Midii Une as Shadowblade examined the puzzlebox that her quarry had hidden himself away in and pondered ways and means

Midii Une as Shadowblade examined the puzzlebox that her quarry had hidden himself away in and pondered ways and means. Thick cement walls, steel reinforced doors, two guards on duty at the front gate, five more patrolling the lawns, three shifts of ten each cruising the interior, plus thirteen personal bodyguards surrounding Kaneda himself at all times. The abandoned mansion that Kaneda had holed himself away in still had a mostly intact security net and the rest had been jury-rigged. Lasers, motion detectors, plas-glass windows, digital code locks, check points, a horde of evil henchmen… the usual.

<Childs play,> she decided after completing her reconnaissance.

This was really more of a professional thief job than it was that of a bounty hunter. For one thing, she didn’t actually intend to kill anyone this time around. Perhaps that idiot Preventor’s useless morals were rubbing off on her. Nah, it couldn’t be, she wasn’t going soft, she was being practical. Such a large amount of dead bodies would call too much attention to her, and she needed to at least maintain the appearance of acting within reasonable behavior even if she really wasn’t. And when working with a Dudley-Do-Right group like the Preventors she needed to be extra careful. No dead bodies this trip, it would be easier without them.

It was in thinking about the vent system that gave Midii the idea. She could just set off a really large dose of sleepy-gas in the vent and knock out all of the guards and Kaneda. By the time the guards outside realized something was wrong on the inside of the house, Midii would hopefully have already made off with her target. But speaking of making off with the man; she’d already secured a location for him, (a deep, dank, clammy location with lots of chains and only one way in and one way out) however he was still likely to be quite heavy and Midii doubted she could make her gymnastics leap from one rooftop to the next while burdened with one or two hundred extra pounds. The gas wouldn’t reach the guards covering the ground. Well, she’d just knock out one of the garden guards on her way out and steal a car. That sounded simple enough.

A simple plan was best, and Midii had learned to be flexible when breaking and entering.

Midii was a little proud of herself for her handling of the invalid Preventor situation. Midii had never had a guest to look after before. She’d expected him to remain asleep for the next few days while the poison worked its way clear of his system. Kaneda used the best. Instead, he was on his feet and practically out the door before she could finish haggling him up to a fat price. She thought she’d been pretty clever to act like herself and Shadowblade were two different people. Now she doubted he’d catch on to the fact that she and the infamous bounty hunter were one and the same, he was still probably befuddled with poison anyhow.

<Even if he does catch on, he won’t know my true identity,> she reassured herself as she started to feel a little tingle of alarm at the thought of anyone finding out who she really was. <There’s no way he could. Hardly anyone’s ever heard of the girl named Midii Une, as a civilian I’m a complete nonentity. When I was a spy I’d only been caught a few times and most of those people are already dead. There’s no need for me to worry about being recognized.>

She wasn’t entirely certain why she would have that particular fear right at that moment. It was utterly ridiculous. Unless he was from her home village there was no way he’d know who she was; and even the people in her home village all thought that little Midii Une was just away at boarding school the whole time she was gone on her hunts for money. No one knew about Midii the spy, no one except for the “businessmen” of the Consortium.

<What if he’s one of the Consortium’s thugs only pretending to be a Preventors Agent?> she thought. <Oh, what am I saying? I ran a check on his card last night; he’s their agent alright, unless the Consortium has paid for someone to have some serious cosmetic surgery done. No, that’s all just silly, there’d be no point in spending all of that money just to take a look at what I’m doing.>

She’d been trying all day to keep her mind off the tall, well built man whose perfect washboard stomach she’d wrapped bandages around the previous night, but the fact was she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him. She felt the oddest feelings around him, as if she recognized him from somewhere but she didn’t know how she knew him. His voice had made shivers run up her spine, but not shivers of fear. She was familiar with the cold sweat of terror, but the pounding in her chest when she’d met his eyes for the first time was nothing like the way her heart beat when she just narrowly escaped death once again. He had the most incredible green eyes, beautiful like the sun splashing through the trees near her home. When she’d looked into them it had felt like the floor dropped out from beneath her and she was held suspended by a pair of eyes from a dream she’d been having for years. It was most unsettling.

<Speaking of houseguests, I’d better get moving. He’s probably hungry by now,> she thought. It had been a little over six hours since she’d left him there and it was now full dark.

When she’d shed the armor and weapons of her life as Shadowblade, she’d sort of snapped back into Midii-Mode, the kind of person she was when she wasn’t on a hunt for a hit. Midii was more along the lines of her true self. Midii had a family, Midii loved her younger brothers, Midii made certain father took his medicine, Midii balanced the accounts, Midii ran the household, Midii cooked, Midii sewed, Midii badgered her brothers into helping her, Midii walked down to the small market in their town and bought fresh fruits, Midii watched the boats of their small fishing village from the shores, Midii practiced gymnastics and martial arts in the courtyard of their house. And now, apparently, Midii played nursemaid to injured Preventors.

“It’s me,” she announced as she walked in the door burdened by a plastic sack full of Chinese food. “I hope you’re still here.”

“I’m here,” the quiet, mellow voice of Trowa Barton called softly from the other room.

“Good. I brought enough for both of us.”

“You were gone for so long, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to return,” he said as she slid the door back and entered the room he slept in. Midii was surprised that he did not sound peevish, only mildly curious. She pulled the low table from the other room over to his sleeping mat and sat down cross-legged from him, putting the bag of food on the table between them. He followed her movements with his eyes

“Business of the nature I attend to can take a while. I’m sorry if you got bored. I spent the majority of the day tracking down where Kaneda rabbited off to. I’ll be spending most of tomorrow on errands of a different nature than what I did today. Shadowblade should have Kaneda in his keeping shortly, in another day or so, these things can take time and while he’s taking care of that I’ll be looking up another likely prospect for a good bounty in the area. You’ll have the information you want within three days,” she told him as she separated equal proportions of steamed rice, sweet and sour chicken, chicken and shrimp fried noodles, and egg rolls. That was the cheapest warm meal she could get with enough there for two.

“Good,” he said. Then after a brief pause he added “Thank-you.”

“Um, you’re welcome,” she said, a little awkwardly. She didn’t really get many opportunities to talk to men her own age face to face, usually it was from behind the mask of Shadowblade, and she wasn’t certain what to say so she opted for nothing. The silence between them wasn’t at all uncomfortable, at least not from her point of view. She had other things to think of right at that moment, like how she was going to get the repairs to that roof and the sink done on a budget of only two hundred credits. Alex was outgrowing his clothes as fast as she could buy them, and Michael’s thirteenth birthday was coming up. If she recalled correctly her father would be due for another medical check-up soon (those were always expensive) and even if he wasn’t due, he needed one. She didn’t like the way he’d been coughing lately, and when she’d washed his clothes she’d noticed blood splatter flecking the cuffs of his sleeves. He’d been coughing up blood and hiding it behind his sleeve, and that worried her. Plus there was also the matter of the Consortium debt… They had been acting entirely too inquisitive about where it was that Midii went to when she left the little village and how she got the money to pay both the bills and the debt she owed. She had a way to get in touch with her family in case of an emergency, but she’d instructed her brothers never to call her on it and never to use her real name. Too dangerous; dangerous for her, but mostly for them.

<Sometimes it gives me nightmares just thinking about how vulnerable they are,> she thought. Midii was also a worrier. She worried about them constantly. <If I could, I would be there protecting them, but I have to stay out here and make more money. Oh, I hope thy’re okay. I wish I could just talk to one of my little brothers right now, to know that they’re doing alright.>

Apparently her guest didn’t mind the silence either, which was a relief since that meant she didn’t have to make stuff up or hide behind half truths and shadings of lies. Those sorts of things were easy for a spy, but Midii preferred to deal honestly when the situation permitted. Sure, she could spin a yarn that could hook a skeptic but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it.

“I appreciate you bringing dinner here for me,” he said after a little while. “You appear to like food.”

Midii looked down at her empty plate.

“Yes, I don’t often get to eat a full meal like this. Usually only when I get to go home, the rest of the time it’s half rationed to save money,” she said carefully. There, a little information, but not too much.

“You do seem to be concerned with it,” he said, almost hesitantly.

“With what?” she queried.

“Money,” he said succinctly. “Making it, saving it. You must be desperate to have hooked up with a bounty hunter.”

Midii frowned at that.

“What’s wrong with bounty hunters? It’s a sight better than some of the alternatives. At least I’m not out there selling drugs or- or… other things,” she replied with some heat before she stumbled over the reference to prostitution. It wasn’t that she had a problem with it. Selling her sword wasn’t a whole lot different in concept, it was just that she couldn’t ever contemplate herself selling her own body. No, she’d far rather be a skilled man-slayer than an expensive plaything.

“You have a point,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I would rather you were up front about it than having you judge me in silence,” she informed him. “I have a little work to do tonight so I’ll take my leave.”

“Sleep well Mister Barton, I’ll be in this next room if you need anything,” she said as she softly slid the separating panel shut between them. She’d gotten her extra pallet while she’d been out. After her shower she retired to it, and once she’s forced herself to acclimate to the sound of someone breathing softly within her vicinity, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Trowa looked over at the panels separating the room he slept in from the room where she dwelled. Barely one hour after having her come back from being gone all day and he’d already managed to offend her. She had been right about him making certain assumptions about her, but that was only because Trowa felt that there was something not quite right in the atmosphere. The lady herself, Missy, had refused to give him her own name. It could be that she just simply didn’t have one, there were a lot of war orphans out there, but it was far more likely that her original reply was closer to the truth; she hid it from him because it would be dangerous to her for him to know it. Then, she was gone all day on unspecified business. What was she to Shadowblade or Shadowblade to her; her lover or her keeper? She was more than lovely enough to play the part of a successful bounty hunter’s mistress, the best hunters usually had one to make things comfortable for them when they got back from a long stint of hunts. But she looked and acted and had informed him that she was the bounty hunters full partner, she certainly didn’t act like he would expect a kept mistress to act. From what little she’d said, apparently she did all of the background and mundane work and she just sent him in there to take care of the dangerous stuff. It seemed like a good arrangement, a common enough thing really… but why did he still get the feeling that there was something strange going on?

Then there was the girl herself. Trowa couldn’t recall seeing any woman so captivating before. From there very instant he’d laid eyes on her shining in the morning sunlight he’d been immediately attracted to her. It was like she was everything he’d been searching for without even knowing it until he’d seen her. He hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to women really, there was his sister but she didn’t really count. He doted on her, cared about her, protected her in his own way and she in turn provided him with what he’d been searching for since that day he’d left that girl in the burned out ruins of a battlefield… She gave him a place to come home to, someone to protect, and family to care about.

The circus was the only place where he felt he really belonged, and Catherine was at the heart of that sense of belonging. There was only one problem with his sister as far as he could see, and it was her never ending quest to see him happily settled. Every other time he turned around she’d picked out another girl who was going to be just perfect for him. Catherine was perfectly happy and she wanted everyone else around her to be perfectly happy as well, it was just in her nature. Usually Trowa ended up going on a couple of dates with them to please Catherine, but the women she hooked him up with just didn’t… suit him. They didn’t have anything in common. There always seemed to be something missing from the beginning and as a consequence the relationship was doomed to be brief. Sometimes they lasted no longer than a brief roll in the hay (so to speak), both parties with their physical needs satisfied but still searching for someone or something else. It was fun, but ultimately unsatisfactory.

Still, he had his sister Catherine who provided him with all of the security and sense of family he could want and he had the circus which gave him a place to go home to. Perhaps in the end that was all he needed or even wanted. The empty boy called No-name had had none of these things and as a consequence could really only be called half alive. Hell, that spy-girl working for the Alliance had had more than him in the end. It was probably foolish for him to want or expect more than what he already had, he couldn’t imagine himself being helplessly swept away by the tides of passion described in paperback fiction. It was entirely too against his character become so wrapped up in someone else that it became a sort of manic obsession. Right?

<No-name is still a part of me,> he thought as he lay back and closed his eyes again. <His heart and life were so empty that he never cried even when he killed his own comrades and he couldn’t see the value of living. He just kept shutting down his heart little by little. That core of apathy and that desire to protect are still a part of who I am. I’m not a wanderer anymore, so I suppose this means that I’m truly the same as that girl now. I have a family I protect and a place to go home to.>

It was odd that he would suddenly start thinking about her now after all of this time. The Alliance spy who said her name was Midii Une, who had been responsible for the destruction of the mercenary company he’d grown up with. Well, not singularly responsible… there had been a number of soldiers who’d turned their coats and went over to the Alliance (those were the ones he’d killed) but it had been because of her that the Alliance had been able to find and wipe out their main base. Now he felt he understood what motivated her, she’d had a family to feed. The way tears had fallen down her cheeks as she screamed out her heart to him while he watched impassively was something he’d never managed to quite forget. No-name had not bothered getting angry with her, there had been nothing that No-name cared enough about to bother with getting angry. Trowa Barton however felt an unreasoning knot of anger and betrayal whenever he thought about the spy who was the first person his own age he could reasonably call a friend. He couldn’t quite seem to forgive her for her actions, even though he logically understood them. She’d done what she had to in order to take care of the ones she loved, but he’d been hurt by her. It had been a little over ten years since he’d turned and walked away from the traitor leaving her standing alone on a burned out battlefield, but he’d never forgotten her name; Midii Une. He’d forgotten everything else, when he searched his memory of those events now all he saw was a blank face with pretty blonde hair that had tears running down its cheeks. But he remembered her name and what she’d done.

<And why am I thinking about all of this now?> he wondered. There was something nagging at him in the back of his brain, some wisp of thought or memory that he couldn’t seem to pin down. <It’s been eleven years, all of that is in the past. There’s no relevance whatsoever to my current status.>

He shoved the disturbing thoughts and memories aside, this wasn’t the time for a trip down memory lane. He hated being inactive, it gave him entirely too much time to think. With a soft snort of annoyance, Trowa cleared his mind and willed himself into sleep.

“…I’m not empty like you! I’m filled with things! My family! My job! My guilt!”

Trowa found himself standing back on the battlefield facing the young girl, Midii Une. The face was blurred from the passage of time and life but the voice was still as poignant as ever.

Trowa stood looking at her silently, his face impassive. He didn’t want to hate her, but he couldn’t forgive her. She stood there on the blasted out field sobbing and he just watched the tears fall at his feet. The dream slowly faded away and he opened his eyes to a darkened room.

<Strange. She seemed so familiar just now…> he thought, puzzled by the significance of it. Then he dismissed it as irrelevant, he wasn’t a follower of the Freudian school of psychoanalysis, and he didn’t really feel that dreams held any real significance to everyday life. They were merely a series of random images and subconscious thoughts or desires crammed together in an effort to make sense of everything. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep and when he awoke in the morning he’d forgotten all about it.

Missy tapped politely on the panels separating her room from his. The scent of some kind of baked good preceded her. She’d obviously already been out to get breakfast and back. Trowa was still feeling weak from the poison still working its way out of his body but was pleased to note that a lot of the general muzzy-headedness had faded.

“Come in,” he said after smoothing his clothes and sitting up in the sleeping roll. Missy slid the panel open and Trowa could see just a little past her shapely legs into the room behind her. A rolled up sleeping pallet, a half-open carisak, a chest for storage, and the exit was all there was in the little space. Missy presented a paper sack full of little fried cakes dusted with powdered sugar and gave him a small smile.

“You’re looking a lot better today,” she said pleasantly. “You certainly do recover quickly. Even with the help of the anti-venom most normal people take at least a week to make it as far as you have in two days. What’s your secret?”

Trowa looked up at her with half of his face covered by his hair.

“Soldiers have to remain healthy in order to fight. I’ve been a soldier from the day I was born.”

Missy seemed surprised when he said this but Trowa didn’t think anything of it. Most people reacted like that when he said that.

“Ah. I see,” she said kneeling infront of the table and parceling out an equal share of the breakfast she’d brought. “I think I’d rather have just regular healing abilities in that case.”

Trowa looked at her sidelong in amusement, and Missy’s face glowed into a laugh. Her pretty eyes sparkled with mirth as she tacitly invited him to share in on the joke. He bit into the greasy-looking confection and was surprised by how good it tasted.

“I love these things,” she said in a confiding tone. “They’re probably bad for you, horribly fattening with a lot of sugar, but they’re so good. I figured that since I was entertaining a guest I could afford to splurge a little.”

“A guest?” he said, nodding to the band still adorning his upper arm. “Is this what you call hospitality?”

“It could be worse,” she said with a small smile. “I could have held you captive at my home and made you work on repairs to my house. We have a leaky roof and you seem like such a strong young man.”

“I do work at a circus,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of heavy work involved in that.”

“Oh, first you’re a soldier and now you work in a circus,” she said, her tone one of amused disbelief. “Right, pull the other one.”

“It’s true,” he insisted. A little charmed by her manner, she was so pretty when she was teasing. “When I’m not called in to work for the Preventors I work at a circus.”

“Oh really,” she said, clearly still not believing him. “And just what do you do?”

“I’m a clown,” he said honestly.

Missy laughed at that, Trowa was puzzled as to why. But he discovered she had a very pretty laugh.

“Now I know you’re lying,” she said to him, her tone triumphant.

“I’m not and what makes you think so,” Trowa said, surprised to discover that he was enjoying this.

“You’re too serious to be a clown,” she said directly. “If you told a child some of your war stories they’d run away crying.”

“I don’t tell them war stories,” he supplied. “I don’t say anything at all. I merely stand still while my sister throws knives at me.”

“You must be a soldier then. That’s the only way you could get the kind of nerves of steel necessary for that,” she said laughingly. “I know my brothers would never do it, they’d be too afraid I’d decide to miss if they ever made me angry.”

<Well, this is a pleasant change,> he thought as he watched her pour him a drink. <Not only is she not going out of her way to bargain more money out of me, she actually seems to be making pleasantries.> Trowa wasn’t normally one for holding a conversation, but a few years with his sister had made him appreciate banter over breakfast. And since he was curious about the little mercenary who was currently holding him for ransom he said

“So you have brothers, how many?” he asked conversationally. Missy looked guarded for a minute, but seemed to decide that it was alright to tell him.

“Three younger ones,” she said cautiously.

“That must be why you’re so interested in money,” he hazarded.

Missy nodded and bit into one of her fried cakes, probably to buy herself time. Trowa could tell that she was uncomfortable with the conversation and wasn’t surprised when she turned it back on him.

“So how many siblings do you have?”

“Just one,” he said candidly. “Actually she’s really more my adopted sister. We found each other during the war in 195.”

“No other family then?”

“No. And you?”

“Yes, I have my father as well.”

Trowa wasn’t aware if she noticed that her face had clouded over with worry when she said that. Yesterday she’d been so mistrusting and guarded, today she seemed to have let some of her walls down. He idly wondered what he would find if he could ever peel back all of her shields and walls. He shook himself out of his inappropriate musings and continued with the thread of conversation.

“A father and three brothers,” he said. Something nagged at him when he said that. It was just there on the edge of his thoughts, but like trying to net a fish, every time he thought he had it, it would dart away again to hide back in the murky depths of his memory.

“Yes,” she replied. “They can be a pain sometimes, especially the eldest one who’s going through his rebellious teenage years, but they’re worth everything.”

Trowa said nothing more, and his companion Missy seemed content to simply sit with him in silence while they shared breakfast. That was rare, most women he’d met, including his sister Catherine, hated quiet and would happily chatter away about this or that until its conclusion. This was a nice change of pace. He glanced surreptitiously over at the girl he called Missy, she looked lovely sitting there across from him. Her perfect lips were stretched into a smile of gustatory delight as she bit into her fried cake, the simple white house dress she wore fell in elegant folds, like a Grecian tunic, emphasizing her slim form. Her pale gold hair was half down and half up, with two long bangs framing either side of her face and nearly shielding her eyes, the day before they’d been brushed to one side of her face but now there was something even more hauntingly familiar about her.

When she was through Missy smiled pleasantly at him and said she’d be back from her errands as soon as possible. Trowa nodded and she slipped quietly out the door.

<All my missions should be this easy,> he thought in amusement. <All I’ve done so far is lain around in bed.> He was going to become spoiled by all of this ease. On the other hand, he was still feeling more than a little drained. But the part of him that wanted to be out there and active was overruled by the voice of caution, there was no telling how much activity he could take before falling into a relapse. However, that did not mean he couldn’t do any work. He pulled out his palmtop and accessed the netlinks, even if he couldn’t be out there where the action was for the moment, he could still get something done and he was quite curious to know just how good that bounty hunter Shadowblade really was.