The Earth.
A snowy base in the wilds.
"Go fetch me some more potatoes, No-name."
The chef yielded out, "In the storehouse. "
The little boy found his coat, opened the door, and went into the snow.
It was deadly cold.
Wind was whistling, raising a cloud of dust and blocked his view.
He unlocked the rusted door of the container, at the back yard.
It made him feel blind inside.
Having long been out of repair, the auto lights were off.
He pulled out a wooden box, stood on it, and stretched out his hand.
He was searching for the switch.
It happened all in a sudden.
He was knocked away by a mysterious power came from nowhere.
No precautions at all.
He flied in desperation to the far end of the darkness.
He could not understand why even when he found himself rammed on the ground.
His small body hit something, hard, cold, and rough.
He felt onto the hills of sacks, the sacks filled with potatoes.
It hurt.
He could not see anything.
Only the darkness.
It was as dark as in the dream.
He rubbed his eyes, seeking for reality.
A shadow appeared behind him.
It was a shadow only, but he felt its pressure on him.
It was heavy, too heavy for him. He could not breath.
Its fingers thrusted into his fresh.
It was not a dream.
But it seemed to be a nightmare.
He struggled to get released.
The shadow got hold of him, and slashed on his cheeks.
He staggered and knelt down again.
Something warm and salty crawled down his mouth.
He did not bother to cry even when he was bang back.
Those hills of potatoes crashed down.
Under the terrible force, they were felling on him, and hitting him, like bullets.
The shadow sprang on him, savaged him, pressing him under itself, as if he was a piece of paper.
He tried all means to get free. He kicked, his arms waved wildly in the emptyness.
His fist touched something.
Something roundish.
A big potato.
He seized it, with a full hand.
He smashed it onto the shadow, onto its face, without hesitation.
"Fuck!" the figure cursed, then paused.
He froze.
He caught the voice.
He recognized the voice, very well.
Before he managed to move, the figure grabbed his hair, bumping his head against the hard sacks.
The sacks, as hard as rocks.
Once, then twice...
He collapsed.
Without making any noise, he went limp before the boots of the big figure.
His coat torn; his suits in peices.
Beside his motionless body, potatoes...
the round and big potatoes, rolling then rested on the cool ground.
The big figure loomed against him.
He did not notice the pain.
He could not feel, either.
Among unconsciousness, he even failed to hear the scream of the air-raid alarm outside.
The sharp screams.
For a whole week, he kept lying on the buck at the far end, quietly.
The barracks were full of the wounded.
They maoned under their bandages.
His captain, the one who carried him from the spot, brought him food every day.
Sometimes it was stew, and sometimes porridge, with mince.
He tried hard to swollow them all, though actually he tasted nothing.
When nobody was in sight, the captain asked.
"So who is the guy?"
He did not utter a word, just buried his head under the blanket, as he did to his bruised body.
The first night he appeared in the kitchen after the harassment.
When his turn came, he was almost at the end of the queue.
Steam was rising from the large pot. He could not see clear what was for dinner.
"There. Yours."
A plate was being offered to him.
Large lumps of potatoes were floating in the soup.
The yellow POTATOes.
He ignored the glazes upon him, accepted the plate in silence, and turned back.
Two years later.
It was winter again.
Several mercenary men were sitting on crates around a fire outside the barrack.
They were chatting over afternoon tea.
A voice came out, "Buddy, what if we join the Federal instead?"
"Sirrah. How can we fight with both in the same party? You gonna put an end to the War."
The captain sneezed, and smiled.
"But they pay more, captain, than the rebels." The VOICE went on.
"That's the problem." another man joined in.
" Hey, what do you think, No-name?" the VOICE asked, at the glance of his passing by.
His head lowered, his tool kit in hand, he gave no response to any of the men.
Unbridled laughter burst out after him.
A cold and dark night.
The sneak raid of the rebel forces was crushed.
"Draw back! BACK!! We are trapped!" the captain shouted out in his mobile suit.
He took his order, and receded in the snowy woods.
The captain's machine bleeped.
"Sorry, buddy. We need to survive." the VOICE said.
"Idiot! You don't have to apologize to your enemy!"
"I must fufill the Federal's contract. Be prepared, captain!"
"Shut up! Kill me then!"
Fire opened.
Clouds of flames and smoke clothed the battlefield.
When the view was clear again, dead silence fell upon the depth of woods.
All the mobile suits were demolished, at the federtal's side.
They vanished in the fire.
His mobile suit charged in, as he appreared on the snowy screen.
"Let's go, captain." he said, calmly.
"They raised you, No-name." the captain sighed.
"I never regret. I just kill my foe." he answered, in an unemotional way.
"People facing you are your enemy, in the war. That's what they taught me."
"You, ... you are inhuman!"
"I was born to be a solder, captain."
Days after, the rebel corps were wiped out during a federal counterattack.
It was a large scale operation. Fighters kept bombing and burned the whole campsite into hell.
With no mercy.
At the break of dawn, mist covered the hills.
Thick ice melt into muddy water, and flowed as streams along the corpses.
He stood at the remains of the campsite, when wreckage of battle-trucks and mobile suits turned into embers.
Raising his bloody head, he gazed at the grey sky, from where great flakes began to fall upon him, gentlely.
"The universe. There must be magic."
AC194.
Colony III.
On the outskirts.
A day-off was applied to all members in the mercenary factory, in celebration of an important holiday.
Men jumped on their jeeps, laughing, and disappeared one by one from the camp.
He had nowhere to go, but he still stepped outside the gate.
It was cold.
He shivered under his scarf.
"Hey, No-name. Wanna go to my place? "
He turned around, a middle-aged man in a jacket smiled at him.
"Three hundred bucks, what do you think?"
His face turned white.
"I'll be gentle with you ... "
He started to move back.
The man grasped one of his arms, "five! Five hundred!"
He stared back at him.
Still remaining silent, flame shone in his eyes.
"All right. Plus four packs of cigar." the man opened his mouth and smile again, his smoked-yellow teeth glittered.
"Havana cigarette, try it." He stuck an iron case into his hand.
He looked down at the case, and hold it tightly.
The man was still trying to talk him in, "trust me. I can make you feel like..."
He knocked the case onto his ugly smile, with all the energy he could gather, before the man was able to finish his sentence,
"like in heaven ..."
He walked away.
Snowflakes were pouring down and drowned the city in deadly white.
It was stupid to have snow in an artificial environment, only to cope with the atmosphere of the holidays.
The so-called Christmas Eve, when a boy was born to suffer.
He forced his way in the deep snow, without a destination.
Five weeks later, he became an equipman in the lab of the notorious Barton consortium.
And the legend goes on...
2000-7-29