Kalli's Journal

Staff Information!
Hit Banners & Awards!

Contact Info

Twofold

CE 70, February Second-

"Head down," Mizue instructed her partner as the neared the actual dock portion of PLANT's Commerce Dock. "Don't look at any one."

"But..."

"We'll be fine once we get near the ship," Mizue interrupted. "We don't have an unreasonable amount of things for resupplying a Junk Guild ship."

"Mizue..."

"Head down," Mizue said again. There was a soft sigh, and then only the sound of footsteps beside her for a few steps before there was nothing but silence.

"Wiki!" Mizue whirled about as best she could for carrying four heavy bags of supplies - mostly food - and having her entire outfit carefully packed with all the other things she'd picked up.

Wiki was staring up at one of the many holoscreens showing a pink-haired girl singing.

"It's Lacus," Wiki said, gesturing upward. "Can we watch?"

"No," Mizue replied. "I'm sure we can watch her video when we get to the ship. We're already late - Kasey is going to think we got lost."

Fairly sure that if she kept moving Wiki would follow, Mizue turned quickly and before she could react, she crashed right into a red-jacketed young ZAFT soldier. Before she could fall backwards, he'd grabbed her, though once he'd gotten a good look at her, he frowned.

It was exactly the sort of attention Mizue had been attempting to avoid. And besides that, the soldier had touched her, likely feeling the mass of what she'd hidden in the lining of her jacket and elsewhere.

"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, "I should have been paying more attention." Mizue tried not to panic when she realized that she'd walked into an entire group of soldiers, most of whom were in red.

"Are you on your way to the port?" one of the other soldiers asked.

"Yes," Mizue replied, before setting two of her bags down and reaching into her jacket pocket to procure a screwdriver. "Junk Guild. Resupplying."

It wasn't a lie.

"Mizue?" Wiki finally stepped up beside her. "Is Mizue asking directions?"

"Something like that," Mizue stammered. She knew the soldiers were all looking her over, deciding that she was definitely not one of their kind.

"Please be more careful," another soldier, one with longish blond hair and in red, said, half-smiling at her. Mizue shivered and nodded.

"We'll be on our way," Mizue said, pocketing the screwdriver and picking up her bags. "Have a pleasant day." She half-bowed and stepped around them, thankful that Wiki followed quickly.

"Don't worry," Wiki said a minute later, "Wiki remembers where the ship is."

Mizue chuckled, still shaking a bit. While there were Naturals living and working in various PLANTs, they were scattered and few, usually older and as the result of mixed families migrating during the previous decade. With her flat, brown hair and plain features, Mizue knew she looked a world apart from the endlessly beautiful Coordinators.

Relations between the Earth and PLANT were worsening by the day, too. Mizue had only caught scattered reports via the Junk Guild's network before entering the Commerce Dock, where she'd quickly bought several data-discs of news and current events info to look at later. All she really knew that she didn't want to linger around PLANT and was in no hurry to go back to Earth, either.

"What did Mizue buy, anyway?" Wiki questioned just before the ship came into sight. "These bags are ridiculous-heavy."

"They're necessary supplies. Besides, you should be stronger than I am," Mizue said, glancing over at her Coordinator companion.

"Mizue should have asked those ZAFT soldiers to carry bags," Wiki replied.

"That wouldn't have been a good idea," Mizue replied. And then she saw Kasey waving to her from on top of the Odyssey Seven, their ship, and didn't have to say anything else.

"Where are we going?" Mizue asked as she stepped onto the bridge of the Odyssey Seven.

Kasey glanced back at her. "That's all I get?" he asked. "No, 'thanks for picking up supplies, haggling with the port authority, and negotiating an earlier launch time, Kasey'?"

"Yes, all that too," Mizue replied. She sighed and flung herself down towards where Kasey sat, floating for a few seconds before letting her feet scrape along the floor. When she stopped beside Kasey, she crossed her arms. "So where are we going?"

"Heliopolis," Kasey replied. "Twofold assignment."

"Eh?"

"We'll be picking up a new intern and..."

"No," Mizue said. "Let me on the radio. I do not want an intern..."

"I already agreed to it," Kasey said. Mizue frowned - she did not own the ship though, so she backed down. "Besides, it'll be nice to have a new face around here."

"What else are we doing?" Mizue questioned. "We're easily five days out from Heliopolis."

Kasey smiled. "We have an order that'll clear half the junk out of the cargo hold," he explained. "It seems a little odd, but it's through the guild so I'm not going to question it."

"And it clears out the cargo hold for more junk," Mizue added flatly.

"Remind me again why you're a junk tech," Kasey said. He leaned back in his chair. "You don't love junk."

"I love a different type of junk," Mizue reminded him. "Cast off knowledge, buried secrets... biological junk..." She smiled.

"We're not going to Mendel," Kasey said quickly. "Absolutely not. There's no reason to get near L4..."

"I said nothing," Mizue stated, moving her hands to her hips. "Besides, I have plenty of reading to do for now."

Kasey closed his eyes and winced. "I don't even want to know what you stole," he said. "And I'm sure you stole it, didn't you?"

"Someone else stole it," Mizue said as she reached into her pocket for the handful of datasticks she'd acquired. "I simply bought some datasticks..."

Kasey groaned. And Mizue moved over to her own workstation. She had five days til they reached Heliopolis and she was fairly sure that she would spend all of it reading.