Shades of the Self

[Author's Note: And the pieces begin to fall into place... ]

Silence is never truly silent, Alexis observed. For example, when one is creeping down a plush-carpetted hallway straining to hear even the slightest incongruous noice, there is a distinct fuzziness that surrounds any motion, or lack of movement. She cut through that fuzz heedlessly, set on her unpleasant task of informing Quatre that an accident had occurred concerning one of the main verniers of Wing and that it could take up to a week to fix.
It was a rather convenient accident, giving her enough time to overhaul Thunderforce's verniers, but that part of the incident was for her knowledge only.
As she approached the door to Quatre's room she focused on the supposed silence. Waking him probably wouldn't be wise at this point. He hadn't been shy about venting his anger at the previous delay on a helpless teacup. She didn't want to know what the computer would have looked like had he not gained control of himself and decided to stalk out of the hangar to try to get some rest. She didn't want to know what she would look like if he had any weapons on him and decided she was no longer of any use.
She scowled, stopping before the door. What a train of thought -- the Winner brat shouldn't have been anything to be afraid of. But then again, this mission should have been a piece of cake. And her gundam should have been flawless.
Yet apparently, despite all her programming, nothing seemed to work out as it should.
A sob suddenly broke the quiet, followed by enraged shouting, "I hate you! I hate you! It's your fault this happened to me!!" Alexis paused with her hand closed around the doorknob. She then turned it ever so slowly...easing the door open infinitesimal amounts until she could just see into the room. The torn pieces of a photo were settling on the floor at that moment. Alexis shifted until she could see the bed where Quatre was hugging himself like he was trying to hold in another sob. His wide, wild eyes stared at the remains of his precious photo. She pushed the door open the rest of the way.
"Quatre?" She entered without hesitation. He didn't acknowledge her until she reached out in a pretense of worry. He flinched away, lifting a tear-streaked face to pin her with an intense stare. Then something changed in the expression as if he was seeing her for the first time. Why don't you want to talk with me?
Don't you get lonely?
His defensive manner fell away. "What...do you want?" he asked with half-hearted scorn. He lowered his head to avoid her gaze as she sat down beside him.
"What were you yelling about?"
"Nothing."
"Do you really hate him?" She gestured toward the halves of the photo.
"What do you care?"
"He was a good leader."
"He didn't understand anything."
She regarded him frankly. "You mean he didn't understand you."
"He didn't understand anything about war."
"Maybe."
"About fighting. How does he expect me to fight OZ? Fight like him? Run like a coward? Like him, abandon my family? Just die, leaving a mere child to clean up the mess??" His fists clenched, trembling.
Inside Alexis smiled. Aha, found the sensitive spot. "I thought he was brave."
He shot her a fierce scowl. "What would you know? You weren't there." Then he laughed bitterly. "Or are you one of my sisters? I can't remember anymore, since I am lost amidst the flock." A wry smile stayed on his lips. He seemed to be waiting for a response to the question. When he looked at her again his eyes were hard. "Well?"
She raised an eyebrow in doubt. "As far as I know I'm not your sister." To herself, she mused, Although only one person really knows. Wouldn't that be a real kick in the teeth.
Quatre shrugged. "As you say. But you are wrong about my father." His gaze returned to the ruined photo as he leaned with his arms resting on his knees. "Just as my father was wrong." He lowered his head, murmuring bitterly, "Just as everything is wrong."
"There's at least...one...other thing wrong..." Alexis began in a meek tone. "An error occurred when we were adjusting one of WingZero's verniers -- it's going to take another week to repair..."
Quatre jerked upright, murder in his eyes. "Idiots," he hissed. Then he seemed mildly curious when he inquired, "WingZero?"
Did that slip? They had only called it Wing up to that point; actually, he hadn't called it anything. "That was the title on the blueprint." She shrugged, attempting non-chalance.
"Oh." Disinterest; he had never bothered to look. Quatre's attention went back to the floor. When next he spoke his voice held an icy threat. "Make sure it takes less than a week."
There was definitely a dismissal in there, as well. Alexis rose, nodding in apparent apology. "I'll tell them." She left the room without another word.
Quatre gazed unblinking at the photo, shifting to rest his hands on the edge of the bed. His fingers curled, gripping the blanket in silent grief.

"V, come in!" Alexis growled at the static-filled screen of her pocket comm. It took a moment for the image to resolve into the shape of an elderly man wearing an angry scowl.
"Where's my sample?"
"Haven't got it yet."
He sighed. "I'm tired of these empty reports. Get me something useful before you bother to call again." He pierced her with an unforgiving glare. "I wouldn't hesitate now to say your predecessor proved more useful."
"What?!!" Alexis' shriek threatened to crack the screen. "Don't you dare compare me to her!! She had far too many weaknesses!!"
He smiled coldly. "I wonder."
Alexis fell silent, attempting to stop the infuriated shaking that overtook her body. She had walked right into his baiting. She had to show him that she was above such pettiness. "A momentary setback. We would have had more need for worry if this plan had gone off without a hitch."
"As you say. Now go complete your mission. I can't duplicate DNA if I have no DNA to work with."
She closed the connection, not bothering to acknowledge his last statement. He had made her a part of the game. And she no longer wanted to play by the rules.

Alexis kept her word to Quatre. The repairs took less than a week -- Thunderforce's upgrade was being completed three days ahead of schedule. Although...it wasn't nearly enough. There wasn't time for the real power she wanted. That would have to wait until she was free from this mission and far away from the Winner brat's ever-present threat. She certainly couldn't try to stall again, for who knew how he would react. That annoying calm...or maybe he'd finally pull the trigger this time.
Alexis scowled; now he was making her paranoid. Ridiculous. She currently clung to the inside of the left shoulder guard, hanging awkwardly to the side with her legs wrapped around a fuel pipe as she adjusted an exhaust vent. If anyone powered up the suit right then she had a good chance of being incinerated. Fortunately the engineers knew how to behave themselves, worrying more about refitting the powerpack. The only person who might even remotely consider the idea was being carefully monitored. And he was currently asleep, so she had nothing to worry about.
Sure, maybe if the obsessive little pilot had a heart attack and died in his sleep there would be nothing to worry about.
Alexis wiped her forehead and finished the last adjustment. She then clambered up over the guard to lean against the helmet, wiping her brow again and leaving a streak of grease across her skin. She glanced down to see how progress was going on the powerpack. "How many left?"
One of the engineers called, "Two. Then we'll be ready to test the system."
"Good." She made her way down to the cockpit. Two boosters left to be adjusted. It wouldn't take long. In the meantime she could program in a test simulation to try out her modified ZERO. If all went well Thunderforce would react independantly should she fail to recognize a situation, and only then. It had already proven successful when it dodged the blast from Wing in the fight, calculating the speed and timing on its own. Still, she wanted more tests to find out what her own limits were.
Roughly an hour later the boosters were set and all refinements were confirmed. The tests went smoothly. Alexis was pleased with the system. She wanted to try the same data on ZERO...except at a slightly lower level. She had left her life completely in TF's hands and had walked away confident. She wasn't quite as trusting toward ZERO.

Quatre, supposedly asleep, was all too awake in his darkened room, fully dressed at that, as if waiting for a good reason to jump into action. His breath wheezed through his mouth as he stared at the hand that rested on the pillow before him; the other he was lying on, and he completely ignored the pins and needles filling it from having his weight press on it. He gazed at the back of the hand, then at his palm, then watched the lines across his palm crease as he began to close it in a fist.
Was this the hand of a murderer? A warrior? A hero? He wheezed. And he stared. And he wanted someone to blame. There had to be someone to blame. It wasn't his fault. He had only wanted to protect his home.
No. He had wanted to prove he could fight. Prove that he was more than some plushy ornament to the Winner family's collection. Prove he was more than just a creation for someone's use as an heir. And it wasn't his fault that people had died, that he now had his inheritance. It wasn't his fault.
"What could you accom..."
From somewhere his own voice, sounding weak and sore, croaked out, "I can accomplish more than you. I can make the people stop making weapons. You couldn't. I can be better than you, better than what you demanded of me..." He didn't have the strength just then to growl or yell. His mind wasn't making any sense. Anger made up his blood, singing vengeance through his veins. It was the only existance he could fathom, and it was painful to the point where he wanted to cry.
But there was no time for that. Soon he would show the people their mistake. Soon. Ssooonn... The word hissed through his mind, assuaging his rabid thoughts so that sleep might come at last. From his lips fell a fervent whisper before darkness claimed him. "For you, Father."

It was not dark for long. But first the cold crept in, then light came in the way the sun rises -- yet he saw no sun, only an endless sea of white. He shivered and rubbed the thin sleeves of his shirt which bore little protection against the snow.
Snow..? Where was he?
Hugging his arms tight across his chest he began to slog through the shin-high powder, trying to ignore the shuddering that ran up and down his spine as the cold seeped first into his shoes then dampened the bottom of his pantlegs. There was no end to the white, no shelter. He thought he could make out the shape of a cliff up ahead but its sheer face offered no protection. There was nothing else to do except continue walking.
Siberia.
Now he recognized -- well, realized, since there was little in the way of landmarks -- where exactly he was. Not much in the way of comfort, either. He couldn't remember why he was here. So he shuffled onward, breathing out clouds of steam and unable to keep himself even remotely warm. His eyes roamed the blank plains with something resembling hunger, desperate for a respite from the nothingness. It came in the form of a half-dark lump sitting motionless several yards from the cliff, which was now to his right. He turned and trudged toward it, not caring if it was a danger or not. Anything to escape the blinding cold.
It was a person. As he neared, he thought he should recognize the fall of light brown hair and the strong build disguised by a dark blue turtleneck. When the person looked up, he did know him. "Trowa." Not a question. Just a statement. Trowa, the colonies are wrong. You will help me fix them, right? Yet he could not bring himself to speak the words aloud. Trowa was piercing him with an empty gaze.
"I'm...cold. So...cold..." Trowa brought his arms up, slowly, in imitation of the way Quatre was hugging himself. Trowa seemed confused as to how this would help him become warm. "So...cold..." He then lowered his arms as if realizing the futility. His gaze wandered to the horizon then returned to Quatre, almost looking through him for a moment. He was unmindful of the snowflakes dusting his hair and clothes, turning him into a paler version of himself.
Quatre had no reply. He only wanted to tell Trowa that they had to...had to...His decision wavered as a figure rose up behind the other boy. Quatre cried out to warn him -- the figure was wreathed from head to toe in ravaging flames that obscured her form. But he knew it was a her. And she reached forward, passing her hands over Trowa then retreating.
And Trowa was turned into a statue of ice due to the melted and instantly refrozen snow.
I'm...so...cold...
The figure advanced toward Quatre. Burning arms reached to embrace him. From somewhere inside the shadow of its form he saw sorrow-filled green eyes. Then she touched him.

Quatre woke with a raw cry of fear rising from his throat. He sat up then bent forward as the fire tore through his chest. Dream! It was a dream! His mind refused to register it. It was too full of hatred to care for his physical being. Fire, fire twisting through his heart... He fell back, hand slipping from its place on his chest. What kind of nightmare could do this?
In rage he threw aside his fear, rising to stand despite how the twinge in his heart protested. Enough with the weaknesses! He made his way toward the door, somewhat wobbly but determined. There was no time for fear or mysterious visions. He had work to do. There were some last minute details he had to tend to.

He was no longer being monitored. Alexis had seen to that. She knew it was unnecessary.
ZERO had told her as much.
Marvelous thing, this ZERO. It told her that he was awake, and headed for the hangar, and that he had a gun. And so when he walked into the room she opened the hangar gate and...out went the Winner trash.
She would have laughed in triumph had it not all been a vision. A hallucination. Something caused by the ZERO system. How she hated that machine. Alexis retreated to the safety of Thunderforce's cockpit, tapping into her own system which was tamed into not causing such twisted thoughts. Let ZERO prey on Quatre's already fried brain. It wasn't her problem. She had ordered the engineers to leave ZERO activated this time. She wasn't expecting to do battle today. At least not with any gundam pilots.
When Quatre did enter the hangar he slid something into his pocket that wasn't quite a gun...but she was unable to identify it. She tried not to look tense as she sat down on TF's cockpit platform, watching as he took a spacesuit from the compartments beside the door. Yet her carefully practiced indifference slipped when he turned and gave her a genuinely pleasant smile, raising one hand as if in salute. "Well, I'm off to complete the mission! Wish me luck!"
A sick feeling formed in her gut; what was worse, his cheerfulness or madness? The change in his mood made her uneasy. Such nice manner almost spoke of him grinning away while raising a gun to end her involvement in his quest. However, he showed no inclination of doing such a thing, instead heading straight for his gundam. She waited until he had entered Wing. Then she reached for her own spacesuit.
Quatre took something cylindrical from his pocket and placed it on the left armrest of the pilot seat. He was still calmly smiling as he zipped up his spacesuit, and as he settled into the seat. The expression remained in place after he had slipped on his helmet. It would be unnerving to anyone who saw that also knew what he planned to do. At his signal the hangar gate opened. He exited with what might have been considered unnecessary speed. Suddenly he stopped and turned. He calmly palmed the device he had brought into the suit.
"I'm sorry, Irina, but now you have weapons too, so you have to die."

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(c) 2001-2004 Autumn Loweck. This work may not be copied, distributed, or reprinted without the author's permission. Characters of Alexis/Irina, Advisor V and mecha ThunderForce are property of Autumn Loweck (aka Shiri) and may not be "borrowed" or mentioned in other works without notifying the author first. Characters of Quatre R. Winner, and WingZERO belong to the creators of the GundamWing series, Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, Bandai, and whoever else in Japan involved in this most cool anime.