Due Sou -- uh, North -- Wherever
Disclaimer: I don't own Due South or Gatchaman. I make no money off of this.
Author's note: This is a Due South/Gatchaman crossover. If you set Gatchaman a couple of decades from now. And wonder just who could have set Dr. Nambu on Galactor's trail. Viewers of Due South will spot a number of references to episodes in the series.
Dr. Nambu squinted at his compass as the snow swirled around him. "'You could use a break,' they said. 'You should visit the Northwestern Territories Project,' they said. Work and vacation. Why the hell did I listen to them?"
Somehow he'd gotten separated from the small group who had picked him up at the airport, then the vehicle had gone off the road and the driver died on impact. No phone service, only static on the radio, and now, only the compass and a general direction.
At least it was a proper snowstorm, and not the rainy slush that was more common every year. He could use the snowshoes.
Where was he?
He wiped at his goggles and shook his parka hood to get rid of the snow. Something caught his eye as he jiggled his pack into place. Slowly, he scanned the snow-filled forest.
There. A light, and a shape far too regular to be a boulder or fall of trees. Right now, a tent would be welcome. He headed for it.
As he came closer, he saw that it was a well-built cabin, made of materials the ISO had pioneered some years before. He recalled that the current Prime Minister, Turnbull, had been a vocal proponent of those environmentally-friendly and cost-effective substitutes for the usual materials used this far north. Big fan of the ISO, Turnbull.
He waited until he caught his breath before knocking at the door.
The door opened, releasing a wave of warm air. An elderly man, straight-backed and clean-shaven, took one look at him and stood practically hustled Nambu into the cabin. "Come in, please."
Blessedly warm inside. Nambu removed his gloves and snow-goggles. His face tingled as it warmed.
"Let me help you with that, sir," his host said, as Nambu shrugged off the pack.
"Thank you. I'm Dr. Kozaburo Nambu. I was on my way to the International Science Organization's facility when I got lost."
His host whistled. "You are a long way off course." He helped Nambu with the parka and knelt to unbuckle the snowshoes. "Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, retired. Here, sit by the furnace."
Another ISO product, a portable heater that did not require toxic gases or flammable liquids for heating, and more than adequate for this small place, stood in the center of the room. Nambu sat, and Fraser pressed a cup of something warm into his hands. "Cocoa. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol is not warming."
Fraser. That name sounded familiar.
"How lost am I?" Good cocoa. He felt the warmth seep through him.
"As the crow flies, ten miles. It's farther on foot or by dogsled."
Did he say, 'dogsled'? "I was separated from my party, then my car slid off the road. My driver was killed and I couldn't raise anyone on the phone or the radio, so I followed the compass bearing."
"I couldn't transmit or receive all morning, either." Fraser went to the window and peered out. "Five minutes earlier, and you would have met me outside. I checked my antenna and radio. They both work."
"Does that happen often around here?"
"Not as often as it used to. The new technology is remarkable. How do you feel?"
"Warmer." Pleasant tingles in his feet and legs. Where had he heard of Benton Fraser before?
The cabin was neat as a pin. Everything in it had a place, and the placements made perfect sense. No clutter, but not a monk's cell.
His host hesitated, a cup in his own hand. "Should I address you as 'Doctor', or by some other honorific?"
Touched by this demonstration of cultural awareness, he said, "'Doctor' is just fine." Traditional Japanese formality was all well and good in moderation, but it stifled the creativity and occasional insubordination that could assist a scientific inquiry.
"Thank you, sir. I've been out to the Project, before. Dr. Burress wanted me to liaise with the people here and help explain the ISO's purpose."
Ah, yes. Muriel had mentioned a helpful, if eccentric, neighbor named Benton Fraser. The locals respected his opinions, and not simply because he had been a Mountie.
He recalled something else. "You found the final resting place of John Hope Franklin, correct?"
"I did."
"I was young enough to wonder why the media were all over you. It was an interesting and historically valuable discovery, but they hounded you mercilessly."
"I still don't know why they made such a fuss."
And that was the truth. Fraser was absolutely baffled by the Ameris obsession with celebrity and notoriety. Was that why he had moved up here?
"May I?" Fraser asked, touching another chair near the furnace.
"Of course." It's your house.
Nambu glanced from his snow-wet pants and boots to Fraser, and blinked, unsure he saw what he saw.
His own clothes were wrinkled, and would need washing and ironing once he reached the Project. Fraser's pants, although wet, still had the crease, and his shirt could have come off the ironing board.
At that moment, water dripped off his moustache. Wordlessly, Fraser handed him a napkin. "Thank you."
They sat silently for several minutes. The cabin's materials not only insulated it against the cold, but muffled the sounds of the storm. He could have been at home in Utoland for all that he heard.
There were a number of ISO products in the cabin. Was Fraser a product-tester in his retirement?
He must have looked the question, because the retired Mountie said, "Your products work, sir. They've saved lives up here."
Even in this day and age, weather could isolate people in sparsely-inhabited areas. Just the walls and roof of this cabin could make the difference between surviving and freezing to death.
Silence. Fraser looked deep in thought. Finally, he spoke: "Doctor, my daughter, Margaret, works for the ISO. She told me that, when it came to using science for the public good, you were the most passionate man she knew. You won't let anyone bully you, and you won't let anyone misuse a discovery, if you can help it. Doctor Burress says much the same thing."
This was going somewhere. "What's wrong?"
"For the past few years, I've noticed a pattern of events in Canada and around the world. More recently, I've seen unusual activity here in the Territories. Authorities have investigated what I reported here, but didn't find anything." The retired Mountie removed a thick folder from a locked box. "Separately, they don't mean anything, but together, they make up something incredible."
"What?"
"Well, sir, that's where it sounds crazy. I spent a few years in the city of Chicago after tracking my father's killers there. While I was there, I discovered that some people believe in bizarre conspiracy theories. What I've found looks so much like them that I hesitate to even mention it."
"A conspiracy?"
"A real one. And yet, when I try to set my conclusions on paper, it looks like a version of the Masonic Illuminati New World Order conspiracies I heard about in Chicago."
Nambu had met those same conspiracy nuts. They were all eager to tell their stories, certain that they were still alive because their deaths would 'prove' the existence of their pet conspiracy. Fraser's uncertainty could mean he actually found something. "If you want, I can take a look at your research while we wait for the storm to let up."
"Thank you kindly."
Fraser was very organized, and neat. And he seemed to be correct. The various incidents, individually, were meaningless.
Most conspiracy theorists shoehorned everything into their belief systems, as if quantity could substitute for quality. They looked for concealed symbolism to explain why Masons or Illuminati were actually to blame for this political decision or that assassination, or else they declared that coincidental links were probative in their claims. In their world, nothing ever happened by accident or coincidence.
Fraser, by contrast, had patiently collated and observed, and had not drawn a single connection without plenty of evidence. Where had he gotten some of these papers? How had he gotten them, here in the middle of nowhere?
"More cocoa?"
"Hm? Yes, please." He turned another page, saw a letterhead. "May I ask how you got some of these?"
"I told you I spent some time in Chicago. For reasons that need not concern us right now, I became attached as a liaison to the Canadian Consulate. I made friends down there, some of whom have gone on to attain important positions. Police Commissioner Elaine Besbriss in Chicago, and the city's current mayor, Francesca Vecchio. Prime Minister Turnbull used to work with me at the consulate."
Well. "So far, I can't see any flaws in your logic. Some of your connections seemed counterintuitive until I read what you had collected."
"Darn."
"Try your radio again. My companions must be worried about me." A man uncovers a conspiracy, and is disappointed that he's not wrong. That was as fascinating as any scientific problem.
"Right. Perhaps your people know what's interfering with the signals."
As Fraser attempted to raise the Project, Nambu kept reading. He came across handwritten notes, detailed observations made by Fraser himself. There were photographs, old-fashioned 35mm film and modern digital images.
Not the Northwest Territories Project, nor any of its personnel, he could see. Some of the machinery looked like anime mecha, and the people wore green uniforms of some sort.
According to the notes, the strangers had dug tunnels underground and then concealed the entrances so well that Fraser had trouble finding them again. Outside investigators missed them completely. Then the entrances disappeared. Several locals had also reported mysterious disappearances of people and animals.
"I can't raise them. Nothing but static. Oh, I interrupted you. I'm sorry."
Polite as the stereotype. "Don't worry about it. Why do you think these intruders are connected to the other activity?"
"That's the part I have trouble putting on paper. I can't say how I know, just that I do know."
"I've had that problem sometimes."
Fraser looked at the window. "The storm is easing. We could try to reach the Project site."
"I'm starting to worry about them," Nambu said.
"You stay in here. I'll get the dogs." Fraser pulled on a parka.
"Dogs?"
"No matter how much technology improves, it's still vulnerable to failure in extreme temperatures. Good sled dogs can run when a vehicle motor is frozen solid."
Dogs.
He heard the animals barking up a storm as he returned the papers to the folder. When he reached the Project, he would look up Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, retired. His daughter was a first-rate scientist, but that didn't mean her father hadn't gone around the bend up here.
Fraser came inside. "They're ready."
Nambu donned his parka and picked up his pack. He saw Fraser take a rifle and an ammunition pouch. "Do you expect trouble?"
"The migration patterns of the caribou have changed. Their predators have followed them. We may meet a hungry wolf or bear. I hope that we don't have to use this."
He means it.
Outside, Fraser showed him how to sit in the dogsled. "Try not to move around too much, sir," he advised, laying on the blankets, then taking his place on the back of the sled.
The dogs set off at a word. Within seconds, Nambu had proof of the blankets' effectiveness.
After the first turn, he closed his eyes and hung on for dear life. And I thought only Kentaro's flying could scare me this much. Damn crazy Red Eagle, best test pilot on Earth.
His face was frozen, and he was certain there were icicles on his moustache when the sled suddenly veered left. Fraser yelled a command, but the dogs kept going. "Mulroney must smell something!" Fraser shouted over the yelping.
The sled slowed as they approached a figure huddled against a tree. Snow covered what the tree hadn't protected.
The figure moved, shifting snow from a tattered parka. "Fraser? Fraser?"
"Doctor Burress!"
Both men were off the sled in an instant.
Muriel Burress was pale, with grey traces of frostbite on her face. Under the snow, her parka was not only torn, but singed. Thinking of animal-shaped machines and green-clad men with guns, Nambu wrapped blankets around her and picked her up. "What happened?"
"W-warriors of the Earth," she said. "Bombs. They had bombs. When we ran, they shot at us."
"That lot." Fraser unslung his rifle. "When?"
"Yesterday." She shivered, couldn't stop. "Some of us sheltered in the machine shop. No radios or phones. I volunteered to get help." A watery smile. "You're right about dogs, Fraser. I think I turned too soon, or too late. Anyway, the snowmobile is upside-down in a ditch."
"You need warmth and shelter." Fraser looked towards the Project, at Burress, back towards his cabin. "How were the others?"
"Alive. Warm enough. The Warriors went away, but a storm pinned us."
"Good, good. Let's take her to the cabin."
Before he could remember his manners and introduce them, Muriel pushed back Nambu's goggles. "Koza. I thought that moustache looked familiar."
"Don't talk too much."
On the sled, he held her under the blankets. Who were the Warriors of the Earth? Eco-terrorists, or worse?
Fraser left them in the cabin. Still nothing but static on the radio. He would first look for Nambu's companions, and then go to town and report the attack on the Project. Before he departed, he gave Nambu his other rifle.
"Two guns. His idea of well-armed," Burress said. "Most of the time, he barely needs the one." She stuck a hand out of her cocoon of blankets, stretched the fingers.
"Who are the Warriors of the Earth?"
"People who make the radical animal-rights groups look soft. Dangerously naïve, and showing the usual hypocrisy. Technology is bad and evil, using animals for food, clothing, and transportation is wrong, and then they wear synthetic fibers whose production leaves toxic by-products. They've been busy in Ameris and Canada, so I'm not surprised you haven't heard of them. As far are as they're concerned, the ISO is out to continue the rape of Mother Nature."
Idiots. He put an arm around her.
"This isn't quite how I thought your visit would turn out," she said. "Arm around me, yes, but not with all these blankets in the way, and not in Fraser's cabin."
Incorrigible. "You're feeling better."
"Now that I'm warm, yes."
"How well do you know this man?"
She laughed. "When I first met him, I thought he couldn't be real. Who can live out here and still be ramrod-straight at his age? He makes Emily Post seem ill-mannered. He had half the women on the Project vibrating, and all he did was say hello.
"So, of course I checked him out, and fell down the rabbit hole. Did he tell you he'd been to Chicago on the trail of his father's killers?"
"He did."
"In those words?"
"More or less."
"And that, 'for reasons that don't need going into at this juncture', he remained as a liaison at the Canadian Consulate?"
"Yes."
"That's the most normal part of his story. While he was in Chicago, he and a Detective Raymond Vecchio raised the case-clearance rate of the nearby precinct to nearly 100%. He wrote his own disciplinary notices on himself. Once, some hired thugs tracked him up here. They had guns and snowmobiles. He had a dogsled, a team, and Vecchio. You know who won that round. When a train carrying him and other Mounties on the way to a demonstration of the Musical Ride was hijacked by terrorists, he not only stopped the train before it could collide with another train carrying nuclear waste, but he and the other Mounties rode out and, armed only with their ceremonial lances, captured the terrorist leader. He stopped a Great Lakes piracy ring with the help of a bunch of trainee Mounties manning a replica of the HMS Bounty. And there was something about a submarine purchased from the former Soviet Union by a brother of the train terrorist."
"Are you serious?"
"There was more, but that's what I remember."
"What else do you know?"
"Until he went to Chicago, he'd never been anyplace larger than Moose Jaw. He's more at home up here than anywhere else. He can track damn near anything. With a casual glance, he sees more than most people who are actually looking. Have you met Margaret?"
"I have. She was knee-deep in a sludge-pit, taking samples. She wanted to know what adaptations the bacteria had acquired."
"Okay, now put her on dry land, and imagine her tasting something she picked up for information. That's Daddy. Don't ask what he tasted.
"Oh, but if he were in the sludge pit, none of it would stick. You did notice that he always looks like he just got dressed?"
"I did."
"I don't know how he does it, but I've never seen him out-and-out disheveled and dirty, and he has gotten in there and helped us with some messy jobs."
"Maybe he's from another planet."
"We wish. He had parents, and he had a wife. She died a few years back, rescuing a damn fool who thought kayaking was easy, according to the police. His daughter went into microbiology, and his son is a Mountie."
I'm not in Canada. This is the Twilight Zone.
"Aside from his personal qualities, his effect on others is pretty amazing, too. He lived in a neighborhood so rough that drug dealers stayed out of it, and a higher percentage of the kids there not only finished high school, but went on to college and post-graduate than in some middle-class neighborhoods. He was only there a year or so, before his apartment building burned down, but all those doctoral students credited him with inspiring them to stay in school and make good. Just about everyone he met during those police cases, except the guilty, came away with a new lease on life.
"And Prime Minister Turnbull worships the ground he walks on."
"He did say that they had been co-workers at the consulate."
"How do you think the PM became such a booster for the ISO? Fraser. The records also say that Fraser has turned down, and continues to refuse, offers of a position in the government. The man may be eccentric, but he's not a fool."
"Then, you trust him?"
"Very much. I've gotten to know him, and I've seen that the locals truly respect and admire him. If I'm not mistaken, there's an Inuit woman with her eye on him." She chuckled. "Oddly, that's the one thing Fraser can't see half the time."
Nambu wondered if Fraser had shared his knowledge of the strangers in the Territories with her. "Do you know if the Warriors have been active elsewhere in this area?"
"Not that I've heard. They don't hide their guilt. Most of the time, they're daring the authorities to prove which one of them did what. Do you think they might be behind the radio problems?"
"I don't know. How long have they been going on?"
"About six months. We've complained, sent out crews to check the repeater towers, and recorded the times and dates to see if there was a pattern, but we haven't found anything useful."
Six months. Fraser had first spotted the strangers six months before.
"What is it? You know something."
"I don't know if it's connected. It's something Fraser told me."
"If Fraser thinks something's important, it usually is. And he won't weigh in unless he's certain that he has a valid contribution. Of course, it may not be important the way he thinks, but it will be important. If he told you instead of me, I think it might be big."
Bigger than we can imagine, if he's right.
Engines roared outside. Nambu had the rifle in his hand before he thought about it. Fraser entered the cabin. "Dr. Nambu, your companions are safe. They were stopped by a fallen tree and then snowed under. They've been dug out and are heading back to town. Dr. Burress, your friends are alive and also on their way. Investigators are coming in, including from the ISO."
A serious-looking Mountie followed him in and took their statements. Dr. Burress had understated the seriousness of the attack. The Warriors of the Earth had used high-grade explosives and high-powered rifles. To judge by the tone of the questions, they were more likely to use home-made bombs and hunting rifles.
After the visitors had left, taking Burress with them for a medical examination, Fraser said, "The Warriors of the Earth don't have that sort of arsenal."
"Then you think it's those people you saw?"
"Anyone can make a claim. Their logo is on the Internet."
"Can you show me the location?"
"I thought you would never ask."
Twenty miles in another direction, as the crow flew. Nambu watched Fraser scout the ground, brushing away snow to peer intently at something that made sense only to him, examine bits of things he found in the litter, then (honest to God) put his ear to the ground.
The dogs were nervous, but quiet. Their leader, the wolf-dog Mulroney, seemed to be waiting for a signal from Fraser. Nambu noticed that most of the pack resembled each other, with short, pale fur highlighted by light tan shadings. Mulroney, with shaggy black fur and white legs and feet, looked most like a wolf, yet had the same face and muzzle.
"Over here." Fraser waved. "Listen."
Feeling foolish, Nambu obeyed. Then he felt excited.
A definite pulse under his ear. Too regular to be his own blood or breathing. Mechanical.
"They've been moving towards the Project," Fraser said. "Slowly."
Coincidence? Not likely.
He looked around him. No sign that anyone had done anything here. Even allowing for the snow-cover, there should be some trace of heavy machinery and digging. How does a tunnel entrance disappear?
They proceeded slowly, with a number of detours, as if they were just a couple of guys in the woods in the middle of winter. "Is it hunting season?"
"No. That's not for two more weeks. I hope they'll think we're too afraid of being arrested to report anything odd we might see."
"What's your plan if they don't?" He hadn't been able to think of one.
"I know this area. I don't think they leave their hideout very much."
Thugs on snowmobiles. Man with dogsled. Fraser had won that contest before.
Six locations, almost as if the diggers had to surface once a month. The subterranean noises increased at each stop, until the forest went quiet and the dog-team whined nervously.
The ISO had to account for every penny spent to the World Bank and other financial agencies. As a result, Nambu was well aware of the amount of money and materiel required simply to dig this tunnel, never mind shoring it up or making the entrance vanish. There could be other tunnels, other machines.
Mulroney barked a warning.
Two men with assault-rifles popped out of a hole near Fraser. The retired Mountie kicked one in the face, and the wolf-dog lunged at the other so that he ducked.
"Go, go, go!" Fraser yelled, as he and Nambu jumped onto the sled and shot into the forest.
He didn't go back to the cabin, but cut a course towards town. Nambu listened for engines, expecting pursuers to appear any second.
Apparently, the strangers underground thought them a pair of off-season hunters.
"Here's the plan," Fraser said as they neared town. "You check into the motel or wherever you would go after eco-terrorists trashed your first choice. I'll go back to the cabin. Tomorrow, I will bring it to you. If I can't make it, Mulroney will bring it."
The dog?
"Can you recommend a motel?"
"There's only one in town, but a couple of families do board travelers, and there's a bed-and-breakfast."
"The motel. It's the obvious choice."
"Ah. Expense account."
The motel, holding ISO personnel, was almost at capacity. As Nambu checked in, Burress purred in his ear: "We could go halves on my room."
He had expected to spend time fending her off, which would have made a pleasant break to both their schedules. "That would hardly be professional," he remarked, and waited.
"This isn't a conference." What she did with her hand didn't bear thinking about too much. Not if he wanted to walk with any dignity.
Damn. "What room are you in?"
"12B."
"Thirty minutes." So much for the resistance.
The next morning, Fraser casually strolled into the diner beside the motel and sat at the table next to Nambu's. "You left this at my place," he said in a conversational tone, handing over the pack. "Must have been all the excitement."
"Thank you." Heavier than he recalled.
"So, now what?"
"The Project's off until the investigation ends. They're waiting for word. I suppose I'll go back to Utoland. Thank you for your help."
"Don't mention it. How is Dr. Burress?"
"Minor frostbite on her face, but she's otherwise healthy." He crossed his legs.
"Good." Fraser sounded relieved. He stood. "I hope we can meet under better circumstances, Doctor. Good-bye." He held out his hand.
"Good-bye." Then, with a grin: "Sayonara."
"So that's how it's pronounced."
Six more months, and his own investigation confirmed Fraser's. The Warriors of the Earth overreached themselves and were arrested attacking another ISO facility near Manitoba. Their spokespeople admitted that they had decided to join the big leagues, but would not name their suppliers. Word came of an incident in the Northwest Territories, when a group of Mounties apparently stumbled across a terrorist cell. The terrorists escaped, but their hideout was destroyed. When the next G-8 summit was held in Amegapolis, he had a visitor.
Her card said, 'Margaret Thatcher,' and she looked Fraser's age. She quickly checked his outer office and shut the door. "PM Turnbull sent me."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Fraser told me, and told him, what he wanted." Amused affection and annoyance colored her tone. "The PM wants to know what you found out."
"He was right. If anything, it's even larger than he thought."
"I see. I'm authorized to tell you that, should you wish to pursue this, we will give you any help we can." She smiled. "I urge you to accept."
"You were his superior at the Canadian Consulate." Burress had been right about Fraser: down the rabbit-hole.
"I saw what he could do, first-hand, and second-hand."
"I will keep it in mind."
A year later, before the academic conference in Italy. Kentaro was already undercover in Hontwarl. Chicago, Illinois.
Winter was losing to the too-short spring. Nambu sat on a bench outside the ISO's offices, enjoying the weather.
"May I?" A Chicago police officer, bearing fast-food takeout, hovered uncertainly.
"Yes, you may." He moved his briefcase.
The officer took a bite of hamburger. "This comes from Commissioner Besbriss and Mayor Vecchio. We want in."
Disguising it by a search in his briefcase, Nambu looked at the officer's name-tag. VECCHIO, in neat letters.
"Better say yes. Mom can be pretty tenacious. So can my uncle. He's getting tired of Florida." Officer Vecchio finished his lunch, remained a few seconds, then sauntered to his motorcycle.
What am I getting into?
Author's note, Part 2: Fans of Due South know what would happen if Constable Fraser, retired or otherwise, found out about Galactor. By the time the dust settled, the ISO would have lots of new toys to reverse-engineer, Berg Katse would be incarcerated, and Leader X --- well, who knows about Leader X? Nambu would not need a Science Ninja Team. Also, it wouldn't take a month for Fraser to figure out Katse's secret. A week, tops.