White | Silver | Black
Duo shivered, pulling his jacket closer around himself. He was half crouched in the shelter under the bridge where he'd spent the previous night. Where the hell is he...?
"Are you sure you want to do this...?" Lowell asked quietly, as he emerged from the shadows of the alley. "We can find another way."
"I'm okay," Duo muttered. "I grew up living in alleys. This is nothing new."
"Right," Lowell didn't press it, for which Duo was intensely grateful. "In that case... here." He thrust a small bundle at Duo.
"What's this?" Duo blinked down at the worn bundled blanket.
"It's a blanket." Lowell grinned at Duo's stunned look. "It's actually three blankets, there's a thermal one sewn between the other two."
"Why...?"
"If you're going to be watching my back while we stake this area out... I'd rather you weren't a popsicle," Lowell shrugged. "The outer blankets are worn enough, you'll look like any other street person."
"Thanks," Duo wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, and felt the immediate relief from the wind.
"No problem." Lowell glanced at his watch. "I'm taking the north end tonight. You good here?"
"I'm fine," Duo ignored the concerned look the older man gave him. "You don't have to baby me, Lowell. I can handle myself in the field."
"I don't doubt that," The man sighed. "I just would imagine even former Gundam pilots have to sleep sometime."
"You'd think," Duo managed a faint laugh. "But I don't intend to sleep anytime soon. So go skulk out your own area."
"Watch your back." A moment later the man was gone, fading into the shadows as efficiently as Duo could have. Damn good thing we never ran up against him in the war....
Duo grimaced a little, as true night fell and the temperature dropped even more. Great. Back where I always promised myself I'd never be again... cold, hungry and alone on the streets.
Shaking his head a little, he huddled closer into his shelter beneath the support struts of the 87th street bridge. The two derelicts he'd displaced earlier that week had finally given up on taking the space back, and the harbor area's nightlife were only beginning to creep out of the shadows again. For the moment, he truly was alone.
Pulling the battered collection of ragged blankets closer around him, he moved higher, up to the small alcove just beneath the bridge itself. While colder than the area where he'd been staking his claim since early afternoon, it offered an unparalleled view over a large chunk of the labyrinthine maze that was the Sanck capitol's Harbor District.
Sanck, like most cities that ran out of space, had been forced to build up rather than out. The bridge didn't actually cross water, but was threaded between the buildings in such a way as to bypass the nearly impenetrable harbor area. Only those who worked the docks and the cargo warehouses, and those who lived off of them, ventured into the depths. As a result, the neighborhoods had become small, ethnic islands within the larger city; and a few were quickly turning into slums that would rival L2's ragged cluster of ancient colonies.
Little Russia, as it was informally known, spread along the Southwest edge of the harbor, bordered by Upper Chinatown on the East and Neo-Amsterdam on the West. It covered less than five square miles, but was home to nearly six thousand people. The population ran the full range from dockworkers and their families, sailors in port for a few days, down to what Duo had once named the Lost. They were the derelicts, the runaways and orphans, and the prostitutes. As well as those who preyed upon them. The Lost... I named us that back on L2. Funny how a classy, shiny place like the Sanck Kingdom can still have the dark underbelly that you find anywhere. Guess it just goes to show that there really is no difference between Earth and the Colonies. The thought only served to depress him more. We fought the whole damn war to change things... make them better for everyone... and nothing's really changed yet. There's peace, yeah... but for the poor, all that's really changed is the names of those ignoring the problems.
Shaking himself out of his depressed thoughts, he went back to watching the activities in the alleys below him. Two of the bodies had been found in this area, surprisingly close to each other; though from the lack of blood in or around the bodies, it was evident that they'd been dumped there rather than killed on site. Despite the fact that he didn't want another murder to occur, he found himself wishing that something would happen to let them find the murderer. It's freaking cold out here... and I really miss Zechs and Dorothy.
The brief glimpse he'd had of them as they moved through the harbor district earlier that day had only made the odd sort of homesickness worse. The two had been covering the area dressed in full Preventer gear and asking official questions, to draw any suspicion away from the two newest inhabitants of the district. Not that anyone paid much attention to me. What's one more street kid? Lowell's got the more difficult job, but then, he's the only one of us besides Dorothy that speaks any Russian at all.
Lowell had used some of his connections to arrange a ride in as a temporary shiphand looking for dockwork. Now, two days later, he was living in a rented room and working in one of the warehouses near the dock. He'd been trying to make friends with some of the workers around him, and pick up information that way. At night, he'd started patrolling the docks themselves.
Duo had taken the other end of Little Russia, spending the last few days panhandling, and skulking in the alleys with the other homeless. Both were blending into the background easily enough, but so far, neither of them had uncovered much in the way of information about the murders.
Glancing around, he decided to take advantage of the sheltering darkness to scrounge another sandwich from the supply that Lowell had dropped off out of the battered backpack. It wouldn't do to be seen carrying food... he'd have every beggar for five blocks hunting him down. Carefully unwrapping the sandwich Lowell had slipped him, he took a bite and tried not to think about how strange it felt to be working with someone other than his partners. It's just temporary... Lowell may be an okay guy...but he's not part of Purgatory. He's too sane. The thought made him smile a little. He doesn't have enough ghosts following him around.
But the smile faded quickly as he realized for the first time that he missed Zechs and Dorothy more than he did Trowa. Of course you do idiot. They're your partners. He's just your best friend... and the partner and lover of someone that doesn't like you. But he couldn't help wondering if Trowa ever missed him. Am I still his best friend? Or has Yuy taken that title too? And does it even matter any more? Even if he was here... I'd still be part of Purgatory, and he'd be...sane. Like Lowell.
Zechs glanced up as the door opened, and Duo slipped wearily into the room. He had obviously just showered, and his hair had been twisted into a dripping coil rather than it's customary braid.
"You okay?"
"Yeah... just tired." Duo flopped onto the couch. "How are you guys doing?"
"About the same. We're supposed to meet Howard tonight. You want to come with us?"
"No...I need to get back out there... just wanted to grab a few good hours of sleep before Lowell panics and drugs my sandwiches or something."
"He'd better not even think about it...." Zechs growled, scowling.
"I'm kidding..." Duo grinned wearily. "Gah... I'm too tired to even braid the mess. Gonna grab a nap." Heaving himself wearily off the couch, he staggered towards the door to Purgatory's bedroom.
Zechs sighed and followed him into the dark room. "Have you been sleeping at all?"
Duo rolled his eyes. "Yeah... an hour here or there. Out there... that's all you dare. Otherwise you either freeze to death or get rolled in your sleep." He didn't meet Zechs' eyes, which told the older man exactly what Duo wasn't saying.
"How bad are the nightmares?" He asked flatly. Duo flinched.
"Huh...?"
"Solo told me you've been having nightmares about when you were a child on the streets. You aren't sleeping. How bad?"
"Bad enough," the younger man sighed. "Out there is not a place you want to wake up screaming...."
"I'd rather you didn't wake up screaming anywhere..." Zechs shook his head. "Get in bed. I'll braid your hair for you."
Duo just stared at him for a minute. "Huh? Why...?"
"Because if you go to sleep without even brushing it, it will take half the night to untangle again." His expression softened a little. "And I have no intention of leaving you here alone to face the nightmares."
Duo just blinked at him, looking oddly stunned. "But what about your case...?"
"It can wait," Zechs smiled softly. "Lay down." Once Duo was settled, Zechs sat down with his back to one of the couches and gathered up the damp mass of chestnut hair. Duo sighed softly as he started to carefully brush out the tangles. Zechs couldn't help smiling a little, as Duo relaxed visibly.
"Missed you guys..." Duo muttered, more than half asleep already.
"We missed you too."
'Ah... now there's a picture worth a thousand words...' Treize grinned a little at the annoyed look Zechs threw him. Of course, the glare was considerably less effective than it would have been if Duo hadn't been curled up in the blonde's lap and holding on to him as if he was a large plush toy.
"Bite me," Zechs sighed.
'I would if I could...' Treize shrugged a little philosophically.
"Damn... Treize, I'm sorry."
'Don't be sorry,' the ghost sighed. 'It's alright.'
"It's not..."
'There's also nothing to be done about it.' Treize shook his head. 'I'm dead... there's no getting around that, and it wasn't your fault. It just is.' Sitting down on the couch behind Zechs, the ghost reached out a phantom hand towards Duo. The younger man flinched in his sleep, mumbling incoherently as he curled closer into Zechs arms.
'He felt me...?' Treize blinked in shock.
"I don't think so... not the way he would feel me..." Zechs looked just as startled as Treize had. "Though now that I think of it... he's flinched when Solo touches him too."
'Maybe he feels the emotions...' Solo suddenly appeared next to Duo, crouched in the center of the mattress. 'Like he can pick up on memories in objects.'
"But there's nothing solid to anchor them too..." Zechs shook his head.
'Amputees' have been claiming for years to feel limbs that are no longer there. And after that one study using Kirlian photography... there is obviously something still there.'
"So what does that make you... full body amputees?" Zechs sighed, and pulled Duo closer as the younger man started to squirm.
'Maybe...' Treize looked thoughtful, but he was interrupted before he could delve deeper into that theory as the door opened, and Dorothy stepped into the room.
"Zechs...? Oh... shit. Is he okay...?"
"Sleeping," Zechs sighed. "He was starting to get pretty strung out again from lack of it."
"I know how he feels," She growled, looking almost as weary as Duo had. "I do not know how he dealt with constant nightmares all this time."
'Not well, obviously, or he wouldn't have started hanging out with you'all...' Solo muttered, sitting back on his heels. 'Not that that's been a bad thing,' He added hastily when Zechs glared at him.
"What's up...?" Zechs asked Dorothy as she came to sit down on the mattress near Duo's head.
"Epyon got a lead on the Sabrello MO's... and I thought we could check it out before we headed for the meeting with Howard." She shrugged. "But if Duo's asleep... we can wait until tomorrow...."
Treize sighed, and saw Solo roll his eyes. They never even considered the fact that Duo sleeping might not take precedence over the possible break in a case. Head over heels... and completely oblivious. It would be almost sad, if they weren't all so damned cute.
Zechs pulled the car over to the curb, as Dorothy verified the address Howard had given them.
"This is it...." She glanced nervously at him. "Wish Duo'd been able to come with us."
"I just hope the few hours of sleep he managed to get does him some good tonight. He still didn't look so good when he left."
"Neither did Lowell when we saw him earlier," she sighed and got out of the car. "Shall we?"
"Yeah." He walked over to knock on the warehouse door. After a moment, and the sound of several locks clicking open, Melvin opened the door.
"Come on in..." He glanced nervously behind them. "You weren't followed, were you?"
"Should we have been?" Zechs raised one eyebrow questioningly. "You act like we're doing something illegal."
"Melvin has watched a few too many spy movies with Duo," Howard snorted as they moved deeper into the warehouse. "Come on back..." They followed his voice towards the far end of the warehouse, behind several racks holding skids of plastic rollstock. On the far side, was a small office. Howard was just sitting down on the far side of the desk, next to another man with a beaky nose and wildly bushy hair. It took Zechs a moment to recognize the man sitting with Howard.
"Professor G?" He hesitated in the doorway, and felt Dorothy stiffen at his side warily. "I'd heard you were dead...."
"Rumors of my death have been... greatly exaggerated," The old professor rolled his eyes at Howard. "You were right... Duo has gotten to them too."
Howard laughed. "Not as badly as you might have expected. He hasn't actually gotten around to sharing most of his vid collection with them yet."
"Thank the Gods for something." The old man shook his head. "Just call me Gordon. I'd be just as happy never to hear the name Professor G again."
"I suppose this actually explains some of Melvin's paranoia," Zechs sighed, and moved farther into the room. "And why Howard didn't want to attract Lady Une's attention either."
"Let's just say I'd like to stay out of the limelight for a bit," Gordon shrugged. "Duo didn't come with you?" The professor sounded disappointed.
"No... he's out in the field right now."
"Alone?" Melvin huffed as he closed the door to the small office. Zechs sighed as he and Dorothy took seats in the last two chairs around the desk. "I thought you were his partners...."
"He's got backup..." Dorothy shrugged. "Zechs and I...stood out a little too much for this assignment."
"Ah," Gordon sighed. "Well... give him my best, will you?"
"Of course," Zechs nodded. "So... now that introductions are out of the way...?"
"Yes, yes." Gordon frowned. "Did you bring...it with you?"
"Epyon?" Dorothy scowled. "Of course." Zechs saw the wary look in her eyes and sighed. She frowned at him, before relenting and pulling the laptop out of it's carrying case.
"That's it...?" Gordon looked almost disappointed. "That's Epyon?"
"Yeah..." Dorothy scowled and hugged the laptop to her almost protectively.
"See why I wasn't as concerned about size?" Howard grinned, and clapped his old friend on the shoulder. "What we came up with should fit it just fine. You've got to stop thinking in terms of Gundams...."
"Yeah, yeah... fine. Laugh it up." Gordon frowned at Howard, then turned back to Dorothy. "It really can't talk to anyone besides you?"
"Not that we've found... though it might be able to talk to Yuy." She shrugged.
"No one can talk to Yuy... except maybe that Barton kid." Gordon rolled his eyes. "Jay really shouldn't have ever been allowed to raise a child."
Howard just snorted, as if this was a very old argument, and started covering the desk with equipment from a case near his feet. First was a slightly smaller laptop than what Epyon currently resided in, and though it looked lightweight, there was the faint blue-black sheen of gundanium to the case. A number of scanners, connecting cords and what appeared to be a large jewelry box followed this. Dorothy and Zechs just watched in bemusement as the three engineers began setting up the equipment.
"Okay... this will be Epyon's new home, more or less permanent." Howard flipped up the monitor of the laptop and turned it on. "We've already installed all of the hardware and circuitry from the diagrams that... Treize... provided. The case is gundanium, shockproof, and for all intents and purposes bulletproof. It has a solar cell along with a 36-hour backup battery and just for kicks... a standard powercord as well. We also brought extra batteries."
"Wow..." Dorothy turned the case towards her. "It's light...."
"The entire thing weighs about three pounds. Five with the carry case we designed. Which is scannerproof, bulletproof as well... and also contains a solar recharger for the spare batteries within."
"Thorough..." Zechs nodded appreciatively.
"My boy... we've just begun...." Howard shook his head with a grin, and cracked his knuckles. "This was the easy part... The hard part was this little baby right here."
Dorothy's eyes widened as the velvet jewelry case was pushed towards her. "And that is....?"
"Open it." Gordon bounced slightly in his chair. "This was my baby... and the reason behind all those scans Melvin took of your arm."
She opened the case slowly, and blinked. Inside the box was a bracelet, with the same blue black sheen as the laptop. It was perhaps three inches wide, formed from interlocking disks of metal fitted with paua shell.
"You made me a bracelet?"
"This is not merely a bracelet. It holds four microchips, which form a base for Epyon when he is in the interface.... And should work as a miniature antenna to increase his range when not in the laptop itself. Plus..." The old man lifted the bracelet out of the case. There was a small click, and he pulled out a length of wire from one of the discs. "It will plug into any standard computer dataport."
"I..." She blinked at the three engineers. "This is... far more than we expected."
Howard patted her hand. "It's also completely theoretical until we know it works. So if Epyon would like to try it out...."
"Right." Zechs squeezed her shoulder. "What's he think?"
"I think he's in shock too..." she mumbled, then put her hand on the new laptop case. A moment later, the screen began to fill with numbers and letters, strobing through the entire color spectrum as well. It took Dorothy a moment to realize that she was holding her breath.
Dorothy...
"Epyon?"
Home/body again. Not hurt...
"Not hurt? You were in pain?"
Missing... part. Still missing... but more... whole now.
"Well?" Howard asked impatiently. "What's it saying?"
"I think... I think he likes it...." She hesitated. "He says he is more whole now than he was."
"Good. We had to make some guesses as to what parts of the coding might have been lost that crippled it in the first place. As well as taking out most of the piloting coding. It will remember the basics as far as walking you through an emergency... though I doubt you will ever need to worry about it partnered with these two... but since the suit itself is gone... a lot of that coding was superfluous now."
"I had wondered if you were simply going to recreate Treize's original program or not." Zechs leaned back and watched Dorothy curiously.
"Didn't want to risk ending up with two Epyon's... especially not in the custom made home we were building for this one here. That could get ugly," Gordon muttered. "One has done quite enough damage."
"That and if we had included most of the original coding... it would take considerably more memory than we could fit in there. And rebuilding Epyon just to house its computerized body would be... a little conspicuous."
"Not to mention illegal," Dorothy said dryly.
"Well... yeah. That too." Melvin grinned.
"Anyway..." Gordon cleared his throat. "We thought part of his fuzziness might be due to having to travel back and forth through the interface in Dorothy."
"What? Why?" She blinked at them worriedly. "Is something wrong with the implant?"
"No, no... nothing like that. But Epyon is taking up precious memory space and energy holding together, so to speak. If we have Epyon more or less grounded into one location, with connections that he can use to link to other networks... then he doesn't need to download completely each time he moves from one computer to another. The implant wasn't meant to carry the kind of load you've been putting on it... it was meant to facilitate communication with a computer based form, and provide a bridge between the human mind, and the suit mind. We are thinking that in addition to having lost possibly crucial bits of code when Libra and Suit Epyon were destroyed, feedback interference from carrying all of its baggage around may be disrupting its... focus. Or whatever it's picking up that is causing it to have nightmares."
Seeing the blank looks on their faces, the old man sighed. "We streamlined the process and fine-tuned the focus, alright?"
"Right."
"So go on... try the armband," Gordon urged. "It's got a copy of the base program already loaded... and there are disks in the case that will allow you to download Epyon's basefile onto any computer you think he'll be accessing regularly."
"Christ... you guys really did think of everything, didn't you?"
"No," Howard snorted. "We still can't think of a single reason why you want Epyon's focus to get stronger."
Zechs just rolled his eyes.