Serious ficcish thing by Cat Who
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I know that. Don't sue me, etc.
Heero skulked in the shadows behind the Romanov Hotel in Prague, a few hours drive from the Sank Capital. Relena was already off to yet another colony meeting, so he hadn't even told her he was going anywhere. He didn't want her to worry about him. After all, technically he was just laying low with her in case the world ever needed the Perfect Soldier again. Technically, officially, he didn't even exist.
But he wanted to change all that. Last year he'd been inspired by Duo going on a genetic geneology quest and finding his roots in historic Savannah Georgia on Earth. Whereas Duo's search had been greatly simplified by the accurate records kept by the Catholic churches in Savannah, Heero was not so fortunate. Not even DNA matching had brought any results. He'd hired Inverness when he realized there was nothing more he could do, himself. Inverness was the man who'd assisted Duo in uncovering his family there.
Overhead the dim alley light flickered. Heero hated clandestine meetings like this, but Inverness preferred to work in the shadows. The man did good work; Heero would have never thought of undergoing hypnosis to trace his life as far back as he could remember. Sadly, his first memories were of Odin Lowe.
No parents. No family. No history. It was as if he'd simply sprung into being, the mythological Perfect Soldier popping out of Odin Lowe's head like some masculine Athena. Not that Lowe had been a bad surrogate parent, as far as parents could go. He'd taught him to defend himself and how to use a gun as soon as he could hold one.
But why did Odin Lowe take care of him? He could have just dumped him in an orphanage, and been rid of him... he certainly wasn't his genetic father. Lowe had been gaijin and Heero was clearly Japanese. No, something must have happened... for some reason, Lowe had wanted to take care of him.
Trust your feelings.
Heero still followed that advice. When all else failed, the human instinct had ways of detecting patterns that the conscious mind missed. Instincts had kept mankind alive for thousands of years. They had kept Heero alive for twenty two.
"Yuy." Inverness appeared quietly, without fanfare. Heero nodded in response. The private investigator wore a black trenchcoat, an oversized black hat, and a long black scarf wrapped around so that it obscured most of his features. Inverness had a flair for the dramatic, because, as he put it, people don't acknowledge people who seem to want to be acknowledged. By dressing up as a mockery of himself, people took him less seriously, something that worked to his advantage more often than not.
"Who was Hiroshi Yuy?" Heero asked, cutting to the chase.
"We don't know that yet. All his records were erased. Every single last one."
Heero raised one eyebrow. Many records had been lost during the war...after all, data safety was the least of worries when there are bombs falling round you, especially for unimportant records like shopping receipts. Yet for all the records to be gone from every database meant that someone had deliberately gone through and pulled them.
"Are there any left at all, do you think?"
"The closed International Genetics Database may have some information on him. However, no outsiders are allowed in there at all. I don't think even your pretty girlfriend can legally get you into there."
Heero ignored the comment about Relena. "I can hack into anything. Just give me the IP address and watch me."
Inverness shook his head. "The IGD is all hardcopy. You'll have to break into it. And the security there is pretty tight."
Heero sighed and closed his eyes. "I can probably break into anything as well. Okay, where is it, and what am I looking for?"
"They'll have his name, tax number, and genetic information on file there. More importantly, they'll have his family history. Chances are, you'll find nothing important there, but you did say you wanted to investigate all leads."
Heero nodded.
"Write it all down on pen and paper. Don't risk breaking into the network... if you're caught in there, I don't know who the hell you are, and neither will any of your friends. Bring me the information. We'll meet again later this week. The IGD is a huge building in Sydney, Australia, a few blocks down from the opera house. You won't miss it. Any other questions?"
Heero grimaced. Here we go again...
"Mission accepted."
Inverness blended into the shadows again, and was gone. Heero reflected on what kind of life a PI had to lead...always digging around in everyone else's business, skulking around in alleys -- of course, getting paid a bundle to do so. Hmmm. Perhaps a viable career option for an ex-soldier who probably shouldn't even exist.
Several days later Heero found himself outside the IGD in Sydney. He waited until five in the morning before beginning his break-in plan. The IGD was indeed an imposing building, at least ten stories tall; solid, gray, businesslike brick and mirrored glass, surrounded by a five meter high security fence. First things first. He spray a light non-aerosol mist across the fence, noting where the security lasers were. Two of them...good. He placed four tiny pocket mirrors on the fence, about a meter apart, so that the lasers reflected onto themselves and wouldn't be set off. Next, sonic alarms...he hung a long string between the to laser ones. A string wouldn't set the alarms off, hopefully. A telltale twitch at the end let him know where the sonic alarm was.
He repacked his supplies efficiently on his black divers suit, very aware of the fact that if he were caught here, it would not only be extremely embarrassing for Relena, but it could severely hurt her career as well. He didn't want that to happen to her, so he couldn't get caught, simple as that.
Picking his way carefully over the three alarms, easily finding toe-holds even through the thin leather gloves, he swung himself over the barbed wire on top and landed on the grassy ground with a soft thud, rolling to minimize the impact. He lay very quiet for a few seconds -- the patch of wall he'd picked to scale was a good hundred meters away from the gate, and he'd dropped a mild sleeping capsule in the guardhouse for good measure, but one could never be too careful. When no one came shouting at him for a few minutes, he picked himself up and continued on his way.
He found a nice, unassuming side door, and swiped a bacterial marker over the numbers on the keypad. Three, five, and six all glowed neon green for a few seconds before fading again. That was all he needed to know. Within a few brief moments he'd disabled the alarm, picked the tumblers, and found himself in a low corridor leading to the heart of the building. So far, so good.
He turned on a flashlight. There would have to be a fire map on every floor, something that is very useful to spies and assassins. It wasn't long before he'd found one near what had to have been the main lobby. Even better, it was electronic, and displayed the room name for every room one the floor. Stairways were there; Y-Z storage was on the 9th floor. He hoped that Y-Z storage meant the genetic storage by surname.
Up eight flights of stairs, picking the locks for the two fire doors. Heero snorted. That was just dangerous. The whole point of fire doors was that they be always open so that people could escape a fire. He wasn't even winded when he crept into the eighth floor hallway.
Y-Z storage was a large room of thousands of file cabinets. Heero reverently tiptoed through them, searching for the Yu section. The surname Yuy occupied forty whole drawers. Sighing, Heero picked the simple key locks on Yuy, He-Ho. Idly, he checked for information on his own code name. As he'd suspected, all of the Heero Yuy's were missing. Not that he'd ever donated blood or anything. Kind of nice to know that even this important database didn't officially know he existed. But there were about a hundred Hiroshi Yuys on file, with key genome markers and immediate family information displayed on onion paper to minimize space. Heero carefully searched through, looking for the tax number he'd received from Inverness. There it was...
Hardly daring to breathe, Heero pulled out the index card. Of course he was disappointed. The genetic information had been entirely blacked out, as had been the date of birth, all immediate family information, and even his blood type. Heero wanted to howl in rage at the thoroughness of the censors. Obviously, Hiroshi Yuy had been important. But the censor had been sloppy, and Heero could just make out the name of the person listed as "spouse." Hiroshi Yuy's wife had been named Akima.
Well, the card was useless. But maybe Akima Yuy's would be in better shape. He returned Hiroshi's card, and closed and relocked the drawer before going to the Yuy, A-Ai. Akima Yuy's filed was also censored heavily. However, this card listed a son. There was no date of birth, no blood type, nothing that the censors hadn't blacked out, but it did give his place of birth...Nemuro Memorial Hospital on Colony One.
He carefully returned her card, and existed the building, still in full stealth even though his head was swirling with disturbing thoughts. A son born on colony one. It was probably all just coincidence; Odin Lowe had had literally hundreds of alias, and Yuy was a common name in all its romanaji spellings... even so, Heero knew they were onto something big, even if it wasn't his family. Someone had wanted Hiroshi Yuy and all his family erased from the face of the earth.