Bab 69: Someone Always Suffers
Trowa didn't know what to say as he headed back. He called up Heero, knowing that he would have to make this call. Trowa just didn't want to call up Quatre and tell him. "Heero."
"Trowa. Is this important, Relena's taking a shower right now."
"Heero, you know I hate that!"
"I'm not supposed to have calls, it's embarrassing and it'll distract me from watching her so this has to be important."
Heero was a unique one. "Duo is going to start killing people from Revenge of the Lost. He's going after Hilde's body. He became the God of Death again."
"Hilde Schbeiker's body?"
"I'm afraid so," Trowa said. "Revenge of the Lost pushed on his weak spot."
"Sepsis?"
"I don't know. Can you tell the others?" Trowa asked.
"Hn. Yeah, I will."
An immediate hang up. With such a subject, Heero would do that.
Duo snuck into the address. It was an actual suburban neighborhood. There was no hidden basement, just a basement. He searched the place, and found out it belonged to two kids, boy and girl in elementary school, some guy that worked in an office, and a simple mom.
Yeah, right. He had to calm down though because he hadn't found Hilde's body like Trowa's mother wrote about yet. When he heard the woman come home, he hid out to make sure she was unaware of his presence. She just started chopping vegetables and boiling water.
If he were in a better mood, he'd probably give some kind of tease, but instead he just took the safety off his gun. The way she acted, she knew that sound. Yeah, she was definitely someone.
She turned around and looked at him. "Oh. I didn't expect you."
The way she said that didn't sound right. "Who were you expecting to be holding a gun on you?"
"Revenge of the Lost," she said. "Shouldn't . . . you be after them instead?"
Okay. This woman's face? Yeah, something was way off. "You aren't part of Revenge of the Lost?" he asked.
"No. I quit, some time ago," she said. "I ran. I thought I ran far enough with my family. How did you find me?"
Interesting, a deserter was who Crystalia led him to? "An address left behind that claims you have the body of Hilde Schbeiker." Right. He held his gun on her closer. "Any idea why it'd say that?"
"Oh, Crystalia." She was definitely not happy. "She left me with this? Damn her." She turned around and stirred her vegetables again. She put her spatula back down. "I don't know everything. I mainly worked in helping as a burner, housing people. I wanted to do something after having to leave."
Having to leave? "Leave from where?"
She wiped something from her eye. Maybe a tear. "Something happened with my husband. My clan wouldn't let me stay with just my son. It was a strong clan, and a mother alone couldn't raise the next boy in line."
Clan? Hang on, this lady looked a whole lot like . . . "What was the name of your boy?"
"I think you know," she said. "There is a reason I left. Since I lost not only my husband, but a son just due to being . . . weak," she said softly. "They helped me. I did my best for Support of the Loss, but when they recognized my skill, they had me become a burner. Someone who helps others that can't be strong find a way to escape until RTL solved it."
Holy . . . "If I hadn't come ealier to see Hilde's body wasn't here, I would have killed you dead before you even knew I was here." Revenge of the Lost. They never quit. "I almost killed Wufei's mom."
She didn't seem upset about the realization. "When I heard his name for the first time involved with the gundams, I was shocked. I knew I had to get out. He might become a target with how many lives he was taking. I thought they forgot all about me for years."
"Nah, they were just saving you for something else," Duo uttered. "They took Hilde Schbeiker away from me. You might not have killed her."
"I would never kill anyone," she insisted.
"Maybe, so maybe I won't kill you, but you need to help me find her." He was done with pussy footing around, especially after that!
"I remarried and began again," she insisted. "I need to get my kids to their school each day. I need to make sure my husband gets a good breakfast before he goes to work. I need to run my own life, not wreck it." She turned back around. "Please don't do this. I left to never get involved in anything that might come after him."
"Don't do this? Really?" Duo never lowered the gun. "Hey, I'm glad you figured out that, hey, maybe RTL wasn't quite the way to go. Thrilled actually, wish more people went your way and ran too." He held the gun closer to her. "You know how I run my life? It involved all kinds of things, but the best thing in it was called Hilde. Now. If Crystalia led me to you, then you must know how to track her back down. Trowa has Crystalia's tablet, so I need places that aren't going to be on that tablet."
"Defunct, old areas. You want information." She sighed. "If Revenge of the Lost finds out I gave you info, they would target my entire family, not just me. I had to get my husband to think he got a whole new job somewhere else in order for us to move here."
---
He didn't care. "You are helping. Where would they take her if their current locations couldn't be used?"
" . . . how did Crystalia ever know this is where i moved to?" she wondered. "Nobody knew the truth about me. Nobody. They knew I had to leave, I wouldn't be near any organizational area to run what I did. It organically fell away, I was out before I moved. Everyone stopped caring, no one even stopped to say hi at the grocery store the week I moved. No one ever knew my connection."
"Did Crystalia?" None of this was on the tablet.
"Is that why she risked my family like this, I was disposable?" She touched her forehead. "No. No, Crystalia was strange but not vindictive like this. Did you see Crystalia physically?"
Oh. This wasn't sounding good. "An address was left with a friend."
"No. No, it's RTL, not Crystalia!" She started to go nuts. "She doesn't know my connection to Wufei, only Superior does. She was the one who found me and took care of me."
Heh. "Well, makes the whole simple 'blown up' without a name even attached a lot more clearer to cause of death." They couldn't have picked a better lie. "That lie blew up a whole other colony."
"I didn't know what was happening. I told you. Please. I have to get my children, I have to get my husband, please help!"
What? "Help? Help a person who used to belong to an organization that took Hilde?"
"I left before that, I wanted to leave way before that for Wufei's sake! Don't you get it? Look how mad you are, even you said you were ready to kill me!" She pointed to the gun and started to cry. "RTL expected you to take me out in that anger. They are going to kill everyone close to me to get me. Please, none of my children never did anything wrong, they lived the best way they could. My husband never did anything, he just fell in love with the wrong person, please?"
Oh crap. The guys. Like it or not, he couldn't let innocent people pay, especially kids. "Come with me, we are taking my vehicle. Bring your phone and where is the school your kids go to?"
Trowa's Hideout
Middie wished she could have used the time Trowa had been gone to clean the tablet. The tablet was something precious to everyone. It didn't leave the place at all usually, but she understood Trowa would want it near him. It was used to send the video proof that Relena Dorlain and Dorothy Catalonia were innocent, but the whole thing itself could be given to the right person and put everyone involved in RTL away forever.
There was only one real reason they hadn't shared it yet. It had not only the people of RTL's information buried in it, but a lot of sensitive information the rest of the world didn't need shared. The tablet was heavy with information, and classified things only they should know were hiding in every corner. Even after all that time, there was still things they had to find to clear it out.
At first, Trowa tried it on his own. Then, he started to trust Middie to know the differences. Even with that though? There were things buried in messages, documents, documents that could still be recovered, pictures, texts, instant messenger texts. Everything from the circus, Trowa's real information, her information that would get her thrown in jail, pilot information that would get them thrown in jail the world didn't know about, and just sensitive information no one else needed to know.
Like? No one needed to know that Quatre's 24th sister had actually moved to an address on Earth, got married, divorced, married again, lost a baby preterm, divorced and went back up to the satellite without telling anyone. That was her own personal business.
And that was just lying around in a messenger message from one member to another.
Middie often asked Trowa if it wasn't obvious if she should include something in the deletion rounds. She kept track of what she looked at, what was deleted, and what could be recovered with techniques.
There was someone called Howard that Trowa had considered giving it to, and he said he could probably get just the main parts off, but they were risking the entire tablet, taking it out of the house, and trusting someone no one had contacted since the wars between the colonies and Earth.
Slow and steady, but they were getting closer. Middie had read just about every member's message, had erased several documents months ago, while Trowa had deleted every picture of the circus, any thoughts about the circus, the information about the circus, and even the smallest baby pictures he actually found of himself with his mother.
All of it. He might have saved some of it to his own phone, including his real identity proofs, but most of that was gone.
It was also a balancing act, the tablet had to keep actual information on it too. If someone was talking about how good it felt to stab Relena, then it had to stay in there. Deleting things just because they were bad wouldn't do any good.
More than a couple times, the device had triggered her too. That's another reason getting everyone off took so long, seeing what people wanted to do to her didn't always make it easy to pick up and work with.
It was probably another reason Trowa took it. Getting triggered while he wasn't there wouldn't be good.
Once the device was all clean to Trowa, he would pass it along to Heero who would double check all information that was sensitive for them had been gone. He'd also make sure the information couldn't be recovered with any kind of hacker moves.
The good news? It was getting closer. Stuff cropped up here and there, but they were probably a good 85%, maybe even 90% done. Trowa was supposed to hand it over to Heero next week at some point.
Which left her just relaxing on the bed, staring at the ceiling with her hair sprawled out on the bed.
Freedom from Revenge of the Lost again sounded so nice. Middie still had consequences to face with the run-ins of them that would never leave her, but at least? At least the pregnancy only had three months left. At least her and Gin didn't have to kill anyone.
It probably felt like it was almost over to everyone except Duo Maxwell who just lost his friend. Nothing ever seemed to be perfect for everyone though. Life was never like that. Someone always suffered.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone