06-Jun-2000
Hi hi! More of my confusing fic. This is my pet story, very dear to me, so even if it's a flop I'll probably post the whole dern thing ^_^ Anywho, I'm shutting up now.
Title: Breaking Predestination 2/?
Author: TB
Archive: GW Addiction (did I ask for the first one to
be archived? If I didn't or didn't send you the first
part please let me know, I honestly can't remember)
Catagory: AU, some yaoi
Pairing(s): R+1, 2x1, 5xSally
Rating: R
Warnings: Confusing
Spoilers: Yes
Notes: The series and EW are canon for this fic. This
takes place in AC 202.
Feedback: thanks and hugs and glomping in advance
Disclaimers: <pout> they're not mine.
The older man came around the table, and Heero stood, backing off just slightly. There were no signs of weapons on the Captain, but Heero was off-balance and he did not intend to take chances, just to look tough.
"Look," the Captain said. "Let's start over. You're in danger. We came to help."
"I'm supposed to be impressed?"
"Maybe not impressed, but you should be worried," Maxwell shrugged. "Take a good look around, Heero. Accept what your senses are telling you. I *am* who you're beginning to think I am, and Hirde *is* the Hirde you remember, and what we're going to tell you will be the truth. But we don't have time to say it all fifty different ways until it finally sinks in. You have to trust me." Sarcasm finally broke through. "You think you can remember how?"
"You--you're not Duo." Heero put his hand to the small of his back, where he carried a loaded gun. "This is some weird-- Who sent you? White Fang? Who?"
"What's it going to take to convince you?" the Commander exclaimed. "Use your head, damnit! Who would pretend to be us? Why would they bother?"
"I don't know, but I intend to find out." Rash as it probably was, Heero drew his gun, and aimed it at the Captain. "All right," he commanded. "We're going to the bridge, and then we're going to meet the tow crew. Consider yourself detained for further questioning."
The Captain laughed. "Oh, Heero," he said--and in a move almost too fast to follow grabbed the gun, pushed hard at his shoulder and swept his feet out from under him.
Stunned and with the wind knocked out of him, Heero stared up at the Captain from his back on the floor. The gun was now aiming at him.
"I always did move faster than you," Maxwell said. He tossed the gun to Hirde, and held a hand out to the pilot. "Remember when Wufei taught us that move?"
Heero disdained the hand and used a nearby chair to rise instead. "Don't even try that," he growled. "You could have talked to any one of the pilots to find those things out. You're not going to fool me!"
The Captain and the Commander exchanged a look; the latter's was faintly triumphant, as if to say, See, I warned you this would happen. Finally the Captain spoke again.
"We had a feeling this would be hard for you," he said to Heero. "But I know you. Would a genetic test satisfy you as to our identities?"
"Only if it is administered by--"
"Someone of *your* chosing," the Captain finished. "Agreed."
The ease with which he said it made Heero hesitate. But Heero never hesitated for very long.
"The tow crew," he pointedly reminded them.
Maxwell returned from the window. "Same old Earth," he observed.
"You expected it to have changed?" His second-in-command was tense. "Why are they taking so damn long? Yuy's stalling. He just doesn't want to accept--"
"Would you?" the Captain interrupted. "Hirde, I'm saying it one last time. You swore to follow my lead in this. And my lead is to give him as much time as he needs *now*, so he doesn't waste any *later*."
They were silent for a while. Eventually, the woman rose and took her own turn at the window--not because she cared about the picturesque view, but because she couldn't stand the look in her Captain's eyes whenever he spoke about Heero Yuy.
The door opening drew her attention back to the present... or the past. Heero Yuy entered, a doctor in tow--Sally Po. The Preventer doctor carried two slides with small blood samples, the Captain's and the Commander's, in a plastic bag.
Heero was expressionless. Sally was merely intrigued.
"Well," she announced, waving the bag through the air, "all the samples check out. It's a pleasure to see you again, Duo. Apparently, it's been a long time."
This made the man smile. He laid a hand on her shoulder in thanks. "Sally," he said. "Yes, it's been a long time. Far too long. But I have to admit, I've never had the chance to look *down* at you before--and the view is absolutely breath-taking."
The warm words got him a raised eyebrow. "Charm intact, I see," was the only reply; but a slight smile danced about the woman's mouth. "I think," she added, "that you'd be better off explaining yourselves. Duo, how in hell did you--well, let's just say that according to this sample I'm talking to a forty-three year old version of the twenty-two old man I saw not a month ago. How?"
Heero had silently taken up a position in the corner of the Preventer doctor's office, and was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Duo--no. Heero refused to think of him as Duo, no matter that his story was proving true. Maxwell was looking at him, waiting for *his* reaction. Damned if he'd get any.
"Have you ever thought about jumping through time?" Maxwell asked finally. "To my knowledge, and I'll admit I'm hazy on the subject, there was a theorist or two knocking about holding seminars on the idea, or there will be, by about 208. It began with the Reubena."
Almost unnoticed, Lady Une had entered the room. Someone must have appraised her. Duo made a courteous nod in her direction, and simply continued talking.
"The Reubena, as all of you know, is a docking satellite above Earth where space-traveling vessels can get the odd repair, let their crews wander around a bit... In about a year Quatre Winner is going to get hold of it and turn it into a kind of weekend resort for those crews. In 207, there was--excuse me. Will be. Will be a strange incident; a very primitive mobile suit appeared at one of the docking rings, and its pilot was half-dead from radiation exposure. A doctor was on Reubena waiting for transport down to Earth and saved the pilot's life, only to certify the woman as insane when she made it out of bed. It seemed she didn't remember *anything* about Earth or the colonies, as we knew them--she would just wander around wide-eyed, frightened of everything, demanding to know why the Alliance was keeping all this technology to themselves when the people of the colony were dying."
Une spoke. "Colony? Singular?"
"Singular," Maxwell affirmed. "In her time, only one colony had been built, and the project was failing abysmally. L1."
Sally's eyebrows had come together in a frown. "Wait," she said. "'Her time?' You mean that... "
Hirde came to stand next to Maxwell. "Somehow, the pilot had traveled forward in time almost two hundred years," the Commander explained. "She couldn't handle all the changes. Couldn't understand the different mindset. Even for the technologically advanced, and her culture was, you know, even compared with our then-current level, two hundred years was a big jump. They poked and prodded her for years, until she managed to return to her own time."
Maxwell resumed the talking. The room was starting to fill up with Preventers; Chang Wufei, Zechs Merquise and Lucrezia Noin. Maxwell or Hirde ackowledged each as they came. "Of course, by this time it was well-known in the science community that time travel was possible. The workings were vague. No one had accomplished it successfully, meaning going and returning."
Hirde interjected, "A few volunteers disappeared. But they never came back, and none of the prearranged signals ever appeared in history, so we really don't know what happened to them."
Maxwell continued. "Then a few friends of ours got involved. You'll recognise the names... J, H, and O."
Heero blinked. "The scientists?"
"They resurfaced to work on the project. G was dead by then." Maxwell shook his head. "I still miss him, once in a while. We don't know what happened to the last scientist. Howard worked on the project as well, producing and outfitting the ships for the experiments. They were all fairly well-on in age by now, you have to understand--a lot of people just thought they were nuts, completely kooked. The professionals ignored them and their findings for years, and they just starting dropping off. They'd lived hard lives, and no one lasts forever. Not much of a surprise that J lasted the longest of them all."
Noin raised her voice for the first time. "From what you're *not* saying, I take it that it eventually became--what? Illegal?--to perform these experiments."
Maxwell and Hirde exchanged glances. After a moment, Hirde nodded.
"But the scientists, kooked or not, knew that they had the answers," Maxwell finished, softly. "I received a package from J after his death. It contained the results and data from every experiment regarding time travel that he'd worked on or heard about--and the procedures that he'd cracked out for successful completion of what he called 'jumping' through the continuum. It's very possible. It's not even all that hard."
Une's eyes were narrow. "And you'll hand this information over to us?" she pressed. "That's why you're here? You think--you think we need this information?"
Hirde laughed. "Talk about jumping to conclusions," she said.
Maxwell quieted her with a glance. "No," he clarified. "I wouldn't share that information with anyone outside my crew, because it isn't necessary that you know it. Wait a few decades, and it will all be public. You have to wait your turn, the same as we did."
Sally didn't like that. "Duo, why tell us that story if you didn't intend to give us the data?"
"I'm explaining to you how we got here," the Captain told her, "nothing more." He eased stiff shoulders, and scrubbed a hand through his greying hair. "The reason we came back is prevent something from happening. Until that's done, we can't leave, and we won't. We'll either accept your co-operation, or do this alone, but we won't permit interference. What we must do is too important."
The Preventers were skeptical. "You expect us to let you carry out some mission that may or may not run counter to our own goals," Wufei half-asked. "People in your time are either stupid, or extremely naive."
Maxwell looked at him; his mouth quirked tiredly. "I think I've missed that tongue," he muttered. "Mr. Chang, there is a definite possibility that you'll not understand our mission, or see the benefit in *our* goal. How could you? You know absolutely nothing of our political scene, of our circumstances or personalities in power, on either side of the conflict that sent us back to your time. And frankly, it isn't necessary for us to tell you, either. The fewer who know specific details, the better. We will do what we can, within the bounds of our mission, to preserve the timeline."
Heero finally spoke. "We can't trust him. It doesn't matter if he is who he says he is. We can't give him free rein. What's to say he's not insane, or a turn-coat? A vigilante from the future who came back to get rid of his enemies before they're ready for him? I say lock them up. Him and his whole damn ship."
"I knew that you would say that," Maxwell murmured. "Which is why we came prepared." He turned to Lady Une. "Madam President, this is for you," he said, and bowed as he handed her a thick packet of paper.
"Madam--" Her eyes widened.
"If you read the papers, you'll find your own authorisation for my actions in bringing my crew to the past. You see, in *my* time, Madam President, you not only understand the necessity of this mission--it was your idea in the first place."
Slowly, Une took the packet. "I will read this," she decided. "Carefully. But--but until I have read them, and determined the authenticity of them--I'm afraid that I must ask you to stay here in Preventer headquaters with your crew."
"Under arrest?" Hirde demanded.
"Not arrest," was the firm reply. "Just a period of detention. If you've anticipated our actions up to this point, surely you anticipated this as well." Une stood.
Maxwell nodded. "I agree. We'll abide by your decisions, Mada--Lady." He winced. "This is going to take getting used to," he muttered. "Before you take us off to the bowels of the HQ, however, I do have a very important request."
"And that would be?"
Maxwell's gaze swept over them all. "There are two people who absolutely *cannot* know of our presence here on Earth. My request is that you withold knowledge of our existence, of this entire incident, from them."
Heero had moved to stand beside Wufei. "Which two?" he asked quietly.
Maxwell's eyes changed when they settled on Heero, as if he couldn't quite face the young pilot with the same professionalism and calm that he had exhibited towards the other so far. He looked back to Une; Heero noticed all this and stored that information away for further thought later on.
"Relena Peacecraft, and Duo Maxwell," the Captain said.
End Part 2
(:./erin/break2)
