At The Brink

Dorothy leaned around it, trying to figure out how to get in. The woman helped her get into the seat. "Sandrock is within me, and now I am within Sandrock. What a concept to explore." The woman didn't answer, just closed the door. Dorothy watched as several lights started to come on, along with some kind of camera. She could see the other woman in the camera. "What are you doing now?"

She didn't answer. She just stared at Dorothy.

"Oh. Perhaps you are waiting to hear something positive?" Dorothy turned some buttons and had hit radio signals. "Over 10,000 women are already being questioned, and several are now being hunted across the lines. Yes, the world is aghast at the news of such a report from one of the most trusting sources, Support for the Loss. What was once a haven for the war-torn families of women and girls, is now the center of a huge storm."

Minutes. An hour maybe? Just a little longer, and I would have been out of here. RTL wouldn't have been as much of a threat. I'm sorry, Quatre. I'm sorry, Sandrock. All of you. It's quite embarrassing to lose at the very last minute. Death was probably imminent now. If it had been?

Then Dorothy Catalonia, would go down as Dorothy Catalonia. "Let me turn this up. Oh, How's that, is that a good channel to try?" Dorothy asked. "How about a news station? Interesting topics lately, it seems most of your crew is now caught. Thanks to your absolutely lovely assistance with your tablet. You know, I have seen some strange things in my Romefeller days, but someone who gives away everything on their allies, just to turn back to them? Goodness. There's probably never a reason I've seen it. Its only ever outcome would be failure and shame!" She just watched the woman walk off. Undisturbed by anything she said.

Fine. Good. She didn't want to have to keep putting on a pleasant face for her, she was scary. Crystalia was too scary. Her eyes. Her movement. It was like someone caught in some kind of possession against their will. Similar to the other women, but to such a higher degree.

Now. What was she doing in there, and how was she going to get out before she was killed? Calm down, Dorothy. They want to kill you somehow in Sandrock. How and why? She messed with more buttons. Try to relax. It will . . . destroy poor Quatre's heart. Never let Sandrock really live. She started to weep. Not for herself. She knew the strain and the hurt this would put on others. Especially, Quatre. That pain, doubled back, and only created more pain.

It hurt to be her. It hurt to be so sensitive. She tried to wipe her nose and dry her eyes. This should have happened sooner! I shouldn't have accepted that gift. He never believed we'd really make it until he gave us that gift. "Just one possible future." But? I wanted to be part of that future, I was starting to believe too!

She messed around in the mobile suit. The legs didn't work, just the arms. Do they want me found dead in Sandrock? What purpose does this serve? This is not the revenge we were expecting, what is this contrivance?!

///"No." Dorothy watched Quatre stumble with his words. She refused to accept the gift. "I'm going to check the sites below. Keep your crummy gift. It must be, to have waited for so long to gift something so silly at the sixth month. It's just clothes, right? Silly old clothes that a girl of her caliber would never wear."///

"I should have done that. I should have broke his heart." It would have saved more of his heart later. Instead, she had accepted that token graciously, and even went down and mingled with others. "Too nice."

///"Oh, look at that coloring!" Dorothy said excitedly as she went toward a dress. "This would be absolutely smashing on Miss Relena."

"Well? I'm sure it'd look nice on you too. I know you treasure, Miss Relena. I can feel it. You have bounds of respect for her, something you have for no one else. But, I think you'd look better in it than Miss Relena."

"Not so, these are her colors." She squeezed the dress. Oh, Miss Relena.

"You don't need her presence as much," Quatre pointed out. "I'm here too, but I'm not really needed. If you would just trust in yourself."

"Going too far, Mister Winner." He would have to stop right there.

"You've got the most beautiful, strong heart as well. If you'd just accept it," he had to stay. "You never will. You never feel good until you are around people you feel are good. Miss Relena is at the top of your list, but I've been making loads of progress. Haven't I, Dorothy Catalonia?"

Why was he saying that out so loud? He didn't have to do-///

Dorothy shook her head. A dream? A dream. "I forgot I was in here. I really thought I was back at the Maguanacs area." She scratched her head. "It felt so real." She watched as the cockpit opened. It wasn't easy to step out from that position.

Crystalia was climbing up. "You will get a break from inside every four hours. That break is 30 minutes. You will do this for at least the next two weeks. Accomplish that, and we might free you."

"Freed?" Crystalia. This woman. "How can you give me a claim so bold, when you yourself clearly are not?" Ooh, anger. She hated that. "What are you already trying to do? What did you put into Sandrock that shouldn't be here?"

"Nightmares already?" Crystalia asked. "I expected better from your caliber, Miss Dorothy."

"Not nightmares per say, but a higher sense of reality warping around me, showing me what isn't real. It was a little different than my mind usually conceives, Miss Crystalia."

"You scared your guards," Crystalia said back to her as she got her out. "I will be the one training you now."

"You scare me," Dorothy said honestly, "so that seems fair. What do you mean training?" Training. Sandrock. A death scene without an audience. Training. Ah. "You have the zero system, don't you, Miss Crystalia?"

"Bathroom is to your right. I have a plate of food ready when you come out. On the side of those, there are some games for you to play. You can watch TV, listen to the radio, whatever you want," Crystalia said. "No hurry."

"You have video of me dying." That was clear. "I wasn't playing Juliet for nothing. You want to convince them all that I died, yet you want me trained to go into whatever small army you have left. Why?" It was so hard to tell with her. "I already helped almost destroy the Earth once with Milliardo Peacecraft, I don't understand your silly ways. Clearly I am the villain. Making a villain more villainous? Two villains square off, with one mighty system of the mind and a machine of no equal for physical might."

"You ran the mobile doll system before. There is a chance you might make it through."

"There is heating and ac in there. I tried the ac, it works. The visual prompter. The sound. Video games. Even some board games. Do you know what that sounds like?" Dorothy pointed out. "A frog that finds itself in hot water will jump out. One that is in cold water that starts to heat up will eventually boil itself alive."

"If that is a fact you believe, then it doesn't matter whether the frog lands in cold or hot. You aren't going to get back out. Make no mistake, Revenge of the Lost's days are numbered. I knew that when I sent the device to Trowa," Crystalia said to her.

"You should have bowed out with your head held high," Dorothy said back to her. "But you can't. You cannot get past it. Even when you try, your soul is still crying out to keep fighting. You are not even part of the enemy anymore, but you can't see any other way to live."

"You are highly annoying," Crystalia said to her. "You are wasting your break. Go."

"These breaks too. I doubt they are out of the goodness of your heart. What is it? Is four hours the maximum to be exposed to the zero system without giving the mind a break? Does it get better at the zero system after four hours, or does it worsen too quick to get the effect you want?"

"Go eat," Crystalia commanded. "Your food is getting cold, Miss Dorothy."

"Not as cold as your heart and mind, Miss Crystalia. One of those you are missing now. You can ponder on that answer as I go eat." Dorothy walked over toward the food. She unwrapped a sandwich, trying not to let her fingers tremble. My mind is bound to die. They don't just want to drive me insane, there is a purpose. They want to break me. Why do they want to break me? She said training. Training in what? She started to eat her sandwich. This whole motif isn't about the pregnancy anymore. Quatre, to hurt Quatre. To hurt the pilots. She fumbled with her sandwich. "Your mayo does nothing for this sandwich. It's clear you missed the beat of making regular sandwiches for your children as they were growing up." Sandwich. "Yet, there is some charm to this sandwich. Maybe you didn't. Did your little Cathy not like regular mayo?"

"Any of the others would have been better," Crystalia complained to her. "Even when you figure it out, it won't do any good."

"You mean that you've fixed the zero system to erase my very identity and I will become a soulless soldier for you to bend to your will? Ruling the world doesn't seem your style. I'm still figuring some of it out, but the other part is quite clear." She took a bite out of the sandwich. "Part of the crust on the top was starting to fall off, were you peeling it off for little Cathy because she doesn't like crust on her bread, but forgot it wasn't for her?"

Yes, that also annoyed her, but it gave more insight into Crystalia. She remembers, yet doesn't. She's more a machine than a person. If she is here, the plan has completely changed. It's no longer stumbling. It's refined, yet simple. She feels no doubt in any of it. Even if I figure it all out, she has no doubts in it.

Was it a grand plan? Was it a personal plan that on a big scale wouldn't hold any meaning to it except those involved? RTL was discovered. Not every woman would be able to get away when everything was right there to catch them. A few maybe, here and there, would get away. So, what was it?

Dorothy took several more bites of her sandwich. What was it she was getting from her? Her memories were there. Her instinct to grab the bread and tear at the strip for her young daughter was there. Gundams ran by a woman the pilots were attached to. This world stands up for itself now, it won't just give into any demands for world leadership just because of the gundams.

She grabbed one of the drinks left out for her too. The end of Revenge of the Lost, something she put her whole self into being, feels like the end to her. She wants to end it on her own terms. "You want to go out being just the leader of another rebel group, instead of facing the truth that you are Crystalia, former circus performer and loving mother of Catherine Bloom and Triton Bloom." She got it.

It was clear on Crystalia's face. "I don't know what you mean. That means nothing."

"It means everything!" No, she was onto something here. If I can break through her, then I can get away and end all of this! "This zero system is not your friend. How many hours did you spend in it, trying to see some kind of good future for yourself? Revenge of the Lost was something derived by women to find solace and to feel better, but neither group really took off until after Libra!" Yes, she could feel it. "That's because you weren't corrupted yet! Your little group was just that, a little group! It didn't start getting mastery over anything until you started using the zero system! Brought to you by Superior, after she found it."

"What does it matter?" Crystalia asked her. "You only have five more minutes to get to your gundam."

Then that gave her five minutes to reach her. "This isn't you. I don't know what you saw in that zero system, but if it brought your tragedy into focus, and it feels so real, then you already feel like she's dead. Crystalia is dead, the Crystalia that you were. She isn't. She's alive. You are not a machine running her life, you are Crystalia, the amazing trapeze performer herself. When's the last time you used a trapeze? Used any circus tricks? To see your daughter, you must have. You felt human again, didn't you?"

A blank stare.

"They still would. Each of them," Dorothy tried to reason with her. "So far, all you've done is give the pilots children. Annoying, terrible, but it's not death. It's not unforgivable. Catherine and Trowa. Triton. They would forgive you and let you come back. You even gave them the means to stop everything in Revenge of the Lost. Don't turn back now. It's meaningless."

Still a blank stare.

"They would welcome you with open arms! Revenge of the Lost has no one but me. A video showed to no one, and someone who still knows herself. Please? End this, and be who you should be!" Dorothy could feel it. It was so far away though. She started to wipe at her eyes. "If you do this, there is no going back. This is the point of no return. Right now. Just, turn. Just, please turn Miss Crystalia." Oh please. "You will have a grandchild with such a bright future, waiting for a loving grandma to hold it in it's arms."

" . . . I doubt either of them even named it," Crystalia said. "Which is fine. It's just another entity taking up space in the world."

So far away. So close, yet so far away. "You don't believe that. Just like, there's some part of you that doesn't believe in the wretchedness that you've caused, that keeps you from turning around because you won't face the consequences!" Dorothy moved closer. "Cut through. Whatever happened, whatever you felt in zero, it didn't make you a bad person! You are making you a bad person, just stop it! You are at a brink. A brink of forgiveness. Please. Miss Crystalia!"

"Miss." Something. "No one calls me Miss." Crystalia looked toward the gundam. "Superior calls these ladies . . .///