Duo was cocky, eyeing them as much as they studied him. He stood straight, shoulders back, hands on hips, and his black on black clothing doing nothing to make him look larger. When one colonist dared to finger his long braid, he almost lost his life to the sharp blade of the knife Duo flicked out.
"He's a killer," that man snarled as he backed up fearfully.
"Who else to pilot a killing machine?" Dr. G replied acidly. "Or did you think blood wouldn't be shed?"
"Who's blood, though?" another colonist countered. "He doesn't inspire confidence that he'll follow your orders."
"As long as they square with what I want, I'll follow your plan," Duo told him. "I intend to kill as many of the enemy as possible. Is that what you want?"
"We want them off our colonies," the man replied. "We want to teach them, once and for all, that we are autonomous and no longer subject to Earth."
"If that causes deaths," yet another interjected. "It is on their heads."
"You intend to put this... boy... into the cockpit of the most powerful machine on Earth and in space," the first man said. "I want to know, for certain, that we have a way of preventing any defection."
Dr. G frowned. "A remote self destruct?"
"Yes." The man walked around Duo. "Hear that, boy? Make a move to do things your way and we'll blow you up into powder. Understand?"
Duo shrugged and rolled his eyes as he sheathed his knife back into its hidden place up one sleeve. "Whatever you want, like I said, as long as I get what I want."
One man had kept quiet. He was very old, dressed as an official, and looking worn to the bone. "What of the others?" he asked.
"Unknown," Dr. G replied, "They may have succeeded, or they may have abandoned the plan to pursue more conventional methods of terrorism. Communication between the satellites has been monitored too well to chance contact."
"I still don't like it," A younger colonist growled. "You say only this boy is capable of handling the stresses of a Gundam, but you've only had one test subject."
Dr. G turned to glare at the man. "My subject was a twenty five year old man. The g forces of the Gundam caused massive hemorrhaging and bone fractures. The bones and muscles of a young boy are far more forgiving."
The official looked uneasy. "That seems too simplistic a reply, Dr. We are not that ignorant. Are you saying that you've genetically modified this child?"
"I've done what needed doing, with his full agreement," Dr. G replied. "Sacrifice is necessary to win any war."
"This isn't a war," one man protested.
"Call it any pretty name you choose," Dr. G sniffed. "When you kill to achieve your goals, you are making war."
The official came very close to Duo and bent to look him in the eyes. "I see death in your eyes."
Duo grinned without amusement, fierce and defiant."I am Shinigami."
The man blinked puzzled. "The God of Death?"
"The young can be... conceited," Dr. G said, brushing it off as the man straightened and looked to him for an explanation.
The man grunted and motioned to his comrades. "We will discuss this and give you our orders afterward. "
"I'll be waiting," Dr. G replied with a tinge of sarcasm.
He and Duo watched them go and then Dr. G turned to Duo and snapped, "Exercises, starting with ten minutes on the bar... Shinigami."
Duo looked annoyed. "Who else am I, then? I get the most powerful killing machine in the universe and I get to kill with it."
Dr. G watched him go to the bar, leap up, and catch it with his fingertips. He held them there and hung. His muscle endurance was phenomenal and it wasn't only due to the genetic tinkering that Dr. G had practiced on him. He could almost believe in fate when he looked at Duo. How else to explain how the perfect pilot had literally walked into his life?
___________________________________________________________________
"They're your kids?" Duo asked uncertainly.
The five children, three boys, and two girls, were smiling and looking at Duo encouragingly. Their mother looked more nervous, finishing off the touches on a table prepared for their dinner, a dinner that the physician had invited Duo to attend.
"Yes," the doctor replied as he motioned down the line of them, "Polly, Theresa, Randall, Kevin, and Tyler. Tyler is closest to your age, Duo."
"Hey," Duo greeted them nervously.
"Hi," they all chorused back.
Duo found a grin as they all sat down. Duo eyed the food with interest. "A lot better than the rations they serve in the mess."
"My wife, Helen, is an excellent cook," the doctor replied.
The doctor noted that Duo was smiling, but the hard, wary, glint in his eyes wasn't gone. He didn't trust anyone and he certainly didn't trust this strange turn of events.
"I thought that you might benefit from spending some time in a more 'normal' setting," the doctor said, deciding to be truthful.
Duo shrugged and asked, "This is normal?"
He really didn't know, of course, and it drove home to the doctor that he was dealing with someone without a reference for peace and security. Duo had never had either.
"Yes," the doctor replied. "This is how most colonists live."
Duo's eyes clouded with memory as food was put onto his plate. "Even in the orphanage, we lined up and had food slopped onto plates. It's kind of nice to sit around a table and not worry about someone stealing your food."
"Eat as much as you like," the doctor urged.
"I don't have to be told that twice," Duo snickered and hunched over his plate to eat.
After the meal, it was hard to entice Duo to play with the other children. He seemed confused by their immaturity and didn't understand their easy acceptance of him.
"I've got a collection of Earth rocks," Polly told Duo. "Do you want to see it?"
"Who'd want to look at rocks?" Duo wanted to know with a snort.
"I have a hamster," Tyler piped in.
"Hamster?" Duo looked to the doctor for direction, but he only smiled back and made a motion to follow Tyler into his room.
"It's fuzzy!" Duo exclaimed after a minute and then laughed with real humor. "His little feet are tickling my skin!"
A turning point it wasn't, but, later, over the course of many visits, Duo slowly learned that there was a part of life that he had missed; his childhood. That realization was a bitter one, tipped with anger, but the doctor's children soothed that loss and they showed Duo that it was possible, even for a Gundam pilot in training, to recapture some of it.
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"You've taught my little killer to act like a child," Dr. G said as he watched the children play chase among the corridors. "Excellent. He'll be able to blend better when he reaches Earth."
"He isn't acting," the doctor assured him.
Dr. G snickered."He plays, and he enjoys it, but it doesn't change who, and what, he is."
The doctor watched Duo, so much stronger, faster, and far more intelligent than his own children, and saw Duo's control, his careful mimicking of their attitudes and actions.He was enjoying himself, but Dr. G was correct. Duo was only acting. He was an adult playing at being a child.
"It wasn't a waste of time," the doctor insisted.
Dr. G raised an eyebrow. "Did I say it was? Sanity is often measured by our humanity, or lack thereof. I think you've managed to give the boy more humanity."
"I'll pray that I have," the doctor replied, "because it might be all that comes between us and our deaths at his hands."
_______________________________________________
Duo didn't like to be alone. Alone wasn't safe. Numbers kept the predators from eating you out of hand. Being told to go solo, to steal Deathscythe and to foil a monstrous plot to kill innocents, was reason enough, though. Maybe he wouldn't last long. Maybe his life was now measured in his own skill, but he would use that time to get what he had always wanted; revenge, yet on the right people. Earth had never done him wrong, he thought, even though some of the soldiers he wanted dead were residing there.
There were no tender words. No tears. The man who had become his life, had not been a father figure. Dr. G had set the bar and Duo had striven for years to reach it. Now that it was firmly in his grasp, he could only feel relief in leaving at last, the man who had, basically, honed him, in pain and blood, to be his weapon. There was more regret for the doctor and his family, the cook, and the sweepers that had given him rough affection.Not being able to say goodbye was painful, because he was that sure that he wouldn't see them on this side of life again.
Duo had trained to withstand Earth gravity, but re-entry was brutal. Dropping like a star into g forces that threatened to crush him, he almost blacked out. He managed, though, to bring his shuttle down on a remote landing strip, covered in weeds, according to plan and on trained reflexes alone. He forced his body, screaming pain from strained muscles and an over taxed heart, to power Deathscythe up and bring it out of the shuttle. He ignored a nose bleed and the feeling that blood vessels in his eyes had been burst, as he checked systems and the sensors for an approaching enemy.
Duo grinned. He had gone unnoticed. Dr. G's cloaking device was working perfectly. Still, he couldn't chance that space satellites had tracked the unusual 'falling star'. He needed to leave the area at once.
"Come on, buddy," Duo said to the machine of destruction under his control. "Let's figure out how to move in high gravity."
It wasn't easy. Duo had to shorten his motions and learn that his actions wouldn't cause the several tons of metal under him to gyrate out of control. Gravity kept him anchored. 'Real' oxygen also caused the scythe beam to vibrate. Duo had to allow for that as he swept it experimentally back and forth as his gundam walked away from the landing site.
Something 'popped'. It was the only way to describe the sensation. Malfunction lights lit up one section of the controls. Duo stopped the gundam under a stand of ancient trees, and climbed out along the arm to check it's status. What he found had him cursing. "Piece of junk! He told me this was the best machine in the solar system!"
It took long hours of repair. The arm wasn't the only thing to malfunction under Earth's gravity. When the coded message scrolled across his cockpit screen, Duo scowled. The enemy was gathering in the sea for some purpose. He was ordered to check it out. He quickly typed a response, but it looped and came back to him. Two way conversation was terminated for security reasons.
A traitor thought, wormed it's way into Duo's mind. He had the strong urge to go completely solo. His 'mission' was one he hadn't been able to accept. Dr. G's mission was more subtle, but still required controlled destruction of the enemy. It would take time, even some infiltration. Duo was young enough to think that a six month timetable was equal to forever. Now that he was ordered to recon as well, his mind tacked on forever and ever, onto his timetable.
Duo swung the scythe and felt his repairs hold as it took off half a tree beside him.
The screen scrolled again and Duo wondered if Dr. G had a way of reading his mind even that far away. 'If you attack outside the plan, they will swarm you and destroy you before you can exact your revenge.'
Duo thought about that, picturing a frontal attack geared to cause the maximum of destruction. He imagined the military response. His gundam was almost indestructible, but not against overwhelming numbers. They would 'take him down'.
Duo punched the console angrily. "All right, Pestilence, the God of Death follows your orders... for now."
TBC