(((OK so should have had this idea April 1st... but we're just going to call this a tribute to April in general... you'll see why. Number of reasons for writing this chapter...
One, By The Roadway ch11 pt 6 side B... is taking forever like I thought it would... But is now done! Yay!
Two, I can excitedly tell you all that BtRw Ch9 Part 2 The Mongoose & The Dragon is WELL underway so it should appear shortly after ch11 gets finished! And lead right into Chapter 10; and Ch 12 has been written in my head a 100X over so that's just going to be a matter of stringing together the best bits ^_^ That dinner table (in the Sank Kingdom) is going DOWN... and most of it's pretty ornate chairs too!
Three, I haven't written any scenes so far that actually take place ON/in the colonies.
Four, Double section of Nitroglycerin Mudo antics set before he meets Trieze... Can you really complain? Like the two sides of his personality you have here; Part 1 is good-old-flashback sob-story Drama, Part 2 is approx. 188AC and is more "Mary Jane" fun. We'll just say it's because Cynthia loves it. Hey, if you leave lots of reviews I'd write more stuff you like too :P Anonymous ones are allowed too ye know.))
Go Read 'A Fan For Shiko'... it's short, fun and 'Forking Awesome' it's a: Heero Yuy(Politician) X Shiko Tsukoto Mudo pairing.
The O G B: Original Gangster Boy? Naw man, Original Gundam Boy!
…AC 180...In the L1 colony cluster...5 Years after Yuy's Assassination...
"Sir! Its on the verge of a riot out there as it is, are you sure about this? He's only a kid!" One of the younger Alliance officers came back inside the holding room.
Kneeling in the middle of the room circled by guards with rifles leveled was a 9 year old Nitroglycerin Mudo, dressed simply in black cargo pants, magnetic bottomed boots and a tight black sleeveless shirt. His shaking hands too small for cuffs were zip-tied behind him; head bowed so the long black bangs escaping from his even longer ponytail hung in front of his face.
"I've had enough of that talk! Kid or not he broke into OUR supply depot during an emergency lock-down! For all we know those damn rebels put that breach in the air exchange system on purpose! We need to put our foot down and show them that they can't go relying on children to do their dirty work anymore. If we can't prove to Earth that we are capable of enforcing order in this cluster then we might as well just hand the whole lot over to the workers! So get him out there!" The elite Specials Commander in charge pointed sharply to the door.
One of the soldiers hoisted Mudo up onto his feet and they started to escort him out of the room.
"But Sir! Won't this make us equally unpopular with people on Earth? They might start to sympathize with the resistance movement!"
With a snarl the Commander grabbed Nitro by his hair and pulled forth a standard issue knife. He roughly cut across the back of Mudo's shirt, leaving a long gouge across one shoulder blade, and tore the rest of the thin cloth from his body – exposing the lack of a button like pit on his abdomen that served as a "mark of authenticity" in many people's minds.
"There, take him now." He sneered shoving the boy back to the guards, "No one on Earth cares if we get rid of another piece of artificial trash. I'm sure Shiko can afford a new one."
Outside, inside X12-566 of the L1 cluster, snow was falling...
...it wasn't supposed to be falling. The breach in the air exchange system had come close to depressurizing the entire colony, within a minute the entire massive free floating space structure would have been an oxygen-less vacuum; killing every person outside of a shelter or without a spacesuit. Not a problem for most... as few of the population were 'fully' artificially birthed.
Most born in mankind's home away from home came about in a natural sense and it was safe for a certain period of months for the mother to carry the child. Then, for reasons not quite understood, the unstable gravity of the artificial world became a risk factor in the later stages of pregnancy; calling for the need to move the still developing fetus into a fluid filled, computer controlled nurture chamber.
For reasons to be disclosed later (meaning in more entertaining ways), Mudo's life had skipped straight from step 1 to step 3. For other reasons to also be disclosed later, during the early years of the AC century as the Colonies were first being built and populated, man kind pushed the very boundaries of what it meant to be human when they created the "Proto's"; giving rise to an extremely controversial set of laws created to secure the boundary between humanity and its creations.
The prejudice that was formed against those who were seen as 'unnecessarily' artificial has already been clearly established for you. It wasn't Nitro's fault that the Alliance had turned him away from the Emergency shelter.
His father, Shiko Tsukoto Mudo, was the very influential owner of business empire that included the Mall of the Moon (one of the most lucrative tourist spots in the entire Earth Sphere) but that didn't mean he was able to change the mind of the Specials officers in charge of the Alliance outpost on X12-566. After being told by his father to "Go home and wait it out" the young boy had taken it upon himself to commandeer a set of space suits for himself and others who'd been turned away from the Emergency shelters – at least he'd tried to.
Now as he walked shirtless through the flurry of strange frozen water clusters, he could hear the roar of the population that had gathered outside the gates of the military headquarters; scared, outraged and hungry for answers from the occupational force that always asserted they had everything under control. Obviously they didn't; the people who could handle it were being kept from doing their jobs and in the end... everyone suffered.
What are you supposed to do when your told to hold still while other men line up to shoot you? At the same time that the stage was surrounded with armed Alliance soldiers, most of them were preoccupied with the seething crowd that threatened to spill over the barriers any second. Fear was the only real shackle that held him firmly in place as the Specials Commander made his public address with his final verdict on the matter.
It was strange as a shocked silence pulsed through the throng at the announcement of the execution that would be carried out immediately. Looking back on that moment one day, as slowly melting white flakes settled in his hair and a trickle of warm red blood ran down his bare back, Nitro would be glad for the cold; it was a convenient excuse for how violently he trembled staring down his own death as the firing squad leveled their rifles. The realization of how delusional the oppressive forces had become ruling over their 'indentured servants' finally hit home for many that day.
The swell in response was like a tidal wave flooding forwards to envelop the barricade, on the edges folding around the entire walled-in headquarters and beginning to flood UP the high walls into the compound itself. The soldiers were distracted from their orders as they found themselves suddenly engaged in a street brawl outnumbered 50 to 1; Gunfire sporadically cutting through the seemingly unending scream of thousands.
Riding that swell straight to the front, was a tall, too symmetrical man with sky blue hair and sandy colored eyes. As a Prototype-Human, an Organic Robot grown from a constructed genome, 629 was one of the last left in commission and sure to stand out in any crowd with his distinctive color swap "error". His abnormally high muscle density meant leaping the distance up onto the stage was no problem at all, nor was casually tossing the Specials Commander with one arm over the heads of his helplessly struggling subordinates and out into the raging crowd.
Obstructions removed from his path he crouched down in front of his master's young son,
"We must be gone from here, it is not safe for you. Carrying you will be best, yes?"
"Yes, 629! Carry me and run very fast!"
The crying Nitro needn't say more as 629 whisked him up under his cloak and picked the fastest rout to get as far away from the unfolding violence as you could get living inside a massive doughnut. (food.)
...AC 188... April 20th... ((Published at 4am ((HEY! No driving under ANY influence, ye hear me out there in Reader Land? Consider that disclaimed.))))
The uniform grid pattern made hundreds of short lateral roads that spanned from one side to the other, but there were only a few roads that wrapped around the entirety of the inner wheel of X14-207 of the L1 colony cluster. Even fewer people then those roads bothered with owning a personal vehicle, since public transit and plain old walking got you most places with less hassle.
So, it was well known who it was driving the electric powered green and white"Terra-bite" that would start trundling past one of the low-security storage depots, located along an outer band road with virtually no traffic at all, around four o'clock each afternoon.
The Terra-bite, named to literally mean "Earth Bite" with a symbol of the Earth missing a chunk on it's front nose, was a revival of the VW mini-bus design marketed as perfect for the personal transport needs of the Colonies. True to it's originator those needs apparently were much the same as the ones that made it famous in California, USA: as the fog thickened, with each pass on its one-way straight-line journey, the need for the tinted windows and interior side-curtains diminished significantly.
"I just don't get it," one of the Soldiers on guard outside the depot started, shaking his head. The mini-bus had just reappeared over the tops of the buildings above them; climbing towards the center axis where it would disappear from view for a few minutes, reappear once more on the other side, before dropping down below the 'skyline' of buildings on the other side of the horizon to make it's approach for another pass. "They get free housing, free food, free water, free utilities, job security like you can't find on Earth, all the damn weed they can smoke... and yet they still have reasons to complain? It's just not fair! Like, for us, not them!"
"Oh come off it, Wicker. You've been whining about how much you miss smoking since we got on the damn shuttle to ship out here!"
"Well why not? I only signed up because it's frikken legal to smoke it here! But No, we have to follow Earth rules... and that means we don't get to have a little R and R whilst working so hard to keep the peace for these ungrateful people!"
"Hey, just be glad that they are relaxing and smoking their dope instead of trying to break in here and take us hostage or something."
The mini-bus had just disappeared behind the center axial as Wicker's eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open,
"Wait a minute! WHAT did you just say?"
"What? That we should be glad they're smoking dope instead of trying to break in here and take us hostage?" he didn't like his friend's even more excited expression at whatever brilliant plan he had just uncovered in his herb-hungering mind.
"You... are a GENIUS!"
"Look I don't want to get in trouble so wha –"
"Whoa, whoa," Wicker interrupted him, "No one is going to get in trouble here, okay? I just need you to watch my back is all, okay?"
The other soldier on guard let out a long sigh,
"What this time."
Nitroglycerin Mudo took another long drag off the extending hose of the "installed" bong-like apparatus in his electric car, as "Schnappi" by Benny Benassi (real song, all rights reserved to owner etc.) pumped out of the sound system.
"Man," Trevor, one of the friends accompanying them today, spoke up. "Don't you think like, maybe we should, I don't know, make some zig-zags or something? I hate driving past those damn Alliance soldiers all the time, gives me the creeps man."
"Naw man, we stay the course. Fuck those guys." He passed the hose behind him adding to the haze with his exhale.
"I don't know man, I kinda get sketched out too..." It was Shinto in the far back this time, "Mostly by anyone with a gun... I'm all peace and love you know that man!"
"Alright, maybe next time we'll try taking a detour around this stretch," He looked back over his shoulder at the two, "How's that for you Paranoid Pussies back there?"
"OH MY GOD!"
"NITRO!"
Their surprised expressions warned him of the danger before their exclamations and Mudo whipped back around in his seat and slammed on the breaks... still 300 yards from where one of the Alliance soldiers was standing in the road with his standard issue rifle. Nitro still even had to squint trying to make out that much waving a clear patch in the smoke, it was hardly an emergency... yet.
"Guys just chill." he set the car in motion, creeping it closer and closer, keeping a wary eye out for re-enforcements... the soldier didn't move and continued to stand blocking the road. "Alright... Just... stay in the car, okay?"
Nitro opened his door. The slow moving air circulation of the colony interior took hold of the mass of smoke inside the mini-bus, pulling and stretching it into a twisting dragon that escaped over the roof tops leaving a pungent trail in it's wake. He stood to stare down the blocking officer, staying behind his open door in case this was an ambush.
Wicker... put his rifle down on the road and lifted his hands into the air.
"I surrender."
"What?" Mudo asked raising his eyebrows in confusion.
"I said, I surrender. Come on, now you gotta take me hostage, right?"
"Is he out of his mind?" a voice piped from behind Mudo.
He turned to see Shinto and Trevor leaning out the now open side windows.
"What did I tell you guys! Get. Back. IN!"
"Well, what are you guys waiting for? You gonna do it or what?" Wicker coughed meaningfully.
"You... wait right there... while we... conference on this." Nitro dodged back in the car and slammed the door shut. "What the FUCK do we do?"
"Yo! We should so do it man! It would be awesome!" Shinto of course was ever willing to forgive and forget.
"NO FUCKING WAY! It's probably a set up man! They're gonna frame us and say we did all this terrible shit to him and put it all over the news... No way!" Trevor, was usually a bit paranoid, this was no exception.
Mudo thought about it, watching the soldier who was still holding his hand-raised posture of mercy.
"They wouldn't have to set us up Trevor, they could just walk over here and shoot us right now. It'd be a lot simpler on their part. So..." He looked back at his two friends with a huge grin on his face. "...Is that Duct tape still back there?"
…Twenty minutes later Wicker was thrown back out of the mini-bus' sliding door as it drove by... Very high, hands and feet bound and wearing a bright red dress instead of his uniform.
"So are you writing the report on this... or should I?" His friend had just walked over as he lay left behind in the dust.