with his bladder. "So, to recap," he said, "Yates is using an obscure wartime law to place himself in a nice low-security prison for tax evaders so he can dodge a fucking murder rap."
"That's a fair summary," Wufei said.
"And you're certain it's all nice and legal?"
Wufei nodded. "And I'll bet they knew it from the start."
There was a moment of shocked silence before Duo said, "We've been had."
From above, the people on the front steps of the Judicial Administration Building looked like iron filings, and Yates was the magnet. Every reporter from every publication in the L-2 cluster, as well as several from Earth, had their camera aimed toward the downcast figure in the orange coveralls, and the cries for attention were fairly deafening.
It all died down to a nearly miraculous hush, though, when Yates paused on the third step and cast his eyes toward the largest camera nearby. "My fellow citizens," he said, and then paused to give the other cameras, boom mikes, hovermedia, and visorscreens time to focus on his haggard face.
"My fellow citizens," he repeated in a louder voice, "indeed, my friends--I stand before you an accused man. I have been rightly and justly convicted of the sins of tax evasion and fraud in an attempt to enrich myself."
Yates paused then and looked toward what might have been the heavens if he had been standing on Earth. "It was a vain attempt, and a sad one," he continued, gazing hubward and allowing moisture to gather at the edges of his eyes. "I will, of course, repay my debt to society, as society deems it. I am grateful, however. Grateful!" He blinked, and two tears ran down his cheeks. "I am grateful for this chance to meditate on what it means to be an honorable man, to amend for my sins, and to become a more spiritual person in order that I may--"
The sound was insignificant. It might have been the sound of a champagne cork popping from a distance, but not even the most enthusiastic champagne cork could have made half of Yates's head atomize in a pink mist of blood, bone and brain tissue.
He fell down dead before he had even completed his final lie.
TBC