Kindred
Part 6
It didn’t take long for Midii to lose the kind guard who was guiding her to the bathroom. Really it was kind of funny since he had been so gently scolding her for getting lost herself in this strange countryside. How lucky she had stumbled upon this factory in the middle of nowhere! Midii let herself grin, enjoying the moment. The challenge was minimal here, but it was what she was good at after all. It was the blowing up of things that was not her specialty and she paused a moment frowning. Her plan was simple enough and one that had worked before. She set small packages of explosives around the perimeter with a larger device in the center which set off the chain reaction of destruction. She had just reached more or less the best place to set the center device but it looked as though something a little more sophisticated had all ready been planted. “What the hell is going on? Who put this here?”
Just then an evacuation alarm went off and she looked up startled as running feet beat past her. Some unknown man mistaking her for an employee shouted down the hall to her, “Duriru janai yo! Hiyaku iite!” Midii’s Japanese wasn’t great but she knew he was telling her to get the hell out of here. She didn’t need to be told twice. All the pieces fell together and she realized what was going on. Trowa wasn’t expected to handle the destruction of this factory. Someone else had been assigned this charming job and whoever he was, he was about to take care of it.
Midii skidded to a halt as she rounded a corner. This isn’t where she had come from! She tried to listen for the sound of other people but obviously everyone in this area was all ready gone. She chose a path at random and ran, looking frantically for an exit sign.
Heero lay well concealed in the cliff crevice he had chosen to watch the factory from. It looked like all of the workers were responding to the evacuation alarm. According to their drill data, it took 3 minutes and 22 seconds to evacuate the building. He planned on giving them 4 minutes. If anyone was killed in the blast after that, well he would regret the loss of life, but nothing was going to compromise this mission. Heero checked his watch again. There were 20 seconds remaining and it looked like everyone was out of the building. Heero placed his hand upon the detonation command and waited.
Trowa’s mind was an absolute blank and he was thankful for that as he had never been before. Always when it came time to act, his feelings shut down and he was pure action. Every now and then a stray thought in the form of Midii’s face flew across his mind and he hastily brushed the thought away. He had to be on time and that was all there was to it.
The factory came into view and Trowa decelerated as he landed. He noticed the crowd of people huddled out front a good distance from the building and ran towards them. “What’s going on here?” he called. He got a few blank and confused stares until someone with some English said, “There’s an evacuation alarm. Something must be wrong.” Trowa’s heart dropped for an instant as he realized what was happening. Without a moment’s hesitation he started a dead run for the factory.
Heero watched the shuttle land and a figure who was not Japanese exit the craft. The time that he had expected to detonate the building was at hand. He hesitated only a moment when he saw the newly arrived figure rush towards the building. Just as he realized it was Trowa, he pressed enter on his laptop and the building began to explode. He had no idea what Trowa was up to, but he would not deviate from his orders in this matter. He set about packing up his things. He should probably get down there and see what Trowa was up to.
Trowa was forced into the air and flown backwards by the blast of the building. He scrambled to his knees and watched as the factory walls crumbled down and the whole mess was engulfed in flames. “She wasn’t in there.” He said without thinking. “She wasn’t in there. She wasn’t in there!” He pushed himself upwards again and looked around him. She had to be around here somewhere, or maybe she wasn’t here at all? Maybe she hadn’t planned on coming to the factory?
A Preventer shuttle landed neatly beside his own and Trowa looked back to see Heero exit. Before Trowa could reach him Heero said, “Trowa? What are you doing here?” Trowa ignored the question and demanded, “Were you surveying the area before you detonated the building?” Heero nodded, puzzled by Trowa’s actions but willing to wait and see what he was up to. “Did you see a girl with blonde hair go in?” Heero responded immediately, “Yes, she entered approximately 15 minutes before the blast time.” Heero’s reflexes were perfection, nonetheless he was caught off guard as Trowa balled his fists into Heero’s shirt and asked with barely concealed emotion, “Did she get out? Did she get out Heero?” Heero willed himself not to shake Trowa off as all his instincts were calling on him to do. “I don’t know.” He said. There are other exit points around the building.” Trowa dropped Heero’s shirt and ran off to find other evacuees. Heero watched him go as more Preventer shuttles arrived and landed. Firefighting teams were now approaching the building to put out the flames. Blonde hair plus Trowa and Heero made the connection. He headed towards the incoming shuttles, hoping someone had seen her making her escape.
The calming blankness was beginning to fade and an ever increasing surge of anxiety was filling Trowa. He rounded the building and saw a group of confused and awed evacuees staring up at the burning building in front of them. He only needed to glance briefly to see that all the heads were black or brown. Midii wasn’t with them. His anxiety rose a notch as he sprinted to the other side of the building willing her to be there and not knowing what he would do if she wasn’t.
He slowed to a walk as he realized he had completed circling the entire factory without finding Midii. Heero was waiting for him, as impassive as ever, “None of the incoming shuttles have caught sight of her on foot and I would have noticed any incoming air traffic. She might have left another way.” Trowa stopped and balled his fists, unconsciously trying to gain back some of his composure, “She came here to complete a mission, I don’t think she would have left until she was sure that was possible. I didn’t see any kind car or bike leaving the area as I was coming in.” Trowa paused before he said the words that he had been fighting against since seeing the blast, “We have to assume that she didn’t get out until we can prove otherwise.”
Heero nodded briefly and then turned towards the firefighting team, “I’ll secure us some mobile suits, you inform the Preventer team that this is now a search and rescue mission.” Trowa nodded his agreement, the cool detachment that he always relied on spreading through him now that is was time to act. “Hang on Midii,” he thought as he started gathering together his team, “Wait for me this time.”
Midii coughed again and tried to block out the panic that was beginning to rise in her. She had bolted around that last corner to find herself looking at the hangar and an assortment of mobile suits. Though most of them looked incomplete, they were obviously made from Gundanium. She saw an exit sign towards the back of the hangar too. “How much time do I have?” she thought and then ran towards the nearest Gundam. If it were her, she wouldn’t hesitate to blow this place up and that sealed her decision. She had just crawled into the cockpit and sealed the hatch when the world around her started to shake. She heard the roar of explosives, muffled by the cockpit and felt the Gundam she was in start to tip over and fall. Midii braced herself for impact but jarred her arm off of the instrument panel and found herself lying face first on the view screen.
How many minutes ago did that happen? The Gundam had fallen face first with the door to the cockpit jammed against the floor and who knew how much rubble on top of her. The real question of the moment was, how much air did she have left and would anyone think to look for her here? She didn’t like what the logical part of her brain had to say about that and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears not to come. She needed to stay focused now. Despite her efforts, a few tears leaked through anyway as she pictured Trowa in her mind.
After meeting at the shuttleport, he had driven them quickly to her apartment,
neither of them saying a word. Midii had been too much in shock to speak. He had said to
her, “I love you. I know how you feel. I understand.” Her mind just kept playing those last words
over and over, trying to detect a loophole or angle because it was really too
good to be true. But when they got back
to her abandoned apartment, he had soundlessly picked her up and carried her
into the bedroom, dropped her on the bed and stood looking down at her. “I need you to do something for
They had been together less than 24 hours before she had taken off again, though this time it was for different reasons. “Trowa, will you think that I’ve just run away again when I don’t come back? Will you give up on me this time?” ‘You should.’ Was how her mind answered. She had been trying to help him this time, but somehow, just when the mission looked like it couldn’t get any easier, everything had fallen apart. “It only takes one stupid mistake to get yourself killed Midii. Maybe you’ve been out of the game for too long.” She thought, chiding herself on her lack of professionalism. But really she suddenly felt so guilty and terrible, thinking of Trowa waking up and seeing her gone. She had planned to have the mission done and be back before he had too much time to worry, but things hadn’t gone as planned, and she had never even considered what he might be thinking as she got more and more caught up with her objectives. Only now, that there was no way to get back to him did she consider what he might be thinking about her absence. Tears of frustration flowed freely and she pounded the view screen in front of her, “But I was doing this for you! I was trying to protect you!” Some long forgotten voice of authority sounded in her mind, “And good intentions pave the road to hell…”
Midii willed herself to calm down and took a deep breath while she still could. She had made a huge mistake, one that might cost her her life. She had to let him know what happend, leave a message or something behind that he may find. She needed him to know that she hadn’t just run away and as misguided as her actions may have been, it was her love for him that had driven her to do it. Rooting around she finally found her bag and mentally accessed what she had with her that might be on any help. She opened her cellphone for the light it would provide and with some shock realized that though it was weak, she had a signal.
AN: Sorry I couldn’t wrap up the story in this chapter, it really needs another chapter or two to do it justice.