[FIC] Do Not Go Gentle... (1/?)
Title: Do Not Go Gentle...
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Genre: Action, mystery, psychological
Pairings: 3x4-ishness in this chapter
Rating: T
General disclaimer: The Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing universe is owned by Bandai, Sunrise, the Sotsu Agency and other people who are not me. This story is for free entertainment purposes only. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is by Dylan Thomas. In spite of the title, this is not a death fic.
Summary: In AC 208, it is discovered that the Alliance experimented with more than mobile dolls and machines of war.
For sevenall, because she is just that cool.
Quatre woke reluctantly. It was that neon-lit nothing o'clock that might have been anywhere between an hour after sunset or an hour before dawn. He was not in his own bed, nor was he lying on a nondescript hotel mattress, and he experienced a moment of profound disorientation bordering on vertigo before his memory kicked in and supplied him with the necessary data.
Earth. This was Earth. New Roma. It had to be New Roma, because this low, wide bed smelled faintly of Trowa, and Trowa's apartment was where he stayed whenever he was even remotely nearby.
Not that Trowa was there, of course, he realized with both relief and regret. Trowa was away, maybe in London, or Prague, or Eden III, anywhere where people wanted the type of flash-bang, edge-of-the-seat entertainment he and his troupe provided. It didn't matter exactly where. Just away somewhere where the rich and bored went to seek vicarious thrills.
Quatre sat up, feeling the familiar weary ache of jetlag pulling at his muscles, and groped for his watch on the bedside table. It was half past four. He could probably curl up and sleep for another two hours, at least, but he was afraid that if he went back to sleep he would go on sleeping until long after his meeting at eight, and that wouldn't do.
Outside the warmth of the comforter the world was as chilly as it was dark, and Quatre pulled his discarded jacket on over his bare shoulders. It reeked of travel and of oniony nervous sweat. No matter; he would have time to wash both it and himself before his meeting.
Some coffee was in order. He made his way to the kitchen, which was all dark granite and oak. When the light was switched on, the important appliances and surfaces were spotlighted with high-intensity halogens in tin cones while the rest of it in shadows. It looked oddly like a stage. Or maybe not so oddly, considering Trowa's trade. Presentation and misdirection were his most marketable talents.
Quatre stepped inside the miniature arena and blinked at the monstrous espresso machine on one of the countertops. He poked listlessly at a few of its buttons, and then gave up. Instant would be good enough for the time being.
Mug in hand, Quatre padded to the living room and sat down in one of the leather club chairs near the television. "News," he said.
Nothing happened.
He coughed, cleared his throat, and said, "News" again in a louder voice.
The television screen remained a black, lifeless lens in the corner.
"Crap," he said, getting up, and then "Ow!" as he barked his shin against the edge of a low coffee table. He said several more things as he rubbed the sore spot, but the words faded away when he noticed that there was a large manila envelope in the center of the table. In the faint night light from the window, he could just make out some writing on it.
"Lights," he said, and a pair of floor lamps obediently lit the immediate area. He picked up the envelope.
WELCOME, QUATRE
Trowa's spiky, uneven handwriting was as familiar and comforting as a favorite coat. Quatre wanted to smile, but he kept his face carefully neutral instead. Under the message was a whimsical doodle of a clown's half-mask with wide, grinning lips and a star for an eye. Look out, danger, secrets. That was what the drawing meant.
Quatre felt a chill run down his spine. He unfastened the metal clasp on the envelope and sat back in the chair, letting the contents spill into his lap. There was a socket drive-- small yet heavy--a few photocopied news articles, several photographs, and a slip of paper with more handwriting on it. Quatre picked the last one up first.
Dear Quatre, it read, thank you for looking after the place. Hope to see you in person soon. Sorry about the TV, but it watches us more than we watch it. These days popular media is only entertainment and you'd be better off getting your news from the source. I'll call you later. Much love, T.
Quatre forgot himself long enough to smile at that, but his chuckle was quickly replaced by a sharp, surprised shout as the note burst into flames in his fingers.
Startled, he sprang to his feet and started to brush the flames away from his face and clothing before he realized that the fire was already gone, leaving only a dusting of grey ash on his pajama pants. Flash paper. He put an hand to his chest in an effort to reign in his racing heart.
"Trowa, you complete and utter bastard," he said, and began to laugh.
##
Quatre tucked the documents back into the envelope and headed for the shower. He was still feeling too tired and off-kilter to give proper attention to them, which, after only a cursory glance, had proven too unsettling to read when his attention wasn't at its best.
He took a shower first, attempting to scrub off the travel weariness with soap and water, then, when that didn't work, resorted to a second cup of instant coffee. That made him feel a little better, a little more present. He booted up his notebook while he dried himself and checked the availability status of the Maguanac.
Rashid still had not changed his away message: I am a new father. If you wish to congratulate me, I have no use for cards or wine; instead, send me more hours in the day.
Quatre grinned at that. He saw that Auda and Abdul were online, available and no doubt bombarding their fearless leader with 'advice'. Going down the list, he saw that most of his team had checked in at least once during the past six hours. Only two hadn't; they were probably still in transit or taking advantage of some peace and quiet before the eight o'clock meeting. Quatre typed in a quick greeting and then went back to reading the news. Or what passed for the news, anyway, which, when he looked at it with a more critical eye, wasn't very enlightening at all. The columns seemed to be filled with sports updates, celebrity hijinks and the kind of maudlin human interest stories that were supposed to make one feel sentimental and inclined to give to charity. Even the weather report seemed to have been dumbed down to mere icons of anthropomorphic rain clouds and smiling suns.
Trowa's voice seemed to whisper in his ear: You'd be better off getting your news from the source.
Quatre looked at the envelope on the table with a strange feeling of lucid paranoia. He could not take it with him to the meeting, that much was certain, but he also could not simply leave it lying around.
Instead, he took it to the bedroom and opened up Trowa's wardrobe. He pulled one of the drawers all the way out and removed the folded stacks of cotton shirts from inside, setting them neatly on the made-up bed. He noticed that they were all solid, somber colors--outside his performance outfits, Trowa had never been an adventurous dresser.
He turned the drawer upside down and, using strips from a roll of black electrical tape, secured the envelope to the bare wood. The envelope was just thin enough that the drawer slid back into its slot with little resistance. He put everything back where it belonged and then, in a move that made him feel a little embarrassed and a little more secure at the same time, spit-pasted a hair from his own head over the crack between the wardrobe doors. It blended invisibly against the white pine.
Satisfied for the time being, he changed into his work clothes, grabbed his jacket from the laundry room, and set out for his meeting.
Once outdoors, he was struck by another wave of that strange, exhausting feeling of being outside his element. There was a metallic taint of hydrocarbons in the air and it was humid, giving him the sense that there wasn't quite enough oxygen. The light was different, too, glaring into his eyes from the eastern horizon rather than a diffuse glow from a colony ceiling. It was going to be a warm day.
There was a hyperrail station a short walk from Trowa's building that would take him to the job site. Quatre fought his way though crowds of immaculately dressed adults and schoolbound children, all of whom seemed to be talking into cell phones, datapads, and each other's ears at top volume. The noise and push and sheer volume of humanity made the muscles in his neck and shoulders start to knot with tension.
The railcar was standing room only, and Quatre tried to shrink in on himself as strangers pressed intimately close to him. None of them seemed in the least bit concerned or uncomfortable with this; they seemed to have developed the knack of internalizing their sense of personal space and could carry on working, chatting, or simply daydreaming without any apparent regard to their neighbors. Quatre had to wonder how any of them could even hear themselves think.
By the time Quatre managed to wrestle his way off the platform of the Plaza of Poets, he thought he might not have bothered with is nap, his shower, and Trowa's coffee. He was wrung out yet frazzled, every nerve on edge, and he felt grimy, his clothes and exposed skin impregnated with a thousand alien scents from a thousand alien people, aliens who were now streaming past him, individuals seeming to melt into a solid biomass that parted around him like a river around a rock.
He cast around desperately for a landmark, a sign, anything that would give him a sense of where he was. It was a plaza, as per the station name, and he supposed the glimpses of stone statues he could see above the crowd were of poets, but other than that there were only rushing bodies and a bustling sense of purpose that seemed to be at right angles to his own.
His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. Like a dash of cold water, it brought him back to his senses.
"Yes, hello!" he shouted into it, sticking his index finger into his free ear to block out some of the noise.
"Good morning, Quatre." Ahmad's voice was like an anchor. "It is my sad duty as your supervisor to inform you that you are over fifteen minutes late for the meeting and I am going to have to put this incident on your permanent record."
Startled, Quatre checked his watch. It wasn't quite eight o'clock. "Very funny, Ahmad."
"I thought so. And, since you are usually compulsively early, I assume that you're lost. Where are you now?"
"I'm not lost! I'm in the Plaza of Poets, near the hyperrail station." The building was here...somewhere.
"The last train came in five minutes ago, yet you still aren't here having a hot cup of coffee and a fresh pastry with me while we go over our meeting plans. I wonder why that is?"
That was deliberate torture. Quatre hadn't eaten since the shuttle's meal service sixteen hours previously. He was ravenous. "Have you looked out a window lately? It's mayhem out here!"
"If I could see beyond the scaffolding and plastic sheeting currently blocking off the view, I might possibly agree. However, since I have been here since before dawn and the windows are covered--"
Quatre suddenly saw it. It was to the north, a squat building that might have been anything under its steel and plastic exoskeleton. Since it was the only building in the plaza that was obviously under construction, Quatre felt a little foolish for overlooking it. "I'll be there in five minutes."
##
Quatre opened the door of what had once been the school office and the last lingering shreds of fear and distress immediately disappeared when he saw the familiar faces, the welcoming smiles, heard the rumble of voices and smelled the scents of coffee and fresh pastries.
"Quatre, you're late!"
Quatre met the good-tempered barb with a smile. "I got held up, Auda. Sorry."
"No problem. You're here now, right?"
"Right. Am I the last?"
"Yes, but we saved you some breakfast anyway. Come on in!"
Quatre made his way through the rather crowded room, his progress impeded by greetings and jokes, and ended up at a secretary's desk that had been co-opted as a buffet. He helped himself to a cup of coffee and an apple pastry and found a clear spot on another desk to sit down on. "Where is Ahmad?" he asked.
"In there, with the head architect." Auda pointed toward a door with a frosted glass window cut into the top half; Quatre could see vaguely human shadows moving beyond it.
"Is there a problem?"
"Isn't there always?"
That was certainly true. "What is it this time?"
"Apparently the water mains under this building are older than dirt and the city is refusing to issue a permit until we agree to do something about them."
"'Do something'? Like what?"
Auda gave a great shrug. "Convince them that it's not our problem?"
Quatre swallowed the last of his pastry with the dregs of his coffee. "You would think that would be obvious. So why is Ahmad talking to the architect and not the city administrators?"
"He thinks that if he can figure out a way to 'do something', he can net a few more contracts here."
"Oh my..." Quatre began to rub the bridge of his nose.
"Ahmad is the only person I know who is more of a go-getter than you are, kid."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"More coffee?"
"Sure."
Forty-five minutes later, Ahmad and the architect stepped out of their office, both of them looking a little tired, but smiling. "Do I see sleeping on the job?" Ahmad asked rhetorically, tipping back the chair of a snoozing Maguanac.
"We're on the job?" asked Mumar, one of the younger engineers on the team.
"But of course! Did you doubt my ability to reach a profitable compromise with the city bureaucracy?"
"Er..."
"We can do it. On time, under budget, and with a ten-percent bonus, gentlemen."
Quatre's laughter was drowned out in the general cheer that rose at that pronouncement and he was nearly knocked off his feet when an enthusiastic hand whapped him on the back. Ahmad was the hero of the hour.
There is nothing like the busy, happy rush of a new project to make time fly, and it was nearly dark when Quatre next had a chance to take a break.
He sat down cross-legged on the wooden floor of the scaffolding on the fifth floor and snapped the top off a bottle of cold water. It felt wonderful going down his dusty throat. A fresh breeze had sprung up and he lifted his chin, letting it dry the sweat on his face and neck. It had been a good day. He would sleep well tonight.
A set of heavy-booted footsteps sounded from behind him, but Quatre was too pleasantly tired to turn around to see who it was. "Hey, it was a good day, wasn't it?" he said.
"You must be hungry."
Quatre didn't exactly leap to his feet at the sound of that voice, but he did rise to one knee and twist himself around. "Rashid!"
As befitted a new father, Rashid looked both joyous and exhausted. His beard had a few more strands of silver in it and he seemed to have lost weight, but he was smiling--no, grinning. "I'm almost offended that you haven't rung me in the middle of the night to give me advice about my new daughter," he said, and held up a great hand when Quatre began to protest. "Almost."
"I figured you would need some quiet time to bond with Maryam and Fatin."
"Maryam is, unfortunately, not very interested in 'bonding' with me these days. It was a difficult labor."
Quatre hoped the sunset covered up his blush. "She and Fatin are doing well, I hope?"
"Oh, yes. I have pictures, if you would like to see," Rashid said, producing a small camera from the folds of his shirt.
Quatre spent a few minutes looking at poorly-lit shots of an exhausted-looking woman holding what appeared to be a small, red, irate wad of dough. "Very cute," he said neutrally, handing the camera back to Rashid.
"No, not really," Rashid said with a smile. "Neither of them were at their best that morning." He stared at the camera for a few moments before shutting it off. Without the ambient glow, the evening seemed very dark. "So," he said smiling once again, "I asked if you were hungry in hope that you would say yes and that we could have a conversation that did not revolve around newborn babies, their needs and their byproducts. I brought some food."
Quatre was hungry, now that he thought about it, but he also wanted to get back to the apartment. He had successfully tried to stop thinking about the envelope for the entire day, but now he was full of a low-key anxiety about it, and he considered Rashid to be one of the few people he could share it with.
Besides, he was reasonably certain that Trowa's apartment was secure. Reasonably.
Trowa's voice sounded in his ear: It watches us more than we watch it.
"Rashid, I'd be more than happy to eat with you, but I'd like to go back to the place where I'm staying. I have some things I would like to show you."
Rashid stood up, once again the tall, solemn totem of Quatre's youth. "Of course, Quatre. Lead the way."
TBC
Fandom: Gundam Wing
Genre: Action, mystery, psychological
Pairings: 3x4-ishness in this chapter
Rating: T
General disclaimer: The Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing universe is owned by Bandai, Sunrise, the Sotsu Agency and other people who are not me. This story is for free entertainment purposes only. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is by Dylan Thomas. In spite of the title, this is not a death fic.
Summary: In AC 208, it is discovered that the Alliance experimented with more than mobile dolls and machines of war.
For sevenall, because she is just that cool.
Quatre woke reluctantly. It was that neon-lit nothing o'clock that might have been anywhere between an hour after sunset or an hour before dawn. He was not in his own bed, nor was he lying on a nondescript hotel mattress, and he experienced a moment of profound disorientation bordering on vertigo before his memory kicked in and supplied him with the necessary data.
Earth. This was Earth. New Roma. It had to be New Roma, because this low, wide bed smelled faintly of Trowa, and Trowa's apartment was where he stayed whenever he was even remotely nearby.
Not that Trowa was there, of course, he realized with both relief and regret. Trowa was away, maybe in London, or Prague, or Eden III, anywhere where people wanted the type of flash-bang, edge-of-the-seat entertainment he and his troupe provided. It didn't matter exactly where. Just away somewhere where the rich and bored went to seek vicarious thrills.
Quatre sat up, feeling the familiar weary ache of jetlag pulling at his muscles, and groped for his watch on the bedside table. It was half past four. He could probably curl up and sleep for another two hours, at least, but he was afraid that if he went back to sleep he would go on sleeping until long after his meeting at eight, and that wouldn't do.
Outside the warmth of the comforter the world was as chilly as it was dark, and Quatre pulled his discarded jacket on over his bare shoulders. It reeked of travel and of oniony nervous sweat. No matter; he would have time to wash both it and himself before his meeting.
Some coffee was in order. He made his way to the kitchen, which was all dark granite and oak. When the light was switched on, the important appliances and surfaces were spotlighted with high-intensity halogens in tin cones while the rest of it in shadows. It looked oddly like a stage. Or maybe not so oddly, considering Trowa's trade. Presentation and misdirection were his most marketable talents.
Quatre stepped inside the miniature arena and blinked at the monstrous espresso machine on one of the countertops. He poked listlessly at a few of its buttons, and then gave up. Instant would be good enough for the time being.
Mug in hand, Quatre padded to the living room and sat down in one of the leather club chairs near the television. "News," he said.
Nothing happened.
He coughed, cleared his throat, and said, "News" again in a louder voice.
The television screen remained a black, lifeless lens in the corner.
"Crap," he said, getting up, and then "Ow!" as he barked his shin against the edge of a low coffee table. He said several more things as he rubbed the sore spot, but the words faded away when he noticed that there was a large manila envelope in the center of the table. In the faint night light from the window, he could just make out some writing on it.
"Lights," he said, and a pair of floor lamps obediently lit the immediate area. He picked up the envelope.
WELCOME, QUATRE
Trowa's spiky, uneven handwriting was as familiar and comforting as a favorite coat. Quatre wanted to smile, but he kept his face carefully neutral instead. Under the message was a whimsical doodle of a clown's half-mask with wide, grinning lips and a star for an eye. Look out, danger, secrets. That was what the drawing meant.
Quatre felt a chill run down his spine. He unfastened the metal clasp on the envelope and sat back in the chair, letting the contents spill into his lap. There was a socket drive-- small yet heavy--a few photocopied news articles, several photographs, and a slip of paper with more handwriting on it. Quatre picked the last one up first.
Dear Quatre, it read, thank you for looking after the place. Hope to see you in person soon. Sorry about the TV, but it watches us more than we watch it. These days popular media is only entertainment and you'd be better off getting your news from the source. I'll call you later. Much love, T.
Quatre forgot himself long enough to smile at that, but his chuckle was quickly replaced by a sharp, surprised shout as the note burst into flames in his fingers.
Startled, he sprang to his feet and started to brush the flames away from his face and clothing before he realized that the fire was already gone, leaving only a dusting of grey ash on his pajama pants. Flash paper. He put an hand to his chest in an effort to reign in his racing heart.
"Trowa, you complete and utter bastard," he said, and began to laugh.
##
Quatre tucked the documents back into the envelope and headed for the shower. He was still feeling too tired and off-kilter to give proper attention to them, which, after only a cursory glance, had proven too unsettling to read when his attention wasn't at its best.
He took a shower first, attempting to scrub off the travel weariness with soap and water, then, when that didn't work, resorted to a second cup of instant coffee. That made him feel a little better, a little more present. He booted up his notebook while he dried himself and checked the availability status of the Maguanac.
Rashid still had not changed his away message: I am a new father. If you wish to congratulate me, I have no use for cards or wine; instead, send me more hours in the day.
Quatre grinned at that. He saw that Auda and Abdul were online, available and no doubt bombarding their fearless leader with 'advice'. Going down the list, he saw that most of his team had checked in at least once during the past six hours. Only two hadn't; they were probably still in transit or taking advantage of some peace and quiet before the eight o'clock meeting. Quatre typed in a quick greeting and then went back to reading the news. Or what passed for the news, anyway, which, when he looked at it with a more critical eye, wasn't very enlightening at all. The columns seemed to be filled with sports updates, celebrity hijinks and the kind of maudlin human interest stories that were supposed to make one feel sentimental and inclined to give to charity. Even the weather report seemed to have been dumbed down to mere icons of anthropomorphic rain clouds and smiling suns.
Trowa's voice seemed to whisper in his ear: You'd be better off getting your news from the source.
Quatre looked at the envelope on the table with a strange feeling of lucid paranoia. He could not take it with him to the meeting, that much was certain, but he also could not simply leave it lying around.
Instead, he took it to the bedroom and opened up Trowa's wardrobe. He pulled one of the drawers all the way out and removed the folded stacks of cotton shirts from inside, setting them neatly on the made-up bed. He noticed that they were all solid, somber colors--outside his performance outfits, Trowa had never been an adventurous dresser.
He turned the drawer upside down and, using strips from a roll of black electrical tape, secured the envelope to the bare wood. The envelope was just thin enough that the drawer slid back into its slot with little resistance. He put everything back where it belonged and then, in a move that made him feel a little embarrassed and a little more secure at the same time, spit-pasted a hair from his own head over the crack between the wardrobe doors. It blended invisibly against the white pine.
Satisfied for the time being, he changed into his work clothes, grabbed his jacket from the laundry room, and set out for his meeting.
Once outdoors, he was struck by another wave of that strange, exhausting feeling of being outside his element. There was a metallic taint of hydrocarbons in the air and it was humid, giving him the sense that there wasn't quite enough oxygen. The light was different, too, glaring into his eyes from the eastern horizon rather than a diffuse glow from a colony ceiling. It was going to be a warm day.
There was a hyperrail station a short walk from Trowa's building that would take him to the job site. Quatre fought his way though crowds of immaculately dressed adults and schoolbound children, all of whom seemed to be talking into cell phones, datapads, and each other's ears at top volume. The noise and push and sheer volume of humanity made the muscles in his neck and shoulders start to knot with tension.
The railcar was standing room only, and Quatre tried to shrink in on himself as strangers pressed intimately close to him. None of them seemed in the least bit concerned or uncomfortable with this; they seemed to have developed the knack of internalizing their sense of personal space and could carry on working, chatting, or simply daydreaming without any apparent regard to their neighbors. Quatre had to wonder how any of them could even hear themselves think.
By the time Quatre managed to wrestle his way off the platform of the Plaza of Poets, he thought he might not have bothered with is nap, his shower, and Trowa's coffee. He was wrung out yet frazzled, every nerve on edge, and he felt grimy, his clothes and exposed skin impregnated with a thousand alien scents from a thousand alien people, aliens who were now streaming past him, individuals seeming to melt into a solid biomass that parted around him like a river around a rock.
He cast around desperately for a landmark, a sign, anything that would give him a sense of where he was. It was a plaza, as per the station name, and he supposed the glimpses of stone statues he could see above the crowd were of poets, but other than that there were only rushing bodies and a bustling sense of purpose that seemed to be at right angles to his own.
His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. Like a dash of cold water, it brought him back to his senses.
"Yes, hello!" he shouted into it, sticking his index finger into his free ear to block out some of the noise.
"Good morning, Quatre." Ahmad's voice was like an anchor. "It is my sad duty as your supervisor to inform you that you are over fifteen minutes late for the meeting and I am going to have to put this incident on your permanent record."
Startled, Quatre checked his watch. It wasn't quite eight o'clock. "Very funny, Ahmad."
"I thought so. And, since you are usually compulsively early, I assume that you're lost. Where are you now?"
"I'm not lost! I'm in the Plaza of Poets, near the hyperrail station." The building was here...somewhere.
"The last train came in five minutes ago, yet you still aren't here having a hot cup of coffee and a fresh pastry with me while we go over our meeting plans. I wonder why that is?"
That was deliberate torture. Quatre hadn't eaten since the shuttle's meal service sixteen hours previously. He was ravenous. "Have you looked out a window lately? It's mayhem out here!"
"If I could see beyond the scaffolding and plastic sheeting currently blocking off the view, I might possibly agree. However, since I have been here since before dawn and the windows are covered--"
Quatre suddenly saw it. It was to the north, a squat building that might have been anything under its steel and plastic exoskeleton. Since it was the only building in the plaza that was obviously under construction, Quatre felt a little foolish for overlooking it. "I'll be there in five minutes."
##
Quatre opened the door of what had once been the school office and the last lingering shreds of fear and distress immediately disappeared when he saw the familiar faces, the welcoming smiles, heard the rumble of voices and smelled the scents of coffee and fresh pastries.
"Quatre, you're late!"
Quatre met the good-tempered barb with a smile. "I got held up, Auda. Sorry."
"No problem. You're here now, right?"
"Right. Am I the last?"
"Yes, but we saved you some breakfast anyway. Come on in!"
Quatre made his way through the rather crowded room, his progress impeded by greetings and jokes, and ended up at a secretary's desk that had been co-opted as a buffet. He helped himself to a cup of coffee and an apple pastry and found a clear spot on another desk to sit down on. "Where is Ahmad?" he asked.
"In there, with the head architect." Auda pointed toward a door with a frosted glass window cut into the top half; Quatre could see vaguely human shadows moving beyond it.
"Is there a problem?"
"Isn't there always?"
That was certainly true. "What is it this time?"
"Apparently the water mains under this building are older than dirt and the city is refusing to issue a permit until we agree to do something about them."
"'Do something'? Like what?"
Auda gave a great shrug. "Convince them that it's not our problem?"
Quatre swallowed the last of his pastry with the dregs of his coffee. "You would think that would be obvious. So why is Ahmad talking to the architect and not the city administrators?"
"He thinks that if he can figure out a way to 'do something', he can net a few more contracts here."
"Oh my..." Quatre began to rub the bridge of his nose.
"Ahmad is the only person I know who is more of a go-getter than you are, kid."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"More coffee?"
"Sure."
Forty-five minutes later, Ahmad and the architect stepped out of their office, both of them looking a little tired, but smiling. "Do I see sleeping on the job?" Ahmad asked rhetorically, tipping back the chair of a snoozing Maguanac.
"We're on the job?" asked Mumar, one of the younger engineers on the team.
"But of course! Did you doubt my ability to reach a profitable compromise with the city bureaucracy?"
"Er..."
"We can do it. On time, under budget, and with a ten-percent bonus, gentlemen."
Quatre's laughter was drowned out in the general cheer that rose at that pronouncement and he was nearly knocked off his feet when an enthusiastic hand whapped him on the back. Ahmad was the hero of the hour.
There is nothing like the busy, happy rush of a new project to make time fly, and it was nearly dark when Quatre next had a chance to take a break.
He sat down cross-legged on the wooden floor of the scaffolding on the fifth floor and snapped the top off a bottle of cold water. It felt wonderful going down his dusty throat. A fresh breeze had sprung up and he lifted his chin, letting it dry the sweat on his face and neck. It had been a good day. He would sleep well tonight.
A set of heavy-booted footsteps sounded from behind him, but Quatre was too pleasantly tired to turn around to see who it was. "Hey, it was a good day, wasn't it?" he said.
"You must be hungry."
Quatre didn't exactly leap to his feet at the sound of that voice, but he did rise to one knee and twist himself around. "Rashid!"
As befitted a new father, Rashid looked both joyous and exhausted. His beard had a few more strands of silver in it and he seemed to have lost weight, but he was smiling--no, grinning. "I'm almost offended that you haven't rung me in the middle of the night to give me advice about my new daughter," he said, and held up a great hand when Quatre began to protest. "Almost."
"I figured you would need some quiet time to bond with Maryam and Fatin."
"Maryam is, unfortunately, not very interested in 'bonding' with me these days. It was a difficult labor."
Quatre hoped the sunset covered up his blush. "She and Fatin are doing well, I hope?"
"Oh, yes. I have pictures, if you would like to see," Rashid said, producing a small camera from the folds of his shirt.
Quatre spent a few minutes looking at poorly-lit shots of an exhausted-looking woman holding what appeared to be a small, red, irate wad of dough. "Very cute," he said neutrally, handing the camera back to Rashid.
"No, not really," Rashid said with a smile. "Neither of them were at their best that morning." He stared at the camera for a few moments before shutting it off. Without the ambient glow, the evening seemed very dark. "So," he said smiling once again, "I asked if you were hungry in hope that you would say yes and that we could have a conversation that did not revolve around newborn babies, their needs and their byproducts. I brought some food."
Quatre was hungry, now that he thought about it, but he also wanted to get back to the apartment. He had successfully tried to stop thinking about the envelope for the entire day, but now he was full of a low-key anxiety about it, and he considered Rashid to be one of the few people he could share it with.
Besides, he was reasonably certain that Trowa's apartment was secure. Reasonably.
Trowa's voice sounded in his ear: It watches us more than we watch it.
"Rashid, I'd be more than happy to eat with you, but I'd like to go back to the place where I'm staying. I have some things I would like to show you."
Rashid stood up, once again the tall, solemn totem of Quatre's youth. "Of course, Quatre. Lead the way."
TBC