Summary: A team of five young anthropologists are recruited by the notorious Romafeller Foundation to investigate something long lost; instead, they find each other and much more than they had bargained for. 1x2, 3x4, 5xS, other. AU. WIP.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters; however, the concept and the plot are of my devising. No profit has been made or will be made from this venture, and no infringement of rights is intended.
Note: All coincidences are purely coincidental; this short story is not meant to infringe or insult any anthropologist anywhere. As I am not acquainted with ethnographers and I have just begun my first anthropology course, all of the anthropological activities are my creation and any passing similarity to established protocol is just that, passing and no more. It is my sincere hope that true anthropologists are more diligent and less self-centered that the characters portrayed.
Chapter 2: Howard's Beauty
Of course, the little rickety helicopter, dubbed Bella, was only supposed to carry a maximum of two people. Howard, though, insisted that it would take six just fine. Quatre eyed the harness with polite trepidation, Trowa had backed up, Wufei had rejected the possibility forthrightly, while Duo had laughed maniacally. No one had been sure why.
Using an artful combination of money, intimidation, and stealth, Heero had managed to work a compromise: parachutes from a local tourist skydiving industry and a harness system with release mechanisms. All of them, including Duo, had quickly checked the gear and strapped themselves in.
Howard shook his head at them and gave Bella a resounding tap, which left her ringing like a tin can. Cramming himself into the cockpit, he fired her up, and lifted her off the ground as easily as a dust mote floating into the air.
The ride was long. Heero had a place by the window, so he concentrated on the ground, memorizing the lay of the land and various landmarks from above.
Most of the time, Duo chattered with incessant levity, topics ranging from sex to childish humor and pranks, anecdotes, black humor, pranks and more sex. Heero had never known anyone to use to many words lacking intrinsic meaning to express what was at the heart a meaningless topic. At least bird song had a point. Sometimes, Quatre managed to moderate the conversation, drawing Wufei and Trowa into his rather pointless speculations concerning the nature of their trip and the corporation involved. It would all fall as it fell, and Heero knew the value of waiting. There was not enough room to take his laptop out anyway.
As the sun became low and red in the sky, they touched down in a cleared feiled with neatly cropped grass and an otherwise sculpted appearance. Howard expressed some personal affection for Duo, and indicated that he worked the steam powered junker that worked the natives with trade goods, and he'd be glad to help someone other than the missionaries, who were a bit further south and disliked his whiskey. After they unbuckled and hauled their packs out of the helicopter, Bella lifted off in a whirr of rotaries and they were left with dust in a grand lawn.
"Did you see any houses? Or, well, anything?" Quatre whispered.
It took Heero a moment to figure out that Quatre was addressing him, and then he started a bit, caught himself, and pulled together his reply. "No."
"Shame." Quatre frowned slightly, but with his round cheeks it was more like pouting. "Does anyone want to suggest a way to walk?"
"Up." Trowa suggested. "Rich Europeans build on hills."
"Yes." Choosing a direction, Wufei started moved across the neatly trimmed lawn. There were some fruitless palm trees surrounded by artistic patterns of sand, rocks, and lush flowering shrubbery, but Heero thought that none of the species he had observed so far were native to the area. There were no mosquitoes, and the birds were very quiet.
There was a house of the hill. It look very ante-bellum South, with white verandas and a broad porch with white pillars.
"It's the KKK come back." Duo whispered, laughing. "I don't know who owns this, but I'll bet you that they're white, white, white!"
Heero heard a sound in the bushes, and spun to face it.
"The representative will see you." A voice whispered softly, and the doors to the great building drifted open.
"Damned eerie. And, I didn't sleep with no roaches to meet some fucking representative." Duo grumbled, but took quite concise movements to the broad white steps of the porch. "Damn. Marble, man. I didn't think that they had much of this stuff after the last nuclear war. I mean, not around here."
"I do not like this." Wufei frowned. "It is not honorable for our hosts to speak without showing their faces."
"Okay…" Quatre whispered. "Let's just go and see."
Heero wondered why everyone was whispering, and then he decided not to ask because he didn't know why he hadn't thought to ask that whenever everyone had started whispering. So, he and Trowa walked quietly after the more expressive members of their team, and stepped into the grand old mansion.