Dangerous Game
"Excuse me, Lady Une?"
"Yes, Noin? What is it?"
Lucrezia Noin stepped around the door and walked into Lady Une's office.
"We might have a problem. Preventer Storm hasn't checked in yet."
Lady Une looked up from the file folder she was looking through and saw Noin's expression of concern.
"Are you sure? When was she supposed to check in last?"
"Yesterday afternoon; almost twenty hours ago. Do you think she maybe just forgot?"
"Hmmm...not likely. She's usually pretty good about that."
"Then maybe she found out something about Quatre that she didn't like."
"I think it's more likely something found her. Do we have anyone available to send-"
"Hello, ladies!"
The two turned to see an energetic Quatre standing in the doorway.
"I thought I heard my name. How are you two?"
"Quatre? What are you doing here?"
"Well, I thought I would drop by to see you, Miss Une. And you as well, Miss Noin. Actually, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone."
"Oh? And how is...everyone?"
"This is my first official stop, although I did see Trowa and Catherine a few weeks ago. They're doing well with the circus. And Dorothy seems to be doing just fine. She asked me to say hi to you guys."
"Dorothy?! You saw Dorothy?"
Quatre hesitated a bit, unsure of Noin's reaction.
"Um, yeah."
Noin tried to calm herself and speak in an even tone.
"When was this?"
"It was last night actually. I met her by coincidence. We were at the same restaurant."
"When, uh...what time did you last see her?"
By now, Quatre was getting suspicious.
"I think about eleven thirty or midnight. Why? What's this all about?"
Lady Une thought deeply about her next move. If she was wrong, the consequences would be severe. But the fact that Quatre had come and was standing in her office with friendly intentions told her that she could trust him. She made a judgement call and hoped she was right.
"Quatre, there are a few things I think we should tell you."
Quatre's head was beginning to hurt from everything they were telling him.
"So tell me what's going on again."
"Too much to take in at once, huh? Well, like I explained before, our attention was brought to several purchases of large amounts of chemicals. We haven't been able to identify our informant, but it doesn't make much difference. Howard occasionally does some consulting work for us and he was able to trace the chemicals through money transfers and shipping records to your facility in Italy."
"What's so strange about that? It's a biochemical research facility. They would naturally be buying chemicals."
"Yes. That is very reasonable, but we did our homework on this one. We wouldn't have been told about it if there wasn't something wrong. As it turns out these chemicals are harmless by themselves, but when combined, they form a base for chemical weapons. Several of the compounds purchased would not be used in a facility such as yours is."
Quatre let that sink in for a moment before deciding to move on.
"OK, so let's say somebody, perhaps a group of somebodies, is making chemical weapons at my family's plant. Your next move was to send in this Preventer Storm to investigate, correct?"
"Exactly right. She is highly skilled and one of our best."
Quatre quickly put two and two together.
"Oh no...don't tell me...not Dorothy?"
"Yes, Dorothy is Preventer Storm."
Quatre held his face in his hands. He was feeling particularly foolish for some reason.
"But why didn't she tell me?"
"She probably wasn't sure which side you were on. Up until fifteen minutes ago I wasn't certain myself."
"No, no, no! What if something happens to her? What if she gets hurt or even... It would be all my fault!"
"Quatre, what are you saying? That you did have something to do with this mess?"
"No, of course not, Miss Noin. But don't you see? It's my family's facility, right? We could have had better security, done more thorough background checks, hired more trustworthy people. I'm sure there's something we could have done differently. Something, anything, to have stopped this from even starting in the first place."
"Don't be ridiculous, Quatre. You can't blame yourself any more than we can blame ourselves."
"Noin is right. There's no way you could have predicted this would happen."
Quatre calmed down a bit upon realizing that they were probably right.
"I suppose, but I still feel awful. So how's she doing anyway? Has she made any progress?"
"Well, um, yes. Some. She reported a couple days ago that she had located several likely places where any chemical weapons could be stored. She was going to try to narrow it down so we can send in a recovery team."
"Why do I get the feeling there's a 'but' coming?"
"But...she didn't check in yesterday."
"It's not as bad as it sounds. I mean, she did see you last night.. Did you tell her you were coming here?"
"Yes, I did."
"Well that's it! She must have figured you would tell us she was OK."
"But Miss Noin, if she didn't trust me enough to tell me she is a Preventer, why would she trust me to check her in with you?"
"He's right, Noin. Besides, she was supposed to check in hours before they would have met."
"I see your point."
Quatre scratched his head thoughtfully.
"Do either of you know when her next check in time is?"
Lady Une looked at her watch.
"Should be in the next hour or so. I take it you're planning to hang around until then?"
Quatre nodded slowly. It wasn't how he had planned to spend his day, but he couldn't very well leave. Not with one of his friends in danger. Lady Une suggested he try to relax in one of the vacant offices and told him that she or Noin would come get him in an hour. Realizing he didn't have much of a choice, he found an empty office and began his wait.
*It's too long. Too much can happen in an hour.*
Soon after Quatre entered the vacant room, he spotted the computer on the desk and situated himself in front of it. He pressed the power button and brought the machine to life. Finding the internal phone directory, he dialed Noin as asked for temporary access to the Preventer databases. In another minute he was logged in and pulling up relevant case files and the blueprints for the biochem building in Italy. Using the information Dorothy provided, he began to eliminate rooms from her list of possibilities as best he could.
Two of the rooms he dropped from the list because he knew them to be filled with maintenance equipment, extra supplies, and spare parts for the machinery throughout the building. Another three were crossed off because there were heating ducts and hot water pipes running through the room. The chemicals would need to be refrigerated and one didn't do that my blowing hot air on them. That left four medium sized rooms, all clumped closely together in the same hall, where the weapons could conceivably be stored. All four could possibly have the weapons inside, depending on how many had been produced.
Quatre made a note of the surrounding layout. There was a small service elevator for the cleaning and maintenance staff, two separate stairwells at either end of the hall, and a maintenance room that acted as a control point for the water, gas, ventilation, and power systems on the floor. If he needed to, he could set off some explosives in the room. The exploding gas lines would burn away the poison. He would only use that as a last resort though.
Shortly after finding a notebook and a pen to write everything down, he was called to Lady Une's office over the public address system in the building. He quickly scribbled his notes on the pad of paper and walked the short distance to Lady Une's office. The door was open, so he took it as an invitation to walk right on in. He looked around, but didn't see her anywhere.
"Hello? Miss Une?"
To his left he heard a muffled voice come from behind a door.
"Yes, I'm here."
Lady Une came out of her side room with a towel hanging around her neck. Quatre noticed her hair was slightly damp.
"Taking a shower I presume?"
"I've been going through paperwork for about seventy hours now. I've slept, but this has been my first chance to clean up."
"I see. Well, I heard my name called over the PA. Is there any news from Dorothy?"
"No, not yet. She's due to check in very soon, so I thought we would go down to the operations room and wait there."
"Alright. Shall we go then?"
Lady Une led the way to the operations room. As they started down the hall, Quatre remembered the notebook he had brought with him.
"While you were taking your shower, I asked Miss Noin for temporary access to your computer systems. I don't know whether I should have or not, but I went through the files and managed to narrow down some of the rooms on Dorothy's list. You may want to take a look at this later, if you get the chance."
"Really? Well, um, alright then. I'll look it over. It should help if we have to send in a team to take care of anything that turns up."
A few minutes later they were standing in the operations room. The dark room was lit only by a few desk lights and the glow of the monitors at each station. Quatre and Lady Une hovered over the communication station; Lady Une stood patiently while Quatre paced nervously. The two used the time to catch up on what had been going on aside from the situation in Italy. They talked about their other friends, the colonies, how Mariemaia was getting along, and so on. Ten minutes of talking and waiting became twenty. Twenty turned into forty-five. After an hour they became worried.
"Has she ever not checked in before?"
"Only yesterday. She's usually very good about checking in.
"So what now?"
Quatre was getting jumpy and Lady Une began chewing on her fingernails. It was a bad habit she was trying to get rid of, but it always surfaced when she was upset or nervous. In this case, it was both.
"Well, normally we would send in a few people, but we haven't got a few people to send. As I said before, Duo and Hilde are on that vacation cruise and Noin just left to meet Zechs for that arbitration assignment. Sally and Wufei just finished their last mission, but they won't be back for another eight hours."
While Lady Une thought about what to do, Quatre became very still. Images were forming in his head of Dorothy caught or dead, of the world strangled by chemical toxins. With steeled resolve, he walked silently out of the room, unnoticed by anyone. When Lady Une found him twenty minutes later, he was in the equipment room stuffing a small duffel bag and the zippered pockets of his black jumpsuit.
"There you are. I've been looking all over for you. What exactly are you doing.?"
Quatre gave no answer, but he really didn't have to. It was quite obvious he intended to go after Dorothy.
"You don't have to do this."
"Yes I do, Miss Une. Please try to understand. I did not cause this, but I didn't prevent it from happening either. The least I can do is stop it from going any further, before my friend gets killed...if she's not dead already."
"I can't let you do this, Quatre."
"Why not? You told me that it's not my fault, that I couldn't have seen it coming. That's true, I concede that. But if I don't go now to do what I can to stop it, whatever happens will be my fault. I know I can stop it. I have to try."
She had figured he'd say something like that. It was true of course. He would blame himself if he didn't go. They would both feel guilty for not having at least tried and made some kind of effort. But she still did not want him to go on his own. She tried a last ditch effort to get him to reconsider.
"You are not a Preventer. I can't have you involved in a Preventer operation."
Quatre finished packing his duffel and turned to face her. His eyes were deadly serious.
"All due respect, Miss Une, but if that is the case, you had better give me a codename. I am going with or without your support."
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Gundam Wing. It is copyrighted by people who have a lot more money than I do. This was written for fun and for the fans of the series. The storyline is mine, the characters, other than HeeroWZero originals, are not.
Comments and criticisms are welcome. Please send them to HeeroWZero@hotmail.com and be sure to include your name so I can get back to you. Thanks for reading!