Dangerous Game
Quatre hid himself behind a tree fifty yards from the four-story terraced building. His black attire and the fact that it was fairly dark made him all but invisible to anyone who might be looking in his direction.
*Sneaking into my own building. This is right up there with my codename.*
On the short flight from the Preventer headquarters back to Italy, he had tried to relax by thinking of a new codename for himself. The one Lady Une had given him wasn't very original, but he had hardly wanted to tell her so. Duo would probably say it was cheesy or lame. That said, he didn't completely hate it, but he definitely needed to change it. Perhaps he would go with no codename at all since he couldn't really think of a better one.
But at the moment, Preventer Sandrock had other things to worry about. So far things had been easy. Now, the difficult task of getting into the building unseen lay before him. He had decided on a side entrance, a single door on the west wall. With his objective in sight, Quatre made his way toward the building. Barely ten feet from the door, he had to stop and duck behind a bush. The door he'd been going for had opened. A man in a uniform, presumably a security guard, stepped out, propped the door open with a small stone, and took a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Quatre couldn't stop the grin that came to his face.
*Thank goodness for that no smoking policy. Still, I'll have to have a talk with the rest of my security people about this.*
Quatre crept up silently behind the man. A chop to the right spot on the neck and the guard collapsed into his arms. The young pilot whispered an apology to the unconscious man as he lay him safely behind a large tree and slipped into the building.
*Now to find Dorothy.*
In a darkened room on the first floor, illuminated only by the glow of several monitors, two men were having a heated conversation. The short, stocky man in the lab coat was very nervous while his counterpart, a larger, well-muscled man, moved calmly.
"What?! Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"She's a Preventer? No, this is bad. This is worse than bad. We should stop this whole thing. I've made more than he can possibly need!"
The large man stepped forward, closing the distance between them and pressing his finger into the scientist's chest.
"If Mista Tarelli don't get his whole shipment..."
"Yes, I know what will happen. But what about her? They're on to what's going on here."
The tall man walked toward the door and pulled a revolver from his sportcoat.
"You jus' worry 'bout the science, ya geek. I'll worry 'bout the girl."
Quatre squeezed his body up against a wall when he heard a door open in the next hall. Peering around the corner, he saw a big, burly man step out of one of the rooms. The Gundam pilot's eye was drawn to the gun in his hand. Once the man disappeared down another hall, Quatre quickly moved to the room he had come out of. Stepping inside the security surveillance room, he saw another man in a lab coat. He rushed at the scientist and held him tightly against the wall.
"W-W-Who are you?"
"This building is supposed to be empty except for security personnel. Why are you here? Who are you working for?"
The scientist was shaking uncontrollably. His fear had taken over. The young man before him was deceptively strong and very angry.
"T-Tarelli. Gino Tarelli. He wants me to make him chemical weapons."
"Why?"
Quatre eased his grip slightly.
"I'm not sure exactly. I heard something about a guy who killed his brother. The man in crazy!"
"Then why help him?"
"Because he threatened my family. I'm doing this so they stay safe and unharmed. Besides, I figured the Preventers would stop him. I...I sent them some information in an anonymous letter."
"So you're the informant. Alright, get out of here. Go to the Preventers headquarters and tell them everything you told me, everything you know."
"Yes, of course. Ummm...that other man, the one that just left. He's one of Tarelli's thugs. I think he's going upstairs to kill that Preventer girl.
The scientist then dashed out of them room and down the hall toward the nearest exit. Quatre ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could go after finding Dorothy on the security monitors.
*No he's not. Not if I can help it.*
Quatre wondered if he could make it in time and ran faster.
In a lab on the second floor of the building, Dorothy was scribbling notes on a pad of paper and periodically looking into a microscope. She had to pretend to be busy. When she had come into the building twenty minutes earlier, she had been spotted by one of the other scientists. He had asked why she was working so late and she had replied that she wanted to finish something she had started earlier.
So now she was acting for the cameras, just in case. In fifteen or twenty minutes she would check to see if he was still around. If not, she would do what she had come for. A short distance down the hall was a group of four rooms. By process of elimination, she had determined that any chemical weapons would be stored in one or all of the rooms. She knew she would eventually get her chance to find out.
What she didn't know was that there was a large man on the other side of the laboratory observation window. She finally saw him out of the corner of her eye as he leveled the barrel of his gun at her. That was when something hard hit her in the small of her back. She landed on the ground as the glass of the window shattered and fell around her. A few moments later she realized that something heavy was pressing down on her. She looked back over her shoulder to see Quatre. He had arrived just in time to dive at her from behind, knocking her out of the way. The bullet, meanwhile, had shattered the window and found itself a home in the wall at the opposite end of the lab.
"Are you OK?"
"I think so."
"Quick, get behind this cabinet."
The two scrambled along the floor to the other side of a steel filing cabinet, away from the window and their attacker. Quatre pulled out a gun and lined up a shot at the man around the cabinet. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He tried twice more with the same result. Upon further examination, it became painfully obvious that he hadn't loaded the gun. Dorothy frowned at him.
"I've heard of 'safety first', but that's just ridiculous."
She reached under her skirt and pulled out her own gun, similar to the one Heero had been known to carry. Quatre's wide eyes gave away his shock, but she just stared back at him.
"What?"
"Uh, nothing. Nothing at all."
It took only one shot to send the big man to the floor with a hole in his forehead. Satisfied that he was there permanently, Dorothy turned her gun on Quatre.
"What are you doing here?"
Instinctively, Quatre's hands shot up in a gesture of surrender.
"Hey! Hold on a minute. I'm on your side."
"How do I know that?"
"I just saved your life didn't I?"
Dorothy lowered her gun and Quatre warily put his arms down. The two stood up and dusted themselves off.
"I suppose. But then, why are you here?"
"Preventer Sandrock, at your service."
Dorothy stared at him with a bemused smile.
"Preventer Sandrock?"
Quatre blushed and looked down, finding his boots particularly interesting.
"It was the best Lady Une could do at the time."
"I see. Well then...Preventer Sandrock...shall we look for some chemical weapons?"
As they walked down the hall Dorothy started to snicker. Quatre glanced at her questioningly. The look on his face only made things worse and Dorothy's resolve broke down. She tried to apologize between her fits of laughter. Quatre simply rolled his eyes.
"It's not that funny!"
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.
NOTES: I'm sorry. I really couldn't come up with a better codename for Quatre.....so I blamed it on Lady Une! That last part wasn't really planned. It just kind of happened in my head, so I wrote it down. We all need a little humor, even if it is at Quatre's expense.
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!