Warnings: Sexually-suggestive...stuff. Nothing major...actually, there was some of the same kind of stuff last week, and I just forgot to mention it. =9_9'= I should also add that this episode contains facts that were theoretically ready to be released a year ago, but I chose to put it off because of 9/11. It actually worked out for the best, because it makes a lot more sense revealing it now, with extra background worked up to it.

Disclaimer: My current defence against any corporate lawyers who might decide to beat down my door and present a "cease and desist" order from BanDai is that I've been working on this for a WHOLE YEAR now, and if they even tried to shut me down, they'd have hordes of angry fans swarming all over them and plucking out each and every one of their body hairs, one by one by one. Right guys? *looks expectantly at her readers* ... *crickets chirp* ... =o_o;= *gulp* Uh...right? =D

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Episode Fifty-Seven: Mystery of the Lacquered Box

"Fate leads the willing and drags along the unwilling." ~Seneca, "Epistulae ad Lucilium"

August 19th, 1902

Following his miraculous return to England, Milliardo enjoyed, or at least tolerated, day after day of astonished visitors encompassing friends of the family, military personnel, members of the press, and the simply curious. Everyone wanted a look at the man who had trekked halfway across a continent shrouded in mystery with nothing but a compass and his wits to get him by. Quite a lot of unmarried young ladies came to visit as well, several accompanied by one or more parents who thought Milliardo would make a splendid suitor for their little angels, but Lucrezia was quick to smile and sit next to him at every public appearance, silently thwarting them. Milliardo was secretly grateful for that.

Once the steady flow of well-wishers began to ebb, the young heir was ready to take charge of the estate, as his father had wished. The first order of business, since everything else seemed to have been running smoothly before his arrival, was to find this mysterious cache of gold mentioned in passing by Treize. Nowhere in Lord Peacecraft's will was there even the slightest hint of the gold's existence, but a short dig through the carpenter's vegetable garden that hit something solid less than a foot deep was rather suspicious. While the weather was fairly pleasant, evacuation work began.

Milliardo stood off to the side with Otto, quietly observing as the outside contractors dumped shovelfuls of dirt, clay, and weeds on a tarpaulin. A two-foot-wide ditch was being dug out around what appeared to be a pillar of gold, and bars were bring brought out one by one to be weighed, catalogued, and boxed up for transport to the bank.

"Most perplexing," Milliardo muttered, his arms sternly folded.

"Sir?" Otto inquired.

"Father never once told me this gold even existed...and yet Uncle Treize knew exactly where it was to be found. How?"

Otto clasped his hands behind his back and stared dolefully at the growing pile of earth and the grunting workmen. "I don't know, sir."

While they pondered the problem, the foreman of the three-man crew, a slightly pudgy fellow with a moustache and a tweed cap, stood up from his crouching position and headed towards them with a clipboard, dabbing at his brow with a tattered handkerchief. "We've uncovered nearly two hundred bars, and there looks to be a lot more," he said in a surprisingly cultured voice. "Whoever buried it knew what they were doing, too. It's very neatly arranged."

Milliardo's eyes narrowed in thought. "How long has it been there? Can you tell?"

"Judging by the amount of settling, and the fine condition of the burlap covering the stack, I'd say no more than a year," the foreman estimated.

Milliardo shifted his jaw around a bit, then nodded. "Keep digging until you've uncovered it all."

"Righto," said the foreman, and he returned to his men to administer further instructions.

"Walk with me, Otto," whispered the young soldier. The pair of them strolled slowly away from the excavation site, but didn't stray too far, and didn't divert their entire attention away from the workmen. "Being so close to so much wealth would tempt almost anyone...although I still prefer hiring outsiders rather than leaving it to our own people. That's why I asked you to give all the new members of staff the day off. This is strictly a family matter."

"You think they'd pilfer from their own employer?"

"Try to understand, Otto...I left my home in the capable hands of over thirty servants, all of them loyal. Now, we have a fraction of our original staff, and the average age has dropped about ten years."

Otto smirked. "I tried to explain to Miss Relena the benefits of hiring more mature workers, but she was so insistent...it leads me to believe that she was hoping to find friends her own age, but in completely inappropriate places."

"Fine...so she has friends...but now, I can count the number of people I trust on one hand." Milliardo glanced at Arthur, who was busy several yards away, trimming hedges with his usual meekness and a pair of shears with green paint flaking off the handles. "And even so...how can I be sure?"

"But...surely you don't suspect Arthur of having any part of this..."

"It's a damning piece of evidence. The gold was in his vegetable garden, and has been for up to a year, perhaps longer. It was moved from someplace, and it was moved while Treize was present. Maybe he got to him...bribed him for his help...our carpenter leads a simple life, it's not that difficult to imagine him being seduced by riches."

Otto's forehead crinkled in consternation as a multitude of traitorous possibilities flew through his mind. "Shouldn't we question him?"

Milliardo paused, in gait and in voice. "No. At least, not yet. There's still plenty of suspicion to go around, and I'm saving some for the replacement butler...what does he call himself, again?"

"...Heero Yuy," Otto grumbled.

"You don't think much of him," Milliardo observed.

Otto swallowed. Many of his opinions and suspicions about Heero had been influenced by Treize, but while those past discussions would seem to have been nullified by Treize's deception, Otto didn't know what was real and what was just a long, clever manipulation. What do I tell him? What should I keep from him? I didn't need Treize's help in deciding Heero was up to no good, but he did convince me the boy was downright dangerous...and told me not to contact the authorities. Maybe the lad still is dangerous...but while I hate to admit it, he hasn't done anything to harm or even frighten Relena. Of course, that doesn't mean he never will...ye gods, I don't know what's what anymore. Better not overcomplicate matters. "We don't let our personal feelings influence our working relationship. Nevertheless, I can't deny that he's highly efficient, and has been serving the household very well."

Milliardo smiled wistfully at Otto's reserved and guarded answer. He could hardly complain, since he himself was also holding back his thoughts about Heero, especially the fact that the boy knew where Pegan had been for the last two years. Treize knew something vitally important about Bridlewood that Milliardo didn't. Heero knew something vitally important about Bridlewood that Milliardo didn't. That put them both on the same page, as far as he was concerned, and Heero's only redeeming quality, the one that kept his dismissal at bay, was that he hadn't done anything blatantly obvious to hurt the family. Still, trusting him was currently out of the question. "Most peculiar indeed. I'm going to be keeping an eye on that young man, Otto...and I want you to do the same."

"With pleasure, sir."

**********

At the centre of the mystery, to which each one of a group of five boys was intricately connected, was a key. A small, silvery key had found its way surreptitiously into Duo's hands, and thus began the quest to find the matching lock. In a meeting, soon after the coronation, the five of them decided that if Giorgenson meant for them to have it, he also meant for them to have whatever secrets it was protecting, so the solution to the puzzle couldn't be impossible. On the other hand, if Lord Jeffrhyss and his cronies knew there were hidden treasures to be had, there would be stiff competition to see who could find them first. Despite the vague and pressing deadline, however, daily routines and household duties took up many of their collective hours, and time gradually slipped away.

Finally, and with no warning, Duo, Heero, Trowa, and Quatre were all given the day off. Not caring what the reasons were for such a lucky occurrence, they collected Wufei from Arthur's cottage and struck out on an aimless journey. Much discussion was needed before a crucial decision was arrived at, that the most logical place to begin searching would be Giorgenson's office at Oxford University. Heero treated them all to train fare and a private compartment, and away they went, kicking off the first official mission of the five-man group Duo had laughingly dubbed 'The Regents Park Irregulars.'

Travel was slowed somewhat by sightseeing and a bit of lunch, but they got to where they were going, leaving it up to Duo to actually locate the office, since only he had previously seen it. They drew one or two funny stares from the faculty, but ignored them as they wound their way through the ancient catacombs, finally arriving at a door with a plain glass window, austerely marked with the stirring words, 'Eschew Obfuscation.' Duo stepped aside after identifying the door and turned to the others. "This is it."

They all looked to either direction, checking the hallway for unwelcome rubberneckers, and found only a trickle of off-season traffic, no more than three or four people at any given moment. Still, there was a risk of being caught trespassing. Duo waited until the hall was empty before crouching in front of the doorknob to examine the keyhole.

"Does our key fit?" asked Quatre.

Duo paused. "No...I can tell just by looking at it that this door takes a different type of key."

Heero leaned a bit over Duo's shoulder for a closer look. "Can you open it?"

Slowly, the master thief stood, eyes locked on the doorknob. He grasped it, gave it a twist, and the door swung open. "Someone's picked this lock already. See the scratch marks around the keyhole? Those weren't there before."

The initial disappointment was heavy as they realized Jeffrhyss seemed to have gotten there first, but no one was ready to give up. They quickly filed inside, shut the door delicately behind them and drew the blind over the window. After taking a moment to absorb the fine furnishings and eye-catching clutter, Trowa stood in the centre of the room and folded his arms. "Where do we start?"

"Anywhere," Heero instructed. "Look for anything suspicious, anything that needs a key."

The hunt began. Carefully and methodically, the boys began dissecting the room, every cabinet, every drawer, every shelf. The silver key would not open any part of Giorgenson's desk, though that was mostly immaterial, since all the locks on it had been picked open, much like the door. There were countless mahogany shelves full of books, but not one book had been hollowed out to keep things in, and the walls behind the shelves were solid. Every chair was overturned and inspected for items tacked to the bottom, and the large upholstered sofa had its fabric joints loosened in several places, to poke curious fingers inside. They flipped over rugs, unscrewed lighting fixtures, took down paintings, and unloaded countless armloads of bizarre costumes and accessories from an adjoining room and its storage closet. They found nothing. Forty-five minutes of wanton destruction, and all they had to show for it between them were three pulled muscles and a stubbed toe.

"Ridiculous!" Wufei scoffed in frustration. "Whatever we're looking for, someone else must have found it and taken it away. This whole trip was a pointless waste of time!"

Dejected, Duo plunked himself down on the sofa and slouched deeply into the armrest. "I don't get it. He must have believed we'd at least have a chance of finding...whatever it is..."

"Maybe it was never here to begin with," Trowa said, sitting next to him.

Heero was still stubbornly pacing around the room, straining to take in every minute detail in the hopes of catching something they had previously missed. "This place is all we know about him. There's nowhere else we could go if it wasn't here."

Several seconds of disappointed silence followed, then a soft voice cooed gently from the corner of the room, next to the liquor cabinet. "Guys? Is a cold air return vent supposed to have a lock on it?"

Four pairs of feet jumped up and ran to where Quatre was, curled up on the floor and peering at a metal grate near the baseboard. It was made of iron wrought into a filigree design, painted to match the wall, and held in place by what looked like four bolts. Upon closer inspection, however, they weren't bolts but tiny locks, one in each of the four corners, and easily missed unless one stuck one's face right up to the grate.

Duo hurriedly fished out the key and tried it in one of the locks. It turned with a click, and that corner of the grate loosened up and came away from the wall a fraction of an inch. Fingers fumbling, he quickly unlocked the other three corners and was able to completely remove the ornate screen. Only then was there a massive sigh of triumph and anticipation, times five.

"What's in there?"

"It's too dark to see. Has anyone got a match?"

"Move the sofa out of the way, let some light from the window get past."

"I don't see anything in there, do you?"

"The whole thing's longer than my arm, see?"

"This is it. This has got to be it."

From an interior coat pocket, Heero produced his state-of-the-art document-burning lighter and flicked it open, holding it in front of the gaping hole. The whole niche could not have been more than eighteen inches wide and a foot tall, but it stretched back farther than the tiny orange flame could reach. Dust bunnies were huddled in quivering herds, clinging to all four sides of the crevasse and gently stirred by the influx of fresh air. It was a monumental discovery, but the visible portion was empty, and the rest of it faded into nothingness. "There could be anything in there," Heero admitted.

Quatre swallowed. "One of us will have to crawl in and find out."

Dead silence.

"You big chickens," Duo clucked. "I used to crawl around in tiny spaces all the time! I'll show you how it's done!" He sat back on his haunches, took off his brown tweed jacket and flung it across the room. Everyone backed up a foot or two to give him space as he laid down on his belly and wriggled head-first into the air shaft.

"Ohhh...be careful," Quatre begged. "If you see any spiders, don't touch them! They might be poisonous!"

Duo coughed out a lungful of dust. "Yeah, thanks a lot." After a few moments, all they could see were the bottoms of his shoes, and even they were becoming dimmer the further he crawled. Duo coughed, grunted, banged his head repeatedly on the roof of the passage, almost always accompanied by a yelp and a mild curse, until finally, a small pocket of silence preceded the announcement they were all waiting for. "Hey...hey, I think I found something!"

All four outsiders quickly bunched up around the hole. "Can you tell what it is?" Heero shouted down.

They all heard shuffling, then a faint tapping. "It's cold...it's made of metal.....I think it's a box!"

"Well, hurry up and grab it before you suffocate!" Wufei ordered.

"I'm...ugh...tryin' to get ahold of it, but it's...gee whiz, this thing is heavy!"

As the muffled sounds of his struggling continued, Heero grew more and more anxious. There was every reason to believe that Duo knew exactly what he was doing, but it was still hard not to feel extremely protective of his little mouse. "Duo, pay attention to yourself, not the box. We can find another way to get it out of there if we have to. I know you're used to small spaces, but remember, you're not twelve years old anymore."

"Of course, I'm not twelve! I know that! Whaddaya think, I'm stup--" The acrid thought was left hanging amongst the dust bunnies. More anxious seconds passed. "...oh no."

Quatre gasped. "Is it a spider?"

Trowa cringed. "Is it a rat?"

"Oh no oh no oh no!!"

Wufei swallowed. "It's not a snake, is it? Shoo it back the other way!"

Heero bent right down and stuck his head into the vent. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Oh my God!" Duo shrieked.

"What!?" the quartet yelled.

"I'M STUCK!!"

On a reflex, Heero uttered an impolite string of Japanese curses and reached an arm as far as he could into the vent, but the disappearing shoes were well out of reach, and Heero's own shoulders were just slightly wider than the hole would allow. With a brief but poignant grumble, he clambered back to his feet and dashed to the right to have a good look at the entire wall. Giorgenson's office was divided into two main parts, and while the grate was located in the first, the passage extended into the second. The others all reached futilely into the hole, trying to calm a very frantic Duo down, and Heero ran into the next room, flinging open the doors to the massive wall-mounted wardrobe. Sure enough, the floor of the wardrobe was raised to about the same level as the passage, and there were spooky shouts and violent bangs coming from inside. It was currently being used as a shoe rack.

"Duo!?" he shouted, dropping to his knees and thumping on the shoe rack.

"Get me out of here!" came the desperate but muffled reply.

By then, Trowa had reached Heero's side, and they both ran their hands all along the wood panelling, looking for seams or fasteners. It was extremely well-built, and appeared to be solid. Heero pointed vigorously to the main office with his whole arm. "Get me that...that...paperweight, or whatever it is, off the desk!"

Trowa ran out, snatched a big, agate-like geode the size of a coconut off Giorgenson's desk, ran back, and handed it to Heero. Heero lifted the large rock over his head and slammed it down on the protruding corner of the shoe rack over and over, all the while with Duo inside, hollering, whimpering, fussing, and generally carrying on as if the passageway would soon become his tomb. After five or six heavy blows, cracks appeared in the wood, and chips began flying everywhere. Quatre and Wufei squeezed in beside him just as a sizeable chunk of wood was broken off and pulled away, revealing dusty wisps of chestnut hair and a single purple eye, stuck wide open in abject terror. Hands of iron grabbed the upper panel of wood and pulled mightily upwards, widening the crack long enough for the others to get their hands in as well. With a long, loud, splintering, gouging noise, the four of them demolished the shoe rack, revealing Duo in a cloud of dust.

Heero grabbed his mouse around the waist and hauled him up out of the filthy passage, but thrown slightly off-balance, they stumbled and crashed backwards into a pile of fur stoles and feather boas. The others hid their faces from the ensuing fog of feathers that flew up, and the only one of the four who wasn't coughing up a lung had crouched back down and was fishing a heavy metal box out of the hole. Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei evacuated with the box, leaving Duo and Heero alone to regain their bearings.

"I warned you," Heero scolded lightly, cuddling his friend and shaking the larger clumps of dust off his braid. "Didn't I warn you?"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up...next time, you can crawl into the rat trap, and I'll act all self-righteous when you get out." Heero's tiny 'I told you so' smile melted away what was left of Duo's shattered bravado, and he hugged his rescuer back, taking advantage of their brief solitude to kiss his neck below the ear. "Thanks."

"Get in here, you guys! Take a look at this!"

They sighed at each other, and Heero got up first, pulling Duo up and helping him stagger back to the main office, leaving a colourful trail of stray feathers behind them. The others had placed the strange box on Giorgenson's desk and were examining it with excited interest. Trowa sat in the prominent leather chair, and four more chairs were being drawn up around the desk so they could all have a look. By virtue of being covered in grime and looking a bit like a coal miner, Duo chose a plain wooden chair instead of an upholstered one.

Before them all sat the box of mystery. It was mainly coal black with only a thin coating of dust, which Quatre was brushing off with a vivid yellow scarf from the costume room. The bottom was flat, but the four sides and top had an unusual design; the metal it was made of was moulded into intricate bas-relief sceneries with Egyptian motifs, decorated with thin pastel lacquers. There were ravens, jackals, cats, and lotus flowers, and on the top was a picture of an unnamed king and queen floating their royal barge down the Nile. In a flat spot on the front panel, there was a combination lock, and the opposite side was hinged. It seemed obvious how to open it.

"It's beautiful," breathed Quatre, pulling his chair up beside Trowa's. "Did anyone find a combination?"

They all shook their heads. Duo beckoned to Trowa with one hand. "Give it here, I'll take a crack at it." The box was placed before the substantially calmer master thief, while Heero slunk back to the office door to check on the activity level outside. Duo pressed one ear to the top of the box and dropped the fingers of his right hand on the dial with a feather-light touch. Everyone made a special effort to be quiet so he could listen to the barely perceptible clicks expected of the mechanism. After two long, slow turns of the dial, Duo lifted his head and looked confused. "...can't hear a damn thing."

"What does that mean?" Heero asked, returning to his chair between Duo and Wufei.

"It means I can't open it," Duo admitted. "If I can't hear any clicks, I won't know if I've hit the right numbers." He shook his head. "That's either the smoothest, most well-oiled lock in Christendom, or I'm losing my touch."

"No," Wufei snapped harshly, "nothing could sit rotting in that hole without some deterioration. If you can't hear any sounds from within, there must be another reason. Let me have a look at it." The box was shifted to Wufei's side of the desk, and he studied it intently. There was a definite seam around the box an inch from the top where the lid was supposed to flip open, but it was an exceptionally tight seal, too narrow to even fit one's fingernail into. Wufei spent a good minute and a half staring at each of the four sides, then looked over at Quatre, the nearest thing to a resident expert. "What would you say is the single most important thing in the world to the Egyptians?"

Quatre blinked in surprise. "Well, I don't know that many people from Egypt, but...the Nile, I suppose. Without it, their whole civilization might never have existed."

Wufei nodded thoughtfully. "Water..." Turning the box so that the hinge faced directly away from him, he stared again at the left side and the right side. While their respective scenes were very different, a crocodile hunt in the reeds and a ritual dance of some sort, there was a person on each panel drawing water from the Nile with a golden pitcher. Wufei put two fingers on each of the little gold-painted water jugs and pushed in hard. The jugs depressed with a sharp click, and the top of the box flew open, eliciting gasps from all around the table.

Duo gaped admiringly. "Unreal! How'd you do that?"

"I've seen boxes like this before, in Chinese palaces," Wufei explained. "There's almost always some kind of dummy lock in an obvious place, so a potential thief will spend all his time trying to break in conventionally and never realize that it's actually a puzzle box."

Everyone was impressed. Duo felt around the inside of the front panel, right behind the combination lock. Just as Wufei suggested, there was no mechanism, only a dial. "Wow...I'll have to remember that one."

"Just be careful how you use it," Heero warned semi-sternly. "Now, let's see what we've got here."

The democratically-elected leader of the Regents Park Irregulars plunged both hands into the box and removed a four-inch pile of messy papers off the top of a thick stack, and spread it out over the desk. Quatre reached in next and grabbed another two handfuls of papers and scattered them in a similar fashion. Lastly, Duo emptied out the last few scraps and knocked on the bottom and sides, looking for hidden compartments, but found none. They set the puzzle box aside and were left with a massive pile of documents, photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, charts, and other miscellaneous items that were small enough to be included, such as some antique coins and a few bits of jewellry. Sorting through the mess was very much a team effort, but it was Trowa who found the crucial glue that would bind all the other elements together.

"Take a look at this," he said, indicating a thick letter-sized envelope. "Dated two weeks ago."

"...I think we can safely assume that it's meant for us." Heero gave him a curt nod of consent. "Open it."

Trowa took a letter opener from Giorgenson's top desk drawer and sliced open the envelope, while the others all ceased their shuffling activity in tense anticipation. The envelope contained a folded letter several pages thick, and clearing his throat, Trowa located page one and began to read. "It's addressed to all of us, but mostly Duo. He says...'Well, kiddo, you found my buried treasure. I knew you could do it, even if it turns out you needed a little help. I don't know where I'll be by the time you read this, but it's more important that you share this with your friends. Don't worry about anything but that.'

"'It's time you all found out why. Not the half-why, or the three-quarter-why, but the whole why. Without even knowing it, you're all connected to Lord Jeffrhyss in one way or another, and you have been for a long time, but I've been in it up to my neck longer than all of you put together, so I guess that means I win. Or lose. Depends on how you look at it.'

"'This whole mess started long before you were born, back in the days of the Civil War in the United States. Jeffrhyss and I were reasonably good friends as young people, though we had some volatile differences in the politics and philosophy department. Against my better judgement and worse language, he went off to join the war and came back with three limbs missing. As you can imagine, he didn't so much return victorious as he hobbled home all bitter and twisted, inside and outside. I tried to resurrect the dregs of his humanity, but the Lincoln assassination was the proverbial last straw that snapped him in two.'

"'He became obsessed with cause and effect, and was angry at the world and fate and God and anything else you can name for destroying his life forever. Somehow, by the time that anger made its way through his mutilated sense of logic, it was bashed into a new shape, a will to control fate at any cost. Of course, fate doesn't like taking part in humanity's petty games, it has games of its own, so Jeffrhyss needed some human players to join his game and battle him for supremacy. I tell you, if I'd known then what I know now, I never would have said yes.'

"'A few years after the war, we started travelling together. Because I was something resembling his only friend, Jeffrhyss let me into the game automatically, but he needed more competition. He'd gotten devious and ruthless, and that got him a lot of money to burn in the business world, which he used to fund a global search for worthy participants with sufficient drive, cunning, and wealth. Out of thousands of potential candidates, he chose three to invite into the game, and not one of them declined. The five of us chose a neutral, centralized location far from any of our home countries but with solid connections to the world economy. From then on, our headquarters were in Belgium. We called ourselves The Cinq Association.'"

Quatre suddenly poked around in the papers in front of him. "I think I saw something with that.....here it is." He pulled out a large, fuzzy photograph and laid it on the table for everyone to lean over. It was a gathering of five young men on the steps of some white pillared building somewhere. The man in the middle was on crutches and had one sleeve partially sewn up. On either side of him were a dark-haired lad with a puffy face and a slight potbelly, a spiky-haired gloomy-puss with his nose still intact, a tall, broad, bald man with his arms crossed, and a goofy-faced fellow with mushroom-like hair, the only one who was smiling. It was a sad little band of misfits, but their appearances were of little consequence. The handwritten caption at the bottom of the photo read 'Cinq Association inaugural meeting, Brussels.' The date was blurred and illegible.

Duo nudged Heero with his elbow. "Ever been there?" he asked solemnly. He already knew, from talking to Giorgenson, that he had indeed been in Brussels as a very young child, but he wanted to see if Heero could remember.

"Not that I'm aware of," the butler said simply. He looked questioningly at Wufei, who shook his head.

Trowa turned over to another page of the letter and kept reading. "'The goal of the Cinq Association is remarkably simple. Be the one who makes the greatest impact. The five of us have always been in direct competition to see who had the most power over fate, and once a year, our accomplishments would be measured by a neutral sixth, who would declare a winner for that fiscal year. The game was highly driven by wealth, and for a long time, our accomplishments were primarily economic. Who could make the most money on the stock market, who could build the tallest building, frivolous endeavours like that. Each financial accomplishment would fund the next one, and so forth.'

"'For the first several years, we were refining the rules of the game as we went along. One thing we decided was that we didn't want any new people added to the group, but if one of us died, it would throw the game into chaos. Also, if anyone changed his mind and wanted to bail out, that too would upset the balance. For that reason, we wrote a lifetime membership clause into the rulebook, but not specific to our own lifetimes. I can just imagine the confused look on your little peach pixie face, so I'll explain.'

"'To prevent any early, chickenly exits, it was declared that the five of us would be untouchable while playing the game. No one member could make an attempt on the life of any other member, unless they tried to quit, at which time they'd be fair game, and whichever of the remaining four got there first could kill the defector and steal his assets, with no penalty from the group. On the other hand, Jeffrhyss was mindful of his health and wanted to toss in an escape clause in case he eventually decided to retire peacefully. In addition to the anti-chicken-out policy, we set out to choose a gauge of time, a vague, unpredictable date or event in the distant future after which anyone who wished to abandon the game would be theoretically free to do so.'

"'We needed something distinct that could barely be seen on the horizon but not specifically planned for. We considered natural disasters, changes in political boundaries, technological advances, all sorts of things. In the end, we decided on world leaders--some king, queen, president or prime minister with plenty of years left on the clock would be picked at random, and when that person either died or left power, the door would be briefly opened. The first name out of the hat was Queen Vic. In the beginning, none of us thought she'd last as long as she did. She just kept going and going and going...we got used to her always being there and we got complacent. Her death snuck up on all five of us, and we simply weren't expecting it to come when it did.'"

Heero propped his elbow on the desk and rested his chin in one hand. "I wonder if this has anything to do with why I was released early."

Trowa looked at the next line and smiled. "'I'll bet any money that Heero's sitting there, wondering if this has anything to do with why he was released early.'" Duo snickered and nudged Heero again. Trowa smiled at them both, then went back to the letter. "'Tell him to sit tight, I'm getting to that.'

"'While the actual event of Victoria's death was a bit of a surprise, we knew it was coming, and I'd already told them I wanted out, so it was obvious that they'd be down to four players eventually. Little or nothing of the Cinq Association is known among 99.9% of the civilized world, but we couldn't hide our existence from everyone. The very tip of the tippy-top of society knows we're around, and there would be no shortage of hopefuls waiting to take my place if I decided to bow out. I think you've all met one of the front-runners...his name is Treize Khushrenada.'" Trowa's voice cracked and stumbled over the familiar words, and a chorus of mumblings circled the desk.

"...unbelievable," Heero hissed, militantly leaning back and folding his arms, clearly insulted. "All that training, all those high expectations of trouncing a threat to international security...and my first mission was just a ploy to scope out the competition!"

"I didn't even get that much!" Wufei whined. "You wait until you get passed around like a stale fruitcake, then you can complain!"

"Settle down, both of you," said Quatre, who had scooted closer and was reading ahead over Trowa's shoulder. "This next part is important."

Trowa made brief eye contact with all concerned and cleared his throat again before continuing. "'The rules for new entrants are very specific, and since the club was founded on a basis of money, an entrant's finances are paramount. Anyone who wants to take my place must have fluid assets equal to the average wealth of the remaining four players.'"

"That's why he wanted Relena's gold so badly," Quatre concluded. "He needed the extra money to make his membership application!"

"But I thought he was rich already!" Duo exclaimed. "What about all those castles and stuff that he's supposed to own all over Europe? That's all any of us ever heard out of Relena before he showed up, how fabulously wealthy and important he was!"

"The rules say 'fluid assets'," Heero pointed out. "Maybe he couldn't liquidate enough of his property to come up with the cash."

Across the desk, Trowa made a distressed little noise, and his eyes bulged as he read several paragraphs ahead. Quatre put a hand on his shoulder instantly, alerted to his anxiety by less tangible clues, but there was no longer any room for comfort. Trowa looked up at Heero with a paralytic gaze. "It gets worse," he said, flipping over a page.

"'It stands to reason that no sane person would go to the trouble of constructing a massive international empire full of spies, assassins, slaves, and a multitude of hidden bases to keep them in, just for the sole purpose of financial gain. The reality is that the game stopped being all about money a long time ago. Jeffrhyss and the others grew tired of reporting simple numbers at the yearly meetings, and they sought out more concrete ways to outdo each other. It was then that the competition took a regrettable turn, as they became more and more destructive. They began measuring their achievements in terms of property damage, widespread fear, and massive loss of life. I am a witness, before you boys and before the highest law in the land, that our association, as a whole, has purposely orchestrated disasters worldwide, deliberately causing material and emotional hardship whenever possible, and recording deaths that number in the tens of thousands.'"

Everyone, even and especially Heero, was stunned. Duo swallowed and muttered something under his breath, looking down as he made the sign of the cross on his head and chest.

"'As the bar was raised more and more each year,'" Trowa continued, "'the scale of the destruction multiplied, and the body count grew. By then, I wanted out, but there was no escaping without forfeiting my own life, so I strove to play the game as badly as I could, registering pathetic 'feats' that at worst gave a few people nosebleeds or made them slightly late for work. I was also safe from being ousted until Queen Victoria died, much to Jeffrhyss' annoyance, and I took up teaching to give myself a sense of accomplishment outside the club. From the time of Her Majesty's funeral to the day that Edward was crowned, I had just enough time to settle my affairs and prepare to vanish, or prepare to be hit by sniper fire, whichever occurred first.'

"'This is the most important point of all, the one that has directly affected where you live and what you do more than any other factor. Treize wants in on the game, but Jeffrhyss strongly opposes his membership. He knows darn well that the Count is at least as devious and bloodthirsty as he is, and could probably beat him at the game several times over, but as much as Jeffrhyss seems to appreciate competition, he can't stand losing for long, and if Treize joins, he'll be in a distant second place until the day he dies.'

"'Out of the other three besides me, two would definitely vote Treize in, and one would be mostly inclined to vote alongside Jeffrhyss. Without my vote, Treize only has to buy off that one teetering member to gain entrance. You must not allow this to happen. Right now, Treize is relatively harmless because he has no one to show off in front of, but if he is allowed to join the Cinq Association, there will be no limits to his cruelty. I know I could have delayed all of this by not trying to leave the group to begin with, but Treize would have outlived me by many years in any case, so I'm leaving it up to you. Do whatever you have to, to prevent him from getting his foot in the door, but take care: Everyone in the club has a vast support structure, with a second-in-command, a council, and a private army. There's no reason not to believe that Treize has his own troops stashed somewhere in Europe, so if you kill him, expect retribution from his followers.'

"'I hate to burden you boys with this, I really do, but the unfortunate truth is that you were already involved and just didn't know it. Now it's up to you five to succeed where I failed miserably. Destroy Cinq before it does any more damage to the planet. Scatter them, and remove their power. If you can enter that storm and come out on the other side with your humanity intact, I'll always be proud to have known you.'" Trowa shakily put down the pages of the letter, and his voice weakened into a whisper. "That's all."

The mood was morbid. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, nothing whatsoever took place for several minutes while they all took in the demonic scope of the problem. Outside, a barking dog pierced the silence, but it went unnoticed. It was some time before Duo took it upon himself to lighten everyone up, leaning back with a forced breath and donning a thick Irish accent. "Jesus, Mary an' Joseph, if that don't put barberries in the buttermilk!" The others relaxed a bit and actually chuckled at his nonsensical interjection.

Heero laced his fingers together behind his head and exhaled tiredly. "Well...I guess we found what we were looking for. It makes a lot more sense now why Treize was so desperate to find out my master's name..."

"...so he'd know which one of the five was keeping tabs on him," Wufei finished. "I didn't know any of this...I wouldn't have tried to help them if I knew..."

"Neither of you can be blamed," Quatre said soothingly. "If anything, you should both be happy that you got out when you did, before you were forced to take part in something really horrible."

Trowa tapped his long fingers nervously on the desk. "So what do we do now?"

Heero stared at the photograph in deep thought. Five of them, five of us. Not too spooky, now, is it? "We do exactly as we've been asked, but quietly, and carefully. We use everything we've found here to formulate a long-term plan, and salvage anything else from this office that might be useful. On the outside, we carry on as normal. It's the safest way."

With a unanimous show of hands, they voted in favour of Heero's suggestion, then voted unanimously in favour of Duo's suggestion that they grab what they could and run, before campus security started breathing down their necks.

**********

Count Khushrenada needed a lot of brandies, courtesy of Lady Une, to pull himself together after his sound legal thrashing. That day, he had taken the carriage containing all of his local belongings and directed it straight across town, where he showed up on Lady Une's doorstep in a terribly forlorn state. Une, for her part, hadn't had a good romp around the bedchamber in some time, and readily welcomed him and his luggage with the understanding that all the guest rooms were 'being decorated' and there was really only one place where he could comfortably spend the night. If nothing else, that cheered Treize up in the short term.

In the long term, the Count was slowly and painfully regaining his determination to carry out his task; all that was missing was a way to do it. The Peacecraft gold was well out of reach. Other wealthy men were queueing up to take the place in the underworld which he believed was rightfully his. The people he most wanted to crush under his superior will were laughing at him, and the new dressing gown he ordered arrived two sizes too small. It was turning out to be a rotten month of August.

Frustrated, he wiled away the hours enjoying his hostess' hospitality, and on that particular evening, was lounging around in her lavish red room, so named for its obvious decorating theme. In passing, Lady Une took pity on him and slunk up behind his chair as he stared out the window at the high-class neighbourhood outside. Gathering up her costly lace and pearl dress, chosen for the way it beguiled Treize into treating her like an innocent lamb, she knelt beside the chair and leaned her head on his knee. "Isn't it amazing, how long it takes a bruised ego to heal?" she purred.

"It's not simply a question of ego, my darling...I had the perfect plan to get what I needed, and it was crushed at the last moment by fate." In a pause for reflection, Treize lifted his brandy glass for another swig with one hand, and stroked Une's soft, chocolate brown hair with the other. "But you've been a tremendous comfort, make no mistake."

Une looked up at him with a broad, snakelike smile and patted his knee with both hands. "Well, I'm sure everything will be on the upswing, now that you're in the right house."

Treize sighed and shook his head. "Your hospitality is truly heartwarming, but it won't get me any closer to my goal." His hand suddenly tightened around the glass, and his forked eyebrows pulled his entire forehead down towards his flame-ridden eyes. "I need money."

Une looked away coyly and ran her hand down Treize's leg to his slippered foot. "How much money?"

"I appreciate the thought, but I can't accept--"

"I mean, what if I knew where to find a large enough sum of money?"

Treize's gaze turned intense, and he leaned forward on the armrest. "Tell me that again, and talk slow."

Une giggled and looked up again. "I didn't want to bring it up since we were having such a lovely time forgetting all about your troubles, but suppose I knew where you could get enough money to fund your pet project and have plenty left over to treat me to a new diamond necklace?"

One of Treize's eyebrows twitched from overwhelming avarice. "Go on."

"Well...I happen to be acquainted with a young man who's eligible for a substantial inheritance...he just needs a little outside help getting it, that's all."

Like a sudden sandstorm blanketing the desert, Treize's optimism swelled and radiated out from his newly puffed-up chest. He stood and put the brandy glass down, then extended a hand to Lady Une, pulling her to her feet. "Why don't we discuss this somewhere more comfortable?" he suggested smoothly. "I suddenly feel a surge of positive energy coming on."

They vanished from conventional sight together, and would not be seen again for several hours.

**********

Late that night, Duo treated himself to a long, hot bath, longer than normal for him, and thoroughly eliminated every last trace of grime from his person. He found it odd but likable that he was so averse to the layers upon layers of dust and dirt he picked up in Giorgenson's office. In the past, he spent nearly all of his time at least fairly filthy, for life on the streets made simply being clean a frequently unattainable luxury. Now he was used to clothes that fit properly and didn't have holes in all the wrong places, hair that smelled nice and was soft instead of scraggly, and only having bits of pastry dough under his fingernails, instead of a month's worth of dirt. He liked it a lot.

When he had finished scrubbing, he stepped out of the claw-footed bathtub and wrinkled his nose at the colour of the water he left behind. It was a mercy that the family had gone out to a restaurant for dinner that night, unless they really would have liked a double helping of dust bunny soufflé. He dried himself off and wrapped himself in his latest mail-order acquisition, a fluffy white bathrobe from a specialty firm in Manchester. It was wonderfully thick and squishy, and even had the initials 'D.M.' embroidered on the front breast pocket. He reasoned that he had paid his dues several times over in life already, and deserved a little pampering.

Padding from the ensuite bath back into the bedroom, he expected to be alone, since Heero still had a day's worth of work to catch up on; it suited Duo fine, because he still needed to comb his hair out and rebraid it for the night. He sat cross-legged on the bed and began sorting out the strands with his fingers, but was suddenly surprised by Heero walking in and shutting the door behind him. "Hey! Thought you had stuff to do. Done already?"

Heero leaned against the door for a moment before running a hand through his hair and tugging at his tie. "Somehow polishing Royal Doulton figurines seems a little insignificant today."

Duo laughed. "I know what you mean." Without thinking much of it, he leaned over to his bedside table looking for a comb and immediately yelped in pain, grabbing at his lower back.

Heero walked right over, slipping off his jacket and draping it over the writing desk chair along the way. "Daijoubu?"

"Yeah, yeah, I just...dangit!" The chef grimaced and tiredly straightened up as far as he could. "I must've pulled every muscle I own in that stupid vent. My back feels like it's been walked on by every elephant in every zoo in a five hundred mile radius."

As Heero stood there watching Duo stretch an arm over his left shoulder and try vainly to get the pesky kinks out, a peculiar expression washed over his face, as he spotted a priceless opportunity. He rolled up his sleeves, slipped off his shoes, and helped himself to the empty spot on the bed right behind Duo, slapping his arm away. "Leave this to the professional."

At first, Duo tensed up defensively, not knowing what Heero had in mind. No explanation was given or needed, however, as Heero clamped both hands on the spots on either side of Duo's neck and pressed firmly into the white bathrobe with his thumbs, massaging his upper back. Duo squeaked, then slouched happily, as the stress of the day seemed to fly right out the open window. "Whoa...where's this coming from?"

Heero shrugged. "Just one more part of what I was trained to do." He suddenly found the luscious white fabric rather cumbersome, and tried to pull it down off Duo's shoulders. Duo inhaled nervously, wondering exactly where Heero intended to stop and remembering that he wasn't wearing a stitch underneath the robe. To a mixture of relief and disappointment, Duo realized that Heero only wanted to uncover his back; he pulled his arms out of the sleeves and quickly gathered all his hair across his chest, out of the way. Duo shivered all over and smiled as Heero's deft hands worked out every knot and soothed every ache. They had been close on the camping trip, but not quite this close.

"Mmm.....what sort of rating did Frenchy give this massage?" Duo asked, referring to the touchy subject of the practice girl from Heero's training days.

Heero smirked. "Five stars," he said proudly.

"And to think, people all over are spending good money for health spas and nature retreats. I'm getting both at a bargain price!" They both laughed a little, but Duo soon forgot where and when he was, completely lost in warmth and pressure. There was only the slightest nagging worry in the back of his brain that had been asking the same questions for the past several weeks, such as what exactly had triggered such a dramatic change in Heero's behaviour. Duo knew something about him was very different lately, but he didn't have the courage to ask the reasons in case the extra attention and affection suddenly stopped as a result. Still, he was awfully curious, and decided to slowly approach the subject from an oblique angle. "You seem...a lot more relaxed than you were a year ago. What's your secret?"

"I'm more at peace with my past, for a start," Heero offered easily. "Maybe my perspective has changed from living here, and maybe I do hate Jeffrhyss for his teaching methods, and the purposes for which I was being taught..." He leaned a little closer to Duo's ear, stopping just short of a kiss. "...but I like what I've learned." His hands gradually moved down and began manipulating Duo's lower back, to a continued chorus of appreciative little moans.

"That's awfully philosophical of you, 'specially considering what we heard today."

"I suppose I could turn bitter and resentful over being a pawn in a juvenile contest of wills," Heero thought out loud, "but I've gained a great deal in the process. Right now, I know ten times what ordinary people learn their entire lives. I've come to think of it as severance pay."

Duo hummed cheerily. It didn't quite answer his question, but to be honest, he didn't quite ask it. Soon, he had forgotten what the question was altogether, and instead let his eyes glaze over as his hand drifted to an object that had tagged along all the way from Oxford, clinging to his clothes--a bright blue feather. It was lying innocently on the bed, and had probably wafted over when he undressed for his bath. Duo picked it up and covertly ran it over his closed lips, encouraging the added sensations to mingle with those of Heero's exquisitely-crafted back rub. The hands of iron that had saved him from the grungy abyss were not incapable of becoming sweetly soft to the touch, and that was what Duo loved about them. He became quickly intoxicated, the heavy revelations all catching up with him and dragging his eyelids down, until he fell asleep, peacefully leaning back against Heero's chest and wrapped securely in his arms.


~~~~~~~~~~

Next, in Episode Fifty-Eight: Treize and Lady Une make an announcement that sends Dorothy and Relena both reeling, but for different reasons, and Quatre is pressured for classified information by an unlikely party.

I know, I know, I'm delinquent in the historical notes again...I promise I'll get caught up, I will I will I will! =^o^= You know how it is, work, family, stuff...eh, whatever. So! *DUN DUN DUN* The plot sickens, as my old boyfriend would say. It took me eighteen months to come up with that. Hope it's cool enough. =^_~= Don't worry, though, there's more on the horizon! Next episode will be out on August 30th. I know that seems like a long time, but I'm gonna be tied up for this whole weekend coming up and won't be able to get any writing done. You've waited that long before, you know you have! *lol*