***
The hideout was a small log cabin that had been long abandoned by its holiday occupants. It was about a good four miles away from the base and couldn't be seen, not even if someone was doing a low fly-by of the surrounding area. The inside actually wasn't so shabby, having been kept up by the occasional hiker (Or OZ officer is what the two pilots guessed, because Wufei immediately started to set up a radar deflector on the cabin). Duo appeared to have reverted right back to his usual self, as if his being subdued in thought in the truck hadn't happened.
"So what's gonna be our plan of attack here?" Duo asked as he watched, sprawled out on a musty couch, the Chinese pilot finish setting up the radar deflectors.
"You get to do all the dirty work," Wufei smirked slightly.
"Man, I always do the dirty work."
"Then it won't be a problem, now will it? So stop complaining."
"But-" Duo broke off as he got glared at and stuck his tongue out. "Bastard."
"Damn straight."
"Is that the Great Fei having a sense of humor?"
"Maxwell." Wufei began threateningly, narrowing his onyx eyes.
"I'm shuttin' up..."
"Good. Now, we're going in at midnight tonight, when it's not as likely that there will be a lot of people on the premises," he continued. "I'll get into the control center to shut down the security systems so you won't have too much difficulty in getting to the information stores facility."
"Then I take it all from there. Got everything I need already and we'll rendezvous at the south quadrant exit," Duo finished. "Then hightail our asses back here."
"Er- right." Wufei arched an eyebrow and the braided boy grinned.
"I really -was- paying attention ya know when we went over this like five million times back at the safe house, despite my seemingly lack of interest," he winked.
"I knew that, I was just making sure," Wufei puffed up indignantly. "I don't want any mistakes tonight."
"Oh boy, here it comes- If there's any screw ups, it's my fault.yeah, I know that part already too." Duo rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Hell, you all seem to forget that bein' stealthy is one of my best qualities."
"Yes, with your unceasing babble and vanity traits right up with it." Wufei added and went off to inspect the rest of the cabin. There was only one other room other than the bathroom and it was small, furnished only with a bed, a small oak nightstand with a dusty lamp beside it, and a large dusty oak chest full of quilted blankets. Quaint little tasseled rugs littered the floorboards through out the entire cabin, even though not many people had actually stayed in the place for very long, all in all it was fairly nice and homey.
"This could be a problem."
Wufei nearly jumped, he hadn't heard Duo get up from the couch and follow him into the room, but he quickly composed himself. "True."
"Rock-paper-scissors? Winner gets the bed, loser gets the couch," Duo grinned.
"That is childish," Wufei scoffed.
"Well, we could always go with the fact that since I'm doin' the dirty work, I get the bed," he replied slyly.
"Fine," Wufei shrugged.
"What?" Duo blinked.
"I don't care."
"Huh, alrighty, whatever floats your boat Wu-man," he threw his duffel bag onto the bed and promptly cast himself down along beside it.
***
There were two hours before midnight. Duo and Wufei set out from the log cabin at a running pace, it didn't take them too long to get to their destination. As they approached the compound, Wufei split off towards the right and his voice came crackling into Duo's ear on the transmitter.
"Stay out here until you see the door open."
"Roger that."
Wufei pulled out a small device from his pocket along with his katana as he flitted from shadow to shadow along the walls of the building until he came to the door he was looking for. He placed the little object onto the ID card scanner and pressed a code on the keypad. The red light flashed momentarily then turned green and the door slid open with a soft hiss of air. Wufei cautiously peered into the corridor before going in, musing over the base layouts as he worked his way almost unhindered to the security control center. The poor guard didn't even hear him come into the room and was knocked out cold by Wufei's katana hilt. He pocketed the guard's code card, stashing the lifeless body into a nearby broom closet, and went to work on freezing the cameras and unlocking all the right doors.
Outside, Duo sat crouched up against the smooth cement wall, impatiently waiting for the door at his right to open as he gripped his gun tightly. About ten minutes after Wufei's departure, he finally got his signal and went in without hesitation, automatically getting instructions from the transmitter in his ear.
"Don't go playing around, will you Maxwell? Just stick to the objective and forewarn me before you set off the bomb."
"Oh yeah, like I'm stupid enough to blow this place up while I'm still in it," Duo replied cynically as he broke into jog as he went down the hall. They had chosen the exact time to decide to bust into the base, like Wufei, Duo didn't run into anybody, not even when he got into information center. It turned out to be in one of the large scientists' laboratories; the huge mainframe nearly took up the entire wall. The keyboard was a good ten feet long, though it was separated with five different computer monitors. This job was going take a while.
"Damn. No wonder you didn't wanna do the dirty work, Wu." Duo sighed as he sat at the first computer; his fingers dancing over the keys as code after code and file after file was easily hacked into and permanently deleted.
"Will you stop talking and just get it over with?" Wufei grumbled and for a while there was nothing as Duo worked. Sitting in the control center, he went through the security footage and erased the part of him coming into the base, but once he did that, there really wasn't much else to do on his part until Duo was finished. Wufei unfroze the cameras in the laboratory to see the braided pilot's progress, because he knew if he said anything that would give him a reason to begin chattering again, which really wasn't what he wanted at the moment. But when he did, Wufei caught someone else other than Duo lurking in the room and with him so absorbed in his work on the third computer he wasn't going to-
"Maxwell! Watch your back!"
"Huh?"
"Behind you!"
Duo spun away from the computer, whipping out his gun from its holster and training it on the man in a lab coat standing a mere two feet away, holding a stool up in mid-swing. The scientist was particularly young, and it looked like if Wufei hadn't so luckily warned Duo, he would've had his head bashed in by a metal stool.
"You know you can really hurt people with those," Duo said amusedly, yet his violet eyes gleamed coldly with death. The man dropped the stool in shock but didn't run, he actually composed himself quite well and stuck his hands into his lab coat pockets. "Now, I can do this the nice way and just put you out of your misery now, or I could do it the mean way and incapacitate you first, then let you die the slow, painful death of blood loss after we blow this joint."
"What's the point if I'm just going to die anyway?" The scientist asked wryly.
Duo scowled, the guy was too pleased with himself for his own good, and it was starting to irritate him. Normally the guys go down on their hands and knees and beg mercy, but this was ridiculous! "Fine, I'll make this quick 'cause I have a job to finish." Duo cocked back the trigger release but the scientist suddenly lunged at him, catching him off guard, and the two went stumbling back into the keyboard of the mainframe. Duo felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and he swore loudly, shooting the man in the chest. He went limp and stopped moving as the pool of blood on the floor grew.
"Maxwell?! What the hell is going on?"
"Got it all under control, Fei. Damn egotistical scientists." He grunted as he kicked the dead man aside and touched his shoulder. 'Prolly gonna have a nice bruise there tomorrow morning,' Duo thought with a sigh as he sat back down, not noticing the emptied syringe on the floor that had been knocked out of his shoulder when he hit the computer.
***
The hideout was a small log cabin that had been long abandoned by its holiday occupants. It was about a good four miles away from the base and couldn't be seen, not even if someone was doing a low fly-by of the surrounding area. The inside actually wasn't so shabby, having been kept up by the occasional hiker (Or OZ officer is what the two pilots guessed, because Wufei immediately started to set up a radar deflector on the cabin). Duo appeared to have reverted right back to his usual self, as if his being subdued in thought in the truck hadn't happened.
"So what's gonna be our plan of attack here?" Duo asked as he watched, sprawled out on a musty couch, the Chinese pilot finish setting up the radar deflectors.
"You get to do all the dirty work," Wufei smirked slightly.
"Man, I always do the dirty work."
"Then it won't be a problem, now will it? So stop complaining."
"But-" Duo broke off as he got glared at and stuck his tongue out. "Bastard."
"Damn straight."
"Is that the Great Fei having a sense of humor?"
"Maxwell." Wufei began threateningly, narrowing his onyx eyes.
"I'm shuttin' up..."
"Good. Now, we're going in at midnight tonight, when it's not as likely that there will be a lot of people on the premises," he continued. "I'll get into the control center to shut down the security systems so you won't have too much difficulty in getting to the information stores facility."
"Then I take it all from there. Got everything I need already and we'll rendezvous at the south quadrant exit," Duo finished. "Then hightail our asses back here."
"Er- right." Wufei arched an eyebrow and the braided boy grinned.
"I really -was- paying attention ya know when we went over this like five million times back at the safe house, despite my seemingly lack of interest," he winked.
"I knew that, I was just making sure," Wufei puffed up indignantly. "I don't want any mistakes tonight."
"Oh boy, here it comes- If there's any screw ups, it's my fault.yeah, I know that part already too." Duo rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Hell, you all seem to forget that bein' stealthy is one of my best qualities."
"Yes, with your unceasing babble and vanity traits right up with it." Wufei added and went off to inspect the rest of the cabin. There was only one other room other than the bathroom and it was small, furnished only with a bed, a small oak nightstand with a dusty lamp beside it, and a large dusty oak chest full of quilted blankets. Quaint little tasseled rugs littered the floorboards through out the entire cabin, even though not many people had actually stayed in the place for very long, all in all it was fairly nice and homey.
"This could be a problem."
Wufei nearly jumped, he hadn't heard Duo get up from the couch and follow him into the room, but he quickly composed himself. "True."
"Rock-paper-scissors? Winner gets the bed, loser gets the couch," Duo grinned.
"That is childish," Wufei scoffed.
"Well, we could always go with the fact that since I'm doin' the dirty work, I get the bed," he replied slyly.
"Fine," Wufei shrugged.
"What?" Duo blinked.
"I don't care."
"Huh, alrighty, whatever floats your boat Wu-man," he threw his duffel bag onto the bed and promptly cast himself down along beside it.
***
There were two hours before midnight. Duo and Wufei set out from the log cabin at a running pace, it didn't take them too long to get to their destination. As they approached the compound, Wufei split off towards the right and his voice came crackling into Duo's ear on the transmitter.
"Stay out here until you see the door open."
"Roger that."
Wufei pulled out a small device from his pocket along with his katana as he flitted from shadow to shadow along the walls of the building until he came to the door he was looking for. He placed the little object onto the ID card scanner and pressed a code on the keypad. The red light flashed momentarily then turned green and the door slid open with a soft hiss of air. Wufei cautiously peered into the corridor before going in, musing over the base layouts as he worked his way almost unhindered to the security control center. The poor guard didn't even hear him come into the room and was knocked out cold by Wufei's katana hilt. He pocketed the guard's code card, stashing the lifeless body into a nearby broom closet, and went to work on freezing the cameras and unlocking all the right doors.
Outside, Duo sat crouched up against the smooth cement wall, impatiently waiting for the door at his right to open as he gripped his gun tightly. About ten minutes after Wufei's departure, he finally got his signal and went in without hesitation, automatically getting instructions from the transmitter in his ear.
"Don't go playing around, will you Maxwell? Just stick to the objective and forewarn me before you set off the bomb."
"Oh yeah, like I'm stupid enough to blow this place up while I'm still in it," Duo replied cynically as he broke into jog as he went down the hall. They had chosen the exact time to decide to bust into the base, like Wufei, Duo didn't run into anybody, not even when he got into information center. It turned out to be in one of the large scientists' laboratories; the huge mainframe nearly took up the entire wall. The keyboard was a good ten feet long, though it was separated with five different computer monitors. This job was going take a while.
"Damn. No wonder you didn't wanna do the dirty work, Wu." Duo sighed as he sat at the first computer; his fingers dancing over the keys as code after code and file after file was easily hacked into and permanently deleted.
"Will you stop talking and just get it over with?" Wufei grumbled and for a while there was nothing as Duo worked. Sitting in the control center, he went through the security footage and erased the part of him coming into the base, but once he did that, there really wasn't much else to do on his part until Duo was finished. Wufei unfroze the cameras in the laboratory to see the braided pilot's progress, because he knew if he said anything that would give him a reason to begin chattering again, which really wasn't what he wanted at the moment. But when he did, Wufei caught someone else other than Duo lurking in the room and with him so absorbed in his work on the third computer he wasn't going to-
"Maxwell! Watch your back!"
"Huh?"
"Behind you!"
Duo spun away from the computer, whipping out his gun from its holster and training it on the man in a lab coat standing a mere two feet away, holding a stool up in mid-swing. The scientist was particularly young, and it looked like if Wufei hadn't so luckily warned Duo, he would've had his head bashed in by a metal stool.
"You know you can really hurt people with those," Duo said amusedly, yet his violet eyes gleamed coldly with death. The man dropped the stool in shock but didn't run, he actually composed himself quite well and stuck his hands into his lab coat pockets. "Now, I can do this the nice way and just put you out of your misery now, or I could do it the mean way and incapacitate you first, then let you die the slow, painful death of blood loss after we blow this joint."
"What's the point if I'm just going to die anyway?" The scientist asked wryly.
Duo scowled, the guy was too pleased with himself for his own good, and it was starting to irritate him. Normally the guys go down on their hands and knees and beg mercy, but this was ridiculous! "Fine, I'll make this quick 'cause I have a job to finish." Duo cocked back the trigger release but the scientist suddenly lunged at him, catching him off guard, and the two went stumbling back into the keyboard of the mainframe. Duo felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and he swore loudly, shooting the man in the chest. He went limp and stopped moving as the pool of blood on the floor grew.
"Maxwell?! What the hell is going on?"
"Got it all under control, Fei. Damn egotistical scientists." He grunted as he kicked the dead man aside and touched his shoulder. 'Prolly gonna have a nice bruise there tomorrow morning,' Duo thought with a sigh as he sat back down, not noticing the emptied syringe on the floor that had been knocked out of his shoulder when he hit the computer.
***