Chapter Fourteen

She just looked so beautiful. Standing there on the beach. It was a perfect summer day. The sky was as blue as her eyes. She was wearing her beautiful white summer dress. Her blond hair was caressed by the sea breeze. Heero had never been so much in love with her. He started walking towards her. Then Heero realised that, no matter how much he walked, Relena was getting further and further away…

He started running after her. However, Relena was slowly disappearing from his sight. Heero then started shouting her name.

"RELENA!!! RELENA!!! DON'T LEAVE ME!!! RELENAAAAAA!!!!

"Heero…Heero…!".

Heero woke up hearing Duo's voice.

"You've had a nightmare…" Duo said stating the obvious.

"What? When did I…" started asking Heero.

"You fell asleep soon after we took off…It's something I find funny about you…no matter how difficult the situation is, you still manage to get some sleep…" commented Duo.

Heero did not reply to this. He was still under shock because of his dream. One of the side effects that the tortures he had been forced to endure was that his dreams were always very vivid. They looked as real as the images that Zero projected and just like the Zero system, his dreams always showed him what he feared the most. Now, what terrified him was the possibility of losing Relena.

Looking ahead of him, he saw Sally and Wufei. The Chinese man was piloting the shuttle that was taking them to L4. Despite all the efforts, neither the Preventers nor the air authorities had been able to locate the shuttle that had escaped from New Port City. Sally and the three men only hoped that they were following the right lead.

"Thanks Duo…" Heero felt compelled to say to his business partner that was sitting next to him.

"What for?" asked Duo looking at Heero like if the Japanese pilot had suddenly developed a second head.

"For coming with us…you know…leaving Hilde and helping me…" said Heero realising he was still not very good with these things.

"Don't worry about it man. You know, Relena is Hilde's best friend, and she's also a very good friend of mine…and so are you. This is what friends are for…" replied Duo not giving too much importance to it.

"Well…anyway… thanks" Heero insisted before looking away to focus his attention on the laptop in front of him.

"Guys, we're almost there…what would you say if we call Quatre? He may be able to help us…no one knows the corporations in L4 better than he does…" proposed Sally turning around to face Duo and Heero.

"Sure…" replied Heero.

"Yeah…good idea…he actually owns half of them anyway…" replied Duo.

Sally turned back and, pressing a button from the console in front of her, dialled the Arabian man's private number.

"Hi! You're Sally, aren't you?" asked Dorothy.

"Yes…Hi Dorothy, I'd like to speak to Quatre…is he there?" asked Sally.

"Sure…I'll get him for you…" replied Dorothy leaving the screen.

After a few seconds, Quatre's pleasant face showed up on the videocom.

"Hi Sally…how are you?" asked with his polite voice.

"Hi Quatre…We'd like to ask you a favour…they've kidnapped Relena and we're following a clue that has led us here to L4. We wonder whether you'd like to help us…" explained Sally.

"What? Of course…don't go to the public airport…come directly to my house…I'll warn the airport authorities so they give you clearance…" said Quatre.

Some time later, Sally, Wufei, Duo and Heero were welcomed by Quatre and Dorothy at the couple's private airport. Quatre insisted to be informed immediately about every detail of what had happened and also about Lady Une's action plan.

Quatre, the minute he heard about Genix said to everyone that he would personally fix an appointment with the Managing Director right the next day.

"How are you so sure he'll want to see us?" asked Heero.

"Well, maybe for the simple fact that I've just given them a capital injection so they could continue their research…" replied Quatre with absolutely no arrogance whatsoever.

"Ah…that may help…" commented Duo. The braided man had always felt a bit out of place with Quatre. It wasn't that he didn't like the guy, is just that he felt overwhelmed about the huge amount of money that the man represented. It was funny that Duo didn't feel the same about Relena but, again, Relena was Relena…she was more than just money. She meant peace and, to Duo, peace was worth a hell of a lot more than money.

While Quatre made the call, the others stayed in the library and, using the Winner's database, they gathered all the information they could about Genix.

"What the…what's this?" asked Duo staring at his screen. Heero, Wufei and Sally focused their attention on what Duo was looking at.

There was a screen belonging to the Genix database saying 'access denied'. No matter how hard Duo tried, there was no way around it. Heero asked Duo to let him have a go.

Nothing. Not even Heero could get into it. Whatever it was, it had been protected so well that, not even a professional hacker like Heero or Duo, would be able to break into it.

The next day, after reporting to Lady Une, Sally and the others headed to Genix. Sally had had the search warrant faxed to her by Lady Une. If things got difficult, at least they could use it. Unfortunately, neither Dr Newman nor Relena's bodyguards had been able to supply any useful information. Lady Une informed Sally that they were doing their best to get as much information as possible.

The building where the company was located, was a beautiful construction made entirely with glass. The reception area was pretty impressive. Duo hated these kind of places. He hoped they would be done as soon as possible. Heero was just too restless and kept fighting with himself so he would not lose his self control. Wufei and Sally just looked almost as business like as Quatre. From the lot, the Arabian man was the one that played the part the best. Again, he was used to these kind of difficult meetings. Quatre was as good as Relena in these situations.

They headed to the Managing Director's office. As expected, only Quatre, Sally and Wufei were allowed in. Duo and Heero, not being preventers, were not permitted to go in. That was not a problem. Quatre had a transmitter that would let Heero and Duo hear everything that went on inside the room so, both men waited patiently outside sitting in front of the Managing Director's secretary.

"What a pleasure to see you so soon Mr Winner!" they heard the Director's voice saying.

"Well…unfortunately, this time is not to offer you more funds for your research. These two people here are to special agents from the Preventers, they would like to ask you a few questions and, I would personally appreciate if you cooperated as much as possible…" replied Quatre with polite but firm voice.

"Ah…well, I see what I can do…" said the Director. Heero immediately felt that the man had got nervous after hearing the word 'Preventers'.

"We thank you in advance…first of all, we would like to know what business you've had with New Port City in the last few days…" said Sally going straight to the point.

"New Port City? That was the capital city of the Sank Kingdom, wasn't it?" replied the Director. That gave Heero the impression that he was changing topic.

"Yes it is…we would like you to tell us if you have had any business with it recently…" insisted Sally.

"Well…We haven't had much to do with that city recently…" replied the Director.

"Then could you tell us who Maurice Louvin is?" asked Wufei.

"Who? No…I've never heard this name before…" replied the Director again giving Heero the impression that he was lying.

"Are you sure? Because Mr Louvin rented a van with one of your credit cards…I don't think you let strangers use your company's credit cards, do you?" asked Quatre.

"Ah…well, I didn't know about it…I will investigate…Mr Winner, as a businessman, you will understand that it is not possible to keep everything on check…" said the Director trying to justify himself.

"I cannot agree with you. Unlike you I do make every effort to know everything about that goes on in my companies…" replied Quatre not sounding very happy.

"Well, if you cannot help us then, I'm afraid I'm going to be forced to use this…" said Sally showing the search warrant.

"What is this? Where is it coming from?" he Director said surprised.

"As you can read it yourself, it's a search warrant and it came directly from the President…" replied Sally.

The Director was forced to comply and permitted Sally and Wufei to perform the search. Heero and Quatre just stood there. Again, not being a preventer, Heero was not allowed to touch anything. He felt so frustrated he could have killed someone. Quatre kept an eye on him just in case although he fully understood Heero's feelings.

Duo was no where to be seen.

After a while, Sally and Wufei had to give up. They could not find anything. Quatre thanked the Director and apologised for the trouble caused.

Heero's anger kept increasing. This was the only lead they had and they had found nothing. Relena was somewhere out there and, unless a miracle happened, they would not be able to find her. He felt impotent about the whole thing and he hated feeling impotent.

They were leaving the building when they found Duo sitting on one of the benches just outside the building. He was smiling. Heero could have killed him and would have if Duo had not got up and had come to him showing him a plastic case containing a disk.

"Guess you didn't find anything, did you?" asked the braided man.

"NO, unfortunately we didn't…" replied Sally sadly.

"Well…uncle Duo here has a present for you…Let's go and check this out…shall we?" proposed Duo.

"Where did you find this?" asked Sally who was sure to have searched in every possible place.

"I bet you didn't look inside the green house's office" replied Duo.

"Of course we did, we found nothing…" said Wufei offended.

"Did you also check the seeds' storeroom?" asked Duo.

The lack of reply from the Chinese man was a good answer.

As soon as they got back to Quatre's house, they went straight to the computer to check what the disk contained.

The information on it was encrypted but, unlike with yesterday's page, the disk was a piece of cake. It was obvious that the people that worked where Duo had found it, thought it was secure enough so they did not bother with much protection.

What they saw, as soon as they started opening the files contained in the disk, was definitely not good. The images shown a series of new mobile dolls and their blueprint. They were prototypes never seen before. And what was worst, they seemed to be made of gundanium.

Meanwhile, Sally had had an idea regarding the page they could not access the day before. She did not think it would actually work since it was a rather stupid idea but, when the page asked for the password, Sally typed 'mauricelouvin', to her immense surprise, the page actually gave her access.

Sally called everyone to see what she had discovered. It was a blank screen with the following text:

'independence year+x44 turn around'

It was some kind of code. What could it possibly mean?

END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN