The Letter
Time: July 26th, 7pm, ac202
Location: Maxwell's Scrap Metal, Colony Cluster L2
Characters: Duo and Molly Maxwell
He wasn't going to cut his hair. The man frowned, glaring down at the brown braid he'd pulled over his shoulder in order to look at it. The hair fell down to the back of his knees now, in a braid. It was longer down, but he rarely left it down, because it would get in the way like that. Unfortunately for him, it was also getting in the way now. He sighed, stroking the thick mass with loving fingers, trying not to think about the fact that it'd been nearly chopped away for him that afternoon. It wasn't always fun and games working the scrap circuit, after all, and one of the workers had carelessly moved portion of the pile far too near the bottom. He had been on the other side of it when the whole thing had come down upon his head, including a rather sharp piece of metal broken off of what looked to be the arm of an older model mobile suit. It was sad, he reflected, that after seven years the scrappers were still cleaning up the mess off those old battle fields.
Duo shook his head, dropping the braid and refusing to look anymore at the now uneven ends of it. It was only an inch, really, but it was still important to him.
With another deep sigh he leaned back in his desk, the chair creaking unhappily beneath him and put his feet upon the beaten desk with two solid 'thumps'. Crossing his arms behind his neck, he turned just enough to peek out the blinds hung in his office window into the yard beyond. Light in the colony was just beginning to fade--the end to another long day of work. Chopping of the hair aside, Duo had to let a small, happy smile fall upon his face as he watched the scene. The scrap yard probably wasn't beautiful to anyone but him.. but it was his home. That in itself was all the difference in the world for him, and he was surprised (if not completely, utterly, unbelievably shocked) to realize that he was actually happy.
He rubbed his chin, straightening the slight goatee he allowed to stay there, then got up and stretched himself out before heading for the door. Locking up was a small matter. A security code punched in, and then he went around to the front entrance to padlock the gates. All of the workers were gone already--Duo always stayed the latest 'at work,' though he supposed that was obligatory as he lived on the premesis. Stll, the main house and his backyard buisiness were not attatched, and for a very good reason. He walked around in the sidewalk instead to reach the other side of the house, a two story monolith that held not only his home but his office and workshop as well. It was painted robin's egg blue, surrounded on one side by a tall wire fence with barbed wire strung on top, and on this side by a more homely wooden fence, polished to a shine so that it didn't have any splinters. Duo was very careful about what he allowed on his property.
The reason for this flung itself off the pourch the minute he stepped in the gate. He barely had enough time to close it behind him before a black, white and pink streak of screaming lightning came shooting across the yard towards him. Duo turned to scoop the two year old up, despite that her shrieking laughter pierced the ears, and twirled her about the yard as they headed back up the path together.
Years ago he'd ripped up the concrete path to the door himself, much prefering the worn earth one that stayed behind. The grass had grown up along it gradually, leaving only the faintest marks of dark loam beneath. That was the wonderful thing about the colonies, really--even though they were far from earth, they still had so many of the little things from the planet that made it feel so similar. The rain, the snow, the heat that one could imagine was the sun; it was all here, miles out in space.
A small whispering at the back of Duo's mind reminded him that life out here was still very, very fragile. All it took was one mistake. One minor, seemingly innocuous detail gone amiss that would cause a chain reaction and kill the entire lot of them. It had happened to other colonies, long distant, but there always seemed to be this idea that now the colonies were safe. In this modern day and age no one would dare make the human errors that would cause these things. But such, that same cynical voice supplied, was the way of life in an era of "peace."
The peace he had fought for.
The peace he had finally found.
Duo laughed when Molly tugged on his braid. She had two of her own, in carefully plaited "pig tails" that were as dark as the night was black. In fact, the little girl looked so much like her mother, save the bold green eyes set beneath the epicanthal fold of her ivory skin. There was a dash of freckles across her nose, few but dark, along with a little peeling from the last sunburn she'd gotten. How one burned in this light Duo didn't really know, but the girl had managed it. In response he grinned and tugged on her own pig tail, to be rewarded with a high-pitched giggle-squeal the like of which she had made often since she was a baby. Nothing put the bounce back into his step faster, these days.
"Thanks for watching her, Juely," He told the slender, grey-headed woman sitting in her rocker on the porch. The woman only smiled and rose, joints creaking a little as she wrapped her shawl more firmly about her shoulders.
"Its what you pay me for, Maxwell," She replied in a tender voice that belied the snapped nature of her comment. Indeed, it was what he paid her for, but Duo knew better than that. Juels McMillan had all but volunteered for the position the moment he'd taken Molly as his two years ago. She'd known the family, of course, being their next door neighbor, and had taken pity on a young man, hardly more than a boy himself, who'd taken "so much" upon his shoulders. She hadn't had any idea of how broken he'd been at the time and how much he had needed that helping hand. Now... he wasn't sure. He suspected the woman knew and was grateful that she never so much as hinted at it. Regardless, she'd come out of retirement to help him take care of Molly, no matter what the circumstances for, and he knew she had bills just like he did. It was the least he could do to repay her for her kindness. "Dinner is on the stove--your favorite, I might add, and there's a lovely picture the little miss put up on the refrigerator for you."
"I make a'pretty, Daddy!" Molly screamed in his ear. Duo did wince that time, but laughed despite and set her back down on the porch, "Why don't you show me then?" He opened the screen door for her, and watched as the girl zoomed inside. He and Juels shared a laugh at that, and he was just about to follow her inside when the older woman's hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Huh?"
"Duo," Juels began uncertainly, and something deadly serious in her voice and posture stopped him from trying to shrug it off as he normally would have. In his mind's ear he could almost hear the voice of his therapist chiding him for brushing off the serious the moment it came to play. "sometimes, Duo, The man had said one afternoon, across the desk from the rather stereotypical, if comfortable, couch that Duo had chosen to lay upon, "Sometimes serious times invade our sandboxes like fireants. You have to deal with those problems before you get bitten, because they're not just going to go away, they're going to dig in for the long haul."
He'd hated, back then, to admit that the man was right... but in the end, he had been. It was still a constant struggle not to give in to routes long worn into his system, but he struggled with it and managed to give a single, curt nod to encourage Juels into speaking further, "Duo... I know you don't watch the news often, but you may want to stay up for the nine o'clock tonight. There's been another attack.."
Duo sighed. Another terrorist attack? He wondered, bitterly, what on earth Wufei and Sally and all the others with the Preventors were doing out there. He wondered if they were even members of the Preventors anymore...
"I will, Juely, I promise," he began to reply, when she cut him off.
"Also, a letter came for you today." That in itself got a raised eyebrow from the young man. Mail? Him? He never recieved any mail, at least by the physical post. Every contact he had either called him (for he hated written communication), or left a video message. There were a few that sent things via e-mail, of course, but he actively discouraged that by never checking his account until he was bored. He had the privelege of being bored once every six or so months, these days.
"Daddy!!!" Molly shrieked again from the inside of the house and Duo cast a wary look in there. "I'm sorry, Juely.."
"No, I just wanted to say.. well I left it on top of the refigerator where Kitten couldn't get a-hold of it," the woman finished so briskly that Duo knew then, without any doubt, that there was something about this letter that bothered her. He couldn't fathom what it could possibly be, so he nodded his thanks. After a quick set of goodbyes, the woman headed out the yard towards her house and her own supper with her husband, and Duo went in to the further shrieks of his child.
"Kitten," He warned in the no-nonsense tone he only adopted when it was absolutely necessary, and shut the front door behind him. A couple of quick twists put the locks in place and he punched in the security code without bothering to look at it--a habit born of long repitition, "What have I told you about shouting?"
"t'do... t'not'toooo..." She crooned, far closer than he'd expected her voice to be, and Duo jumped slightly as he realized she was standing beside him. In her hands, sticky and shiney with something he'd rather not know the actual name of, was a thick off-white envelope and a sheet of scribbled upon paper. Duo lifted a brow and crouched down in front of the little girl, leaning his elbows upon his knees as he watched her with a patient smile.
"And what might those be?"
"Dis'is.. diss is my pretty," She garbled with a proud, happy smile stretching wide across her fat-cheeked face and lifted it up to show him. At first Duo wasn't at all certain what it was he was supposedly looking at. It was crayon, at least, that much was obvious, and done up in the most eye-gouging colours the box had available. Beyond that... I guess its time to fake it, huh?
"That certainly is pretty!" He exclaimed and before she could question him on it, he scooped her up and gave her a kiss, then carried her back into the kitchen to settle in her highchair. "You did a wonderful job on that, little Kitten. So what else is that that you got there?"
"IsamaPAAPyaa!" She squealed, struggling in his grasp as he tried to buckle her into the chair. She giggled, bashing him on the arms with the envelope and paper until she lost her grip and they both went onto the floor. Duo just laughed, quite used to the whole thing by now, and finally one by putting the table top down. He hadn't a clue what she'd said, of course, but pretended not to care.
"Ahhaa. is that so? Well where did you get it?"
Molly, also known as Kitten though there really wasn't a reason why (Duo had just called her that one day, when she'd been first born, and it had somehow stuck), shoved her fist into her rather large mouth and Duo knew where the slimy substance had come from. Given the givens, he should have realized that a lot sooner than he had, and bent to pick the papers off the floor before moving any further. He dumped them both on the table without looking at them, and moved for the stove when his daughter gave another imperious little shriek.
Turning back to her, he followed the sticky finger she was pointing, the other hand still shoved quite happily into her sodden mouth, right back to the paper's he'd sat down. "Okay, kitten, okay!" He chuckled, shaking his head and picked them both up. The picture--what on earth WAS this thing?--he posted upon the refrigerator and then took a second to look at the envelope in his hands. A frown creased his brow, a rare thing indeed, as he noticed that it was signed and stamped from the Preventor's main office. No wonder Jouls had been so concerned!
A thump behind him told him that his rather impatient offspring was beginning to struggle, and he quickly stashed the envelope in one of the drawers. Those had child proof mechanisms on all of them, as well as the cabinets, at least. They had never quite figured out how, or even why, but Molly had proven herself more than capable of getting her hands on the hardest to reach items, so long as they were left out in the open. He wasn't sure why Jouls hadn't put the letter away, but it wasn't important now. Instead, he went to the stove to begin apportioning out their dinners. The hungry baby came first, of course, and was promptly followed by a cleaning of the now meatloaf and peas covered baby.
Bath time faded into play time, and then came story time before she had to go to bed. He loved his evenings with Molly above anything else, but since seeing that letter it seemed there was a shadow hanging over his peaceful world. Why was it coming now?
When he finished Molly's story of dragons and space pirates and beautiful, strong-willed princesses that saved their knights (for Duo didn't believe in raising girls to view themselves as damsels in distress), he kissed her good night and tucked her in. Motherly duties complete, Duo took on the roll of her father. He checked her nightlight, and chased away the monsters from her closet, and made certain that her favorite teddy bear was right beside her upon the bed, and then the door was shut with a single crack left open before he made his way alone down the hall.
Molly knew better than to get up for no reason at all. It had been hell getting her used to sleeping in her own bed at night, for he and her both, but in the end Duo had won the fight. It was better this way, he knew, no matter how much of a baby he still saw her as, for she'd have had to have gotten used to it someday. He went back downstairs and into the kitchen to clean up, turning on the small television screen that was implanted in the kitchen's wall. It was already set up to the news channel, rather than his own cartoons, and he knew in a moment that Juely must have done that. The man gave a short laugh which died very quickly as the newscaster's report sunk in.
"Witnesses say that they saw a single man running away from the hospital before the explosion went off, however none were close enough to provide an accurate depiction to the police. Police sketch artists say that they have been recieving such conflicting reports that it is imposible to say which ones are correct, or if in fact there were far more suspects involved than what is being said. The only thing it seems that anyone here is certain of is that this must be just one more example of the terrorist attack plague that has been sweeping the Nation. This has been Holly Baryln for L3 Colonial News. Back to you, Tom."
Juxtaposed between fragments of the blonde reporter's speech were images compiled together of a building in ruins, black smoke still pouring out from smothering ashes. In no few of the shots could Duo make out what appeared to be charred human remains, the kind of which he hadn't seen since the battles of his youth. The common viewer likely wouldn't have been able to decifer what they were seeing (otherwise the station would never have allowed this footage) but to someone who had witnessed that same sort of destruction time after time, the differences in material were obvious.
"I can't believe that, Tom." The co-anchor shook her pixelated head with a such a fake expression of remorse that Duo felt the sudden, gut-wrenching need to punch her. "What kind of person would ever do that?"
"I don't know, Sherry," Tom replied with an equal amount of loftiness--as if such a thing were above them, or somehow removed from them! "All I know is that the Preventors are doing as much as they can about the problem. There have been talks in the Senate about finding a way to increase resistance against these murderers."
"We should say that though there have been rumors floating about of a draft into their service, that such an action has been rebuked by the President as being not only unconstitutional, but an affront to all the ideals of peace our society has worked so hard to achieve."
Duo slapped the tv twice before he managed to turn the idiot-box off. Then, for the longest time, he merely stared at the counter full of dirty dishes before him. What had it all been for? All that fighting? All that death? How were the Preventors allowing these people to come into the land and reak so much havoc as this? All of these were unanswerable questions. It had been years since he'd had real contact with anyone from back then. "War Buddies" weren't quite as welcomed in real life as they were in television shows, he'd found. After all, though you shared many experiences together, they were often experiences... you'd just rather forget.
He growled, faintly, and wiped a one sweaty mitt over his face and brushed his bang back for a moment. Then, in one decisive movement, he jerked the door open with a force hard enough that the child-proofing magnet might as well have not been there, and took the letter from the rest of its contents. Duo ripped the envelope open at the top and flipped it over to be rewarded a moment later with a sheet of carefully folded, heavy weight paper.
The envelope he cast aside without a moment's care, turned and pressed his bum into the counter's side as he began to read. If his peace was going to be shattered, it had damn well better be something important.
Location: Maxwell's Scrap Metal, Colony Cluster L2
Characters: Duo and Molly Maxwell
He wasn't going to cut his hair. The man frowned, glaring down at the brown braid he'd pulled over his shoulder in order to look at it. The hair fell down to the back of his knees now, in a braid. It was longer down, but he rarely left it down, because it would get in the way like that. Unfortunately for him, it was also getting in the way now. He sighed, stroking the thick mass with loving fingers, trying not to think about the fact that it'd been nearly chopped away for him that afternoon. It wasn't always fun and games working the scrap circuit, after all, and one of the workers had carelessly moved portion of the pile far too near the bottom. He had been on the other side of it when the whole thing had come down upon his head, including a rather sharp piece of metal broken off of what looked to be the arm of an older model mobile suit. It was sad, he reflected, that after seven years the scrappers were still cleaning up the mess off those old battle fields.
Duo shook his head, dropping the braid and refusing to look anymore at the now uneven ends of it. It was only an inch, really, but it was still important to him.
With another deep sigh he leaned back in his desk, the chair creaking unhappily beneath him and put his feet upon the beaten desk with two solid 'thumps'. Crossing his arms behind his neck, he turned just enough to peek out the blinds hung in his office window into the yard beyond. Light in the colony was just beginning to fade--the end to another long day of work. Chopping of the hair aside, Duo had to let a small, happy smile fall upon his face as he watched the scene. The scrap yard probably wasn't beautiful to anyone but him.. but it was his home. That in itself was all the difference in the world for him, and he was surprised (if not completely, utterly, unbelievably shocked) to realize that he was actually happy.
He rubbed his chin, straightening the slight goatee he allowed to stay there, then got up and stretched himself out before heading for the door. Locking up was a small matter. A security code punched in, and then he went around to the front entrance to padlock the gates. All of the workers were gone already--Duo always stayed the latest 'at work,' though he supposed that was obligatory as he lived on the premesis. Stll, the main house and his backyard buisiness were not attatched, and for a very good reason. He walked around in the sidewalk instead to reach the other side of the house, a two story monolith that held not only his home but his office and workshop as well. It was painted robin's egg blue, surrounded on one side by a tall wire fence with barbed wire strung on top, and on this side by a more homely wooden fence, polished to a shine so that it didn't have any splinters. Duo was very careful about what he allowed on his property.
The reason for this flung itself off the pourch the minute he stepped in the gate. He barely had enough time to close it behind him before a black, white and pink streak of screaming lightning came shooting across the yard towards him. Duo turned to scoop the two year old up, despite that her shrieking laughter pierced the ears, and twirled her about the yard as they headed back up the path together.
Years ago he'd ripped up the concrete path to the door himself, much prefering the worn earth one that stayed behind. The grass had grown up along it gradually, leaving only the faintest marks of dark loam beneath. That was the wonderful thing about the colonies, really--even though they were far from earth, they still had so many of the little things from the planet that made it feel so similar. The rain, the snow, the heat that one could imagine was the sun; it was all here, miles out in space.
A small whispering at the back of Duo's mind reminded him that life out here was still very, very fragile. All it took was one mistake. One minor, seemingly innocuous detail gone amiss that would cause a chain reaction and kill the entire lot of them. It had happened to other colonies, long distant, but there always seemed to be this idea that now the colonies were safe. In this modern day and age no one would dare make the human errors that would cause these things. But such, that same cynical voice supplied, was the way of life in an era of "peace."
The peace he had fought for.
The peace he had finally found.
Duo laughed when Molly tugged on his braid. She had two of her own, in carefully plaited "pig tails" that were as dark as the night was black. In fact, the little girl looked so much like her mother, save the bold green eyes set beneath the epicanthal fold of her ivory skin. There was a dash of freckles across her nose, few but dark, along with a little peeling from the last sunburn she'd gotten. How one burned in this light Duo didn't really know, but the girl had managed it. In response he grinned and tugged on her own pig tail, to be rewarded with a high-pitched giggle-squeal the like of which she had made often since she was a baby. Nothing put the bounce back into his step faster, these days.
"Thanks for watching her, Juely," He told the slender, grey-headed woman sitting in her rocker on the porch. The woman only smiled and rose, joints creaking a little as she wrapped her shawl more firmly about her shoulders.
"Its what you pay me for, Maxwell," She replied in a tender voice that belied the snapped nature of her comment. Indeed, it was what he paid her for, but Duo knew better than that. Juels McMillan had all but volunteered for the position the moment he'd taken Molly as his two years ago. She'd known the family, of course, being their next door neighbor, and had taken pity on a young man, hardly more than a boy himself, who'd taken "so much" upon his shoulders. She hadn't had any idea of how broken he'd been at the time and how much he had needed that helping hand. Now... he wasn't sure. He suspected the woman knew and was grateful that she never so much as hinted at it. Regardless, she'd come out of retirement to help him take care of Molly, no matter what the circumstances for, and he knew she had bills just like he did. It was the least he could do to repay her for her kindness. "Dinner is on the stove--your favorite, I might add, and there's a lovely picture the little miss put up on the refrigerator for you."
"I make a'pretty, Daddy!" Molly screamed in his ear. Duo did wince that time, but laughed despite and set her back down on the porch, "Why don't you show me then?" He opened the screen door for her, and watched as the girl zoomed inside. He and Juels shared a laugh at that, and he was just about to follow her inside when the older woman's hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Huh?"
"Duo," Juels began uncertainly, and something deadly serious in her voice and posture stopped him from trying to shrug it off as he normally would have. In his mind's ear he could almost hear the voice of his therapist chiding him for brushing off the serious the moment it came to play. "sometimes, Duo, The man had said one afternoon, across the desk from the rather stereotypical, if comfortable, couch that Duo had chosen to lay upon, "Sometimes serious times invade our sandboxes like fireants. You have to deal with those problems before you get bitten, because they're not just going to go away, they're going to dig in for the long haul."
He'd hated, back then, to admit that the man was right... but in the end, he had been. It was still a constant struggle not to give in to routes long worn into his system, but he struggled with it and managed to give a single, curt nod to encourage Juels into speaking further, "Duo... I know you don't watch the news often, but you may want to stay up for the nine o'clock tonight. There's been another attack.."
Duo sighed. Another terrorist attack? He wondered, bitterly, what on earth Wufei and Sally and all the others with the Preventors were doing out there. He wondered if they were even members of the Preventors anymore...
"I will, Juely, I promise," he began to reply, when she cut him off.
"Also, a letter came for you today." That in itself got a raised eyebrow from the young man. Mail? Him? He never recieved any mail, at least by the physical post. Every contact he had either called him (for he hated written communication), or left a video message. There were a few that sent things via e-mail, of course, but he actively discouraged that by never checking his account until he was bored. He had the privelege of being bored once every six or so months, these days.
"Daddy!!!" Molly shrieked again from the inside of the house and Duo cast a wary look in there. "I'm sorry, Juely.."
"No, I just wanted to say.. well I left it on top of the refigerator where Kitten couldn't get a-hold of it," the woman finished so briskly that Duo knew then, without any doubt, that there was something about this letter that bothered her. He couldn't fathom what it could possibly be, so he nodded his thanks. After a quick set of goodbyes, the woman headed out the yard towards her house and her own supper with her husband, and Duo went in to the further shrieks of his child.
"Kitten," He warned in the no-nonsense tone he only adopted when it was absolutely necessary, and shut the front door behind him. A couple of quick twists put the locks in place and he punched in the security code without bothering to look at it--a habit born of long repitition, "What have I told you about shouting?"
"t'do... t'not'toooo..." She crooned, far closer than he'd expected her voice to be, and Duo jumped slightly as he realized she was standing beside him. In her hands, sticky and shiney with something he'd rather not know the actual name of, was a thick off-white envelope and a sheet of scribbled upon paper. Duo lifted a brow and crouched down in front of the little girl, leaning his elbows upon his knees as he watched her with a patient smile.
"And what might those be?"
"Dis'is.. diss is my pretty," She garbled with a proud, happy smile stretching wide across her fat-cheeked face and lifted it up to show him. At first Duo wasn't at all certain what it was he was supposedly looking at. It was crayon, at least, that much was obvious, and done up in the most eye-gouging colours the box had available. Beyond that... I guess its time to fake it, huh?
"That certainly is pretty!" He exclaimed and before she could question him on it, he scooped her up and gave her a kiss, then carried her back into the kitchen to settle in her highchair. "You did a wonderful job on that, little Kitten. So what else is that that you got there?"
"IsamaPAAPyaa!" She squealed, struggling in his grasp as he tried to buckle her into the chair. She giggled, bashing him on the arms with the envelope and paper until she lost her grip and they both went onto the floor. Duo just laughed, quite used to the whole thing by now, and finally one by putting the table top down. He hadn't a clue what she'd said, of course, but pretended not to care.
"Ahhaa. is that so? Well where did you get it?"
Molly, also known as Kitten though there really wasn't a reason why (Duo had just called her that one day, when she'd been first born, and it had somehow stuck), shoved her fist into her rather large mouth and Duo knew where the slimy substance had come from. Given the givens, he should have realized that a lot sooner than he had, and bent to pick the papers off the floor before moving any further. He dumped them both on the table without looking at them, and moved for the stove when his daughter gave another imperious little shriek.
Turning back to her, he followed the sticky finger she was pointing, the other hand still shoved quite happily into her sodden mouth, right back to the paper's he'd sat down. "Okay, kitten, okay!" He chuckled, shaking his head and picked them both up. The picture--what on earth WAS this thing?--he posted upon the refrigerator and then took a second to look at the envelope in his hands. A frown creased his brow, a rare thing indeed, as he noticed that it was signed and stamped from the Preventor's main office. No wonder Jouls had been so concerned!
A thump behind him told him that his rather impatient offspring was beginning to struggle, and he quickly stashed the envelope in one of the drawers. Those had child proof mechanisms on all of them, as well as the cabinets, at least. They had never quite figured out how, or even why, but Molly had proven herself more than capable of getting her hands on the hardest to reach items, so long as they were left out in the open. He wasn't sure why Jouls hadn't put the letter away, but it wasn't important now. Instead, he went to the stove to begin apportioning out their dinners. The hungry baby came first, of course, and was promptly followed by a cleaning of the now meatloaf and peas covered baby.
Bath time faded into play time, and then came story time before she had to go to bed. He loved his evenings with Molly above anything else, but since seeing that letter it seemed there was a shadow hanging over his peaceful world. Why was it coming now?
When he finished Molly's story of dragons and space pirates and beautiful, strong-willed princesses that saved their knights (for Duo didn't believe in raising girls to view themselves as damsels in distress), he kissed her good night and tucked her in. Motherly duties complete, Duo took on the roll of her father. He checked her nightlight, and chased away the monsters from her closet, and made certain that her favorite teddy bear was right beside her upon the bed, and then the door was shut with a single crack left open before he made his way alone down the hall.
Molly knew better than to get up for no reason at all. It had been hell getting her used to sleeping in her own bed at night, for he and her both, but in the end Duo had won the fight. It was better this way, he knew, no matter how much of a baby he still saw her as, for she'd have had to have gotten used to it someday. He went back downstairs and into the kitchen to clean up, turning on the small television screen that was implanted in the kitchen's wall. It was already set up to the news channel, rather than his own cartoons, and he knew in a moment that Juely must have done that. The man gave a short laugh which died very quickly as the newscaster's report sunk in.
"Witnesses say that they saw a single man running away from the hospital before the explosion went off, however none were close enough to provide an accurate depiction to the police. Police sketch artists say that they have been recieving such conflicting reports that it is imposible to say which ones are correct, or if in fact there were far more suspects involved than what is being said. The only thing it seems that anyone here is certain of is that this must be just one more example of the terrorist attack plague that has been sweeping the Nation. This has been Holly Baryln for L3 Colonial News. Back to you, Tom."
Juxtaposed between fragments of the blonde reporter's speech were images compiled together of a building in ruins, black smoke still pouring out from smothering ashes. In no few of the shots could Duo make out what appeared to be charred human remains, the kind of which he hadn't seen since the battles of his youth. The common viewer likely wouldn't have been able to decifer what they were seeing (otherwise the station would never have allowed this footage) but to someone who had witnessed that same sort of destruction time after time, the differences in material were obvious.
"I can't believe that, Tom." The co-anchor shook her pixelated head with a such a fake expression of remorse that Duo felt the sudden, gut-wrenching need to punch her. "What kind of person would ever do that?"
"I don't know, Sherry," Tom replied with an equal amount of loftiness--as if such a thing were above them, or somehow removed from them! "All I know is that the Preventors are doing as much as they can about the problem. There have been talks in the Senate about finding a way to increase resistance against these murderers."
"We should say that though there have been rumors floating about of a draft into their service, that such an action has been rebuked by the President as being not only unconstitutional, but an affront to all the ideals of peace our society has worked so hard to achieve."
Duo slapped the tv twice before he managed to turn the idiot-box off. Then, for the longest time, he merely stared at the counter full of dirty dishes before him. What had it all been for? All that fighting? All that death? How were the Preventors allowing these people to come into the land and reak so much havoc as this? All of these were unanswerable questions. It had been years since he'd had real contact with anyone from back then. "War Buddies" weren't quite as welcomed in real life as they were in television shows, he'd found. After all, though you shared many experiences together, they were often experiences... you'd just rather forget.
He growled, faintly, and wiped a one sweaty mitt over his face and brushed his bang back for a moment. Then, in one decisive movement, he jerked the door open with a force hard enough that the child-proofing magnet might as well have not been there, and took the letter from the rest of its contents. Duo ripped the envelope open at the top and flipped it over to be rewarded a moment later with a sheet of carefully folded, heavy weight paper.
The envelope he cast aside without a moment's care, turned and pressed his bum into the counter's side as he began to read. If his peace was going to be shattered, it had damn well better be something important.