Disclaimer: These characters are used and abused without permission. But they enjoy it. =^_~=
~~~~~~~~~~Episode Eighty-Five: Spiderwebs
"Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue." ~Seneca, "Hercules Furens"June 23rd, 1903
Beginning one day after Byron signed the berserker order, a lone messenger carried the one-page document from point 'A' to point 'B' within an undisclosed location. At the destination point, the document was passed into the hands of two operatives, each of whom copied the message and passed it on to two more operatives each. These four also copied it, and sent it to another two people each, and so on down the line. Within hours, the Isle of Wight was saturated with the information, and the message pushed against the English Channel, bursting for release onto the mainland.
**********Hesitantly, a slender, manicured hand reached up and yanked once on the weathered iron ring attached to a chain beside the massive front doors. Some hollow, booming chimes sounded from somewhere inside the building, and the owner of the hand stepped back. Yasmeen stood next to her sisters on the front step of Sutherby Mansion, where they had been told to meet Relena if they wanted to take her up on her offer. Weeks of hot-headed deliberation had been expended on the subject, until they finally had to begrudgingly agree that it was the best thing they could do for the rest of their family. Perhaps it was the news that Nadia, their oldest sister and only mother figure, was unaccounted for that pushed them over the edge. Learning to combat large pockets of evil as a team was the only readily available way to help their loved ones.
The twins had to stay behind at the pub, owing to Catherine's new law about not all taking a sick day at the same time and leaving her in the lurch, but Hessa, Adeela, and Kamal were there on the doorstep, ready to give Yasmeen all the support she needed while being interviewed by their prospective second employer. While they were waiting for someone to come to the door, Hessa twitched and rubbed one bare arm with her opposite hand. "Are we doing the right thing?"
Yasmeen sighed nervously. "It's a little late for that, don't you think?" She fiddled with the sleeve of her uncomfortable English-style dress, a light peach concoction with a faint check pattern in pink and green. They were all wearing locally-made sundresses, trying not to draw attention to themselves by wearing their own clothes, and fidgeted as a group in the hot, stuffy layers of cotton and twill. Hessa had made some alterations to her spring green dress, widening the neckline and ripping off the sleeves, just so she could move without sweltering. On their way to Southampton, three different police officers wrote her a citation for indecent exposure, but the papers all just ended up in different dustbins along the route.
"Of course we're doing the right thing," said Kamal, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself most of all. "Besides...if Quatre had any objection to it, he would have said so by now...right?" She looked shiftily from one sibling to the next, and her gaze landed on Hessa. "You asked him if it was alright, didn't you?"
Hessa blinked, wide-eyed, and shrank away. "I thought...I thought it was best if it came from Yasmeen, since she's older..."
They both looked at Yasmeen, who blinked and retreated an inch the same way Hessa did. "Well...I didn't want it to sound like an order, so...I thought Adeela should ask him. He's a sucker for her smile, after all..."
The three of them looked at Adeela, who was busy twirling a lock of deep brown hair around her finger. She stopped and blinked in a similar fashion. "I was too frightened to ask! I mean, what if he'd said no? He would have had that awful disappointed look on his face, and you all know I hate that look!" Adeela stared back at them, then thrust her arms down at her sides, pouting. "I told the twins to ask him!"
Yasmeen's head fell forward as she sighed from under her wide-brimmed straw hat. Neither Nashida nor Asalah had mentioned anything about talking to Quatre about their job offer from Relena, which means they had probably chickened out as well. "So...he has no idea where we are, or what we're doing," she concluded, glaring at her sisters. The other three hung their heads in shame.
There was no time to debate it further, because at that moment, the door was opened by an elderly man in a long-tailed coat and white gloves. He glanced politely at them from under his bushy grey eyebrows, standing very straight with his toes pointed out to the sides. "May I help you?" he asked genially.
The girls all quivered and looked at each other, until Yasmeen stepped forward. "We've come to see Miss Peacecraft."
The gray-haired man stepped aside and waved them all into the foyer. "Shall I announce you?"
Yasmeen thought about that as the four of them filed in and started ogling at the massively opulent foyer, lined from top to bottom with marble, gilding, red carpet up and down the stairs, and elegant statuettes of doves and cherubs in every niche. Their jaws all dropped in unison, and the elder sister was still staring up at the brand new fresco ceiling as she struggled for a response. "We...uh.....could you just tell her...that the young ladies from the pub are here? She'll know who we are..."
"Very good, Madam," said the elderly man, and he waved them a little further into the mansion. "If you would care to follow me to the lounge..."
The quartet followed the kind old gentleman some distance into the opulent edifice, their heads constantly swivelling around to take in the splendid sight. The exterior of the house appeared hundreds of years old, but the interior, or at least what they could see of it, looked brand new. The girls had gotten used to the fading Victorian styles, but all traces of it were being erased in favour of fresh, boldly coloured wallpaper, peacock motifs, stained glass, and sleek crown mouldings that blazed a totally new trail in home decorating. Dazzling hues of blue, green, and gold contrasted against the red plush carpet and the swirling gray marble floor, and when they got to the lounge, the finery didn't stop there. A small army of new furnishings, deep chestnut with forest green velvet padding, sat strewn about in the oval room, and many fascinating works of art hung on the curved walls, each one lit with its own tiny electric lamp. The old butler left the door to the lounge open while he went to fetch Miss Relena, and the girls spread out in all directions, cooing and gaping at their new surroundings.
"This is almost as nice as Father's winter palace!" Hessa breathed in awe. "I didn't know there were such lovely homes in England!"
"Imagine what we could earn working for this family instead of Miss Catherine!" Kamal added with enthusiasm.
"This isn't about money," Yasmeen reminded them, gently but firmly, removing her straw hat. "We're here to help our family...in a roundabout sort of way, and I expect you all to focus on the goal at hand, understood?"
Eventually, they all nodded, but it was difficult to agree in their hearts. The pure luxury of the place enthralled them, so much that they lost some of their conscious awareness of what was beyond the door. Even Yasmeen failed to hear the faint, padded footsteps approaching from down the hall. Someone light with slippered feet was creeping closer, desperate to eavesdrop on the girls before meeting them formally. It was Relena, crossing the new creak-proof marble floor in her softest shoes, anxious to gain the upper hand before starting the negotiations. When Pegan delivered his message, she calmly instructed him to keep any stray workmen away from the lounge so she could talk to the girls in total privacy, but a little voice told her that she wasn't ready to do that until she was certain she had a tactical advantage. Getting that required a little shrewdness and a lot of luck, in case they revealed something to each other that they wouldn't ordinarily say to her. They were all dangerous to a degree, Relena had proof of that, so having something to hold over their heads would be a good piece of insurance to make certain they didn't turn on her after signing the deal.
Back in the lounge, Kamal flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and ran a hand admiringly along the curved back of a French style sofa. "But wouldn't it be nice to be taken on full-time and get to live here instead? After everything we've been through, don't we deserve to live someplace that's as beautiful as home?"
"I certainly wouldn't mind having more room to spread out my plants," Hessa chimed in quietly. "My calendula have been trying to sprout in those tiny terracotta pots for weeks, and they just don't have enough room to grow!"
Yasmeen frowned and turned away, keeping close to the door with her arms folded and her hat dangling from one hand. Some hidden instinct was telling her that something was afoot not too far away, but most of its message was being drowned out by the whining of her siblings. Taking pity on her doleful expression, Adeela whisked over and rubbed both her arms, trying to cheer her up. "Don't look so worried! I'm sure once we explain ourselves to Quatre, he'll see that we did this with the best possible motives in mind."
Outside, Relena stopped breathing. What did she say?? What was that!?
"Either that, or he'll hit the roof," Hessa added in a concerned tone.
Kamal folded her arms over her badly tailored grey frock and pouted. "Why should we have to seek his approval anyway? He's our younger brother. I could understand all the fuss if he was older..."
...brother? ... Relena flattened herself against the outside wall. It's not possible...he told me he had no living relatives...but.....how many Quatre's can there be?
"He's the oldest man in our family now," Yasmeen declared. "If we were all back home, he would have more decision-making power than even Nadia's husband, because he only married into the family."
"Surely you don't believe in all those ancient rules!" Adeela shot back, picking distastefully at her boring white dress.
"Some of us still believe in tradition, if that's what you're implying," snorted the elder sister. "You shouldn't be so disrespectful of tradition. How do you think Father became so wealthy if not by following the path set out by his ancestors?"
Hessa joined the two and tried to pull Adeela away gently by the arm. "She's right, you know...would we have all those fine palaces and servants and treasure houses if he hadn't played by the rules? God found favour with him for the way he did business with his neighbours, and those 'ancient rules' are to be thanked."
"We don't have the family fortune anymore," Kamal snapped from the corner. "We are reduced to living off of crumbs and doing odd jobs for peasants! Blasted, filthy contest..."
Relena was having quite a time piecing the bits together, but as near as she could figure, not only was Quatre lying about his family ties, but it also sounded as if he was quite potentially loaded. Palaces. Servants. Treasure houses. Roots that went back for hundreds of years, and millions of pounds in gold, perhaps. Come to think of it, she didn't know very much about him at all. The whole manner in which he showed up at the doorstep looking for work was dreadfully mysterious, but she was too young to think much of it at the time, and when her own father passed away...
"Now, we agreed, there's no point in complaining about it if we're not going to change it, and we're here to start changing everything," Yasmeen snapped curtly. "Anyway...I feel I have to make up the difference for your behaviour."
Adeela's jaw dropped in offense, and she perched her hands on her hips tartly. "What about it?"
"Well, for a start, you knew that Father didn't approve of your dancing! You deliberately learned it just to punish him for trying to arrange a perfectly sound marriage for you!"
"Perfectly sound marriage!? To a shopkeeper with a limp!?"
When the conversation deteriorated into bickering, Relena slipped away, to the very back of the hall, and put her hard-soled shoes back on.
"He doesn't own one shop, he owns a whole village full of shops! He's already a millionaire!"
"You tell us that we're not here for the money, but in the back of your mind, that's the only important thing to you, isn't it!? I don't want to marry some ugly lump just because he has money!"
"You don't know how lucky you are, sometimes! If Father were here right now, he'd--" Yasmeen froze in mid-rant when she heard a set of sharp, clonking footfalls coming down the passageway. Unfortunately, it was the first noticeable sign to the girls that anyone except themselves and the butler were within walking distance. They all went silent, unaware that it was much too late, and primped a little in the seconds until the fair-haired lady of the house sauntered into the lounge.
Relena swept through the doorway, primed for deception. She smiled simply. "It's so good to see all of you again. May I take this to mean that you're seriously considering my offer?"
"We've actually come to get some further details on this...'offer'," Yasmeen opened, acting as spokeswoman for the group. "After discussing the matter at length, we have unanimously decided that we need some more information, to help us decide. I'm sure you understand that to blindly jump into something of this magnitude would be very foolish."
Unfazed, Relena kept right on smiling. "Of course. Sit down." She waved them to whatever luxurious furnishings upon which they wished to sit, but remained standing herself for a moment. "Tea?"
Yasmeen looked at the others, and saw glimpses of the affirmative on their faces. Tea cured everything. "Yes, thank you."
Relena went to the door and pulled the great golden rope hanging next to the sculpted wooden doorframe, to ring for Pegan, but no audible sound issued forth. In such a vast house, one never heard the bells one rang from time to time. "I completely understand your reservations...but I hope you also understand that I can't give away everything I know until you're fully committed." She took a seat on a plush settee just opposite them, scattered on three different pieces of a matching suite, and folded her hands in her lap as she composed her speech one phrase at a time. "What I can tell you is that I can provide a much more noble goal for you than hiring yourselves out as bounty hunters and such. You have some impressive talents, so I'm sure you'd find no shortage of employment in such a city of mystery as London...but I think I can do better for you all." Relena leaned forward, clasping her hands together and slouching over her knees in a very unladylike way, but it communicated the intensity of the topic at hand. "How would you like to be a tidal force of change in the great ocean of history?"
"Everyone wants to leave their mark on the world, in some way," said Yasmeen. "How we do it is what history will remember us for."
Relena looked away for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "My brother has become aware of a.....a secret society...more powerful than all the law enforcement agencies of the world put together, and able to elude them all. They orchestrate events of mass destruction and chaos as a kind of competition, trying to one-up each other by causing more and more grief to the civilian population. They have a position available right this minute, and my brother wants to infiltrate them on behalf of an interested third party, but so many people are vying for that one empty chair that the entrance requirements are very high. He must to be able to show his strength in order to be considered, but he has no private army, or anyone who will take orders from him without question." Straightening up again, she paused to let the full impact of her proposition soak in. "We lead very simple lives here...we don't want to be a bother to anybody, but at the same time, my brother and his anonymous director can't sit by and watch these criminals destroy the fabric of society."
At that time, beautifully timed, the elderly butler arrived with a substantial tray of silver, tea service for five with a few biscuits on the side. He poured out for each one of the girls, purposely not noticing their various expressions of fear, worry, and indecision, just as a good servant was meant to do. He left the tray on the coffee table between them and excused himself graciously, bringing an end to the sweet interlude of normalcy. While the others slowly sipped, Yasmeen stared down at her tea, but somehow couldn't get enthused about it. "To be allowed to join these men...your brother must actively participate in their illegal activities? And for that, he needs us?"
"He needs experienced fighters he can trust...people who can see past the immediate unpleasantness to a time when we can put these people out of business, once and for all." Relena finished her tea surprisingly fast, then got up and set her empty cup and saucer on the silver platter. "I won't ask you to decide right away. Please make my home yours while you think about it." She left as quickly as she had come, her clomping thick-heeled shoes fading away down the hall, until they were hushed completely.
The sisters all stared at each other. Their whole reason for the journey was to gain more insight into the Peacecraft family's dealings, and now, they wished they had just left it alone.
**********If the middle class had some research to do, they went to the library at which they had previously purchased a membership. If the lower class had some research to do, they tagged along with someone generous and easily swayed by sad puppy dog eyes, like Sally, and leeched off of her membership. That was how Heero's team came to be scattered throughout the non-fiction stacks and periodicals of one particular small-but-friendly library, scouring the base of modern knowledge for anything that could help them pester Cinq.
Sally left them to their own devices for awhile so she could browse the romantic fiction in secret. In the meantime, Heero was hard at work searching a tall pile of books for a subject he knew of but couldn't put a name to. He was at the middle of a long hazelnut reading table in the study area, thumbing through encyclopaedias, hoping to find the thing he could only vaguely describe in his mind. Trowa was a few paces down the same table, trying to expand his knowledge of English in his semi-literate way by looking at a book of maps. What little reading ability he had came from years of sneaking peeks at the captain's navigational charts while he was aboard ship. He was just plowing through a Biblical map of the Middle East, sounding out the place names as best he could under his breath, when Heero unexpectedly slammed a palm down onto the open book before him, making several strangers jump. "Got it!" he rasped.
After recovering his balance, Trowa got up and walked over, fending off evil glared from the other disturbed patrons. "That ought to be the last time you ever do that," he whispered.
Heero ignored him. "I found it."
"Found what?"
"I've been looking ages for this," he answered, pointing down at the encyclopaedia article. It was marked in particular by a large grouping of dots and dashes, arranged in a table. "Morse Code. It's what they use to transmit telegrams and such. I've always known what it sounded like, but never what it was called or how it worked."
Trowa looked puzzled. "How can that help us?"
"Some of Jeffrhyss' agents use this or something quite like it to communicate amongst themselves. It was mostly used by the older, higher-ranking operatives during training exercises...no matter how much I learned, it was always wise of them to have an alternate form of communication that I was unable to interpret. If one of us learns this system, it could pay for itself a thousand times over."
"But if this is common knowledge, trying to send messages back and forth between us would be pointless."
"We don't need to send our own messages for it to be worthwhile, we just have to intercept someone else's."
Slowly, it started to make sense, and Trowa nodded with his hands in his pockets. "Who did you have in mind to learn it?"
That, Heero hadn't gotten around to considering yet, having only just cornered his quarry in the 'M' encyclopaedia. He was already placing a great strain on his team, what with combat training, extended lessons in eavesdropping and lying in a believable manner, and even drills on memorizing the squeaky spots in any wooden floor in order to avoid stepping on them a second time, so the choice of who to foist this new task on was a difficult one. It also required someone with very strong skills of hearing, concentration, and rapid translation from sterile symbols to measurable linguistic concepts. It wasn't for the weak-minded.
Just then, as Heero was thickly mired in the decision-making process, a faint, familiar voice drifted to the table from clear across the room, and two pairs of footsteps accompanied it. At least twenty paces away, there was a staircase leading down to the ground floor, and a bobbing brunette head in a little flowered hat came into view. Hilde was marching steadily up the stairs, gazing straight ahead, and then all around as she got high enough over the second floor landing to see the stacks. She was muttering something, and was also followed by a little old lady with gray curls, shaky hands, and another little flowered hat, toddling on behind her in a dark gray dress and a lacy shawl. The old dear's wrinkled face was set on watching Hilde intently, for reasons that were not yet clear.
As Hilde passed the study table without saying hello to the boys, they at least got a chance to listen to her quiet mutterings. "...up the stairs, to the left, third from the end, 590 J13.....up the stairs, to the left, third from the end, 590 J13.....up the stairs..." She made a sharp turn at the table, heading for the bookshelves at the far end of the second floor, with the little old lady hot on her heels. She kept on muttering, taking directions off as they were followed, until she got to the shelves and skimmed an eye over the spines of all the books, finally reaching up to grab the one matching the number in her head. She smiled and handed it over to the elderly woman. "Here you go!"
The old dear smiled broadly and took the thick volume, a dissertation on birds of Great Britain and Ireland, and cradled it lovingly. "Oh, thank you, ever so much," she said in a most proper English. "The gentlemen at the desk always give me the same directions, but I can never remember them, and my hands are too shaky to write them down. I really cannot thank you enough."
"It was no trouble," Hilde chirped pleasantly, pointing to the side of her head with a sneaky squint. "I've got a mind like a steel trap, I have."
As the women said their goodbyes and parted company, Heero and Trowa smirked at each other. Heero then got up and sauntered over to the bookshelf where the girl was still busy feeling proud of herself for doing her good deed for the day. "That was very impressive," he commented. "Did Duo teach you to read numbers?"
"Oh, no, I've known how to do that for years," Hilde replied. "Doesn't get much use, though, not while I'm dusting and sweeping. I had to know my coins a little bit when I used to sell flowers in the train stations, to keep from short-changing myself."
Thinking rapidly, Heero took Hilde's hand and led her back to the study table, putting her in his chair right in front of the encyclopaedia. "What about this?" he asked, pointing down at the page where the letters 'A' through 'Z' were listed opposite their respective dots and dashes. "Do you know your alphabet?"
"Actually...I know it better in German..." Upon looking up and seeing the bewildered look on Heero's face, she laughed and explained. "My cousin Gudrun lives on a farm in Niedersachsen. Whenever I was really down on my luck, I used to get a friend with a fishing boat to smuggle me across the channel, and then I'd hitchhike the rest of the way and spend a few weeks with her family. Gudrun taught me all my letters and numbers so I'd have an edge over the other street girls. She offered to let me live there permanently, but I'd've missed the city too much..."
Heero scratched his head, wondering if his idea would work after all. "Um..."
"No, really! Allow me to demonstrate..." With a flourish, Hilde stuck a finger underneath the first letter, and dragged it down, reciting the name of each one in her semi-native Deutsche. Heero glanced dubiously up at Trowa, who folded his arms and grinned, trying not to laugh. "...'ess, tay, ooh, fow, vay, icks, oepsilon, tset'," she finished, quite proud of herself. "Of course, that's not counting umlauts, but I don't see any here, anyway..."
"...can you read German?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no, I just know my letters and numbers, that's all."
Inside, Heero chuckled a bit. It would probably be enough. "Do you think you could memorize these codes and associate them with their respective letters without looking at the book?" he asked, pointing down to the grouping of dots and dashes again.
Hilde looked it all over carefully, then nodded with a shrug. "I don't see why not..." She pored over the page as Heero pulled up a second chair to go over it with her, and copy it out into his little notebook, which was dangerously close to being full. All was quiet for awhile, and in the lull, Heero looked out across the central column of staircases leading both up and down, and saw Wufei, who hadn't moved since he got there. The sullen lad was peering out a window at the street below, and resisted all attempts to involve him in the search for new tactics. He used the excuse that he could think better when left alone, but Heero wasn't fooled. He was beginning to notice that something wasn't quite right with the boy, a theory that decried his apparent enthusiasm for having a fresh set of goals to reach for. Perhaps it was all an act, but at the moment, Heero couldn't prove anything, and had to settle for a dim hope that he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize their new mission.
Minutes later, even in the commonly agreed-upon silence that was supposed to be upheld in the library, a ruckus developed in the periodicals section. Off in the distance, in a veritable forest of newsprint, Duo and Quatre were having a wordless argument, shaking newspapers at each other and making very curious gestures. Duo finally pointed across the room at Heero as if to say, 'Alright, wise guy, let him decide!', and they both took off like a shot toward the table.
Heero saw them coming and gave them a pre-accusatory glare that said they had better not disturb the peace. The boys behaved themselves, but only just. Duo was the first to whisper out his harsh message, opening his newspaper to the appropriate page and holding it up as a placard for his cause. "Wouldn't you rather have a sure thing than a vague possibility that might never happen anyway!?"
"No, he wouldn't!" Quatre counter-whispered, displaying his own paper in a similar fashion. "He'd rather be on the cutting edge of technology! Anybody can see that!"
Heero shook his head in bewilderment, then looked more carefully at the items they held. Each had an article and an accompanying photograph, one of some automobiles, and one of a flying machine that, according to the banner line, 'almost' flew. They were both in American newspapers, and both went back several months; they must have taken a great deal of effort to find, so he wanted to give each item equal consideration, if he could only figure out what he was supposed to be considering. "What am I looking at?"
"Okay," Quatre began sharply. "Besides all being persons of relatively low importance and being easy to miss from the common bystander's point of view, we need a concrete advantage over Cinq, and Jeffrhyss in particular. We need something he doesn't have, but wants very badly, and who wouldn't want their very own flying machine?" He held up his newspaper a little higher to give Heero a better view of the main attraction, a piece about a pair of brothers by the name of Wright who, while still unsuccessful, had come closer than anyone to mastering the science of flight. Their latest craft, a glider with no engine, was pictured with a brother on either side, and the writer went on to say, among other things, that they were at least making the best attempts known to man.
Duo scoffed before Heero even finished skimming the article. "Nah, scrap that, they could be years away from finding a model that works. This is something that works right now!" He shoved his own find in front of Quatre's. There was a horseless carriage in this picture, a ramshackle-looking jalopy surrounded by men in long duster coats, two of whom were holding up a kind of crystal punch bowl as some sort of trophy. The automobile, owned and driven to victory by a fellow named Ford, had apparently won a race against another vehicle with three times the power, relying on superior design to carry it through to the end. Duo slapped the photo proudly with the back of his hand. "Two cylinders, lightweight frame, and more than five hundred cubic inches pumping out 26 horsepower with porcelain-insulated sparking coils, unofficially clocked at over seventy miles per hour! This thing could outrun Winifred!"
Heero's face became very drawn-out, particularly his eyes. "...Winifred?"
"Giorgenson's motorcar," said a strawberry blonde as she returned from scouting another section of the library for entertaining reads. Sally tapped Heero on the shoulder as she walked behind him, picking the conversation right up as she rejoined the group. "It's his baby."
Seeing the glare of disbelief on Heero's face, Duo decided to drop that part of the presentation and move on. "Never mind the name, it doesn't matter. We can name ours something better, or not name it at all. Point is, we need one of these."
"No we don't," Quatre said haughtily. "It's just a toy that will break the first time it sees a rocky hill. How are you going to drive it places where there aren't any roads? We need one of these!"
"But how long are you prepared to wait until that thing gets off the ground!? We could have a motorcar now, and soup it up just like Winifred! We could break the land speed record! And the first time we take it out on a mission, we'll have the getaway vehicle every bank robber dreams of!"
"How many other horseless carriage producers are there in the world? The one in that picture could be obsolete tomorrow, for all you know, and then you'll be chasing after the next model, and the next model, while a flying machine will stay at a consistent level of performance no matter how old it gets! It's a matter of physics and economics!"
"Aw, baloney!"
"That's enough," Heero demanded at half volume and triple intensity. People were starting to stare. "Aside from being out of our price range and on the wrong continent, they're both very good ideas...I just don't know whether either one is feasible for us right now."
"Maybe we should vote on it?" Hilde suggested.
"I'll bet it's a tie, right down the middle," Trowa snarked, nodding his head in the direction of the windows, where Wufei was still staring, oblivious. "Unless someone drags him back from fairyland..."
Nobody made a move towards Wufei. Sally sighed heavily. "Alright, my turn...but you all owe me." She huffed and stalked away, intent on dragging the boy back by the ponytail if necessary, so they could have a proper vote on the matter.
While there was a lull in the action, Hilde got up, grabbed Duo by the braid, and yanked him over to a secluded area between the ancient history and sociology stacks. She grinned at him expectantly. "So?"
Duo rubbed the sore spot along the hairline at the back of his neck and shrugged. "So?"
"So...don't you have anything you wanna tell me today?"
"Like what?"
She elbowed him sharply and looked out at the study table. Heero was listening to Quatre's argument, nodding occasionally. "Like how you two are getting along?"
Duo shook his head, grinning back. "Ohhh, no, you've gotten all you're gonna get out of me for awhile."
"But why!? You know I won't tell! C'mon...just gimmie a little tidbit to tide me over! He wasn't really mad at you just then, was he?"
"Nooo, he just..." Wondering exactly which shade of red he was turning, Duo stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels once or twice. "Alright, don't breathe a word to anyone, but...as soon as he finds some steady work, we're going to look for an apartment somewhere."
Hilde's jaw dropped. Even though the publicity had dropped off quickly, it seemed a little soon after his gross indecency trial to be taking up joint residence with another young man in full view of the public. "You can do that?"
"Friends share living space all the time in this city, it's the only way some of them can afford to live. Nobody's gonna suspect anything if we're careful, and mess both bedrooms up equally..."
They chuckled in unison, then noticed that Sally had been successful in persuading Wufei to rejoin the group, if only for a few minutes. Hilde sighed. "...oh, rats...it's back to work, isn't it?"
"Looks like."
"Can I visit you guys in your new place?"
"Visit?" Duo crowed with confidence. "I'm counting on you to decorate!" They laughed again, heading back to the study table, where the assembly waited patiently. There was some chatter about automobiles and flying machines, and while everyone seemed occupied, Duo looked up from the tabletop and met Heero's eyes silently. No one but Hilde noticed them staring at each other. As a hazy cloud enveloped them, blotting out their surroundings, Heero reached up with one hand and grasped the inner edge of his jacket lapel, stroking it luxuriantly, running his thumb up and down the taut black fabric as if it were velvet. Seeing the gesture, Duo answered by catching the end of his braid and entangling his fingers among the chocolate strands poking out from the black scrap of cloth he tied it with, also in a gentle, soothing stroking motion. These tiny, benign actions, while completely innocuous to everyone else, crushed a whirlwind of affection into secret little signals that could be passed across a room as easily as a paper dart without arousing any suspicion whatsoever. They had good reason not to be afraid of the law, for they had sat down together for hours at a stretch, hammering out a plan to keep their coupling a profound mystery, while still reassuring each other whenever and wherever they liked. It was the best of both worlds, in a strange way.
Grounding himself once again, Heero put his hands back on the table where they belonged, called his team to order, and started doling out instructions. The switch was so easily made that he barely had to think about it. "Now, we've had it suggested that we could make decent use of some regular transportation, something reliable that doesn't require a lot of upkeep, like horses. These are the options we're looking into, and I'm going to hand out research assignments to you all to help the group determine whether either one of these is viable..."
**********For someone who kept getting violent shocks to the brain every few weeks, Relena was taking things remarkably well. After everything else she had been through, the idea that Quatre might be a prince disguised as a pauper, heir apparent to one of the most desirable fortunes in the known world, didn't seem that outlandish. It was just another unexpected turn, even though she wasn't one hundred percent convinced that it was true. If it wasn't, the boy's name was more common than she realized. If it was...it put a lot of things into perspective, not the least of which was the surprise kiss he unleashed on her back at the manor.
She thought about it while she roamed the halls on the opposite side of the mansion from where she left the sisters deliberating. Perhaps Quatre had always had a little flame burning for her, and if he was more than a simple hired hand, perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing. Perhaps even a tenth of his net worth would be enough to propel her brother's cause a significant distance; the Cinq selection committee would look at their revised financial bottom line and faint dead away. Perhaps if Quatre did inherit such wealth someday, he might be inclined to share it with someone very close to him, like a potential wife, if it was for the greater good. Perhaps, she even thought at the very depths of her depraved sense of duty towards the safety of the world, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing to marry him, funnel the money into their Cinq operations, and become more powerful than the other four members put together. Perhaps it would work.
Marcus was a problem. He was such a sweet boy, well-intentioned and with a marvellous pedigree, but perhaps he would understand. Relena was beginning to see why so many kings and queens in history had official mates as well as mistresses and secret lovers on the side.
She stopped walking and scrunched up her eyes. ...what am I thinking? It may not even be the same person, and if it is, it's a lot to gamble on the strength of just one kiss... Every time a piece was added to the puzzle, the picture became more difficult to discern. Confusion was her closest friend.
It was a mercy that she didn't consider any of these points out loud, for as she continued walking a few paces, she saw a slight figure in white with flowing dark hair down the hall, and believed it to be the youngest of her four guests. She was wandering around with her head down, wanting to scuff her feet against the floor but restraining herself out of respect for the fine marble. Smiling almost maternally, Relena walked up to her as she studied the bronze bust of some famous figure of music on a Greek pedestal, disinterestedly. "Bored?"
Adeela sighed and looked up at the blonde girl, who stood a full half-head taller than she. "I'm the second-youngest of the whole family, and they want me to grow up right away. They just can't see how boring they all get when they're acting like adults."
"I understand," said Relena, smiling wider out of sympathy. "When my father died, people expected me to be a proper lady right away, 'stiff upper lip' and all that other stupid, meaningless advice. It didn't help, though."
"You lost your father too?" the brunette sighed. She shook her head guiltily, thinking back to the days when their clan was reasonably happy and peaceful. "...I constantly did things to make him angry on purpose, but I never hated him. He probably died thinking I did, and now it's too late to fix it."
Now, while the girl was emotionally vulnerable, intellectually susceptible, and just plain out of it, now was the time for deception. "Do you know who was the biggest comfort to me after Father passed away?" Relena asked, sweetly and rhetorically. "Quatre."
Adeela's eyes lit up with wonder. "You know him?"
"...he was at my side constantly. I don't know how I would have gotten through it without him. He genuinely cares about people and only wants what's best for them." The next part of the lie was crucial. Relena focused every minute scrap of her energy on putting the right face on it, proof that she had learned from her experiences with Heero, after all. "That's why when I told him about the opportunity I was about to offer you girls, he thought it was an excellent idea."
"He already knows!?" the brunette gasped.
"Yes, but he didn't want me to tell you he approves, because he thinks you ought to learn to make decisions without him."
"...of course...that makes so much sense!" Adeela placed her hands over her heart, closed her eyes, and smiled. "He is a kind soul, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is," said Relena, putting an arm around the girl's shoulders and walking her slowly back towards the lounge. "He's so warm-hearted that sometimes I think he desperately wants to talk about his troubles, but can't bring himself to, because it must seem selfish to him." Still composing lies on the fly, her auditory memory shot back to one of the other sisters complaining about some impediment to accessing what was rightfully theirs...some sort of contest. "Like this contest involving your family fortune...he's greatly troubled by it, and I don't know what I can do to help him."
"I know, it's awful, isn't it? Our family used to be enormous, but now so many of them have died trying to win the tontine...there are hardly any of us left, now."
A tontine...I know I've heard that word before...I'll have to look it up first chance I get. Relena clucked her tongue in false dismay. "It's so sad...I can't imagine any family breaking up over something as cold as money. It seems very petty."
"To a rich Englishwoman like you, I suppose it must!" Adeela exclaimed, making another sweeping glance of the gloriously beautiful hallway. "It's only a few hundred million pounds' worth, after all...but there were problems in our family long before this started. Then it turned into an excuse for them to..."
To a very slight degree, Relena's eyes bulged. 'Only a few hundred million,' she says. That's more than I ever could have imagined... "There, there...I'm sure it'll all be resolved in the fullness of time."
Adeela reached up and gave the hand on her shoulder a sisterly squeeze. "Oh...I know it will...it's just the awful waiting and wondering in the meantime."
"Well...there's always something to keep busy with, if you decide to accept my proposition."
"...as long as Quatre says it's alright."
Adeela's tone was changing, as if Quatre's approval was making her warm up to the idea. Relena quietly congratulated herself on her first successful attempt at pumping someone for information. She grinned a bit, and lowered her voice as they finally reached the lounge door. "Yes, but he wouldn't want the others to know, so keep it to yourself, alright?" As Adeela nodded, she pushed open the double doors and brought her inside. The other three siblings were chattering in Arabic, and quieted themselves to welcome their fourth back to the fold. Relena didn't give them much time for a reunion, however. Time was most definitely money. "Ladies! .....have you reached a verdict?"
Right on schedule with the plan in Relena's head, Adeela waved her sisters closer and whispered something to them, something not too specific but still reassuring enough to push them over the edge. After a final round of hushed exchanges, they stood up straight, and Yasmeen took a step forward to deliver their decision. "We will fight for you."
Relena puffed up with pride. "I'm glad to hear it." I've done it! And after all of Milliardo's self-righteous speeches about how difficult it would be to convince anyone to be a party to his plan! I went ahead on my own and I did it! "It's a pity my brother isn't here at the moment, but I can't wait for you to meet him. No doubt we'll all have plenty to talk about in the days ahead..."
**********The one-page document that had caused such a stir on the Isle of Wight, though only among a very small and knowledgable portion of the populous, crossed the Channel into the southlands, and quickly spread. Everyone who received it passed it on to another two people, and it replicated itself exponentially. The odd thing was that although the order came from within Lord Jeffrhyss' sphere of influence, it had been decided that the subject was too important to keep to themselves, and so the document was shared with other organizations, three in total. It had begun to spread to other factions of Cinq before the sun set on the twenty-third day in June, but only among the higher-ups. Agents from all over England would soon be looking for someone, and looking to cop the five thousand pound bounty that had been placed on his head.
The clock was ticking...
~~~~~~~~~~
Next, in Episode Eighty-Six: Relena introduces her new friends to Milliardo, who already has a task in mind with which they might prove their loyalty. Heero and Duo's first attempt at flat-hunting hits an unexpected bump, and Treize feels as though he's being watched, and for good reason.
It's HOT here! Summer has finally arrived, and we couldn't be happier! =^_^= We're narrowing down the potential new hosting possibilities, because we desperately need to get rid of these pesky ads, don't you agree? =P Oh well..in the meantime, next eppy should be out on July 4th. Sure! Why not! =D