Chasing Impossibilities
Part Six: Truth
"Triton. Triton, wake up."
Triton blinked open his eyes, not expecting to see space in front of
him. He had assumed Heero would have waited until they got there before
waking him... "What happened?"
"There's an gravitational shield around the colony. There's no way to
get on it."
Triton let the impossibility of the situation sink into his head. There
was no way onto the colony. They had no gas. "What the hell are we
going to do?"
"That's why I woke you up- help me out."
Triton looked over what Heero was doing, and saw that he was running a
check over the colony, looking for any weak spots in the shield. It
took them ten minutes before Heero's arm shot out across Triton,
reaching in front of the other boy to point somewhere on the screen.
"There. There's a station in orbit around the colony, and it's exactly
the same width as the shield. The doctors probably use it to get in and
out."
Triton nodded, taking over the controls instinctually. He turned the
shuttle towards the location, sparing a glance at the fuel gauge. It
was beyond empty... they were coasting already. He steered the ship for
about five minutes before the handle started getting jerky, and he
wound up using both his hands to keep the thing from veering off
course. The shuttle kept on track, though, and soon the orbiting
station was right in front of him.
"Shit!" Triton pushed the steering wheel forward as the thing lost
control, pushing down on the accelerator, hoping they made it in time.
Then, in just one instant, he was jerked from the steering wheel as it
seemingly flew out of his hands. The two men were slammed back into
their chairs as the shuttle spiraled out of the control, hoping for a
collision, because at least that meant they wouldn't be stuck floating
around space. They got what they wanted: the shuttle slamming against
the metal of the station, and the nose was smashed as they kept
crashing. It seemed like forever until they stopped, and when Triton
opened his eyes he was acing a wall of twisted metal. The shuttle was
totaled. "I can't believe we're still alive."
Heero quickly got out of the position he had taken when bracing for the
shock. It was almost completely dark inside the shuttle now, and they
couldn't see more than a foot in front of them. Triton followed Heero
as he made his way towards the shuttle door.
"Give me a hand. It's stuck."
Triton crept over to the other side of the door, pulling with Heero. It
took them ten minutes to pry the things open, leaving both their hands
raw from the exertion. Triton winced looking at them as they jumped
out, making the five foot fall to the ground without event. The room
they were in was huge, and judging from the size of the station from
outside it couldn't have contained more than three of these rooms.
Heero looked back at the damage they had caused. The station had
obviously been rigged with the standard safety precautions. That and a
lot of luck explained why they were still alive right now. The entrance
was designed to fall away at any sign of forceful impact, and a gate
designed to seal off any broken area in the event of crash.
There was an echo in the room, and their footsteps were louder than
Heero would have liked. Still, Heero thought there probably weren't any
people in the station. Probably being the key word.
They made their way into the second room, still wary of any unexpected
surprises. It was just as big as the first. There was a path down the
middle of it that lead to what Heero assumed was the third and last
room, with scrap metal piled on the sides. Triton walked over to the
right, inspecting the chunks of metals.
"Hey. These are machines."
Heero walked over towards the other man. The hulks looked familiar,
then he suddenly realized what they were. "They're gundams."
"What?"
Heero walked past a piece of what must have been a head, towards a
decimated cockpit area. "They're torn apart and wrecked, but I'm sure
of it. They're gundams."
Triton watched as Heero climbed up onto the thing, jumping into a hole
in the middle of it. He grabbed onto the metal, making the trek up
himself, just in time to see the innards of the machine light up.
"This one's even still functional. Kind of."
Triton looked down into the hole, surprised to see Heero laying down in
a seat. Screens flared in front of the prone boy, and Triton was even
more shocked when his face appeared in one of them.
"Trowa Barton, pilot 03. The date is May 23rd, AC 195. Five gundam
pilots have been confirmed as of today. Whether they are friend or foe
is unknown and irrelevant. I have received mission orders from O to
destroy the Geneva Oz base; all other issues are secondary until I
complete that task."
Triton blinked at the cool, analytical fifteen-year-old that had just
fuzzed out of the screen, before another video came on.
"Trowa Barton, pilot 03. The date is May 31st, AC 195. I have made
contact with Quatre Raberba Winner, pilot 03 of the gundam Sandrock. He
helped to repair Heavyarms and offered me accommodations, and seems to
be fighting the same war as I am. I have received no word from the
scientists regarding the other pilots."
The screen blinked away, for longer this time, before showing the last
surviving video.
"Trowa Barton, pilot 03. The date is December 20th, AC 195. All
five gundam pilots are on Peacemillion. We expect the final battle will
occur soon; soon, the war will be over, and hopefully, we will have
won."
The screen fizzled out, for good this time, and Heero shut off the
cockpit. He moved upwards, sitting on the edge of the machine with
Triton.
"So... I was a gundam pilot."
Heero nodded.
"You were a gundam pilot."
"I'm pretty sure."
"And when the war was done, the scientists, J, G, O, H, and S, wiped
out the war from every one's memories, using some... machine, and gave
them all new lives."
"Well done, my boy. Though I expected nothing less from two of our
proteges."
Trowa and Heero turned around at the foreign voice, amazed that they
had not hear any one enter. They leaped off of the gun as they saw J
standing there, Heero drawing out Trowa's gun even as they were in the
air, his reflexes unnaturally sharp.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Another man, probably hired help, came out of the shadows, and Heero
saw that he was carrying Max's unconscious body, a knife pressed
against the man's throat.
"You know, we did this all for you. For the citizens. We gave you all a
life without war. We even let you keep your friends, your relative
identities."
"You gave us a lie."
"Does it matter? How would it have been any different than any other
life, if you had believed in it? And what will you do with the machine,
once you get there?"
Both Heero and Trowa had to admit the man had a point. But they had
come this far, and they would decide what to do when the time came.
"Now we'll have to take care of your memories, as well as change the
memory of any one who knows you. We've already erased Duo's mind
again." J gestured over at the limp boy, still held captive. "Why I'm
going through so much trouble I'm not sure; it would be so much easier
to just kill you all. Now come along and I won't kill Duo."
"Go ahead." Heero swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat.
"After all, he's not really my husband."
J grinned, motioning at the other man, who then pressed the knife a
little tighter against Duo's flesh. That moment, Heero forgot about his
earlier convictions, about how Duo really didn't mean anything. The
only thought that ran through his head was that Duo was in trouble, and
he couldn't let Duo die. He dived at the man with superhuman speeds,
knocking him away from the braided man and firing two shots into his
body as they both hit the floor. He rolled off the man instantly,
turning just in time to see J reach for his gun, and pulled the trigger
three more times. When all was said and done, J and the stranger were
laying half dead on the floor. They would be gone in mere minutes.
Trowa jogged over to Heero. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Heero looked over at Duo, confused. Had it been the falsely
implanted memories that made him save the man, or something more. He
shook his head, remembering J's earlier words, realizing it didn't
matter. Duo's memories had been wiped out. He wouldn't have the same
feelings; he wouldn't love him anymore.
Heero picked up the singer, heading to the third room. Trowa followed
behind him. As they both expected, there were short range galaxy
transportation transports lined against the wall of the room. Heero
opened the door to one, placing Duo inside.
"What are you going to do with him?"
Heero shrugged. "Send him to the nearest colony."
"And that's it?"
"What else am I supposed to do? He won't remember me when he wakes up."
Heero finished typing in the destination to the machine, leaning down
to brush Duo's bangs out of his face. He wanted to look at him one last
time, to file the image away in memory. Finally, he closed the door and
sent the unit off into space.
In the meantime, Trowa had secured a two person transport, and had
already told it to take them to the colony. "Ready?"
Heero nodded, hopping inside with the other man. "Yeah."
As soon as they were both secured the transport door closed behind them
and they started spiraling softly down towards the colony. Heero looked
out the window as the fell through one of the colony receivers, taking
in the beauty of the artificial beach. In the middle of the sand, right
where they were landing, stood a huge device that resembled a satellite
dish. They had an easy landing, minimal impact, and they soon found
themselves climbing out of the pod and walking towards the
supercomputer that controlled the device.
Heero kneeled down in front of the c.p.u., tracing fingers around the
monitor.
"I never... I never thought it would have come to this. Yesterday
morning, all I wanted was a solution to my memory problems. I never
imagined my life would weave itself into such a complex web. I never
imagined I would be in this situation. And to think, less than
twenty-four hours ago, I was just a normal person." Heero swallowed,
moving a hand to turn on the machine. "I think, maybe, I would have
been better off if I hadn't started to remember my previous life."
Trowa shrugged at the monologue. "I can't say I want to remember my
life in the war; I can understand what the scientists were trying to
do. Bloodshed is not an easy thing to live with. But it doesn't matter;
fate led us here, and now we have to figure out what we're supposed to
do."
Heero nodded, reading through the text that ran rapidly over the
screen. He could read lives in the code, the lives of every single
person that could be accounted for in the galaxy, and marveled at the
fact that this machine could create such an intricate network of
stories and identities. Not only that, the machine could account for
millions of various factors, such as where a person was located when it
was activated, what colonies were inhabited and active, even the
personality of every person living. It was as if the scientists found a
way to plot destiny out into mathematical equations.
"Do you think Duo and I were lovers before the machine?"
"Does it matter?"
Heero realized, then, that it really didn't. "I don't think we should
change anything. We're not here to play God. And even if we could give
every one their former lives back, I don't know if we should."
"I agree, somewhat. But the fact is, you are wanted for the murder of
Cat Winner. And there's a whole colony here that is both entrenched and
hidden in the peoples' minds. We should start it again, one last time,
let it take care of those details, let it put new, completely random
memories inside every one's head. Fate will sort everything out
afterwards. But I think that after, this thing should be destroyed."
"Yeah." Heero read over the machine's memory, reading how to do exactly
that. He smiled, sadly, as he put in the commands. "It will activate in
thirty minutes, and self destruct once the process is complete. It
should take four hours. Every one will fall asleep during that time."
Trowa nodded. "I suggest we get ourselves off this colony, then."
They walked over to the fallen pod, starting it up again to take them
to the next colony. When they got there, they had just enough time to
get out onto the sand before they were claimed by a deep slumber.
"Duo..." Heero whispered, as he drifted off, "... sayonara... "