Hi!   Two new stories this week from me and Ger, at
long last!   First one is "Reset: Trowa" which Ger
wrote, and the second one is "Mirage: Quatre".   They
are the last two in the "Interlude: Kyoumei
(Resonance)", which takes place between acts VIII and
IX.  Enjoy, and send feedback!   ^_~
QS



Sainan no Kekka
Reset: Trowa


	The nature of a self-destruct program is dual: to
fulfill the user's command and to commit a final,
irreversible act of desperate sacrifice.

	Except, of course, that final act of sacrifice brings
with it the implications of something precious lost,
wasted, gone. Irreplaceable.

	Vanished.

	It's a faultless program that never goes wrong, so
simple that its complexity is simplicity itself, a
divine act of God that presses its finger upon the
button and pushes and whispers in your ear that this
is the end.


int main() {



	I'd missed my flight to Geneva but it was no large
concern. A minor setback. Something that could be
taken care of. I had booked another ticket for the
next day, as soon as possible. 

	Even with the addition of a random, unforeseen
variable, the program was still functioning. I could
see it in my head, those numbers ticking away, the
seconds counting down to the explosion. Just like
Heero standing on the ramp of his Gundam, blue eyes
cold as steel, thumb pushing inwards on the red
button.

	They would not stop me.



int i=0;



	There was a feeling in the air when I got off the
plane at the Swiss airport, the feeling which I could
never define but was always tangible, like the scent
of lions. There but unmoving, still but alert,
menacing and defiant.

	I knew I had to hurry.

	I slipped past the airport guards, managing to avoid
another baggage check on the way out. Got on the bus.
I wasn't sure exactly where the base was, but I
figured that if I took any bus away from the airport,
it would land me somewhere better from which to judge
my location. The guidebook that I snagged on the way
out mentioned the base and gave generalized
directions, but as unfamiliar as I was with the city,
I would need more information.

	The feeling stayed with me as I got off the bus at a
crowded street corner, increasing as I glanced at the
street signs around me. I was somewhere downtown,
which was not where I needed to be. I looked at the
map again. The base was southwest, about ten miles
away from the center of the city. There was a bus
route map next to the stop and I moved in front of it,
searching.

	Bus route 44 would put me about half a mile from the
base. I could walk the rest of the way.

	There was no time to lose.

	The bus moved too slowly for me and I found myself
staring out the window, mentally chafing at the
leisurely pace with which the vehicle traveled. The
digital clock read 1400 hours.

	The bus slowed, stopped. I got off. It roared away in
a cloud of smoke and I looked at the sun. Began to
walk. The program was ticking with the ticking of a
time bomb and I felt my muscles tense.

	The ground rocked under me and I looked towards the
southwest as a plume of smoke curled lazily towards
the sky and the distant thunder of explosions reached
my ears.

	The program clicked into action.



{ for (int i ; i >= 0 ; i++)



	The south gate was thick with smoke and my worries
about how I would even get myself on to the base were
unfounded. The smoke from smoke bombs had always
disagreed with my lungs, but I choked back the
coughing, pounding down the neatly paved sidewalk,
noting how quiet the surrounding buildings were.
Civilian establishments, whose owners had taken cover
when the bombing had begun.

	I knew it was a bombing. Not an exercise, not a
random test, and not just any bombing. It wasn't an
air to ground bombing, but from the size and shape of
the smoke clouds, an incident instigated by green,
desperate troops. If they could even be called troops.


	I had been a terrorist once, and I knew the smell of
that smoke, the surging of adrenaline in my veins as I
moved in towards the target. But looking at this, it
was amateur work. No seasoned veteran would be so
careless.

	I thanked whatever gods above that had given me at
least this gift and prayed that I would make it in
time. They had to be in there. There was nowhere else
they could go.

	The clock ticked away, counting the seconds.



i=5, i=6, i=7



	The base front gates looked like they had been closed
when the explosions hit them, reducing them to a mass
of twisted metal. I threw myself behind a truck parked
crookedly in the drive just as something flew over my
head with a whistling noise and exploded behind me. I
didn't waste time looking, simply rolled under the
truck and came up with my gun in my hands, dashing
towards the entrance. There was machine gun fire but I
slipped inside with the screen of another detonation.

	Step one complete.

	I narrowed my eyes through the smoke, bringing up the
map of the base inside my head with the efficiency of
a mental computer system. Where would they keep people
like me?

	I thought of Quatre.

	The housing section was straight ahead and it was a
gamble, but better than nothing. I took two steps,
stumbled over something and caught myself before I hit
the pavement. I turned around in a combat crouch and
realized that I had tripped over the body of a dead
soldier. His neck was broken, head twisted grotesquely
to the side. His right hand, severed neatly at the
wrist, was still holding his gun.

	There was no time to mourn the dead. I picked up the
hand, wrested it free of the gun, placed  it gently
back on the ground next to the body.

	I checked the gun. It had three rounds left. That had
to be good enough.



i=95, i=96, i=97



	The entrance to the building was dark and I froze by
the sliding glass doors into the lobby, listening. I
heard nothing, but the program did not lie. There was
something there.

	Following me? I was not sure.

	I hesitated a moment, then decided it didn't matter.
To my surprise, the doors were unlocked, opening
without a sound as I ran swiftly through the lobby and
down the left hand corridor. The eerie red light of
the emergency generators bathed the hall in a murky
twilight and all the doors to the rooms were closed. I
tried one of the handles. Locked.

	It had been evacuated. I hoped my friends were among
them.

	"Duo Maxwell!"

	The shout came from close by and I froze, every fiber
in my body tense, listening. I forced myself to relax,
spinning around and retracing my steps. It had been a
girl's voice, high, quavering, frightened. She would
be dangerous.

	Another few steps took me into the lobby, a few more
put me at the entrance to the right hand corridor. I
flattened myself against the wall, eased my head
around the corner.



i=404, i=405, i=406



	I saw Duo first, his long braid the only recognizable
thing about him at this distance, because for some
reason he wasn't wearing the priest outfit anymore.
Facing him, her back to me, was the girl. She was
short, with long violet hair, slightly disheveled,
bits of dust and dirt clinging to her knee-length
skirt, white blouse, and flat walking shoes. Nice
clothes, but functional. Functional for what?

	She was holding a gun.

	I raised the gun involuntarily, then checked myself,
holding back and listening. Her voice was getting
higher and more wavering with every word. She was
scared. She had a gun. And she was going to use it.

	"I may run," said Duo steadily. "I may hide, but I
never lie." He held out one hand to her. There was
pain in his voice, pain and truth.

	The gun shook in the girl's hands. "My path has led
me to you... you are my brother's murderer, and it's
time I showed you the truth of that!"

	Something flashed before my eyes, a pause in the
program, a memory of an earlier time stored in
database.

	/You bastard! You killed my sister!/

	He squeezed his eyes shut, but instead of erasing the
memory, he saw Catherine, her image distorted and
fuzzy on the screen of the old television.

	/I hate war. There's no way that I'd condone any kind
of war. But Trowa isn't me. He's a fighter. He saw
what was needed to be done�Trowa didn't fight because
he enjoyed fighting or killing. He fought because it
was the right thing to do!/

	/So it doesn't matter then? The people you leave
behind don't matter?/
 
/It hurts. There's no way around that. But�if they
really loved you�I think they'd understand, why you
did it./

	The voices multiplied in his head and he wrenched his
eyes open, gasping silently, heard Duo's voice cut
through the eerie silence.

	"Ilene, I never was on the African continent during
the war! I didn't go near that Academy! 

He was walking towards her. He would try to disarm
her. A friend? Why would Duo be friends with a
terrorist? Or was she a terrorist?

"It doesn't matter! You were a pilot! All of you are
nothing but filthy murderers!"

"No, Ilene, we weren't. We were soldiers, just like
your brother.
"
/Just like your brother�/

I swallowed. There was some drama going on here�some
story that I had no way of knowing. I heard the
seconds ticking away in my head, ticking down to Duo's
death, and I knew I had to act. But instead I just
watched her, my hand frozen, unable to move the gun.



i=3428, i=3429, i=3430



"Everyone lies!" the girl said shakily. 

"I don't," Duo said, quietly. 

"They LIE! There's no such thing as peace! People kill
because they enjoy it!"

	I saw the gun come up as if in slow motion, saw Duo's
mouth open, saw him reach out his hand, his braid
flying. I saw myself in Heavyarms, swinging the
machine around to cut through the clouds of mobile
suits that surrounded me. I saw Quatre bent over,
clutching his chest in agony.

	I saw Heero's thumb on the red button. I saw his eyes
look into mine. I saw the resolve there.

	And I saw that this would never work.

	My program was flawed. That what I thought was
perfect, simple, and unbreakable would never work.
That the variables would keep on increasing into
infinity, because there would be nothing to stop them.

	And that Duo would die.

	I flung myself out from behind the wall, my finger on
the trigger of my gun, and as I leapt into the
hallway, she turned slightly, as if sensing something,
I caught a glimpse of the curve of her cheek, the
beautiful, artlike grace of a woman's body caught in
vivid color. It was her, the stray variable, the one
flaw in the program that would destroy everything.

	Her head was moving, long hair streaming through the
air, her eyes tracking desperately across the way. But
I was too quick. Too fast. I was a professional, and
she was only a girl. A variable run rampant, out of
control. A program that needed to be reset.



{ for (int i ; i= 0 ;)
cout<<"RESET"; 



	As I raised my gun one last time, her eyes locked
onto mine and I stared into them, dark, empty pools of
nothingness, void of all emotion.

	Heero's eyes.


	
i=0



	A single teardrop rolled slowly down her cheek.

	I fired.



return 0 ; }



End

Link to Information on C++:
http://www.cpp-home.com/

=====
"No matter what the bible says, the battle always goes to
the strong. And I am strong. I don't need to prove that to
anyone anymore."
-Excerpt from Sainan no Kekka- Act Seven, Scene VII

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quicksilver/
http://www.midnightrevolution.org/gundam

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