Preventers, Psionics, and Bad Guys Oh My! - By Ah Hael
Wufei was walking down the corridors of preventer headquarters on earth immersed in his own thoughts. Normally he was stationed in space and worked out of the preventer complex on the moon and was only visiting Earth on vacation. He shouldn't be here. There could only be one reason why he was here. Director Une wanted to know about Shelby and Anna. He'd respected Duo's and Quatre's wishes and stalled her.
"Look just tell her that they don't pose a danger to the public." Duo was saying as he drove Wufei, Trowa, Heero and Relena to the airport from Anna's house. "As a courtesy, they will make an appointment with her so they can tell her the truth directly."
"She's not dumb Duo, she'll know we're stalling!" How could he ask him to do this? It went against every thing he believed in.
"Perhaps I should talk to her again." Relena suggested quietly. Wufei knew he wasn't the most perceptive when it came to women's feelings, but he got the distinct impression Relena was upset about something. He shot a quick glance over at Heero and could tell his friend new there was something wrong with his woman, but not what or how to fix it. Heero had remained silent during the whole exchange. It seemed he was going to bend to Relena's wishes and not do anything that would endanger Shelby or Anna. That left the burden up to Wufei, and now Duo was asking him to compromise his integrity.
"Thank you Relena, but no. Your intervention has only roused her suspicions more. And no Duo I'm not going to stall her anymore." He responded.
"Wufei! If you walk in there and tell Une there are two brain augments running loose she'll freak. She'll have a tactical team there before you even leave the room.
"Duo, in case you missed it, we've already been stalling her so we could visit this training farm of theirs. I'm not covering for you or them any longer."
"Fine" Duo said bitterly "then could you at least not seek her out to tell her? Wait 'til she comes to you? That'll give Quatre and Anna some time together."
At this point Trowa finally entered the conversation. "Hopefully Quatre has more sense than you to get too involved."
"First of all, I didn't know Shel was psionic when I met her. By the time I found out it was too late. Second, you know how attached Quatre was to Sandrock. Third, I happen to know for a fact that he is already all the way involved. Their both broadcasting very loudly and thanks to the bond I have with Shel, I can unfortunately hear it. It's like being a bloody voyeur." Duo twisted his face in distaste
The conversation soon deteriorated into a lecture on Duo's stupidity on becoming mentally linked to a psionic.
As much as he hated to admit it, a part of Wufei knew Duo was right. A person just couldn't use the term brain augment without alerting someone. It was like when someone used the name Treize Kushrenada. It couldn't help causing a few ears to perk up. To make matters worse, he liked Shelby and Anna. Maybe it was because he could feel a connection to them from his days as a gundam pilot, or maybe because they made his friends so happy. Although he'd cut out his own tongue before he'd admit such sentiment to Duo. Either way he just couldn't bring himself to turn them in like they were criminals.
So now here he was, about to have Une demand the information she was expecting over a week ago. As he walked in to the meeting room where he was supposed to meet Director Une he was surprised to see how many people were there. On the surface he kept his expression bland, but inside his discomfort swelled to an alarming level. He spotted Une and Sally immediately amidst dozens of others. The room was full of department chiefs from earth and the varying sectors of space. It took him a few moments listening to arguments about budgets, personnel, and resources for him to come to his senses. What did you think? That they were all here for you? He chastened himself. Director Une was a busy woman. It was obvious she was squeezing him in where she had the time. He deserved the sick, jittery feeling he was getting. This is what comes from doing something you don't believe is right. He already knew from past experience that when his mind, body and heart worked in unison he could do almost anything. Times like now when his mind or heart was in discord with the other spelled disaster.
He took a quick scan of the room. All of the department chiefs were seated around a large oval table. Lining the walls were chairs, some filled with team leads to assist the chief of the department they worked for. He inwardly grimaced at the titles. In order to reinforce the peacekeeping theme, the preventers revamped their organization; they refused to use any militant titles and adopted neutral ones. At the top was Director Une. Under her were the Assistant Directors for earth and the sectors of space. Then there were the chiefs of departments with stupid names like illegals, socials, hostiles, and internal. Under them were the tactical team leaders like himself. Anything under that was simply referred to as a preventer. Secretly he always thought the preventer's lack of military titles was stupid. To Wufei the preventers at their heart were a militant organization regardless of hierarchy names. Spotting Heero sitting along the wall, he moved to join him.
"I see she called you as well." Heero said by way of greeting.
"Yes." He replied "I knew I shouldn't have listened to that idiot. I should have been upfront at the beginning."
"Why didn't you?" Heero asked. Knowing full well Wufei didn't want to acknowledge the answer.
"I don't know. I…" he faltered
"You didn't because you like them. We all like them. Not as well as Duo and Quatre, but we all feel the kinship to them."
"That doesn't make keeping Une in the dark alright." Wufei grumbled.
"I spoke to both Shelby and Anna last night. They will be here on the weekend. They will meet with Une on Monday."
"You spoke with both of them last night?" Wufei repeated. He was watching his friend and was a little stunned to see Heero was blushing. Heero never blushed unless you brought up the subject of Relena. Ahhh so that's it. With Duo absent he couldn't restrain himself. "Needed a little female advice? Is Relena still not talking to you?"
Heero spun in his seat to look at him. "Who told you th—" then Heero realized he'd just fallen for one of the oldest tricks. "I'm working on a plan to fix it." he finished.
Looking around at the meeting attendees "Not that your love life is of any interest to me, but we seem to have some time to kill. Entertain me."
Heero seemed hesitant, but told him his plans anyway. Wufei stopped himself from goggling at Heero as the other man outlined his insane plan. There were a lot of things that could go wrong. Since Heero was his friend, he offered his help instead of criticizing his reckless plan.
