Lost and Found
1x2, 3x4, 5x Sally
Warning:Angst, violence, graphic... the usual.
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Quatre was a busy man. Duo sat low in his car and watched him argue with a frowning Heero across the street. Duo could imagine how Heero's skin must be crawling. They were out on the sidewalk, in front of his work place, and Quatre Winner was a well known face. People were staring and pointing. Duo wasn't surprised to see Heero grab the man, hard, by an elbow, and steer him into the shadows of a doorway.Quatre didn't looked daunted, his lips never ceasing to move as he continued to argue.
Now that he had found Heero, would Quatre inform Preventers? They were free men, but, for some reason, Duo couldn't shake the image of Heero, in restraint cuffs, being dragged before Une, and forced to resume his former position. He was that good, that important. Maybe they would let Duo Maxwell go, but not Heero Yuy. They considered him the best of all of them, with his total dedication and willingness to conform to rules and regulations. Having that kind of agent, go to waste, in a dead end job, and in a slum section of town, must have seemed worse than criminal to Quatre when he had found out.
He shouldn't care, Duo told himself angrily. Heero deserved it all. Let him suffer, he thought. Let him be outed to the world and dragged back to the job that he had sacrificed their friendship for. There was karmic justice in it even though Duo was finding the whys and the wherefores confusing. Why had Heero run away from his position at Preventers and his uptown apartment after everything that he had done to keep it?
Duo wished that he could hear what they were saying, but then growled low to himself, and told himself that he didn't care. He was only there to sabotage Heero's job. No apartment. No job. The man would have to move on then. Let Quatre drag him back to Preventers, as long as he was out of Duo's life.
Quatre and Heero came out of the shadows. He suspected that Quatre had made the usual dinner invitation that he had made to him, but Heero clearly wasn't agreeing to it. The man parted with Quatre and Quatre frowned after him, expression upset. Duo waited until they were both gone before he slipped out of his car and approached the building.
Heero had been the last to leave and the door was set with an alarm and locked with a special trip device. It took Duo only moments to deactivate the system and gain entrance. It took only a little more time to find Heero's desk and plant it with shocking s&m magazines, and to use his computer to log onto even more shocking websites. Duo disabled the sleep mode and made sure that the website was displayed proudly.
Duo shuddered in disgust at the main page of the website, lurid pictures marching across the screen, and wondered what Heero's boss would think when he saw it the next morning. It was certainly grounds for firing, he thought. As he locked up again, reactivating the alarm, Duo felt a twist of guilt in the pit of his stomach. He tried to crush it under the heel of righteousness and revenge, but it wouldn't die entirely.
"I'm just a good guy" Duo told himself as he climbed back into his car and drove for home. "I'm a sucker for stray cats and I feel bad about falsely outing a man to his coworkers as a pervert. Good guys feel bad about that stuff, unlike bastards who get their friends fired to cover their own asses."
Duo refused to think about Heero's attempts to apologize. He couldn't believe that the man was actually trying to atone for his actions. He still thought that Heero had other motives, motives that were probably guaranteed to ruin Duo's life further.
"Not going to happen, dungeon master," Duo growled. "Maybe I feel bad about doing this stuff, but I still know you deserve it."
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Duo felt keen anticipation the next day. After work, he was almost reluctant to go home and run into Heero. The man would know that he had been the one to sabotage his job. There wasn't any telling what his reaction would be.
Going cautiously down his hallway, Duo almost forgot about the neighbor's dog. He felt the hot breath and the snap of teeth on the small hairs of his arm, before he jerked sideways and avoided the barking, snarling beast. The chain brought it up short, but it continued to strain to reach him.
"Goddamn dog!" Duo swore, and then to the invisible owner in his apartment, "If you don't keep him inside, I'm calling the cops!"
A voice drawled in reply, "Yeah, right!"
Of course it was only a bluff. No one wanted the police there and the owner of the dog was confident that Duo was powerless. Duo swore at the dog some more, before he remembered that he was supposed to be getting to his apartment quietly, to avoid Heero. He swung around and looked down the hallway anxiously. He was relieved to find the hallway still empty.
Opening his door, Duo saw the white envelope on the floor, first thing, and Diss sitting on it, as if he were either guarding it or it might get away. Duo petted the cat and then shoved him off. Opening the letter, he dreaded the angry words, Heero had probably written there. Instead, Heero's neat script read, I'm sorry.
Duo fisted the letter angrily and threw it away from him. "What the hell is wrong with him?" he snarled.
Diss darted after the crumpled paper and began batting it around the floor playfully, unconcerned with Duo's mood.
The next day, Heero didn't go to work, or the next, and he made no attempt to get another job. His money was going to run out, any time, Duo knew, and then he would have to leave. Duo couldn't understand why that didn't make him happier.
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"So, why has Quatre Winner been visiting you?" the foreman asked. He was chewing on a stylus, teeth grinding as he swung it from one side of his fat face to the other. His dark eyes were glaring at Duo from under his hard hat, and he was leaning over Duo with his mountainous frame, stuffed into overalls, as if he thought that he could intimidate Duo into a reply.
"He's putting in a pool and needed a good crane man for the ten foot fountain," Duo replied with a wide, dangerous grin. "He heard that I was the best."
The foreman bit down on the stylus, and clutched his computer work pad tight, as he leaned down on Duo even further, one eye glaring more than the other. "Look here, crane man," he warned, "Anyone comes around, making trouble over you, and I'll cut you off the crew. I have a timetable. Not meeting the schedule costs me money. Got that?"
Duo was the best crane man. That gave him some immunity. He nearly went nose to nose with the man and said, "I make your schedule everyday, so don't give me shit about making trouble. You have a problem with Winner slumming, you take it up with him."
The man used a toss of his chin to point the stylus to a small group of reporters, near his office, under the metal skeleton of the half constructed building. "They're asking me questions. I don't like that, especially when my answer is 'I don't know'. I don't like 'I don't know'. It causes trouble for the company."
Duo narrowed eyes at the reporters. His hard hat was low and his braid was tucked into the back of his overalls. He looked like any other filthy worker with a rag tied around his throat to catch the sweat and dust caking his skin. "Just tell them that Winner is thinking of doing some charity construction, for the poorest citizens, and that he was asking advice from experts in the field. He's always been a 'hands on' kind of guy. He likes to handle everything personally."
The foreman blinked at him, scowled, and then swung his stylus to one side and yanked it out of his mouth. He tapped his computer pad. "Get to work on level c, section eight, crane man. I want it together by the time you clock out."
"Will do," Duo replied, gave the man a short salute of a gloved hand, and strode to his crane.
Climbing up onto the rusted machine, caked with more dirt than he was, he silently cursed. He felt as if he were slowly being boxed in from all sides, by Quatre, by the reporters, and especially by Heero. How long would it be before those reporters were at his doorstep? He needed an escape route, he decided, one that would allow him to take Diss with him. He still didn't want Heero Yuy chasing him out of his home, but this was different. This was the entire world, poised to descend on him.
He should have been making plans as soon as Quatre had visited him, he told himself angrily. He shouldn't have shrugged it off and hoped that no one would follow up on it. He hadn't wanted to leave his new life that badly, though. Maybe the scenery and the job were miles below his pay grade, but the peace that came with them more than made up for it. Finding another place, where people didn't know his face, was going to be difficult. It had taken him months to find a job, and a home, where someone hadn't pointed at him, with fear and awe, and shouted, 'He's Maxwell, that Gundam pilot!'
"Hey, crane man!" a worker's voice yelled from his radio, "We're you planning on dropping that beam on my head?"
Duo started and adjusted the crane, swinging the beam wider and higher to breeze over a worker's head. "Just seeing if you were awake, rivet man!"
Rivet man, crane man, welder man. Names seemed less important than the job a person did, when a person's life depended on a man doing his job right. Duo was even beginning to think of himself as 'crane man'. He wondered, if he ran, what his next job would be. He hoped that he wasn't 'burger man', or 'janitor man' next, but he would take whatever he could get, to stay under the radar, and to keep his anonymity.
As he settled the beam into place, his mind drifted to Heero, as much as he didn't want it to. What would Heero do next? Try to find him again? The thought of the man, pursuing him from place to place, made him both angry and anxious. He wasn't sure what he would do if Heero proved that he wasn't going to just go away. He needed to make sure that when he ran, he covered all tracks, this time. He needed to make damn sure that nothing would lead Heero to him again.
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It had been Heero, camped out in front of the apartment building, with his small duffel of things, that had made Duo's mind up for him, to leave, in the end. Once the man had lost his apartment, the front step, and the walkway before it, had become his home. Duo had watched him ignore the drug dealers, the taunting teenagers, and even the occasional threats by the police, as immovable as stone in his self appointed mission to stay close to Duo.
Walking past Heero had been a challenge. It was hard to ignore those tense eyes, to scowl and look at nothing at all, as he had gone to and from work. Heero hadn't offered up any more apologies. He simply waited, though Duo wasn't sure what he was waiting for. If it was forgiveness, then it would be a cold day in hell before he would get off of that front step. If it was some sort of penance, than it wasn't nearly harsh enough.
Quatre made two appearances. Watching from his window, and straining to get the right angle to see them, Duo had watched the arguments, the frustration, and even the long, angry look, that Quatre had given his apartment window. The man's presence brought the reporters next, of course, and Heero had endured question after question in silence. Duo had seen his picture in a coworkers newspaper, with the line, top Gundam pilot on the skids, underneath. Heero's eyes had been laser beams, coming off of the paper, cutting into Duo as if accusing him. It was definitely time to leave and Duo had already picked out a perfect place to bolt to.
Coming home, after work, and having to step around Heero, made him want to kick the man's ass. Duo was running away from his home and job. It sat like lead in his gut and it was all he could do not to say something to Heero. Hands balled into fists, that longed to drive into Heero's needy expression, Duo clamped his lips together and stormed past, determined not to let Heero win in at least this one thing. He wouldn't get the satisfaction of getting a response out of Duo.
"Duo?" Heero's voice behind him only made Duo hurry down the hallway. He couldn't believe that Heero would dare follow him, but his footsteps behind him were unmistakable.
The snarl and flash of teeth startled Duo, and gave him time for a stumble sideways. It wasn't enough. Teeth clamped hard down on his arm and he went down under the fury of the neighbors dog. The broken chain swung around as they both fell and it hit Duo a solid blow in the face. Pain exploded from two places as he kicked at the animal for all he was worth, and punched with his free arm.
The dog refused to let go, chewing like a shark into the wounds, to get a better grip, beady eyes glittering as it continued to snarl. The fist that came down hard between its eyes either stunned it or killed it. It went limp without a sound, even though it's jaws continued to hold tight.
"God! Duo!" Heero was there, pulling the big maw off of Duo's arm as Duo sat in a stunned heap, blood everywhere, and shock beginning to set in. Heero's hand gently touched his chin and turned his head. Duo could feel the blood running and it covered Heero's hand when he released him. The man was looking pale and afraid as he pulled out a cell phone and began calling for an ambulance.
Duo made a weak attempt to stop him. Words barely came as he said, "No, too public. They'll know... where I live, now... who I am..."
Heero's expression was tight. He didn't want that any more than Duo, it was clear, but it was also clear that a simple field patch job, wasn't going to be good enough. After the call, Heero applied pressure to the biggest wounds, but it was like trying to stop a flood. Arteries had been pierced, Duo realized numbly, and calculated how much time he might have left versus the usually slow response time of any emergency vehicle coming into the slum.He felt himself losing consciousness halfway through, already knowing that the result wasn't going to be in his favor, and had time for only one other thought.
"Diss. Take care of Diss, Heero." He wanted to stay alert for the reply, but couldn't. His last thought, before darkness pulled him under, was one of regret, that the animal would have to pay for Duo's lapse of judgment in bringing a pet into his kind of life.
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People were looking at him, puzzled, disgusted, and some uneasy with his dark presence at the back of the transport. Dressed in a biker jacket, torn jeans, and combat boots, he'd let his hair hang in loose strands over his bandaged face, and hidden his eyes behind sunglasses. He knew he was still under the influence of the drugs that they had given him at the hospital, and he knew that his fellow travelers were thinking that he was hopped up on something illegal. His dragging steps, slurred speech, and jerking, numb movements at the terminal had been noticed by all. He was lucky that transports weren't picky about their clientele. They couldn't afford to be. Most people took the lightning rail, not the slow, antiquated road transports.
Duo shifted the weight of his duffel off of his feet, tucking it more firmly under the seat. After yanking out IVs, and slipping past hospital personnel and the gathered reporters, he'd gone straight back to his apartment to get as much of his things as he could shove into his duffel. His heart had ached when he had found Diss missing, but he hadn't had the luxury of taking the time to grieve. He had walked to the nearest transport terminal and hopped on, putting into motion his escape plan. Some had known that he was living in the slum, and that had made trouble for him. Now, no one would know where he was going. He was determined to keep it that way.
Sleeping was dangerous, but unavoidable. Duo crossed his arms over the knife, in its sheathe, under his jacket, and felt the gun, in his jacket pocket, dig into his ribs, as he leaned against the window of the transport. The pain was banked by the drugs, but the stitched wounds in his bound arm were wells of fire and throbbing ache, still, and his face felt as if someone had put hot iron on his cheek. Pain, loss of blood, and copious amounts of drugs would have kept anyone else in their bed. Not Duo. He had easily found the strength to run, when he had over heard nurses talking about the news reports, the eager reporters in the halls, and the rumors of his discharge from Preventers. An angry comment, that 'a murderer like him' shouldn't be getting top notch medical care, but should be put, instead, in a lock up satellite prison, had galvanized Duo into action. Staying in such an exposed place, under the care of enemies, had gone against every instinct that he owned.
The thrum of the road under the transport, became a white noise that soothed Duo's nerves and allowed him to go with the drugs and sleep. He came awake hours later, with the morning sun slicing into his eyes, and the driver shouting at him that it was his stop. His hand was on his knife, clutching it while he tried to orient himself. He released it when he became aware of small children, several women, and a few older men, looking as rough as himself, staring at him from over the backs of their seats.
Looking outside of his window, at the sleepy little town, and its small transport station, Duo almost wished he would be staying. Everything ached as he forced himself to stand, and his wounds let him know, with a vengeance, that the drugs were leaving his system. Breathing hard, teeth gritted, he adjusted his sunglasses, pulled his duffel from under his seat, and made a slow, torturous journey to the front of the transport.
"You should see about some detox, kid," the older driver said with disgusted sympathy. "Ain't no way but the graveyard for someone doing what you're doing."
"I was in an accident," Duo grated out, his mouth feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton. "I'm not drunk, or drugged. Just freakin' sore."
The man looked disbelieving and then shrugged, deciding it wasn't worth troubling himself over. "Have a nice day, kid."
Duo felt like punching him, but needed all of his strength and concentration just to get off of the transport and to the nearest bench. Lowering himself down, he choked on road dust, as the transport pulled away from the terminal.
It was hard to go on living for a long while, as Duo tried to get his body back under control. When he felt that he had to get moving again, standing took a supreme effort of will. Walking even more so. Staggering like a drunk, he left the terminal, walked down a dirt road winding through a stand of trees, and ended up at another long highway heading North. It was narrow, and rutted, as if long neglected, and it snaked over a hill and through a forest. An old transport stop, sat on a bend, several produce and animal transports shoulder to shoulder at power hookups. Duo picked a likely one, with the right license plates, and crawled into a tight space between lettuce and carrot crates. He blocked himself in with his duffel and then tried to make himself comfortable.
The truck took off North an hour later, road humming and crates making noises all around Duo, as they shifted together. Duo kept his wounded arm safe over his lap, and tried to ignore the powerful smell of dirt and vegetables as he slept once again. When the truck made its next stop, Duo slipped into the back of a large diesels cab, and listened to the driver hum gospel tunes for fifty miles, unaware of his stowaway. At another stop, he used the side of a building to relieve himself, snatched food from a dumpster, to avoid being seen at any restaurant or shop, and then slipped into a transport carrying vehicles to a far away dealership. He was able to travel in more style then, riding in one of the more expensive vehicles on the transport, and felt better rested when he finally stepped off at a transport stop a few miles from his destination.
It was a picturesque place, heavily wooded and full of vacation cabins around lakes reflecting blue skies. The winding road, away from the transport stop, was already packed with vehicles, full of people on their holiday. A perfect place to hide, Duo thought, with a weary smirk, as he joined groups of other travelers on foot, carrying duffels and backpacks. It was a place where everyone was new and no one knew anyone's name. As long as he kept his braid hidden, he would be indistinguishable. No one would be able to find him, certainly not Heero.
The thought of Heero made Duo frown. He had even more reason to hate the man now. It was Heero's fault that he'd been attacked. It was his fault that he had needed to run. The man seemed determined to ruin Duo's life. Saying that he was sorry, had just been a cover up, Duo decided, a way to keep him off his guard while Heero destroyed every last part of his life.
"Not any more," Duo vowed under his breath. "You can't find me to mess with my life again."
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The 'room' wasn't much more than that, a shack with a heater and a hot plate, and enough holes to let in the elements and the vermin. The owner had six of them in a line, room and board for the lower income help, of the more affluent vacationers and hotel owners around the main lake.He told Duo that he was lucky to get that in full season, and waited for complaints.
Duo grimaced at the leftovers from the last tenant, and the smell of alcohol and rotten food, and then shrugged. "Okay, I'll take it."
The fat man , leaning against the door frame, grunted and then nodded as he straightened. He was showing four inches of beer gut between his dirty shirt and his torn shorts, and his gut was hairy. "Like I said, one twenty five a week, and no ifs or buts. You don't pay, I lock the door and you lose whatever you put in here."
Duo nodded, dug in his pocket, and pulled out a handful of crumpled bills and change. As he straightened the bills out , the landlord snorted in disgust.
"You still using that stuff?" he complained. "I want credits next time, so you make sure you open up an account as soon as you get working. "
"Okay," Duo agreed and handed him his first weeks rent.
The man narrowed eyes at him as he took the money. "Don't talk much, do you? You better not be running from the law. I'll turn you in, quicker than you can say 'fishguts', got that? I don't rent to criminals."
"I'm poor, that's all, and trying to start a new life," Duo replied. "Nothing more to it than that."
The man looked down at the lease he was holding. "Pay on time, Solo Knight, keep the noise down, and don't trash the place, and we'll get along fine."
"That's the plan," Duo replied and was glad when the man finally left.
Leaving the door open to air the place out, Duo tossed his duffel onto the single bed and watched a roach scuttle from under the blankets. He'd been in worse. Clean it enough, though, and even the biggest dive could be made into a home. First things, first, though, he thought. He wouldn't keep the place if he didn't have work. He needed to see what he could get without proper ID, a past, or any coherent work experience.
Changing into jeans and a clean, plaid shirt, he brushed his hair out, rebraided it, and then hid it under his shirt. It wasn't completely hidden, but it usually kept casual observers from noticing it. The wound across his face was impossible to hide, but the biobandage would reduce it to a faint, pink scar in no time. There wouldn't be any way to avoid being, the new guy with the long hair and the big scar, until that happened, though.
Exhausted, but determined, Duo made his slow way down a road that wound along the lake. He took a lot of rests, and passed shops, restaurants, and hotels along the way. All of them would require extensive ID and take employee identity pictures. If anyone was looking for him, they could easily pick up the search and the posted pic on the net.
The local lumber mill was a safer bet. They were used to a high turnover, and men with marginal pasts. When Duo presented himself, the man hiring workers, barely gave him more than a once over before he was sliding forms at Duo.
"You're signing a waiver, that will make you responsible in case of any accident, involving you not following the regulations," The man told Duo, "The other papers are for the government. You're responsible for what you put down there, as well. You lie, and you pay the consequences, not us."
"Fine with me," Duo replied as he signed his new name, and filled out a sketchy history and bogus birth place.
"You start at the waste end of things," the man told him. "It's crap work, but, after awhile, you work your way up. Watch the damn chipper, don't get run over by the trucks, and start work at eight tomorrow."
"Will do," Duo replied, handed his papers back, and made his slow way back to his new home.
A new name, a new job, and a new home. He could breathe easier, already, anonymity setting him free. He wasn't Duo Maxwell, ex terrorist, famous Gundam pilot, top Preventer agent, suspended agent killer, he was Joe Nobody, and he could do whatever he wanted... as long as he was careful to stay hidden.
Returning to his home, Duo stripped the bed, chased out a few more roaches, tossed a curtain over the stained mattress, and collapsed on top. Finally allowing his wounded, blood drained, body to rest, he wasn't aware of anything for a very long time. It was the small voices, at the door, that dragged him out of sleep and made him crack open a bloodshot eye.
Two small children, a boy and a girl, were hiding behind the doorjamb of the still open door, and peering at him nervously. It was almost evening, Duo could see by the light behind them, and his body informed him that it would not only like to sleep through it, but would like to sleep through the night as well.
"What happened to Davis?" the girl asked him. About eight years old, she was twisting a braid nervously in one hand.
"Don't know," Duo replied. "Gone. I live here now. I'm Solo."
"You going to be my new daddy, then?" the girl wondered boldly.
Duo's mind tried to make sense of that and failed miserably. "No," he decided.
"Oh..." He wasn't sure if the girl was disappointed or not.
"I'm kind of tired," Duo told her. "Could you go away, now, and close the door?"
The girl blinked big brown eyes at him and then nodded nervously. She closed the door softly and the click of the latch was the last thing that Duo heard before exhaustion pulled him under again.
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Duo awoke, flicking a roach off of him, and rubbing at sleep crusted eyes, one handed. His wounds ached along with every heartbeat as he sat up and tried to convince his body that he could go to work in his condition. It wasn't convinced.
Peeking under his bandaged arm, he could see that the skin around the biobandage was angry red and puffy. It definitely needed attention, or he was going to end up in the nearest hospital again.
Digging into his duffel, Duo pulled out a protein drink and pills that he had pilfered from the last hospital. Pain killers and antibiotics. The breakfast of champions, he thought, ruefully, as he swallowed a few down, and then changed his bandage. Hiding it under a long sleeve shirt and a worn, leather jacket, it also gave it a small cushion of protection. The last thing that he needed was to have an accident and rip the biobandage off.
Wrapping a red bandana over his hair, and tucking his braid down the back of his jacket, he put on work boots and headed out the door. He wasn't looking forward to the long walk down to the lumber mill.
"Hey! Want a ride?"
Duo flinched, reaching under his jacket for a weapon, and then relaxed when he saw a blonde woman, in a beat up jeep, and the two children from the day before. He had been half convinced that he had hallucinated them, but, there they were, scrubbed clean, in school uniforms, and strapped with backpacks in the back of the jeep. They were staring at him with wide eyes.
"The bus doesn't start until nine," the woman told him, "I'd be happy to take you, if it's on the way."
Duo suspected, from her appraising look, that anywhere he said would be 'on her way'.
"I have a job at the lumber mill," he told her.
She smiled sweetly. "The school is only a little way aways from there. Hop in." The boy started to say something, but she reached back and tossled his hair sharply and he left it unsaid.
"Thank you, I appreciate the ride," Duo told her, even though he was having misgivings already.
Duo climbed into the jeep. Open to the chill, morning air, she took off at a high rate of speed, her blonde braids swishing. Coupled with big, brown eyes, those braids made her look like an older version of her daughter.
"Here on vacation?" she asked him and then blushed and added, "I'm Jenny Martin, by the way. Those rats behind me are my kids, Denny and Marty... er Marta.
"Solo," he replied uncomfortably. "I'm not vacationing. I'm staying."
Her smile dimpled. "Not many people do. They work, hang out, and then take off when season ends. Me, I've been here my whole life."
Duo listened with half an ear as she prattled on about that life. Somewhere in the mix, he was told about the terrible father of her children, and her abandonment to raise them all on her own, her boring job as a waitress, and her dreams of making it big, someday, with her dancing. Duo's thoughts were on food and house cleaning, his mind wondering how far his meager funds would stretch before pay day, how he could convince the mill to give him untraceable cash instead of credits, and if he would have enough energy, by the end of the day, to at least get the roaches out of his home.
"Here you are," Jenny said and Duo blinked, realizing that they had pulled into the mill parking lot without him being aware of it. He climbed out of the jeep and gave her a nod.
"Thank you, again, for giving me the ride," Duo told her.
"My pleasure," she said with far too much innuendo. She dimpled again and added. "I'll be happy to give you a ride, every morning, if you need it."
Duo winced and nodded, but didn't reply further than that, as he made his way into the mill and heard her tires squeal as she took off again.
His new employers were happy to see Duo on time. Duo was happy to have himself promoted from unclogging the chipper, to driving the forklift, to fixing the machines, in under a few hours.They were impressed by his skills and willing to give him what he asked for to keep him. It seemed that skilled labor was scarce around those parts, at least labor willing to work in a lumber mill.
"Pretty hot stuff, aren't you, for someone who just started?" One of his coworkers commented as Duo fumbled, one handed, to get a casing off of a machine. The man stepped forward to help him and Duo saw the top of a braid tucked down the man's shirt. It was common sense, when working around blades, that could catch at even fine hairs, and reel a man into certain death. To Duo, though, it was cover, a way to confuse anyone asking about a man with a long braid.
"I do know a thing or two," Duo replied, "You any good with machines?"
The man looked embarrassed. "Naw, just good shoveling chips and unclogging the chipper."
He was strong, though, like an ox, and Duo needed a pair of good strong hands, just then. "Wanna work with me?" he asked.
The man was eager and their bosses allowed Duo to have him without too many questions, especially when Duo showed a keen understanding of computerized laser cutters. The cutters had gone idle, waiting for repairs, one too many times, costing the company a great deal of money in lost sales and repair bills. Having a low paid worker, able to understand their complicated workings, was their dream come true.
Dan, Duo's new assistant, was a hard working, father of six. Honest, straight forward, and up to any job, he followed Duo's orders without complaint, even though he had been at the mill for ten years and Duo had only been there a handful of hours. Dan knew his strengths, and he knew that Duo far surpassed them. Because of that, he wasn't stupid enough to feel insulted about Duo's promotion over him.
At the end of the day, Dan showed keen observation skills when he said, as they clocked out for the day, "You wanna watch the drugs. I know a body can get powerful sore, around here, but they make you slow and stupid. You don't want to be slow and stupid around these machines."
Duo motioned to his wounded arm. "I pulled a muscle shoveling chips, this morning, that's all. I don't usually take shit for anything."
The man looked embarrassed. "Oh, sorry. Still, you wanna remember that for future reference, though."
Duo smiled wearily and nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Dan, you're a good guy."
Dan grinned back and nodded, and they parted company. The walk into town, after that, was taken in slow stages. When Duo reached the market, he bought food and cleaners, with the last of his money, and then sat on a bench, outside the store, and wondered how he was going to make the long walk home.
The bus hummed up the street and Duo shot up from his bench, remembering Jenny saying that it came by their part of town. Duo waved to the driver and then dug frantically into his pocket for the one credit he still owned. He had found it at one of his rest stops, almost hidden behind a toilet in a dirty restroom.
When the bus stopped, Duo climbed on board, waved the credit chip under the scanner, and saw it come up one cent short. The driver eyed him, his exhausted, dirty face, his load of groceries, and then jerked a thumb towards the back of the bus. "Get going," he grunted. "I don't have all day."
Duo pocketed the empty chip, sighing with relief, and lowered himself heavily into a seat.He couldn't ask for a better day.
TBC