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Chapter Five
Breaking the Rules
Because only everything is actually meant to be broken, right?
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The amplifier tour and the Cambyses strike both begin - there's an unsurprising amount of politics and maneuvering involved. Relena gets to know her new staff, Adam asks for help, and Odin works on his interpersonal skills.
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June 11th 198 – Wednesday – Frankfurt, Germany
"Isn't this… officious enough for Mr. Peacecraft to make an appearance?" Sergeant Recine whispered uneasily.
"I invited him," Relena returned through a smile, not looking back to her bodyguard. "I think he's too officious now to be bothered with greeting a delegate from another continent."
Major Marakesh hummed out an amused sound from deep in her throat, though she maintained her stance perfectly.
"My thoughts exactly," Jake returned, amusement lacing his voice. "I'm waiting to see how long it is before he realizes he signed off on that manse as a legitimate satellite base to filter selected soldiers through."
"Really?"
"Don't talk where others might see until you've learned to still your lips," the colonel reprimanded. "And how else would I legally staff soldiers at a permanent civilian location?"
"…How long has it been?" Lieutenant de Leon asked hesitantly. Relena couldn't see him directly, but seeing as Jake hadn't reprimanded him like he had Sergeant Krititz, she assumed he already knew how to speak subtly as well.
"Five weeks," Relena returned softly.
The Major let out another amused hum.
"You should really get that looked at," Lin told her cheerfully. "We need a functioning translator, and that requires talking."
Her responding hum to that was just as amused, though also considering.
"I think that means that you might have seniority for time on this job, but that you should remember she still outranks you," Jake explained cheerfully.
Mai's responding hum was just as amused as the previous ones.
"Time for gossip is over," the colonel added. "Be good and pretty for the Chinese ambassador."
Relena smiled brightly as she stepped forward – Jake and Mai closely behind her, Lin and the rest a little further back. She had dealt with the ambassador frequently enough when she had visited China just over a year ago; it was likely the reason he had been chosen to represent his country in the first place. His English was also excellent, and for the moment, Mailin was only with them as a formality. "Ambassador Kim, it's an honor to welcome you to Europe. I hope the flight was not too uncomfortable?"
"Miss Darlian-Peacecraft, it is I who am honored by your hospitality," the middle-aged man returned. "As for the flight, it went as well as these things go."
"Which I believe means to imply you would like to see your accommodations, yes?"
Jie Kim laughed. "I find that to be an accurate assumption, Princess. I am afraid my people are not adjusted to the time difference."
Relena smiled. "The hotel is not far, Ambassador, though I'm afraid your technicians will have to spend a little more time crowded together on the shuttles to get there. You are welcome to ride with my staff and I, however."
"That sounds agreeable," the man decided, bowing his head slightly. "It would…" He paused a moment as though looking for a word or phrase before settling on, "It would be a pleasure. I would like to greet my people as they arrive, however… We are all in the same hotel?"
Relena returned the small bow, though with a slight tilt to it so that it was reminiscent of a curtsey; Dorothy knew far too many variations of them, and had insisted on drilling at least a few into her head. Gesturing at Vaughn to get the car, she assured, "You will all be in the same hotel today, yes, though I am afraid that in most cities you might be spread across several. Transportation has already been arranged, as we agreed."
"Ah, good. There is a lobby we can greet them in?"
"Yes." Relena gestured towards Mai. "If at any time you feel unsure of your wording, Major Marakesh is a member of my staff and is fluent in Mandarin; she lived in Beijing for four years as a teenager. If she is unavailable, Lieutenant Ackroyd may also serve as a translator; she is not currently on duty, but I will be sure to introduce you. I have also arranged to have translators on-site at all surveying locations, as well as a few traveling with each team." She could see the limousine approaching now – it had only been parked just out of sight.
"That is good." He looked towards the car for a moment before settling his gaze back on the princess. "Thank-you for coming to meet us in person. I understand you have much business to attend to."
"Ambassador, I am not the type to shirk my duties for convenience. Meeting your plane is my business."
"Of course, forgive me…" He looked pleased when Mai opened the car door for him, though he paused while getting in to meet Relena's eyes and add, "It is good to be working with you again, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft."
She felt a genuine smile slip onto her face as she slid into the limo herself. Jie Kim had actually been one of the nicest, most genuine members of the council she had negotiated with last year. "Thank-you. I could say the same of you."
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June 13th 198 – Friday – Valencia, Spain
"I'm sorry, but this?" Auda shook his head. "This is a cipher, with Arabic lettering so old that I'm not sure anyone uses it anymore. I thought perhaps I could help, but this…"
"Is something Quatre made so that only he could read it."
"Yes, definitely," the Maguanac agreed. "Honestly, I've never seen anything like it. You're sure Master Quatre wrote this?"
Odin shrugged. "He gave it to me like this, and I doubt he trusted anyone else to act as a translator."
"Ah, yes… that is true."
Hitting a wall, even if you were expecting it, didn't make it any less frustrating. Odin hadn't really staked any value on the Maguanacs being able to work through Quatre's code, but it had been worth a try. And it was probably worth something to know that it wasn't just half Arabic code:
It was half ancient Arabic gibberish and code.
"Do you know if he might have left something else with you that he programmed himself?" he asked instead. There was a possibility he could reverse engineer it; for all the steps of precaution the blonde strategist had taken before, it wouldn't be unlike him to have a back-up plan in place, if someone knew where to find a Rosetta stone for his pieces of Zero.
The older man paused and seemed to consider that for a moment, before shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Heero, but I don't know. If anyone did, it would be Rashid, but he has been out of touch for a little over two months now. He was spotted in Cabat, and now there are wanted posters for him again and he had to hide." Auda's smile was rueful. "He's a very distinctive-looking man, unfortunately. He's had little luck finding transport by sea or air, and no one is willing to risk land transport through most of Algeria, Libya and Egypt, and a good chunk of the Sudan as well, due to the Cambyses."
He fingered his chin. "I wonder if the government is only finally getting around to taking care of them now because they've almost completely shut down the land trade routes – through Morocco and Yemen are the only reliable ways, and the raids into Morocco have gotten as deep into the country as Fès, I understand. The coastal and more central and south areas of Africa have been doing reasonably well in the climate change, but they've been suffering from northern raids and all else that has become the usual, now. " He leaned back in his chair. "We have families as far south as Congo, but while it's still reasonably warm on that continent, the changes themselves have been even more harsh on the people. Daily life is…" He shrugged again. "It's simply not what it used to be. Being unable to help our own people… it's nearly as bad under the Regime right now as it was when we were trapped away from them in space."
"For every reunion it seems like there's another separation," Odin noted, thinking back to Marlé… glancing back down at his phone to be sure he hadn't missed an alert from her. It was a depressing thought but also… one with inevitable acceptance. He lost Quatre and gained Marlé… Relena lost her father and gained a brother… There was some phrase about doors that meant the same thing that someone had told him once, but he couldn't remember the actual wording.
Quatre had said once that the Maguanacs were the protectors of a large cultural group of people; that their pride was based on family and dedication. If they counted so many as family that they numbered in countries instead of bare handfuls, that was… a great deal of loss to contend with.
There had only been twenty-seven pacifists he had wrongly executed at New Edwards so long ago, but the guilt had haunted him endlessly…
It was probably a good thing he had never let himself conceptualize the actual number of innocents who had died with that little girl and her puppy, before the retraining.
"True, but such a depressing point of view," Auda returned. "It's a blessing to reunite, and something to be sought out, but there are too many breaks in the world to hope to fill them all. That is what I told Master Quatre, at least." He smiled a little sadly. "It's what we convince ourselves to carry on with, and it serves a good purpose. Depression rarely gets you anywhere."
Odin blinked at him. "That's pragmatic."
Auda grinned broadly at him, winking. "I rather thought so myself."
…Odin wasn't sure if there was a proper response to that.
"In any case," Auda added as he stood, "You've heard your answers, and my time is running… close?" He seemed to consider if he'd chosen the right word for a moment before shrugging it off as unimportant. "I have my own problems to solve, and I'm sure you could better use your time." His expression was very pointedly jovial, so Odin supposed he meant the words the same way. Almost flippantly, he added, "I'll send Lucrezia your regards."
That… sounded odd… but probably wasn't. "Thanks."
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Specific location not determined
Well… The situation was rather bleak, if he wanted to be honest. This got entirely out of hand. He could understand, but he was beginning to honestly believe that some point on the way of his route to self-actualization and helping things turn out okay in the world, he'd instead become a saint of lost causes. Even compared to some of the utter shit he'd seen in Europe and Africa, this was… cosmically bad.
…And that was really a very terrible pun, but he couldn't stop himself from thinking it all the same.
I can't handle this on my own. And that, truly, Adam decided, was a first. Perhaps his failure to find and save Mariemaia was what made him able to admit the idea now, though he liked to think he was sane enough to simply do the math on this one. In comparison, however, he had to admit he'd done some rather insane things both in and outside of his range of memory, for reasons he doubted he could really explain in either existence. His concepts concerning odds were undeniably skewed, but he thought his abilities mostly matched them, at least.
But he was literally going to need maybe… three pairs of hands. And the bodies attached to them. Well-armed, trained bodies. Ones that were reasonably capable of independent thought and taking care of themselves.
He didn't want to involve Treize, both on principle and because if his people's actions this far west were noticed, it could reveal the aristocrat's status among the living, which was a poor idea altogether. Also, he really only needed two more people, but they did need to be good, and he was rather sure Treize didn't trust him well enough to just give him that on short notice.
…Chang Xutao owed him a favor or three, and Sally was likely of convincible, if what he remembered from Peacemillion or Chang Wufei's personality meant anything.
All the same, this was… going to be complicated.
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June 17th 198 – Tuesday – Munich, Germany
"Oooh," Relena breathed, stepping out of the car and into the little courtyard around the back of the house. The driveway past the gate was situated so that the majority of it was hidden entirely from the street, and she could see the red brick of the tall wall edging the outer rim of the property, though little of the open grounds themselves, with the inner wall fencing it off from the front. It was huge, and really did make Dorothy's flat in the city proper look like a townhouse.
In her defense, roughly twenty people would be living out of hers.
"There are still a few cosmetic things to flesh out," Jake noted as he stepped out himself. "But all the functional changes are done, some minor furniture withstanding."
She frowned. "Furniture?"
"Some rats and other things had moved in after it was left unoccupied. I told Captain Derusha to sort through what was already here and donate anything that looked run-down, then look to find decent alternatives. I'm not sure how far he's gotten on the latter part, though."
Relena nodded thoughtfully, heading for the door. That only made sense. It was likely enough that she might hold meetings here, or at least guests on occasion, and appearances had to be maintained, at least up to a point. She knew Jake had a good eye and taste. Hopefully the man he'd set to mostly be in charge of her new residence did as well, and she wouldn't end up with something so gaudy she was embarrassed to be seen near it.
Jake grinned as he followed her, chuckling softly. "Though there was some sort of couch thing that I just had sent over to Dorothy's."
"A couch thing, lovely," she muttered under her breath.
"Brightly gilded with sky blue upholstery and gold tassels. And cherubs carved into the frame."
… "Thank-you." Dorothy was probably thrilled, too.
He snickered. "You're welcome." He took two fast steps to get in front of her and pull the door open. "I'll give you a tour, then."
The entryway area was tiled in a pale stone, and was open and well-lit… which almost had her let out a sigh of relief, despite it not being a surprise. She had gotten used to her interior rooms in Brussels as a matter of security, but she had missed windows… and despite having seen the building on the drive up, she hadn't actively considered having them again. Though, in terms of security… She resisted the urge to go tap one; knowing Jake's paranoia level, if all the 'functional changes' were complete, there was no reason to bother wondering if they were regular glass or something stronger.
She judged that the furniture was likely from whoever had left the estate uninhabited for so long; all nice and proper, as well as bland enough while still being tasteful for the room to suit its purpose. The walls were all bare, with a fresh coat of pale cream paint on the walls, if the stray piece of blue tape stuck against the crown moulding was any indication. "Anything that someone might realistically sit on I want to be sure is actually comfortable," she decided after a moment. Jake had been standing back, waiting for her to finish taking it all in. "That was something I remember always hating about my mother's sitting room. It was pretty, but not functional enough to be welcoming."
"Makes sense."
"Was there art already here?"
"No; they took just about everything except this big sunflower one that's in the back kitchen now."
That was just as well. She would get to decide on her own impressions, at least roughly. She wasn't interested in picking and choosing like a curator – just suggestions and veto rights. "Back kitchen?" That implied that there was more than one… which, for a house this size made some sense, really.
Jake smiled, and gestured. "We'll get there. This way first."
They passed what was obviously a surveillance room, with a sturdier door than you generally saw indoors. Inside were several stations for people to watch the screens plastered everywhere, but still enough space in the center for a relatively large card table. If there's a threat outside, there's room in here to plan. The walls were painted a fairly vivid but cool tone of green, and she noticed that there seemed to be plenty of cameras inside the house as well, and more screens still that were kept dark. Someone smiled and waved to her from his desk, and she saw footage of one of the garage doors sliding shut before she followed Jake further down the hall to… a large room that she would imagine had been a formal dining room, but was currently entirely bare. Obviously, it hadn't been decided what this room would be yet, and she was waiting for her friend to ask her opinion on it somehow before he opened the closet door, turned, and… opened something.
Caught in the old spy manor moment of it all, she dashed after him to find him practically bouncing down a narrow staircase… into a very brightly lit cavernous space. "Oh wow."
He laughed and kept going down; surprisingly, it didn't echo much. "This was what really sold me on the place; the real estate agent didn't even realize it was here, and I found the original blueprints – it's not on them either. It's legal enough to have done it, but I was worried at first because it seemed so illegitimate in there being no record of it, but not only is all the plumbing and electrical and such to code and above," at this he gestured at the ceiling, which seemed flat to her, "but it's thoroughly ventilated, soundproofed, and definitely qualifies as a bomb shelter." He turned back to her and grinned broadly as they reached the floor. "It stretches under almost the entirety of the grounds; we shouldn't try to plant anything beyond the briars on the walls. Those are more of a vine plant than anything, and the perimeter of this stops a ways before the outer walls, but I'm not sure how many feet of soil is actually between this and air."
There just wasn't much to be said to that… at least, beyond it being perfectly marvelous. There was a back-up system of the surveillance – though the screens were all dark – as well as various rooms Jake only gestured to as being storage for this or that, or a bathroom, a few bedrooms…. He gestured towards what seemed to be an incomplete shooting range that was to be enclosed and ventilated before taking her up a different entrance back into the house proper. That room was as bare as the previous entrance, and he admitted that he hadn't entirely decided how he wanted to go about setting up the security of them. Apparently, he'd fought to get them all open and serviceable, and they probably weren't all of bomb shelter quality anymore, and he was still debating how restricted he wanted to keep the area.
She was beginning to feel overwhelmed, and they hadn't even gotten through much of the first floor.
There were the polite sort of half bathrooms around the obviously public areas of the downstairs, but that was only one wing; there was a kitchen at both ends of the property. The smaller one was bright and cheerful in yellows and white, while the larger was closer to the surveillance room and more… creatively majestic, with dark wood cabinets and black stone counters, walls painted a deep, bright violet.
She found herself appreciating the personality of whoever had chosen all the colors; it gave the place more character than she would imagine most estates like this generally had.
Besides the grounds and the way the driveway circled into a sort of enclave or courtyard to start with, the house itself wrapped around a large courtyard. It was away from the more neutral, public entrance they had come in, with one entrance leading into the purple kitchen – the corner of windows over the large, industrial sink looked into it as well. While the house wrapped it on three sides, however, there was a small garden on the fourth, and beyond it a detached guesthouse – far enough into the drive to be impossible to see from the road, but opening direct to the drive all the same. The interior was all done in deep blues and crèmes –thick carpet, bed with too many pillows, and the bathroom stocked with the basics. Definitely for the more important guests that you don't want to make get a hotel.
Closer to the yellow kitchen were more normal bedrooms and full bathrooms and a large laundry room… with a chute coming down from the upper floors like a hotel might have. What she was now starting to dub in her mind as the 'polite' part of the house – the neutral sort of entry area – had more than one den or living room to socialize or watch movies in, for differing sizes of crowds; but the back of the house had what could damn well qualify as a small theater, with tiered levels crowded with overstuffed chairs and couches with coffee tables. It was again painted in dramatic colors, a deep ocean blue this time, with grey and black furniture and dark carpeting.
Relena decided then that she didn't have a mansion, even if Dorothy had something that could possibly fit the definition of 'townhouse'. She had a compound. A very personalized, comfortable, laid-back and elegant compound. It was still in too urban of an area to count as an estate, but she was starting to suspect she could house far more than twenty and still do it quite comfortably.
The stairway they took to the second floor didn't connect to the third, but it was probably the fourth set of stairs she had seen, and Jake had mentioned at least one other set with a vague gesture. He wore a subtly smug expression, and she could tell that not only was he exceedingly proud of himself, but enjoying her discovery of what he'd done. Relena delayed pointing out the inevitable until they had passed through a practical labyrinth of bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, bare rooms, and two very small kitchen areas.
"We're going to need a maid." Everyone could be responsible for their own laundry and upkeep of their rooms, and there was some degree of turns that could be taken in cleaning the public areas, but this was far more maintenance than Jake's waxing and waning annoyance with Sergeant Krititz could handle. And it needed to be kept 'important guest' clean in a lot of areas, not 'soldier at home' clean. Also, she knew that she and Jake, at least, often were not going to have the time for any of that at all, when they were even there. And when we aren't, with most of the guard out with us, everything here will be collecting dust to look tacky with.
He grimaced, nodding. "I'm still debating how to go about it, but agreed." They had decided that they didn't want to take any housekeeping staff with them when they left Brussels due to connections and possible security issues, and hiring staff from a field where security checks were unheard of was almost worse. Jake had carefully handpicked everyone they were bringing to Munich, and though she hadn't specifically requested it, had been careful to choose only those who were either carefully neutral of their preferences between the Peacecraft siblings, or leaning towards Relena without being too obvious or pushy about it. She didn't want to have a house divided, as it were, but she didn't want powder kegs to spark, or look like she was drawing lines – her goal was independence, not separation.
She debated asking him how Dorothy was arranging the upkeep of her 'townhouse', then decided it didn't matter; if the concept had passed his scrutiny for security, he would have already brought it up. Dorothy was going to have far fewer sensitive documents in her residence, and despite her wealth, was a poor target. History had taught her that it only took one untrustworthy person to sabotage privacy, or assassinate an entire board meeting with a bomb.
In Brussels, she hadn't had to worry about her security, as the lengths it would take simply to reach her building had been extensive, exclusive, and very well maintained. Here, they had to build their own infrastructure from the ground up, and it was all on their own heads to make an effectively safe system. A maid would inevitably learn all the secrets and weaknesses of her home as a matter of course; the trust level implied was… immense. There were things you could do with a massive amount of manpower and a corporation outlook that simply weren't feasible on the scale they wanted, here.
By the time they reached her suite, it was evident that the virtual labyrinth surrounding it was intentional. Obviously, anyone living there – including the maid – would find no trouble with it, but the entire layout was counterintuitive and without any clear pattern; a stranger would find themselves quite lost in short order. The colors were less vivid, keeping with the confusion and refusing basic landmarks, but still unusual, in shades ranging from a pale teal on most walls, but venturing into darker ranges of teal, aqua, blue, gray, and a few other colors to the more specific rooms. Most of the bedrooms had dark carpet and the bathrooms tile, but elsewhere was all dark wood in the same mahogany or stained walnut as the purple kitchen's cabinets. The doors and their frames stood out in an almost startlingly elegant way from the color in the same dark wood relief.
"How many walls did you knock down and rebuild?" She had found at least five stairways, and seen one set of cast iron railings that didn't stop on the second floor.
"I didn't keep track. I remember that it wasn't as many as I thought it might take, though." He grinned. "I haven't been away from you nearly enough to have orchestrated this in person, Lena, come on."
That was a valid point. Going into her – and she supposed Jake's, too, really – suite of rooms, she was momentarily surprised at how small the antechamber was. There was plastic of the draping over the wood floor that made odd noises under her shoes; these walls had apparently been primed, but not yet painted, and still stood bare. There was enough room for maybe two couches – so long as they weren't too large – and accompanying tables for papers or drinks, but it was obviously not somewhere that they would spend much time.
"I took liberties with the colors in the bedroom based on something I picked up from you, but I thought with how much flavor Mai added to the house otherwise, you might like a few rooms to play with yourself." He shook his head. "She showed me a few examples of what she wanted to try when I mentioned it needed to be done, but I think she rather outdid herself."
"I'm impressed," Relena agreed, finding herself delighted at the idea, despite how incredibly frivolous it seemed, before focusing on the far door. "You took liberties? And how many proxies did you use to get all this done?"
He smirked and gestured for her to go first. "Three, including Mai, but excluding David supervising a thing or two. We used a downright mess of people to get the more drastic work done without letting anyone get intimate with the layout or all the details, then I let Polanski have the run of the place for weeks on end before I let him bring in others to do finishing touches. Honestly, we only hired people in for the wall moving on this floor and the range downstairs – that kid's got creative drive and work ethic coming out his ears."
She grinned. "Isn't he the one with the duct tape that helped us sneak out to Amsterdam?"
"Yes; he'd helped us sneak in to Brussels without being noticed much the night of the attack too, so technically I knew him before he got mildly infamous for his heroics in concussed duct taping skill. After Amsterdam, though, I think your brother wanted to just leave him to rot, despite how much promise he has. Kid's thorough." He gestured again. "Aren't you going to look?"
"I was waiting for you to finish your thought." From the way he'd phrased it, he expected the next room to wow her, and she figured she wouldn't cut him off. That said though, she threw it open and, in spite of herself, gasped.
It looked… like water. The ceiling was the clear soft blue of the sky in Sanc and the walls were textured in ocean tones, all the shades of blue she could see in the sea from her balcony before… the pure, pristine white of the baseboards and crown molding just completed the effect. It looked like her room in Sanc had after she'd spruced it up –
The only thing missing was the balcony, but there was a window seat looking into the courtyard instead…
…and that was the four-poster bed and sheers she had fallen in love with in her time as a princess, in the one place that had been truly hers and home.
She fought the urge to cry; he'd probably understand, he had obviously talked to Dorothy and gotten her bedroom furniture for her, but just in that moment… No one did that kind of thing. No one had ever gone to that kind of length for her just to try to give her a little sense of peace or comfort, even her parents. She'd never thought it actually mattered, and had convinced herself she didn't care, but this… the rush of emotion flooding into her was overwhelming. The amount of thought and care he'd obviously put into this was just… "It's beautiful," she breathed. Turning in a full circle, drinking it in, she met his eyes. "Thank-you. It's just… perfect."
Her friend looked a little sheepish. "Good. Seems like I nailed it a bit better than I was even aiming for, but I'm glad you like it. Honestly, it was more a wild guess than anything, but when Lin brought up you being so happy to be by the ocean again, Dorothy remembered you running your hand over your dressing table while talking to her with the balcony doors thrown open, and…" He shrugged. "We're landlocked here, so I thought I'd try to compensate a little."
That was the wonderful thing about Jake; when it came to his friends, he pulled out all the stops, just because he wanted to and could. He noticed things most people missed, and went out of his way to make you comfortable and happy with little things that made all the difference. It would have been far easier to simply supply the room with something elegant, but he'd given her back her mother's dressing table and vanity that was inlaid with mother-of-pearl flowers on the drawers and corners…
It… meant so much more than she could possibly say aloud. She hadn't even known she had missed and wanted it back so badly, but he had, and he'd done it for her.
"It's wonderful, Jake, thank-you." She knew he could read how much she meant it in her voice and body language. Wiping at her eyes briefly, she focused on the bookcase in the corner by the door that looked like another murphy bed, currently up in the wall instead of out, and a dresser and walk-in closet. A set of shoji screens similar to the ones he kept for cordoning off his personal area in Brussels leaned against the wall. There were a few pieces of overstuffed furniture as well, and what at a glance was a decent bathing room set-up, though smaller than most of the full bathrooms they had come across so far… to the point of being perfunctory. She shrugged – a bathroom was really only there for doing the necessities, really – and went to run her hands over the vanity for the first time in almost three years. She had so very little of her birth parents, and this had always seemed so intimate and personal, somehow. Her mother had sat at this table every morning for years… it meant something for her to do the same.
"Lena? There's really not too much left…"
"Ah, of course," she muttered, realizing she had been in something of a haze. Cataloguing everything in the room, she realized that she had identified Jake's closet, but didn't see one for herself. "Where-"
"That way," he gestured, striding ahead of her to a door that was so perfectly painted into the ocean whirls and swoops that she'd missed it entirely. "It's a little camouflaged, which wasn't my intention, for the record. It's easy enough to change if it gets annoying, though; it would look good white."
"Probably," she agreed, opening the door… and blinking at the spiral staircase in the center of the large closet. "Oh just give it up and smile like the cat with the canary you are."
He laughed delightedly. "There's only three floors, right? This is the last… two things, I promise."
She giggled disbelievingly at that, turn to look at him… before grinning and dashing up the stairs.
His laugh followed her up as he took them at a more reasonable pace, and started explaining as she looked all around. "You can't really blame me for this one, it was all set up like this to start with."
Relena laughed outright, looking around in amazement. "Well they certainly had their priorities straight, then. Is that a sauna?"
Everything seemed like it was made of frosted glass… including the ceiling, and sizable parts of the walls. Some parts were wood or metal or ceramic obviously, but… Wow. There was a giant tub, and someone had left the doors open on the sauna and massive shower stall, and a smaller shower stall, which confused her for a moment, until she realized that the ceiling of it was the showerhead, with one area looking like it was heavier 'rain' than the rest. The stairway had come up on a sort of upraised platform, presumably so water wouldn't drop down into the room below… and there were a few drains on the floor for good measure. "Did they move out because they couldn't afford the water bill?" she asked half seriously. There were six sinks and plenty of counter space, maple cabinets, and some wooden stalls in the corner… She frowned and strode over to them.
"I doubt it," Jake decided, coming up into the room himself, and moving one foot to slide a hatch over the opening in the floor, then bending down to seal some kind of heavier latch she hadn't noticed with weathering around the edges that closed with a solid sound. "There's a well on premises."
The princess stopped at that, and turned to give him another disbelieving look. "Where did they put a well?"
He gave in and started snickering. "Below the bomb shelter?"
Relena sighed and closed her eyes a moment, unable to actually consider how having their own water source was probably also a good thing anyhow. She remembered one of the girls in Sanc mentioning her family estates all having wells simply as a matter of fact… A moment later she collected herself and went to consider a set of wooden stalls with frosted glass panels, and frowned at the deadbolts – one on the outside, and one on the inside – before blinking down at the raised teak floor panel for all of two seconds before she gasped and reached down to snatch it up. A deep, wide-mouthed, vertical copper tub glistened up at her. "An onsen!" She hadn't seen a good onsen since she'd left Japan, and the fact that it was metal meant she wouldn't have to wash completely before getting in… she looked up, and saw shower fixtures and a shelf, and a space to stand in or put the platform off to one side, so you should shower then soak, and the stall was small enough that it would steam up. There was a drain to the side, and the platform looked like it sealed, so you could really go back and forth, like if she wanted to leave a mask in her hair while she relaxed…
Technically, it didn't matter, with how deep that massive tub in the main was, but this was another thing she realized she'd expected to never see again.
"I suppose it was too much to hope that you'd think it was weird and leave it all to me," Jake noted dryly, coming up and gesturing at the locks. "I'm still using it, though; I added the locks for gender segregation problems, as it were."
Yes. If Dorothy managed to open the door on Jake in the tub, he might actually try to kill her. The sad thing was, he'd probably done the locks with exactly that thought in mind – he was putting up precautions to prevent him from murdering his friends.
Oh no. "Dorothy's going to try to move in."
He gestured towards a door down the hall. "There's rooms for her set up that way." Reaching past her, he put the platform back, and she moved out of the way so he could do it properly and close the door. "I'm more than thrilled with it all, don't get me wrong, but I'm still a little confused about this room," the soldier admitted. "I could call most of it variety and decadence, but there are seven sinks."
I must have missed one, Relena thought idly as she tried to come up with a possible solution. "Well… this house is old enough – and certainly big enough – to have been a noble family home, right?"
He nodded. "So a group bathroom, kind of thing?" He still looked a little confused by the idea.
Relena laughed as she realized why. "Women versus men, Jake; this looks like it might have been a place to be social in." Shaking her head and walking down the hall in the opposite direction of where he'd said rooms for Dorothy were, she asked, "What was the family name? Why did they leave?"
"As far as I can tell, the majority of them died or married off until they just couldn't upkeep it and not have it as a total waste," Jake explained. "They couldn't afford it anymore."
"Maybe a lot of daughters, then?" she suggested, considering the wall of cabinets. "It wouldn't have to be all daughters, if they were in a group home… It came up in class once when we were discussing inheritance and the fading nobility, that Olivia Dontelaine's family used to be one of the main power syndicates through Europe, but her great grandmother's generation had five daughters and no sons, so they started trying to return full heir rights to duchesses. It didn't really hold, though, and that generation of sisters had nearly all daughters too, and a few cases of divorce after children… What?" The expression on his face was highly amused, and she laughed. "This was a Dontelaine house?" Laughing more, she shook her head and continued on out. "I'll have to keep in mind that her family at least at one point was paranoid enough to make you proud. Maybe I ought to get ahold of Olivia. It's been a while, and- Oh!"
It was a long gallery that looked like it half wrapped around the house, overlooking the grounds… all of glass panels. The ceiling was all the same clear paneling so she could see the storm clouds perfectly, and the style was minimalistic with a few couches here or there, and tables, and with Lin standing over by one of the longer tables, smirking, with her bag for the day…
It was set up as her office. Lounge too, but… "Oh my God." No wonder the antechamber was so small. "How many staircases come up this high?" she asked breathlessly.
"Three, if you include the bathroom one; Dorothy would have to come through the bathroom to get in without going up and down the stairs a bit," Jake explained smoothly. "There is a staircase on her side though, obviously." He stepped forward, gesturing in the two directions that could serve as entrances. "That one leads straight down to the main pantry." The idea obviously amused him greatly, by his voice. "Which you didn't see, but is between the larger kitchen and surveillance. It has a foyer, but the staircase Dorothy would use to reach her rooms is the only one that actually accesses all three floors." Motioning to another area, he added, "There's a sort of… escape dumb waiter to the basement over there, and there are a few on other floors that I skipped over, which I'm still working out the details for security on." He smirked. "And since you've been so kind about not asking, I'll note that the framework for this room is weaker than the panels; I've seen this stuff take a hit from a beam saber and only dent." Smirk widening into a grin, he added, "You might really want to look into that Olivia friend of yours. I understand it was the Dontelaines that developed the material in the first place, in preparation for the space age, but I didn't change anything structural on this floor – they had already built it like this."
He was obviously incredibly pleased. "Maybe you should marry in," she suggested.
The blonde man rolled his eyes as Lincoln cackled. Relena smiled as he finished explaining a few technical details. Apparently he also had a surveillance set-up in one corner up here she had yet to see, and security wasn't fully arranged yet, which was part of why they had managed to move through the house so easily. None of the cameras above the first floor had microphones, for sake of privacy. The floor up here was the same deep wood as in most of the house, but despite the open space, her steps didn't really echo… though she jumped when they practically trilled underneath her like the spooky house horror music when she got too close to the door. Lin – in complete support of her, she was sure – started cackling again.
"You missed that in your little entrance room downstairs," Jake noted idly. "I think the plastic muffled it, or something; all the approaches are nightingale floors."
It was her turn to roll her eyes. "Wonderful, if we have intruders, they'll have to go on the walls all ninja-style to surprise you."
"Walking on the walls doesn't work so well when they're demagnetized steel."
…I really am going to have to look up the Dontelaine histories again, aren't I? "Point." She hadn't looked closely enough at the surface texture of the walls either, apparently. "So what else have you glossed over?"
oOo
oOo
June 18th 198 – Wednesday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah – Encampment Roshan
Roshan frowned as the light shifted, and put down his sliver of mirror to see who the fuck thought it was important enough to interrupt his morning rituals. They knew better than that, the little fuckers, so he didn't bother wiping the shaving cream off his face before turning, ready to tear the man to pieces…
To see Robby was standing just inside the entrance to his tent. "What are you doing here?" Robby was chaotic psychosis incarnate; everyone had orders to never let him near him unless Roshan had asked specifically-
"Once," the blonde muttered after a moment, "I would have made an offer, and said I was sorry."
What the fuck? He hurriedly used a towel to wipe his face and stood. The crazy shit was a loose cannon; staying sitting would have been a mistake. Roshan narrowed his eyes at him instead. "What do you want?" It was entirely possible that Robby had simply killed everyone who had tried to keep him from entering his tent… or somehow persuaded them to see things his way.
"Oh, so many things," Robby dismissed, moving towards him slowly, his expression blank… his almost boneless grace gone. His eyes seemed flat, and that made the panic swell in his gut faster as he realized he had never seen his subordinate look so sane as he did right now.
This was the man he'd feared existed, not the one he knew and held at bay.
He's taking the camp as his own! "The other encampments won't let you get away with usurping me," he snarled.
"If I had thought they would, I might have done this months ago," Robby noted tonelessly, stopping a yard away. He flicked out the blade he had already had in hand and shifted into a defensive stance before reaching with his left to draw the saber he kept strapped across his lower back. "You've only ever considered the possibilities that you can think of on your own, Roshan; always predictable, never any creativity. I've been grateful for that, but I won't regret cutting you down this morning. A different solution has presented itself, and one of the highlights was entering this very moment. For all the things you've done, knowingly and with pleasure, your chokehold of control… No one will mourn you."
He was talking nonsense again. "You're insane," he hissed, knowing that without any of his own weapons at hand, with Robby, he was too slow to even attempt to defend himself; the man was too blindingly fast.
The blonde chuckled darkly. "If only it were that simple."
He moved.
oOo
oOo
June 19th 198 – Thursday – Prague, Czech Republic
It was starting today.
Xutao supposed the only prevailing emotion he had at the moment was relief. He'd been investigating what he could of the Cambyses a little over a year ago before his cover had been blown and he'd gotten shot, which led to his long spiral of hide-and-seek with… well, enigmatic was the most polite word he could ascribe to his self-assigned traveling companion. Oddly, it hadn't actually been any of the Cambyses group that injured him, considering how volatile and dangerous that den of vipers had been; it had been the local police who had probably been looking for the same thing as him.
If there was anything he'd learned since leaving home, it was that no one in uniform appreciated aid from someone less inclined to join their ranks.
Cambyses, though… The General had told him to go take some personal time, probably to spurn Hilde into higher levels of determination – As if she needs any more of that – but it probably also had to do with how he'd broken down while giving his report on the group the military was now starting its takedown of. He didn't really feel anything particular about it today, to be honest… he'd more or less numbed himself to the memories all over again the moment the military had started to actively contemplate its destruction weeks ago.
…But he wasn't going to turn down personal time that he could lord over Hilde the next time she got obnoxious. It wasn't until he had arrived in the sims room and saw that his usual chair was taken that he remembered that 'personal time' was specifically that not spent training, and even if that's what he had always done with his time since he was a small child, that wasn't going to be the case here.
Sally Po had given him a very seriously-spoken lecture about it early on after finding and accepting him into her then motley crew, before noting that she would throw a book at him, if need be.
He had been holding out hope at some point after leaving home that he would come across women who weren't as overbearing and ready to embarrass him as his mother and aunts. Instead, he'd found a white Chinese woman who acted frighteningly like his own mother with the exception that she had guns to back it, a cool-headed commander who thought nothing of allowing his partner attempt to set him on fire while he slept – "You obviously weren't trying very hard to keep her out, Chang – consider that." – and a damn hellcat for a partner that made his childhood neighbor friend, Long Meilan, look sweet and demure in comparison.
He'd honestly felt sorry for Wufei when the Long line had deemed him acceptable to take up the prestige and honor of being made family as husband to their fiery heiress. There had been talk of how they expected many heirs in a timely manner, even. To that statement, Wufei had had the grace to do nothing but stare dully at the representative come with the announcement until the man left.
…Sometimes he wondered what had happened to Wufei. He'd apparently come across both Po and Noin multiple times, and just as apparently made his escape some time ago without bothering to look back. Even as far as the Regime had managed to track any of the pilots, Wufei had gone completely off the map with no sign of life since the middle of the battle at Libra. Despite that, no one had seriously considered that he might be dead… and even if he was, it wasn't as though they would treat the subject of him any differently. Sally Po had pointed out to him that Wufei actually had a long-standing history of doing exactly this, and that he wasn't exactly what she would call reliable even if he was around… And Xutao could only agree. Even when they were kids, Wufei had pointedly refused to consistently follow anyone's schedule but his own; it just worked out that he agreed with their teachers most of the time.
Though there had been that one philosophy class that he had walked out of on the second day and pointedly skipped for the rest of the block. Xutao had lived in fear for months that the professor was going to come tear down their dorm room door looking for his roommate; Wufei had stopped talking to him or even acknowledging that he existed until he stopped trying to reference the incident. And as far as Xu could tell, Wufei hadn't ever faced any consequences for it.
…The majority of the Cambyses members were people kidnapped or taken hostage, though; the missing people who were never found because there were too little traces. Maybe that was why Noin told me to take some time. It was hardly the first time the thought occurred to him, but he hoped more than anything that Wufei wasn't in the Sahara. He really hoped the jackass was sequestered off in some cramped room with books and papers piled everywhere so they were almost falling – feet on his desk, nose in a book, snarling at the poor bastard unlucky enough to room with him over any noise he made.
He didn't really want to sit and just think anymore, though. Sitting back up from his bed, he reached under it for his laptop, seriously considering just surfing aimlessly like he hadn't had reason to for years… at least, once he'd checked everything he ought to. Work wasn't something to be left idle, personal time or not, and-
In one of his throwaway sort of email addresses, there was a message titled:
oOo
'I don't like chances, they're iffy'
oOo
No… He'd known someone who said that, which had to be one of the more stupid, roundabout phrases he had ever heard from someone over the age of ten. Hurriedly, he clicked it open, half hoping it was spam about winning a lottery in some obscure part of the world-
oOo
806-51-238-669-3592-8
Call me, secure line.
Adam
oOo
It was a universal number, probably to a disposable phone.
So much for free time.
oOo
oOo
Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah – Encampment Roshan
"Charel, what the hell is this?"
"Smoke," the blonde returned flatly, not shifting from his vigil of the pyre. "I should think that much obvious."
Mitchell fought the urge to growl back his own response. "Why are you doing something that will draw more attention? This was not the plan!"
The Frenchman finally turned to meet his eyes; they were just as flat as his voice, as somber as the forced neutrality in his face. "I'm not entirely sure what started it. Either someone talked in their sleep or got the balls to try to save an old cage friend that stayed twisted. Whichever it was, it got violent, and even worse, it got loud." His eyes flicked towards his shoulder, but he visibly stopped himself from turning around to stare at the fire again. "These men were ours… Roshan's are where they fell." His eyes gained a stubborn glint. "I will not mix their ashes with ours."
Mitchell ran a hand down his face, eyes shut. He didn't fully blame the man, his reasoning was sound, but… Shit. "How much is this going to change the nearby encampment's reactions and preparations?" They were just going to have to salvage it somehow. As for the dead… "Do you know the enough about the dead for me to inform their families?"
That seemed to soften Razo's mask somewhat. Nodding, he admitted, "Robby kept a list. After our first casualty where we didn't know the true name of the dead, we… didn't want it to happen again. All of us came to be in Robby's squadron because he could see that we wanted out of here, back to the real world… Everything he did was to try to make it so we could go back home someday." He met Mitchell's gaze solidly for a moment before he did a half turn and his gaze slid back to the pyre. "A lot of us got this far by using nicknames and pretending we were someone else. He had the only copy of the list so no one could touch your real name, if that was how we managed."
The past tense was very obvious, as was the deference. "You weren't the squad leader." It had seemed as though he obviously was, before, but if he wasn't in power-
"Not even his second, or one of his captains," Charel agreed. "I wasn't in charge of keeping anyone alive but myself. I was his friend." He shrugged a little uncomfortably. "His people skills could use some work – he got used to giving out orders and expecting us to obey or die because of what he saw and was warning us of. He trusted me to handle this better than he would have."
Staring at the smoke again, he seemed to remember how off topic they had gotten. "This much smoke won't alert anyone; funeral pyres are common. No one will think twice about it until it's been a few days without news of what the incident was. Or at least," and he grimaced at this, "that is true so long as we caught everyone who tried to run. The captains think they did, but we haven't survived this long to make assumptions now."
The colonel sighed as some of the tightness eased out of his chest; the greater their element of surprise, the better chances for fewer casualties. It had been deemed too unethical to simply bomb the encampments in the Sahara, and he had agreed, but he couldn't help but wonder how many good men and women that he brought with him would go home in body bags. As it was, whatever had happened here had relieved him of at least one battle's casualty numbers without risking the entire operation.
"We didn't have a way to dispose of Roshan's dead without raising suspicion, and it was only over with maybe ten hours ago, when we knew you were coming. If the bodies aren't disposed of, it might be difficult for people to live here again any time soon."
"We brought people for that too," Mitchell assured him, and was gratified as he saw Razo Charel relax a little more. "Do you have Robby's list?"
Charel nodded. "Cory has it." Turning his back on the fire once more, he started to walk back in the direction of the main of their encampment. "I'll take you to him."
oOo
oOo
German countryside road
"Huh. Goats."
Jake snickered, probably remembering all his old cadet's goat insults, and Relena rolled her eyes, offering Mu a smile. "Goats," she agreed, "and sheep. I've really always been a fan of mutton, personally. If the cattle industry's crash hadn't been so economically devastating, I'd be delighted for the change in our diets." She winked. "Secretly, I'm still enjoying it, but I'm hardly one of the starving, am I?"
This was the third contact they were making with the individual sites where the heat amplifiers were being inspected, and the first time they had brought Mu with them as a translator instead of Mai. They had opted to leave the Australian major in Munich to oversee the final touches on the house, and to make sure the lieutenant that Jake hadn't initially planned on hiring didn't feel like a third… eleventh… wheel.
Really, once she'd taken a moment to actually talk to and spend some time with the American woman, she rather liked her. She didn't have Mailin's pure attitude and flair, but the princess was finding that to be on the verge of overwhelming sometimes in any case. Mu was more sedate, but considering the overall circus her entourage had the tendency to become in the off moments, that was far from a bad thing… Especially considering the fact that she could hold her ground with a level, amused look and raised eyebrow until she was allowed to finish making her point, if interrupted.
Her personality was a bit more in line with her own, Relena had decided.
"Mutton always struck me as a colonial food," Mu admitted, staring out the window. "The decrease in beef was probably one of the first things that made it all really hit home that I wasn't going to just… wake up and have everything be better again."
…Mu was American, and had the somber air most of the surviving citizens. Life had changed very little in the colonies, and while many of the shifts had been drastic throughout the planet, nothing compared to the massive dead zones and loss of the two American continents. The largest piece of Libra had fallen off the coast of Chile, but all of the northern half of South America, all of Central America, Mexico, and the western half of the United States had been heavily showered with debris.
Areas as far southeast as Buenos Aires and as for north as New York and Maine had escaped the majority of the initial damage, but the need to evacuate the north and what was left of the Midwest had been immediately apparent as temperatures quickly dropped. One of Milliardo's first motions of the Regime had been to attempt to evacuate as much of the west as was possible into the colonies, but before the week was out he had had to admit that sending any manned shuttles in was killing more than half of the attempted rescuers. He had retreated into assisting any shuttles that tried to rise out… but it hadn't been long before those became rare. Satellite footage had alternately shown complete abandonment and death and destruction, or rioting and violence. There had been some attempts to drop food and supplies from space, at first. They had sent a bare handful of ships specialized to withstand cosmic storms that could probably take the abuse of the weather, but only one had returned successfully – the others had been mobbed and wrecked, then taken for parts.
She had sobbed for days when Milliardo had officially closed the western borders from all entry, but she had understood. It had been a relief in some ways, as the shock of the Fall ended enough to really cry, where she had just been frozen before…
Then the eastern economy had started to collapse… And either a civil war or just pure chaos had ensued. She wasn't entirely sure of the end result, beyond it being utterly disastrous, and that it had possibly been preventable, with aid.
When Milliardo had terminated all support or even communication, she had screamed at him. She'd done it both logically, arguing, then just purely from the heart once it became clear nothing would convince him – that there was nothing left but despair. She'd curled up sobbing in his arms in front of his entire staff for over an hour. Afterwards, he had explained all the details and reasons why he had done it, and she had understood even if she didn't agree, and she had sat with him crying periodically all night, letting her very imperfect brother be an older brother and try to make everything alright. It had been a sense of family she had secretly missed and been craving for so long that it had made everything… okay again, despite the disaster, and had given her hope for her own future.
It was the day after that when he bought her the first ticket away from all the politics. She had never really forgiven him for that, though she still wasn't sure if the slight was over his belittlement or his abandonment of her, as well as of the Americas.
"…I can only perceive the disaster so far," Relena admitted after a long moment. "I understand more than that, but I cannot… comprehend the scale, and if I could, I'm not entirely sure I would be able to function at all." After another moment, she added, "I believe my brother is afraid to try to understand more than the logistics of it, himself."
"I don't blame him for the abandonment," Mu returned quickly, turning away from the window to meet her eyes. "I don't know that there was anything else really for options, and he supported any further evacuation attempts even after he shut the borders. It was a lost cause, and everyone knew it. There was nothing left to be had. I just…"
Which means she does blame him for Libra. She offered the woman a sad smile. But who doesn't? He did it. "I find myself wishing it had never happened, myself. I went up there to try to stop him, but…" She grimaced ruefully. "I suppose the results speak for themselves.
Relena would never defend her brother's attempt to wholesale slaughter the entire planet. Never.
Mu's smile was tired and rueful in the same way. "No use crying over spilled milk, really. It's done with, and if raging against the past would get me anything, I'd be all over it. But this is reality now, so I figure I might as well spend the energy on something more… constructive." Her following smile was more genuine as she gestured back out the window. "So. Sheep and goats have taken up a lot of the meat industry… and pigs too, right?"
"Right," Relena agreed, glad the other woman had introduced the change in subject. "And eggs; fewer chickens are going to the slaughterhouse, now. You haven't seen any of the hydroponics plant buildings yet, but they let the chickens run around, managing pests, and through the fields too. The pigs, however, don't need grazing ground, so they're stacked rather disgustingly indoors, floor after floor." She made a face. "I've only visited one of those personally, and don't greatly care to see one again unless it's absolutely necessary." Gesturing back out the window, she added, "This is a bit more peaceful. Raising rabbits for the meat and fur has gotten rather popular again, but it's mostly being done on a small scale…"
It was nice to dive into business, to focus on the productive measures being taken and leave the morose end of current life behind for a little while.
oOo
oOo
June 20th 198 – Friday – Lausanne, Switzerland
"I'm hungry."
Odin blinked as his phone vibrated, then frowned as he dug for it. "Didn't you eat an hour ago?"
Marlé shrugged. "Something like that. We should get food, though."
…He couldn't decide if that was probably normal or not; his own thoughts on the timing of food when he was her age had never been indulged. Frowning again at the 'Lu' on his caller ID, he hit the connect. "Grüetzi."
"Grüetzi," Noin's voice returned almost impatiently. "How's your schedule over the next two weeks?"
He ran a few references and scenarios through his head. "Easily arranged. Why?"
"Tch. Two of my best are running off on some sort of family emergency, and I don't have anyone that could cover a few of their shifts. You do good work, when I can talk you into it."
Odin considered Marlé for a bare moment, then shrugged. "I'm not against it. Which shop were they working out of?"
"Bucharest. Where in Switzerland are you, again?"
"Lausanne." There was a reason he'd answered the phone with a Swiss greeting, despite being in the French part of the country.
"I know the trains through there," Noin decided after a moment. "They usually have one on its way to Milan around 13:00."
He checked his watch. "That's only half an hour off, so I should be able to make that then plan the rest of the route from there." Marlé made a rather loud, annoyed noise at him and he rolled his eyes. "Go find something to eat then, I'll pack." Gesturing for her to be careful before she darted off, he headed back in the direction of the hotel they had been basing out of for the past four days. "You're checking that time, right?"
"As we speak," she agreed. "What was that about?"
Noin already knew Marlé existed. "She wants to eat on the hour, apparently; she was demanding a second lunch before you called."
A thoughtful noise. "She's young, I've gathered?"
"Somewhat."
"Is she going to be with you?"
"Vaguely."
She laughed. "You're surprisingly honest, you know."
"I'm not sure how to respond to that."
There was another husky chuckle on the other end of the line. "Exactly."
Odin shrugged. "How urgent is this, really?"
"Mm, not as much as I'm making it out to be, if you need a handful of days, but important; I was hoping you weren't so far as 2000 kilometers away. I trust you dislike planes as much as I do, these days?"
"My passport is colonial, so I have less issue getting to and from space," Odin allowed, "but Earth air transports give outsiders a harder time." Zechs only bothered trying to control the colonies to a minimal degree; his own backyard, however, was a different story, and planes could all too easily become a trap with a single poor move. It was entirely doable, but there were easier methods available. "It's just not worth the hassle if I can help it."
"Mm, I get the same trouble with my Earth passport out in space these days," Noin agreed companionably. "There's just no other option, up there."
"True." Technically, there were ways, but he was sure that Noin knew them, and they were hardly the kind of thing to discuss over the airways.
They were silent for a moment as he walked and she presumably looked up the information he needed, before Noin dared ask a more personal question. "The girl will be fine without you, right?"
Odin smirked. He appreciated the sentiment on some level, but the fact that she might not be was… amusing. "I've taught her how to handle herself; I don't want her far enough away that I can't help her if she needs it, but she can manage any situation either on her own or long enough for me to back her up." He frowned. "Are we going to be moving around at all?"
"…We might, a bit."
Maybe I should send her to the Sronas. It wouldn't be much further to Israel from Romania, and he could probably get Moira to meet her partway. He trusted the Sronas, and Leia both knew and had no issue with them; she and Dr. Srona were not so different in their ideals, after all. After meeting Sally, Samuel, and Leia, he was starting to suspect that medicine tended to breed a certain kind of individual. He'd have to talk it over with Marlé on the way to Milan.
"Alright, the train leaves at 13:20, and it doesn't look like it's a very full trip, so you should be able to buy the tickets at the station if you'd prefer."
"Aa. I'll contact you once I have a route planned."
"Thanks, Heero."
oOo
oOo
June 21st 198 – Saturday – Sahara Desert – Southeast Libya, deep in the Expanded Rabyanah – Early morning hours
It was… like a dream. If it hadn't been so cold now with the biting night wind, or if he hadn't been watching and rationing his water carefully, he might have thought it all a mirage or fever dream, but… somehow, it was real.
The last two days had been an insane brand of hide and seek south through the dunes on a level that Dana wouldn't have believed was at all possible, before Robby had done it with them. After all, they had gotten so skilled at trying to find people doing just that, let alone the way they skirted a few encampments so closely… The only answer Robby had been willing to offer was that he couldn't have pulled it off with a larger group than they made up. That he hadn't tried this already because there had been no way he could take the entire encampment, over a hundred men, by this route. He had been trying to scout the way for nearly a year, and he said he'd finally figured it out in April, but…
If Dana hadn't already trusted in Robby more than be believed in the existence of his very soul, he would have thought the man had finally finished going off the deep end and was leading them to their deaths in the depths of the sands that even the Cambyses hadn't dared to venture into. After they had made their way past the southernmost encampment at a travel time that'd had them all gasping, he had headed still further south, into the nastiest part of the desert that was supposed to have raging sandstorms more often than not. There was nothing this way, nothing but dehydration and exposure and death…
…And what looked like the shadow of a giant military base, mostly buried in dunes.
There was something both humbling and deeply comforting about when Robby was so perfectly right and capable. Their leader had known the code to open the great, shuddering door that led into a dark but shockingly clean and untouched metal hallway, which had then turned into the balcony of a cavernous space that could only have been used to house mobile suits, once. After they had all gotten inside and shut the door, Robby had closed his eyes and taken a deep breath, relaxing into a slump, before he turned and smiled brightly, genuinely at them.
It was the first time he had ever seen the man look anything close to happy, and it was like the stern, wild fighter he had followed through Hell itself began to simply melt away. "Welcome to Adashia, everyone." His voice was quiet and his face tired, but there was a foreign warmth in it. "I lived here with friends, once… Rashid won't mind if we liven the place up a bit, I'm sure."
oOo
oOo
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Chaos was his hero – if he wanted to admit to having anything like a hero.
Well, it's Kasey, now. He supposed saying 'chaos' like that sounded a little crazy.
When he'd first met the guy, he hadn't expected much. He'd assumed that before too long, they'd probably never see him again; or if they did, only rarely. That was the usual pattern when someone reached out to the church – it was something about how people's minds worked. They did their 'good' deed and helped the poor church and the poor little orphans, maybe even went to a lot of effort with it. Sometimes they'd even stay in touch for a handful of months, but then it got more spaced out, and kinda random. Once they'd gone and done their 'something good', they tended to fade into the background and forget the little church existed for months or years until they felt guilty about something and tried to absolve themselves by coming in with donations. Father Espen had explained to him when he was little that, for better or worse, those were the patterns that outsiders of the church usually followed.
Basically, most people thought God was something they only needed when things weren't going their way, and could be forgotten otherwise.
But Chaos hadn't been like that; he'd practically moved in as much as you could, without sleeping there. And he'd never been a pain about anything, he'd just… been Chaos, he supposed. He didn't want or expect anything in return – he was just… there. It had been nice.
It wasn't exactly a surprise to find out he was the same way with the Devils too, though it was kinda unbelievable; another of those patterns most people held onto was that if they spent up their kindness in one place, they usually ran out of it in other places, with other people. Men would treat their customers and beat their wives, try to give the world to their little sister while they mistreated strangers. The best scenarios to hope for with people, on average, was that they showered attention on one person or group, and were just apathetic about everyone else. There was a kind of safety in anonymity, because most of the time, people had to give a damn to want to try to hurt you in the first place. At least, that was true so long as you looked poor and uninteresting; Amos was pretty sure he'd avoided more than one terrible situation just by looking too broke to be bothered with.
His father would have cried to hear him say that… but sometimes he wondered if it was his father's pride that had killed him in the end, leaving him alone until Father Espen took him in.
He hadn't been able to cry when the Father had told him he couldn't stay at the church anymore. Everything had frozen and shattered and he hadn't known how to even breathe until Kay pulled him into a hug, and he realized why the mechanic was there in the first place. He'd gasped out a sob without meaning to and held onto him tighter… because he'd known Chaos long enough to know he'd keep his promises. That he wouldn't lose interest like everyone else always had. Kay actually cared about him, and he knew that living with him, it would all turn out okay, no matter what happened. With anyone else he would have assumed that it would only work for a few months and then he'd have to figure something else out, but Kay was… well, just different. And now that it had been a while, he thought it was actually… nice… to not be living out of the church.
"Are you good on your homework yet?"
"Almost done," Amos called back, focusing back on his textbook instead of the tool set Kay and Melissa had given him for his birthday last month. It still seemed unbelievable, sometimes… but he'd gotten used to the idea that that was just how things might be from now on. It was weird, but definitely not bad… and even if it got bad he was starting to think it might still be okay.
Either way, though, he was starting to think he needed to get Nolan to help him if he wanted to pass English.
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Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah
Mitchell sighed, leaning back in his camp chair and closing his eyes.
It could have been going far worse.
Charel's encampment and the one further east than them had been settled nigh immediately, and the next closest – east, southeast, south – they pulled off ahead of schedule, thanks to Charel and his people. From there – northwest, then heading northeast – it had been about what he'd expected… but he'd expected a hard hit of casualties and heartbreak.
Unfortunately, fate hadn't disappointed him.
At least that first kid, Cory, was safe. He was far from psychologically sound, but that would take time… and the fact that the boy's family had gone missing with him hadn't been surprising, though David had held out some small amount of hope. He hated to send him into the system of orphanages, but there were so many orphans now, and it would still be a kinder life than his last two years.
Charel seemed to be in a permanent state of scorn, but he knew Mitchell was doing as much as he could, and didn't dispute him. The Frenchman had to be admired for the fact that he was pushing ahead steadily regardless of everything, but David supposed that that was how he'd made it this far in the first place.
He wished he'd paid more attention to the man they all claimed had pulled them together, before he'd died. Robby… Robin Stanton, according to the list. He had found a few possible relatives in the databases, but he had decided he wasn't going to give any official notices until the core of the conflict was over. He had enough shit on his plate, currently.
They were only three days in… it was going to get worse. It was probably going to get much worse, and it was all he could do to hope that there were more people across the Sahara like this Robby, or in the absence of that, enough who would turn on their fellow Cambyses if given an option. He was a little low on that hope, however; Cory had tried to tell him that there were so few in the nearby camps because Robby had actively hunted for non-believers, but that seemed both improbable in terms of accuracy and highly optimistic. He had nothing against optimism in general, but he wasn't going to count on it any time soon.
He was done for the night, though, and he trusted the people he had on guard and staff… in a minute, he'd remember where he put his bedroll and do his meditation so he could get a few dreamless hours of sleep. He vaguely considered calling Jake, but decided he wasn't in the mood for any kind of cheerful company, or feeling maudlin enough to talk about what anything that had happened. Jake could just focus on the princess and politics, and he'd… get this done. He'd get it done so that people could be safe again, and maybe some of these kids could go home, and the victims could rest in peace.
If it wouldn't fuck up the usable land in north Africa, he was tempted to seriously reconsider the idea of bombs. If the rate of deserters stayed as low as in the five encampments after Roshan, it might truly be less loss of life overall.
But if he was truly starting to think that way, it really was time to forcibly shut his brain down and sleep.
Groaning softly, he pushed himself back to his feet and headed towards one of the shuttles. He could just use one of the standard issue bedrolls – he didn't feel up to finding which shuttle he had last left his shit on. Waving to people as he passed by, he muttered his intentions so everyone would know where to find him, and started obliterating all his stray thoughts.
He couldn't afford the restless sleep that nightmares would offer him; he needed to keep functioning at his best.
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Sahara Desert – Southeast Libya, deep in the Expanded Rabyanah – Adashia
After they had first arrived, he had only stayed conscious long enough to show everyone where the bathrooms and sleeping quarters were, and most had followed his example. In order to get them this far so fast, he had had to push them to their limits… and himself well past his own. When he had found Adashia again two months ago, their camp had been further southeast, and he had been able to take a more direct and faster route than he had this time – it was easier to hide himself than it was to conceal twenty-six men. He hadn't allowed himself to push any risks as far as he did alone either; it would have all been for naught if they were found, so he had given the group a far more buffer his last run.
When he had woken again, he had focused entirely on working out what functionality the base still had and fixing what problems he found. The water was still good, and the heater too; everyone else had immediately gone to shower, at that point. Thankfully, the attack that caused them to evacuate the town three years ago appeared to not have damaged the hanger irreparably. Only one of the large hanger doors would still open, but that was all he needed. That done, he had gone to search out the food stores, only to find that the others had beaten him to it and there was plenty of dinner for everyone, something to genuinely celebrate… And then once he had eaten and was leaning back to relax, Vaska had teased him for still being unwashed, and he hadn't been able to avoid it any longer.
Don had tossed him a pair of khakis and a t-shirt that he had found somewhere along with the novelties of fresh underwear and socks, and he hadn't been able to do anything but stare at the clothes for a moment, wondering who they had belonged to… thankful on some level that they weren't his. He hadn't had to be startled out of his reverie to break it, though, so had found a razor and made his way to the bathroom… and avoided looking at the mirror.
He wasn't entirely sure he was ready to face himself again just yet. It would… break the dream. Bring home just how twisted everything had become, despite the best intentions. He was hanging onto a tenuous thread of sanity, and the world was all about to shatter again… and it might take him time to pick up all the pieces.
He didn't want to see the boy who had once thought he could change the world for the better.
The razor had been a hopeful sort of waste when it came to his face, as he still hadn't grown anything that could pass for stubble of beard, but it was nice to not have a ridiculous amount of hair under his arms again. His father had insisted he always be impeccably groomed, growing up, and hair collected smell faster… he wondered how long it would be before his nose readjusted to differentiate true cleanliness again, or if it ever would. The thick suds of the shampoo and soap was a luxury he had forgotten about entirely, never mind the strangeness of having hair so long that it was halfway down his shoulder blades. I should probably keep it long; it'll frame my face differently. He had been growing it out before Cambyses had taken him, after all. He would need to get someone to cut it into something that looked purposeful, though, instead of just the current shag he was sure it made up.
He was done being a vagabond; he wasn't going to look like one anymore either.
The time under the hot spray of water was spent collecting himself, making tiny, frivolous decisions that nonetheless made him feel better, more… solid. This was going to be a new start again, and probably rough, but not… new new. This was old ground, things he was familiar with and good at, and he could follow his own morals and beliefs openly now. He didn't need to mask himself and trick and tie his own mind into knot after knot of deception just to stay out of suspicion and alive…
I'm going to live by my own rules again. Well, give or take a few details – like keeping from being recognized.
He stayed in the water until he felt as though he could face down any demon, whatever fate threw him next, before opening the shower stall door and wrapping an amazingly thick, fluffy towel around himself. The towel felt smaller, like it covered less of him than it used to… and he wondered, suddenly, how much he had grown. He hadn't really cared before, but he was… eighteen now. Cambyses had taken over fifteen months from him.
On a visceral level, he hoped that Colonel Mitchell razed them all to the very ground. He knew better, that there were people like his own… but he couldn't let himself care about the ones he didn't know, or he'd truly go mad. It was better that he have nothing to do with it.
…Enough tangents. Gathering his nerves in a tight grip, he leaned forward to wipe the steam away from the mirror in a large circle, and took a deep breath before really looking at himself… and blinked.
A stranger blinked back at him.
Disbelieving, he snatched up a hand towel and wiped more of the condensation away to get a clearer image, turned his head from side to side, finally leaning forward so he was only a bare inch away and stared, reaching up to trace the scar along his left cheek – which was more faint than he had sworn it must be, by feel. It wasn't until his breath had fogged the glass again that the pure shock of it all broke.
He started laughing, and found he just couldn't stop.
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New Orleans, Louisiana – The United States
Hilde shivered a little as she punched in numbers, glancing back in the direction of the boys. Reintroductions had been fun, and they had all moved into a safer area than where Xu had managed to land them before 'Adam' began explaining the situation, but if she waited to report any longer, the General was going to be furious, and Sally would line up to slap them both right after her once they got home. She was still within bounds, though, and she wanted to make this call on her own, so she'd told Xu she'd handle it. He seemed happy to talk to his old traveling companion again anyhow, even if he was trying not to show it; apparently Adam had grown since last year.
He'd grown in more than just the last year, by Hilde's memory.
"Are you safe?"
"Safe and secure," Hilde assured, wrapping her arms around herself as she stared out at what she knew had to have once been a bustling city. She'd never been to Earth before Libra, but she knew the pictures and stories as well as anyone. Then, even if she hadn't, it was obvious that this place had once been great, then desolated. There were people here and there, here, but not as many as she would have thought. She would have thought more people would be staying to the coastlines.
She really hoped that she was wrong. If she was right, and people were gathering closer to the oceans, then the conditions further inland were more than she wanted to actively think about. She'd known coming to America would be depressing as hell, but knowing wasn't necessarily preparing.
"What's going on?"
"It's complicated," Hilde started. "I'll give you the layout in a minute, but first… This Adam guy?"
Noin made a relieved sort of noise. She'd wanted to know more about him, but Xu hadn't been able to give them much. "Yeah?"
Hilde glanced sidelong back at the brunette and shook her head a little, a smile creeping onto her face. "Totally Trowa Barton."
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Breaking the Rules
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Thoughts? Review, maybe?
