Autumn Leaves.
Chapter 7.
Discovery.
Author notes.
Okay, Hello! Welcome to this the new chapter if you're new readers! And welcome back if you're old ones! I'm sorry I've been missing again… it's a bad trend with me I'll admit, but its good that I've finally gotten a new chapter up! I hope you like it as I'm fairly pleased with it.
Anyway, have a read and enjoy it. See you guys at the end.
Time was still trickling through Quatres fingers in the small sleepy town where he and Trowa had first settled down, oh that seemed forever ago now. Heero came and went on various trips; some which he informed them were for work, and others which he wouldn't go into. Duo stayed pretty constantly by Quatres side. The summer slipped past them, Quatre went to work, Duo made sure that he ate and Heero seemed more or less intent on keeping most of his activities secret from the others. Quatre understood why Heero did this, why he didn't tell them what if anything he was finding out. Nine times out of ten he presumed that hero was hitting dead ends, or just finding out too little to make it consequential.
It was a warm day, not hot any longer, for as August had drifted into September the days were beginning to lose their heat, the sun seemed weaker, but brighter a lot of the time, a chilly intensity that sang strongly that winter was drawing nearer, with only autumn to keep it from them now.
Quatre stood quietly at the kitchen window, his eyes resting on the single maple tree that stood almost in state in the middle of his lawn. The garden had been used during the summer that was just now fading away into autumn, but had not really been properly been looked after for quite some time now, Quatre just hadn't the heart for it really. As he watched a small sigh passed his lips, it was windy and the gusts were tossing the thin branches of his favourite tree around something awful. Any day now one of those lovely warm coloured leaves would break free from its branch's secure hold and tumble away from it, curling and dying alone in the soon to be frozen and glittering grass of his unkempt garden.
Trowa had always been Quatres autumn leaf and he was feeling that tenuous grasp he had had on him slowly beginning to fall away from him. It scared him.
Somehow he felt that this was probably his last chance… If Trowa didn't come back to him this autumn there was no way it was going to happen… he would have lost him well and truly.
Two days later his prediction proved to be accurate, as Quatre stepped outside, on the grass he saw the leaf laying there, already brown and curled as if trying to defend itself against the growing coolness of the nights. And for what Quatre felt in his heart was the last time, the saddened blonde began to walk again, leaving the house each morning for work, and returning only briefly in the early evening before making his way to stand in the lonely clearing with the ring of proud, stern trees in it.
That ring of trees where they had stood together in days gone by now, was the only place he could still imagine seeing Trowa, either alive with some very good excuse as to why he hadn't been by Quatres side all these years, or as a shade, a spectre, a spirit, finally there to whisper words of sympathy and farewell to the lover he had left behind. At least if that was the case, Quatre thought, he would know. It was being left in the dark for so long, grasping at minute hopes only to have them slip though his fingers each and every time. It was no way to live, and after this autumn Quatre knew that at least things would be sorted out, that he would be freed fro the hold of the past. What he would do he didn't know at all… but at least he'd be able to do something again rather than living the paralysed existence he'd recently been trapped in, but regardless he woke up each day not sure if he wanted it to hurry on and finish, or last a life time… but at the end of the day he really had no control over it.
Heero scowled down at his laptop screen, he was a long way from earth just now, and along way from the house he had been staying in with Duo and Quatre, and had been for a fair while now, probably as long as two weeks.
As he frowned slightly, trying to work out the connection between some of the strains of information he had laid out in front of him and up on the screen as well his phone rang, and Heero's dark blue eyes shot to it and fixed it with a hard stare. A moment later he recognised the number and snatched up the phone, flicking it open with a quick.
"Hello Duo."
"Hey Heero…" the reply came… "How's it going?"
"Slowly." That was the only answer he was willing to give.
"You're still not going to tell us anything? Quatres going crazy, you know that?"
"I don't want to give you any false hopes…" Heero stated, shifting a few papers, his eyes flicking over some bank records he'd managed to get printed out, vaguely reading the names listing down the right hand side of the piece of paper.
"It would be better than nothing!" Duo was protesting, "When are you coming home?"
"Soon," Heero replied absently, his eyes fixing on a name, as a look of surprise registered on his face, that name shouldn't have been on the list… no indeed not.
"Listen Duo, I'm going to have to go right about now… something just came up and if it goes through then I'll be home much sooner than I thought."
"Okay…" Came Duo's grudging agreement. "Just… I love you okay? And I miss you. I don't like missing you Heero…"
"Bye Duo. Love you too." With that he hung up and let his eyes slip back to the list in front of him, this was too important to be put off just now.
"Warren Armitage." He murmured aloud, his eyes fixed on the name and the extraordinarily large number beside it…
"What are you up to old man?"
Warren Armitage was a name Heero knew, and knew fairly damn well. He was the man in charge of Relena's peace keepers, a troupe of elite guards that were charged with keeping situations from becoming hostile. The operation was funded directly by the Sanq Kingdom as it was believed imperative to keeping things running smoothly. But his name showing up on this list pegged him as a very generous benefactor to a rather surprising and almost illegal operation, the biochemical research project being run by a company called Chemi-Tech.
Chemi-Tech had been a general pharmaceutical company for a fair few years before some suspicious deaths among its work force revealed the darker truth that it had been hiding. It not only produced medicines and things to cure illnesses, but also seemed to cause them; working to make lethal biological cocktails that could easily be slipped into a bomb of some kind to be used in biological warfare.
Exactly the kind of weapon they were trying to avoid. The company had gotten out of the hole they looked to be digging themselves by stating that they were only making the questionable products so that they could work to find a way to neutralise them, this had flown with the officials it had seemed, but privately most people had believed that a large sum of money much have changed hands several times to get the permission needed for the production to continue. That was certainly the way Heero saw things. The presence of Armitage' name on the benefactors list certainly seemed to be a problem, as it really did suggest corruption, and it opened up a large number of unanswered questions and vague possibilities. But slowly things were beginning to click together in Heero's brain.
He had found out that Armitage himself was responsible for the clear up of the battle scenes after the small war that had broken out in Sanq. And He had also found a tenuous link to the man's bank account in receiving money from the sale of the things they collected during the clean up, but none there was still some money missing… large sums in fact, the money that was being paid to him to fund the peace keepers. Where had that gone?
Now it made sense. The money had gone to Chemi-Tech. But why? That was what Heero didn't understand… Why would the man in charge of the nations peacekeeping forces want to fund the production of chemical weapons? That was something Heero was going to have to work out…
The war though he could now understand.
It had been a bewilderment to him, he couldn't understand where it had sprung from, as Sanq had been very calm, quiet, and totally peaceful. How had it become so violent? Armitage had been responsible, Heero was now sure of it. He had no proof yet, but he could usually trust his own gut feelings on these things.
Any enterprising business needs test subjects, and in matters such as this one where humans were involved only humans would really do.
So the war… Heero's eyes widened with horror, and Trowa… were all involved with this horrible germ warfare that seemed to be becoming more and more inevitable…
But what would Armitage stand to get out of it? He'd look like a failure if half the world was destroyed with sickness… no. There had to be another use for it… What drove men? Money… and power… that was it!
Heero sat up suddenly. He wanted power, control would bring him it, that would work very well, and if he was able to afflict the world, possibly in its entirety with some illness of which he had the only cure… or… not cure… a medicine that people would need again and again then they wouldn't be able to take him out for fear that a hypothetical antidote would be denied them.
Hypothesising was often a bad plan… but this made a lot of sense.
He had Armitage' bank details and a link between him and Chemi-Tech, He had lists of products on Chemi-Tech's production line, and some of them made his blood run cold… and he knew a fair amount about the mans personality.
And he was sure he was the kind of man who would find that sort of power appealing.
And if he was right… then he had a very good idea where Trowa was. A Gundam pilot would make a very good test subject… as with they're training they would have a fair amount of resistance to things that would usually kill a lot of normal men and would lead to the company needing to dispose of a lot of corpses.
And Heero knew that that would not be something that people would want to risk.
But at least now Heero had a vague idea of where he needed to go.
"Chemi-Tech company headquarters. Colony L1. My home. That's where I'm headed." He would leave in the morning. He had a target now.
Back on earth Duo had sunk in a chair, his eyes fixed vaguely on the television. Quatre was out, walking already among the swirling autumn leaves that were beginning to lie thickly on the soft muddy path that took him though to the glade of trees where he would spend another evening standing and waiting.
Well guys you made it. nods
I hope you'll drop me a review to let me know what you think! I'm pretty damn rust though I hate to say!
Anyway, Love ya guys tons! Byeeeee!
