"So that's a space colony," Kane remarked, looking out the window. "And this Professor of yours is on that little station by itself." He snorted. "Surprising," he remarked sarcastically.
"You ready?" Duo asked. He really, really hoped that Kane and Andrew could keep it under control and wouldn't go on a shooting spree when they came face-to-face with Professor G. The Professor wasn't his favorite person in the whole world, but he didn't want him killed. Duo was under no illusions that he'd be able to stop either of them if they decided to kill him. But they said they'd be all right, so...
"Yeah, just a second." Kane turned and looked at the mirror he'd dragged along, large enough for him to see his entire face in it. As Duo watched, Kane's face darkened slightly, and his hair turned chestnut brown. Kane fished the lenses case out of his pocket and carefully stuck the lenses in his eyes. "Do you have any idea how weird your eye color is? Or how long I had to look to find a pair of lenses that matched your eyes? How the hell did you end up with those weird blue-purple eyes?"
Duo shrugged. "Just lucky, I guess."
"Yeah, whatever. I still think white's better. Less easy to identify people that way. Come over here and look in the mirror so I can check out the tones."
Duo obediently walked over and looked in the mirror at the disturbing sight of his double shifting his skin and hair tones slightly until they matched perfectly. Then Kane grinned at their double reflection, mirroring an expression that Duo used every day, and Duo turned away. "This is so creepy," he muttered. "Would you stop doing that? I think that one of me is more than enough."
"I agree entirely. And do you have any idea how creepy it is to see an Earthling version of myself every time I turn around?"
"I told you before, I'm not an Earthling... I mean I'm not from Earth! And what about you... you remind me of a washed-out version of myself!"
"Great, now you're picking up each other's speech patterns," Andrew remarked as he came out of the back, looking exactly like Quatre. "Are you quite done having fun?"
"Aw, come on, Andrew, we're just having fun," Kane complained. "Isn't that right, Duo?"
"I'm having fun," he informed Andrew, then grinned at him, an expression which Kane quickly copied.
Andrew looked at the two identical faces with the same devilish expression on them with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "Anyone else would think that the two of you hate each other."
"Me, hate him? Just because he's an albino freak?" Duo asked at the same time as Kane asked, "Me, hate him? Just because he looks like an Earthling?"
Andrew sighed again. "Are you ready? Because there's some guy pounding on the hatch wanting to know what the hell we're doing here," he told them.
"I knew we should have just come with Deathscythe," Duo muttered. "It would have been easier. You wouldn't believe how cooperative people can be with a Gundam hovering right outside the station."
"But they can only give us information if they have it -- you didn't think that this Professor knew he had a traitor inside," Andrew pointed out. "And it does give us something to fall back on."
"Besides, think how much fun it will be when they see the two of us together," Kane pointed out, and Duo grinned.
"Yeah, that's going to be great. I wish I had a camera."
"I have a photographic memory, and I can draw," Kane offered. "I'll draw you a picture later."
"Thanks!"
Andrew just barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes. "How did I get stuck with the two of you?"
"You were the best for the mission," Kane said with a shrug. "Besides, I heard Diana say that you were the only one who had the patience to put up with us."
Andrew's expression softened slightly at the mention of Diana, but his eyes narrowed when he heard the end of Kane's comment. "I'm going to get her for this," he muttered darkly.
"Oh, come on, we aren't that bad!" Kane exclaimed, but Andrew shot him a look that suggested he thought otherwise.
"Are you ready?" Duo asked, hearing the banging from the back of the shuttle growing louder. "I don't want them to dent the hull."
"Do you have your transmitter?" Andrew asked.
"Yup," Duo said, after checking his pocket one last time.
"Check," Kane asked, his face grim. That was one of the things that drove Duo nuts about his double -- he was incredibly serious when it came to missions -- no more laughing or joking around at all. It was as if some secondary personality took over, and made Duo wonder which was the real Kane. Probably the one he joked around with, but it was disturbing just the same.
"Are they turned on?" Andrew asked.
"I can't believe you asked us that... oops," Duo muttered, turning his on.
"Don't feel too bad, Kane does it on a regular basis," Andrew told him confidentially, with a glance at Kane, who contrived to look hurt. Again, the separation of the mission and non-mission conversation. It was as if Kane thought he was only allowed to joke around when they weren't actually discussing the mission. Then again, thinking about it, he probably did believe that.
There were a few parts of their plan that were highly time-sensitive, so they were using these transmitters to coordinate their actions. They could be two-way, but right now the ones that Andrew and Duo carried were set to only transmit. Kane would be monitoring what the transmitters sent, so he could move at the right time. "You sure you got the layout memorized?" Duo asked Kane.
"Memorized," Kane replied, blank-faced once again. Duo happened to glance at Andrew right after Kane said that and saw a hint of sadness cross his face before it was replaced by the same blank mask Kane wore.
"Ready?" he asked Duo.
"Yup. Let's get this over with, find the son-of-a-bitch who set us up," Duo agreed readily. "We're coming!" he shouted at the top of his lungs to the person banging on the hatch. Both Kane and Andrew winced. Oh yeah. Super-sensitive hearing, Duo remembered, too late to do anything about it. Instead, he headed for the back of the shuttle, to the hatch. Andrew followed him.
Duo unlocked the door and pulled it open, then leveled his best do-you-really-want-to-mess-with-Shinigami glare at the man who stood on the other side, an angry expression on his face. Duo found it quite amusing to watch all the color drain out of his face until he was almost as pale as Kane when he recognized Duo and saw the expression on his face. "Where is the Professor?" Duo demanded coldly. He could do the menacing thing when he wanted, and he could tell that Andrew was quite amused by the situation.
"I... I have to... "
"Take me to him, now," Duo said, finishing his sentence, although that's probably not what the man was going to say. Duo pulled out his gun and fingered the trigger. "I really need to talk to him."
Duo knew that he had a reputation among G's people of being somewhat unstable and prone to killing things randomly. That couldn't be further from the truth -- he never killed without a damn good reason, but they didn't know that. Apparently this guy had heard the rumors, because he paled farther and immediately started leading them through the base, not that Duo couldn't have found G all by himself.
The man led him to the door of G's private office, and Duo walked in without asking, mentally changing gears. "Hey, Professor!" he exclaimed, strolling into the office like he had no worries in the world.
"Duo! What are you doing here?" Professor G demanded in that nasally voice of his. Duo glanced behind him and saw that Andrew had become one clenched muscle, although his face remained impassive as he stared at the scientist. So far, so good.
"We have a problem," he said seriously, dropping the other attitude as easily as he'd put it on. "You've got a traitor on board the station. Someone took our last mission brief and sent it to Oz. The other guys got hammered, and I would have too, if I'd been around. We're here to find him."
G looked over his shoulder at Andrew. "Why did you bring him along?"
"He's going to go through the computers while I keep an eye on everyone. We'd appreciate it if you'd get everyone into the main computer room."
"This is ridiculous! There's no traitor here!"
"Yes, there is. We already tracked at least one of them back here to your lab. Heero is still looking for links to the other labs." Actually, they were all sort of sharing that responsibility, but Duo wasn't about to let G know about the other, not just yet.
"There are traitors in all of the labs?" G asked, a dangerous light in his eyes.
Duo shrugged. "We don't know yet. We're hoping to catch a couple of them here so we can question them. Will you call them to the main room now?"
G muttered something under his breath, but he activated the comm. system and gave the proper orders. "You wanna come and watch?" Duo invited playfully.
"This is my station," G said grumpily, and marched out the door, leaving them behind.
Duo glanced at Andrew. "You all right?"
Andrew raised his head slightly, gritted his teeth, then nodded his head a fraction of an inch. "He was one of the scientists on our project," he said without moving his lips at all. That was a neat trick -- Duo knew how to read lips, but not ventriloquism. He might want to learn it sometime. "But not one of the cruel ones. He never did anything worse than treat us like the experiments we were. That was about as good as things got. And all he did was give us physical examinations regularly."
"How regularly?"
"Once a day, unless they were checking for something. Are you sure you trust him?"
Duo nodded. "He's not the one who sold us out. If he had, Oz would have had a lot better information, as well as the location of all of our safe-houses. It wasn't him."
Andrew nodded, keeping a neutral expression on his face even when G turned to glance at them. He didn't say anything else as they walked through the halls, and when they reached the main room, he simply seated himself on one of the many consoles connected to the main computer and brought up the security cameras for the entire facility on a few of the monitors, then started sifting through what was supposed to be the workers' personal correspondence, supposedly looking for evidence of the traitor. G was shooting some very suspicious looks at Andrew -- he knew that Quatre wasn't the genius with computers that Heero was, and Andrew wasn't acting anything like Quatre, but Duo was quite confident that G would never guess the truth. Duo himself wouldn't have believed it, except that he'd actually seen the other world, and it was a little hard to argue with his double about the impossibility of his existence.
Over the next few minutes, the work crew all arrived in the room. There were only about thirty of them, and they gave Duo some very strange looks as he ordered them to the opposite side of the room, but none of them argued, especially since he was gesturing with his gun. After ten minutes, he asked G, "Are they are all here?"
"How should I know?" G snapped.
Duo muttered a few choice curses to himself about G's helpfulness, but actually, things were going exactly as they'd planned. It was nice of him to be so predictably bad-tempered. "I'm going to search the base," he told Andrew. "Just to make sure there's no one hiding. Keep an eye on things here."
Andrew mumbled something without ever looking over his shoulder, the perfect picture of a very focused individual who hadn't really heard the question he'd just answered. Duo shrugged and walked calmly out the door. He stepped across the hall, leaving the door open, took a few steps, then stopped. He pulled the transmitter out of his pocket. "All right. Go for it," he muttered, then turned back to the door. He stood in the hallway and carefully peeked around the edge, then pulled his head back and settled back against the wall. From his angle, he couldn't see any of the people, but he could see Andrew, still typing away, and above him, the security monitors. A few seconds later, he saw himself slowly moving through the station, checking doors, getting farther and farther away from the room where Andrew still worked.
Duo grinned to himself. If the traitor was in the base, Kane would find him. And if the traitor was already in the room... they were providing them with the perfect opportunity to strike, or try to escape. And if none of that worked, Andrew might actually find something in the computers. But they were hoping the more direct route would work this time.
He saw that Kane was now at the opposite end of the base, several minutes away if Andrew (Quatre) needed help. Sure enough, he heard swift steps and then suddenly someone with black hair struck at Andrew from behind, wrapping an arm around his throat and knocking the chair over. "Go get Chris!" the man shouted to someone else, and Duo heard footsteps rapidly approaching him.
With a grin, he stepped into the doorway, gun held ready, and the man almost ran into him. "Hands up," he instructed coldly as Andrew grabbed the man and neatly flipped him over his shoulder. The man crashed to the ground, but almost immediately rolled over and grabbed at Andrew again, who sidestepped his attack and brought his flattened hand down on the man's outstretched arm. There was a sickening crack! as his arm broke, then Andrew pulled out a gun.
"Freeze," he ordered in a voice even colder than Duo's.
"Duo?" G asked, sounding very startled as Duo walked back into the room, the man in front of him, hands on his head.
"Hiya," Duo said, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing the transmitter, setting it to both transmit and receive. "Hey, Kane?"
"Yes?" Duo's voice asked over the transmitter, and Duo saw Kane walk up to one of the cameras and stare into it. There were a number of gasps from the mechanics who were now watching the drama unfold with wide eyes.
"It worked. We've got two of them up here, but there's one more somewhere out there. His name is Chris," he added as an afterthought.
He saw Kane's image turn to look at someone off screen. "Well, I found someone... but he's not quite in any condition that I can ask him his name. He tried to kill me though."
"Injuries?" Andrew asked in that same cold, impersonal voice.
"Marginal," Kane replied.
"Damage to prisoner?"
"He'll live. I think."
"Show him to the camera," Andrew said.
Kane immediately walked off camera and dragged a body back. Blood stained one leg as he easily lifted the man up so his face was near the camera.
"Is that Chris?" Andrew asked his prisoner.
"No. Ahhh!" he shouted as Andrew reached out and poked his broken arm.
"Don't lie to me. Is that Chris?" he asked, his hand poised to poke his arm again.
"Yes," he replied sulkily.
"Bring him up here," Andrew said to Kane, his eyes never traveling from his own prisoner.
"Mission complete?" Kane asked, sounding a whole lot like Heero for a second.
"Yours is," Andrew replied, and Kane's entire demeanor immediately changed, his face relaxing into a broad grin.
"Gotcha. Be there in a few minutes. Have fun!" he said cheerfully, then walked off the screen after tossing his prisoner over his shoulder.
"You're not pilot 04," G said, staring at Andrew.
"No, I'm not," Andrew replied evenly. "Duo, is there a room around here that I can use to interrogate him? It shouldn't take long."
Duo grimaced at the matter-of-fact way that Andrew delivered that statement. He still remembered Kane shoving him up against the wall of the shuttle, and Andrew quietly preparing to torture him for information. He knew for a fact that Andrew hated torturing people, but for some reason, he was the best of it of all of their doubles. Something having to do with his space-heart and being able to tell if people were lying, but Duo thought they should still find someone else to do it, if Andrew hated it that much.
"Back there," Duo said, gesturing with his head. He looked at the guy in front of Andrew. "You know, you might just want to tell us everything you know now, it would probably be a lot less painful."
The man glared at him. Duo shrugged slightly and poked his prisoner in the back with his free hand. "How about you? Feel like talking? I can always give you to him," he nodded towards Andrew, who had picked up his prisoner by the back of the shirt and was now carrying him out the door. Even from here Duo could see the man's one good hand at the collar of his shirt, trying to pull it away from his neck so he could take a deep breath. "When he's done with your friend, of course."
The man paled as he watched what appeared to be a sixteen-year-old boy lift a man twice his size with apparent ease and carry him around. "What is he?" he asked in a whisper.
"We're special people," Kane said sarcastically as he walked into the room with a bounce in his step and the man still slung over his shoulder. He dropped him onto the floor. "Someone might want to treat him, if you want him to live past the next couple hours," he informed G. "He's already out from blood loss. And I hit him on the head."
"Who are you?" G asked, ignoring the man on the ground.
"I'm Kane," he said, pointing at himself. "That's Duo. Don't worry, we're on the same side. Do you really want this guy to die? Cause I don't care that much."
"One of you, treat him!" G snapped to the rest of the mechanics, none of whom looked like they wanted to come within thirty feet of Kane.
"Don't worry, I won't kill anyone," Kane said, backing up away from the body. "Unless you're a traitor." He looked at Duo and grinned. "Actually, should we bother to save this one? We're probably just going to kill him anyway."
Duo grinned back at him, knowing how upsetting it was to see the two of them with identical expressions. "Nah. I'm thinking that G will want to talk with them about how they infiltrated his lab," he replied, glancing at G, whose expression was varying between anger and curiosity. "But you're right, they'll probably end up dead anyway, in the end."
"Doesn't bother me," Kane said cheerfully, seating himself in the chair that Andrew had recently occupied. "Did he find anything here?" he asked.
"I don't think so, but you might as well check," Duo said, keeping one eye on his prisoner.
For several minutes there was no sound but Kane happily humming to himself as he typed on the computer, the low murmur of conversation coming from the mechanics, and the occasional thud from the room where Andrew had taken the man. Duo tried very hard not to think about that.
Suddenly a single gunshot cut through the sound, and everyone turned to look in the direction of the room. A few seconds later, Andrew emerged from the room and firmly closed the door behind him, looking more tired than Duo could ever remember him being. More than just physically exhausted -- more like sick to his soul. It wasn't a pretty expression.
"We got what we came for," he told Duo, avoiding looking at anyone else. "These three were all there were here, but there's at least one on all of the other stations, and there's someone following that girl around."
Duo frowned. "Who?"
"Diana's double."
Someone's tracking us using Relena?! Duo knew that Relena was necessary for peace, but they might have to kill her anyway if they couldn't convince her that Heero wasn't interested, or if they couldn't figure out how the Hell she was tracking them. It was no good trying to protect the future if you were getting killed today.
"Is he... " Kane asked, tilting his head towards the closed door.
"Dead. It was best," Andrew said shortly. "Let's go."
"Wait a minute!" G protested, and Duo saw Andrew hunch his shoulders protectively, and realized that he was just barely hanging on to his self-control.
"Hey, Andrew, you go wait in the shuttle," Duo ordered, wondering if Andrew was going to listen to him. Andrew did not need to be dealing with G right now, but they didn't really have a command structure, and even if they did, Andrew was quite capable of telling Duo where to stick his order.
Instead, Andrew shot him a look of profound gratitude before nodding formally and walking out the door.
"Kane, you want to go with him?" Duo asked, but Kane shook his head.
"Nah, I'll stick with you," he said, eyeing G suspiciously. It seemed that he still didn't trust G any farther than he could throw him. Less, actually, because Kane could probably throw G a good distance, and would, given any excuse.
"You wanna go to your office?" Duo asked.
G grumbled under his breath but quickly led the way back to his office after giving orders to lock up the other two traitors. "Who are you?" he demanded of Kane as soon as they closed the door.
"I'm Kane," he said, crossing his arms and leaning against the desk. "I told you before. Do you have a problem with your short-term memory?"
"All right then -- what are you?"
"Doesn't mince words, does he?" Kane asked. "In a word, I'm him," he said, jerking his head towards Duo.
"What?"
"He's from another world," Duo said. Much as he enjoyed watching Kane tease G, he actually had to work with him in the future and didn't want him too angry. "A parallel dimension. He's my double from that world. He and some of the others accidentally got sent here, and they're helping us out until they head back."
"Why?" G asked suspiciously.
"Because your guys helped us in our world," Kane replied.
"And the one in the shuttle is 04's double?"
"Got it."
"How did he lift Bradley like that?"
Duo glanced at Kane, unsure of how much he wanted to reveal.
"Let's just say that just like your guys aren't exactly normal, we don't quite fall into that realm, either," Kane responded. "And we're not going to discuss it any further, got it?" The threat in his voice was unmistakable, and G backed up a step.
"What now?" he asked Duo.
"Now? Now we're heading back to Earth. You know how to reach me if you have any missions. We're going to take care of the rest of the traitors ourselves. Don't send word about him to any of the other labs, either," he said, nodding towards Kane.
"You're going to pull the same stunt there?" G asked, amusement in his voice.
"Approximately. Anyway, don't contact them, we don't know if their communications are secure."
"What are you going to do with those two assholes?" Kane asked.
G snorted. "I'm going to find out exactly how they ended up on my staff, and then I'm going to kill them."
"Good," Duo said with a sharp nod. "See you around!"
Kane spared one more glare at G, then obediently followed Duo back into the hall and started walking back to the shuttle.
"He was afraid of you," Kane observed.
"Who? G?"
"All of them, actually. Have you ever killed any of them?"
Duo laughed. "No, not really. They just know that you can't keep Shinigami down, and that if I ever had a reason, nothing would stop me from killing them."
Kane stopped short. "What did you say?"
"I said that if they did something to me, they know that I'd hunt them down and kill them."
"No, before that. What did you call yourself?"
"Shinigami," Duo said, forcing a grin to his face. "He's... "
"The God of Death, right?" Kane asked with a grimace.
"You know about him on your world?" Duo asked, unsure of whether to be pleased or dismayed by this news.
"He's just an ancient god there, one of many," Kane replied.
"Then how did you know... "
"How do you think Shin picked his name?" Kane asked. "He was doing some research for something or other, and stumbled on the information. When it came time to pick his name, he picked a shorter version of the God of Death." He shrugged. "Why do you call yourself that?"
"Long story, not too interesting," Duo said, stretching the truth slightly. "That reminds me, I never got to ask, you all picked your names, right?"
"Yes."
"So how did everyone else pick their names? How about you?"
"I once read a story when I was trying to understand humans better, so I could emulate them when I was spying, and I liked one of the characters."
"What book?"
"You've probably never heard of it -- it's really old, I was just reading it because my instructor wanted me to see how human nature never changes. It's called the bible."
Duo felt his eyebrows rising. "The Bible?"
"You have heard of it," Kane said, sounding mildly surprised.
"Of course I've heard of it! Hasn't everyone?"
"No. I told you, it's ancient. Very few people have ever heard of it, much less read it in my world. So you know where my name came from."
"I don't remember anyone named Kane."
"Well, they spelled it differently. I spell it K-A-N-E, they spelled it C-A-I-N, but it's basically the same name."
Duo stared at him. "You named yourself after a guy who killed his brother? The first murderer?"
Kane smiled sheepishly. "Well, I was still working for the Alliance back then, my priorities were a little different. I actually did try to capture Diana, Brian, Andrew and Devin back then, along with Shin, so I did do my best to kill my brothers and sisters. Luckily Diana caught us by surprise, otherwise we would have taken them all back to the Alliance. By the time I found out how the Alliance had screwed us, I was already used to the name. It's mine now." They started walking again.
Duo nodded -- he knew about making a name your own. "OK, so how about the others?"
"Brian... well, you know how it is with him, everything for the mission. He picked Brian because it was an ordinary name, one that wouldn't stand out."
Duo snorted. "Figures."
"Let's see... Devin named himself after Dev Carter, because he saw that Dev was nice to Andrew, and made him... less unhappy."
"Wait, when did Dev do that?"
"He used to work for the Alliance, didn't we ever mention that? He worked on our project, saw what they were doing to us, and defected to the Rebels. He met up with Diana years later."
"Oh."
"Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, Andrew. I'm not quite sure why he picked that name. I think he once played a part... I mean he went on a spying mission, pretending to be someone's son, and his name was Andrew for that mission. I think he liked pretending to be normal, even if it was just for a little while. He really is the best of us," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Diana's... well, she's Diana, there's no one like her in the entire world -- any world," he corrected himself. "But Andrew's the most human. He shouldn't..." he cut himself off as they reached the hangar. "Don't tell him I said any of this, because he refuses to believe he's anything special, and he'll try to kick my ass," Kane said before banging on the door.
Andrew immediately opened it. His face was still a little gray. "Can we leave now?" he asked immediately.
"No gun?" Kane asked in return as he stepped inside. "What if it wasn't us?"
"I felt you," Andrew replied. "Can we leave?"
"Yeah, sure," Duo said, also climbing inside as Kane headed for the cockpit. "Did anyone try to get in while we were gone?" he asked, his eyes traveling to the back where Deathscythe resided.
"No."
Duo carefully closed the hatch behind him. "Are you all right?"
"Yes."
Duo looked at him. Andrew wasn't as talkative as himself or Kane, not by a long stretch, but right now he was doing his best Heero Yuy impression (or maybe it was his Brian impression), which couldn't be a good sign. "Come on. What's wrong?"
"I completed the mission."
"That's a bad thing?"
"I... I destroyed that man's mind before I killed him. I stripped all the valuable information he had away, and tore apart the rest in the process. I... I hate doing that, but it's how I was trained... that's the only way I know to get information out of an enemy."
Duo grimaced. "You know... I could have done that. You didn't have to."
Andrew shook his head. "It's what I'm good at. Refusing to use that against my enemies... it would be allowing my weakness to rule me, and I won't let that happen."
For a moment Duo thought he was listening to Wufei -- the fact that their doubles had been raised together tended to come up in conversations at the oddest times, when they reflected views that Duo associated with people other than their doubles among the pilots. "Caring about people isn't a weakness."
"It gets in the way, though," Andrew said moodily.
"You're good at a lot of things," Duo protested. "You shouldn't have to do this if you don't want to! The computer stuff alone is enough to keep you busy, isn't it?"
Andrew didn't respond. After several seconds, he said, "I think I want to be alone right now."
Duo wasn't so sure if that was a good idea, but he had a feeling that with the mood Andrew was in, he'd throw him through the wall if he didn't leave, so he walked up to the cockpit, leaving Andrew sitting by himself.
"What did you say to him?" Kane asked as soon as he entered.
"He... shouldn't be doing that. It's killing him," Duo said in an unusually somber tone.
"Diana doesn't usually let him do it, no matter what he says, but he can't stand to disappoint her by letting himself show weakness like that," Kane replied, his feet propped up on the control panel. "It's almost a competition between the two of them, to see who can maneuver the other better. If Diana wins, Andrew is out of the area when we need someone interrogated, and if he wins, he's around and does it."
"That's pretty messed up."
"Yeah, that pretty much describes all of us."
"What's with Diana and all these weird mind games?"
"She likes to be challenged, and there aren't many people who can keep up with her. Matching herself against all of the Alliance was the first real challenge she ever had, and there's so much at stake there... it's fun for her to play with us, when she can, because there's not so much at stake. I don't like them much, but I play them for her, sometimes," Kane said with a shrug.
"She's weird."
"This from the human who launched an attack against an entire world by himself in a giant death robot who calls himself Shinigami?" Kane asked with a grin.
Duo snorted, relieved to be back to normal patterns. "Yeah, sure. And you're an albino freak who named himself after the first murderer." He was grateful for the new ammunition -- there were only so many insult variants on 'albino freak' you could come up with before it started to get boring.
Kane grinned, obviously ready to get into another shouting match with him over who was weirder. "Oh yeah?"
Diana sighed in satisfaction as she washed her hair, getting the rest of the remaining grime out. She knew that she should have gotten a little farther away before triggering the explosions, but planting those last explosives had taken longer than she'd expected, and they had a timetable to maintain.
She and Brian had just gotten back from a commando mission where they blew up a mobile suit factory while the others were out. They had to be driving Oz crazy, suddenly striking in four and five and even six places at the same time, instead of just two or three or maybe four. Diana smiled to herself as she scrubbed at an especially stubborn soot stain. She'd never admit it (especially to Kane who did not need the encouragement), but there was a certain satisfaction in just blowing things up. It was so much more straightforward than most of the things she did -- you set the explosives, got clear, and then triggered them. If you did your job right, the target area disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire, if you didn't, it didn't. It was a little harder to determine success when you were competing for the public's sympathy.
It was also the longest time she'd ever spent out in the open without having a panic attack, and she was very proud of herself. She still wasn't comfortable outside, but at least she wasn't freaking out and making stupid mistakes like the one that had gotten her and Duo captured in the first place.
With a sigh, she stepped out of the shower, toweling herself dry and pulling on a robe before she turned her attention to her hair. It was getting long enough to be a nuisance -- she really ought to cut it (unlike Kane and Duo, she did not have a fixation on the length of her hair), but current style in the colonies dictated longer hair. Hopefully that would change soon so she could cut it without appearing unfashionable. Sometimes she hated how much her work dictated the way she lived her life. The way I live my life? Ha! My work is my life and I know it, she grumbled to herself. Finally her hair was dry enough so that it wouldn't drip water on the floor, and stepped out of the bathroom. She heard soft conversation from upstairs, concentrated long enough to identify Quatre talking to Brian, and then filtered it out of her consciousness.
She was headed for the bedroom she'd claimed for herself and Andrew when she heard someone knocking on the door, and frowned. None of the pilots would knock before entering, and no one else should know their location. She concentrated on her hearing, and heard someone call, "Heero!"
What sort of idiot is going to go around yelling for a terrorist? she wondered, looking around desperately for the nearest pair of contact lenses. She had to shut the girl up, whoever she was. The first ones she saw had been one of Kane's attempts to duplicate Duo's unusual eye color, but these were much more purple than blue, which was going to make her look very strange, but there was nothing she could do about it. She jammed them in and hurried to the door, changing her hair and skin tones to something appropriate to match her new eye color, then walked to the door and pulled it open.
There was a young woman (girl, really) with light blue eyes and blond hair, dressed in what had to be some sort of uniform. No one would wear that if they had a choice, right? Her face fell when she saw Diana, and she frowned. "Who are you?" she asked.
"Who are you?" Diana replied in a slow drawl.
"I am Relena Peacecraft," the girl announced. "I need to speak with Heero right away, it's urgent."
So this was her double. No wonder Heero grimaced every time she was mentioned. Diana was emphatically not impressed. The future of the world rested on her?
"He's not here."
"Oh, but he is, I saw him before," Relena corrected her. "Heero!" she shouted again, and Diana hid a grimace.
She must have seen Brian. Damn it! I've got to shut her up. "He's not available right now," Diana said coldly. "Can I take a message for him?" Anything to get rid of her.
"No! It's very urgent that I speak with him right away! Who are you, anyway?" Relena demanded.
Diana had an idea that came from the more malicious part of her mind, and automatically switched gears, leaning one arm against the doorframe, sticking her hip out, and letting the robe fall open to expose most of her breasts. She smiled seductively. "I'm a hooker."
"What?!"
"I'm a prostitute," Diana clarified, running her free hand through her still-damp hair. "You know, sex for money? But I'm the best -- nothing like those tramps you find on the street. I just finished, actually. I'm just waiting to be paid, then I'll be out of here."
Relena's mouth opened and closed several times. "Who?" she finally got out.
Diana's smile broadened. "All of them, actually," she said, and heard a choking noise from inside the house. She turned her head slightly, and saw Quatre staring at her. She winked at him and then turned her head back. "Really, five is a bit more than I usually handle, but they're paying me well, and I had a lot of fun. From what I understand, there are already a couple of couples among them, but they still get together sometimes, and they wanted to add a little spice. It was a bit strange being the only girl, but we all managed just fine." Diana leaned forward, exposing a bit more of her chest, and leered at Relena. "You wanna play sometime? I'm open minded."
"It... it can't be true!" Relena protested weakly. "Where's Heero?"
"Sleeping. I tired him out," Diana replied with a yawn of her own, and heard more choking sounds from Quatre. "Me and the one with the braid. Listen, honey, I don't know what he's been telling you, but I don't think you have a chance. The two of them seemed very happy together. But then, that's just my opinion."
Relena looked very much as if she'd just been smacked across the back of the head with a large stick. "I... I need to talk to Heero," she repeated automatically.
"I told you, he's still asleep. Look, when he wakes up I'll tell him that you stopped by, OK? Bye." And without waiting for a response, Diana closed the door in her face. She waited several seconds, but the yelling didn't resume. Several seconds after that, she heard footsteps walking away, and breathed a sigh of relief. Pulling her robe closed again, she turned to look at Quatre. "I'm an idiot on this world!"
"What... what did you tell her?" Quatre repeated, the same dazed expression on his face as was on Relena's.
"Betcha that Heero won't have quite as many problems with her from now on," Diana remarked.
"You told her that we were... we were... "
"Having a massive orgy," Diana provided.
"We would never do that!"
"I know that. She doesn't. But then, she doesn't believe that Heero and Duo are together, either. And I had to give her some reason for being here."
"But a prostitute?"
Diana shrugged. "She believed it, didn't she? She doesn't think much of you guys, though."
Quatre's mind seemed to be functioning again. "Yes, well... she's been interested in Heero, not in the rest of us."
"She doesn't think much of him, either. Otherwise she'd respect his choice."
Quatre shrugged slightly, an embarrassed smile on his face. "I don't know how Heero's going to feel about what you told her, though... "
"Diana," Brian said from the doorway to the room with the computer in it.
"What's wrong?" she asked, immediately picking up that much from his tone and body language. All of a sudden the light mood in the room vanished.
"I just hacked into Oz... they have Shin."
End Part 10
So sorry about that last part, but I just couldn't resist... ^_^
(:./marika/others10)
