Serious ficcish thing by Cat Who
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing. I know that. Don't sue me, etc.
Atlanta, Georgia, was not a pleasant place, even before the colonies. The city had suffered massive sprawl, its metropolitan area stretching for hundreds of miles around it, spilling into suburbs and taking over towns around it until it had spread like so much kudzu over most of the northwest corner of the state. The only person who hated Atlanta more than Heero was Relena, and even then their hatred of the city was probably an even match.
The Center for Disease Control was even more tightly secured than the IGD had been. Heero couldn't break into it outright, but there was more than one way to skin a cat.
First, he hacked into the genetics systems for the University of Georgia, acquiring several identities in the process. At least he could do that from outside of the bloated mess that was Atlanta. On his laptop, in a hotel in Athens, he composed a simple little program in C++, that good old ancient programming language, that allowed him to slip on the virtual identities of the university like a second skin. A quick reroute through the University labs, making sure to trigger the firewalls so that no one could trace it back to his IP, and he was ready to tackle the CDC.
The identities he had picked up were all research proffessors who were well known and respected. Hopefully one would have remote access to the files in the CDC.
He tried one after the other, making sure to change his IP address radically each time, and coming from different backbone servers all over the continent so as not to set off the alarms, but it was to no avail; apparently, the CDC didn't even allow genetics proffessors access to the most personal files remotely. There was always plan B then.
He broke into the University's genetics building, a historic DNA-shape affair that had been built way before the Colonies. He found the IDs that some genetics proffessor had carelessly left in his office, and copied the vital information from it, taking a digital image of himself with a tiny camera, then breaking into the University's photography lab. He was now suddenly a genetics proffessor -- the nametag, complete with his photograph, said so. It also said his name was Nehal Patel. Heero hoped that whomever was on guard duty at the CDC wouldn't question why a Japanese man had an Indian name.
The CDC used fingerprints and retinal scans. Copying those would be far more difficult, so Heero simply packed a silencer. It temorarily rerouted eletronics in its immediate area, disabling them and allowing him to fool pretty much any alarm with the right programming. An alarm that was muted couldn't go off. The device was so illegal that Heero almost regretted having to use it. He made a note to destroy it afterward...it made breaking in almost too easy.
The CDC in Atlanta sprawled much like the bloated city around it, stretching high into the air and across several city blocks. The outer guard let him in when he flashed his newly acquired University ID, not even bothering to check the name. So far, so good. White lab coat flapping in the breeze, he wandered through the quadrangle that acted as a lawn, keeping himself as calm as possible. The files on Akima Yuy would hopefully uncover more leads, if not answers.
Heero walked up to the second gate of the CDC. The silencer did its job well, sending all the right signals to the computer so that it believed it had recieved the all clear from the central database. Heero gave a curt, businesslike nod to the second guard, and entered the labyrinth of the Center for Disease Control.
Long, echoing hallways are hard to stay inconspicuous in, Heero thought idly. The trick is to act like you belong, like you know exactly where you are going. The fire maps helped him here as well; although he couldn't get more than a passing glance at the first one he saw, the second one was in a nice, empty corner, and he studied it for quite some time. First, disable the cameras. The security room would be...there.
No need to blow anything up. He simply set the silence outside the door, increased its range, and it go to work. The handy little thing would keep the cameras looping as long as he left it there.
Now, he was free to roam at leisure. It didn't take him long to find an emtpy computer room, and he sat down, cracking his knuckles in preparation for some evil hackery.
There it was -- fourth floor, standard records, Records Building. Damnit. He'd have to get into another building on the compound. He casually erased all traces of his break-in, and strode out of the room, keeping his expression calm and businesslike. He picked up his silencer, went out the back door, and walked across the quadrangle to the Records Building, a squat although large edifice. The security was tighter there.
"Nehal...Patel?" the guard said, disbelieving.
"I'm one quarter on my dad's side," Heero said, shrugging. "No one believes its my name."
The guard looked at him suspiciously as he went through the hand and retinal scanner. These ones took longer, and Heero's hear beat faster for a few seconds, but he was cleared nonetheless. Whew. It had been easier when he was just a Gundam Pilot. Set off a few explosives, and do your job while everyone was distracted. Being a civilian spy was a helluva lot harder.
Up the elevator to the fourth floor. The Y-Z room here was much like that of the IGD; rows upon rows of files, nearly sorted in alphabetical order, but his search was also simplified by the fact that gene files, like Akima's, were also sorted by disease.
He picked the lock on the cryo-file cabinet, hardly daring to breathe. When he found the files for Yuy Akima, wife of Yuy Hiroshi, he closed his eyes in relief. Jackpot. There was even a DNA sample in a small vial.
And he stood there and read, and nearly wanted to weep. He knew the story already, but the writer at the CDC had put in human touches -- the obituaries, the articles.
Akima Yuy, only sister of Heero Yuy, had tried for many years to conceive naturally in space, but she and her husband had failed. She had considered the test-tube alternative, but her husband believed they could conceive on their own. Five years after the death of Heero Yuy, Akima gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The birth cost her her life. Shortly after, Hiroshi Yuy commited seppuku. No one knew what happened to the child. There was even a picture in this file; it showed Hiroshi Yuy and Akima Yuy hugging each other at the funeral for her brother on Colony One. Heero stared. He'd seen Hiroshi Yuy before. He knew it. But how? The man had been dead for twenty two years.
He quietly pulled the files and was in the process of putting them into his pockets when he felt the familiar, cool sensation of a gun pressed into his back.
"Drop them," a familiar voice said.
Heero turned around, his eyes wide with shock. Detective Inverness motioned with the gun for Heero to put down the files. "I said drop them."
Every insinct in Heero screamed at him to fight and run away, but he was a civilian now. Reluctantly, he set the files down, and raised his hands in submission.
"Why, Inverness?" Heero was hurt. The man had helped Duo so much; why betray him now that he was so close to his goal?
Inverness said nothing, but he released the safety on his gun. "I don't know you," he said, and then Heero remembered -- Inverness would never admit he knew him if he got caught.
Cursing all the while, Heero walked out of the records room in handcuffs, mourning the loss of his files and his last hope of finding out who Hiroshi Yuy was.