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 7: The Past
Suddenly excited, with a manic gleam in his eyes, Duo turned on them and whispered tersely. "Wufei, listen up, man! He says that he's going to use an ancient dialect to tell the most ancient story of the Piop'l. This is right up your alley!"
And, to everyone's shock, the shaman began to sing in lilted and perfectly recognizable English:
"A light as bright as war boiled the land into existence, and the light became the brother sun and the sister moon, who always chase the other's reflection in the sky using only the hope of companionship to fuel their eternal solitude."
The crowd whispered reverently. "Unrequited love is betrayal."
And the shaman held up his arms, his body swaying to the time of pipe music as if each syllable pulled the cords that united his being: " Some light lived and landed to dance as stars in the crater of the sky, but most light died and fell like ashes on the land."
"Holocaust." The villagers whispered, savoring the smooth syllables, elongating the vowels and then snapping out the t from between their teeth.
"Animals sprung up from ashes rubbing into ashes, but we were different."
A heavy drum beat sprung up. All of us started.
"Hu-man." The villagers said.
"Sir, the star who does not need to dance, who made the force of all natural things natural, touched the ugliest ashes with water and shaped statutes but he was so great his touch left sparks in our eyes and in our breasts and in our groins."
Very softly, the villagers whispered, "Dust to dust."
"So, it is that we come from the worst as the unintentional best, the only beings that are brother to the celestial and the base, the only beings on the land holding light bound in earth and life bound in death."
"A secret."
The anthropologists sat, stunned. Unable to compute a cultural gift of this magnitude, a gift that furthered them so, they were completely silent.
Of course, it was the spunky apprentice who elbowed Duo.
"Ow!" Standing, and poking everyone else so that they would stand to, Duo lend them through the signs and the words of gratitude. A few of the villagers laughed when Wufei spoke with a Chinese intonation, and when he scowled, they laughed harder. A man's pride did seem to be a common concept. But, they grinned at each other, shouted heckles, and then everyone sat down, at ease.
Some stories and casual talk was exchanged. A boy brought out a little flute and played a melody for some of the children. Heero turned on his own recorder and went over to listen to the quiet tune. It was plaintive, and in a minor, hushed key. It seemed to be the echo of in the song the "Piop'l origin" as Duo had dubbed it. Heero found it oddly…disturbing, but not unpleasant. He just did not understand music.
After a while, the women wandered off, the babies settled in, and some of the men jostled good-naturedly, apparently showing each other up on some good wood for new spears. Heero found it worrisome, but it did not seem to bother Duo, who diligently asked questions about the process and selection of excellent spear making and hunting. But, Duo got into the process, and soon Quatre, Trowa, Wufei and Heero were all holding lengths of wood, sniffing them, and testing them for resiliency and strength. Rashid showed them how to strip the bark off, and then they set aside their speaks-in-making along with the other men, so that the wood could season.
After the oldest grandfather finished telling his most rambunctious story—it had giants in it—all of the villagers, and even the anthropologists, drifted back to their houses in pairs.
"Damn, this place is starting to look fine!" Duo posed proudly at the entrance of the small house, and grinned around. It just looked to Heero like they needed to straighten up. "I think I'm going to call it King's Cot."
"I thought you were American." Quatre blinked.
"Er, huh?" Duo blinked back.
"Only the British name their houses, Duo." Wufei rolled his eyes, exasperated. "And you are an American."
"I think the Scottish do too!" Duo grinned. "Besides, it just seemed right to name my first house, really! It's awful cool, and it even as my hammock in it!"
"Your first house." Wufei said skeptically.
Flatly, Duo replied. "Your dead partner."
Heero tensed.
"Okaaaaaaaay!" Quatre beamed, and tapped Heero on the arm. "How about we clean up this mess, and get our records done before we go to sleep."
"I will help." Trowa volunteered, and automatically began tidying the small area, rearranging Duo's knickknacks, and the various gear that had been pulled out of packs and stowed in random intervals.
"The recording devices?" Heero queried, setting up his laptop and the cords.
"Here." Wufei handed them over. "I got a visual on the story telling."
"Good."
Downloaded the various records, Heero then wrote up his report on the day. Duo had backed down, out of his strange anger, and was scribbling maniacally in his black bound journal. Wufei was carefully banking the fire, and scrubbing out the mess kit with biodegradable soap. Quatre set some water boiling, and made them all Lemon Ginger tea. With the tasks of the night wrapped up, they all sat in their sleeping bags, sipping tea and staring at the shapes the smoke made as it wafted out of the hole in the ceiling.
"How did your time out with the big men go, Q?" Duo queried.
"Well, I think the hunters think that I'm a bit of a pansy, but I'll show them that I'm a bit more than I look." Quatre grinned, and it had a bite the bullet edge to it that made Heero suddenly remember that Quatre spoke like a marine. "They'll accept me."
"No doubt, dude." Duo grinned. "I bet you kicked marine ass!"
"Heh. Yeah, my father hated that." Quatre grinned. "He's really religious, you know. Thou shalt not kill. It's not like I'm…I'm a…"
"Hard ass?" Duo delicately suggested.
"Yeah. I'm not like that." Quatre said. "I believe in compassion, but I also believe that there are causes that simply must be fought for, and that there are times that we have to kill in order to promote a greater good, a greater compassion."
A contemplative silence filled King's Cot, and Heero thought about causes. He thought that he knew a lot about causes, but he had always been a part of a cause, and had never…had never felt that…passion. That zealotry.
"I can hold my own in a fight." Trowa said suddenly.
"Yeah?" Duo blinked.
"I am honored to be amongst men who will fight for what is just." Wufei said stiffly. "Our accordance is strong."
"So it is." Quatre said. "I mean, I'm glad that we share the same ethics, pretty much. It'll keep things simple."
"Yeah…" Duo slurped at his tea, and made a face at Quatre.
Playfully, Quatre screwed his face up and stuck his tongue out at Duo, and then giggled. It was hard to believe that this cherubic, childish teenager had fought and won special training in the U.S. army.
Swirling his tea, Trowa looked into the metal cup contemplatively.
Wufei looked like he wanted something more tasty, like jasmine or green, as opposed to the English stuff that Quatre liked to so much.
"So, dude, Trowa, I mean, you're so completely quiet, I just don't understand why you'd choose a career about talking to people. I mean, why man?"
Smiling slightly, so that his green eyes sparkly slyly, Trowa murmured, "The greatest function of speech is listening."
Duo blinked, and looked at everyone to see if he was the only one who didn't understand. What Trowa had said made perfect sense to Heero, and Wufei was looking satisfied and contemplative even as Quatre nodded slightly. Yes, Duo was the only one who didn't seem to get it.
"So, who did you work under, then? I know that it's illegal for most of us kids to go out without supervision of a guardian or something—though they make an exception for Romafeller, go fig—so you had to have your "in" on the field, you know." Duo paused, expectantly, realized he hadn't asked a question, and pressed, "So, who was it?"
"Dr. Es and the Bartons recruited me." Trowa finally answered softly
Odd. How could the Bartons recruit him if his last name was Barton? It didn't make any sense to Heero, but it could had just been him. After all, he was more interested in gorillas than humans.
"Dude, man." Duo exclaimed. "I thought your last name was Barton!"
Inscrutable, Trowa just regarded him.
So, Heero was not the only one.
"Well, Duo," Quatre turned the attention aside from Trowa, "Since you seem to be bursting with questions tonight, how about you? Who was your in?"
"Heh, I was under Doc. Gee, as in Golly Gee!" Duo grinned and set his hammock swinging wildly. "Funny story really. You see, he was all great and everything, but just trying to hitch it back to wherever and this traveling salesman dude who I was stowing with totally like picked Doc. Gee up in the U-haul and when we were hauling ass, Doc. Gee trumped up his translation junk and I corrected this thing. So, he ended up thinking I was just the right sort of kid, the handy kind, and before you know it, here I am, gliding through a free ride. How's about you, Q?"
"I worked under Instructor Ha' as in the letter of the Arabic alphabet." Quatre shrugged a little, and toyed with the edges of his sleeping bag. "I think my father hired, probably originally to examine the company an later to spy on my as my studies progressed past his wished. It was a dead giveaway—my father named all of his favorites after letters."
"That's freakish."
"I don't understand the reasoning behind that." Wufei admitted.
Shrugging, Quatre snuggled deeper into his sleeping bag, and said. "Neither do I."
Quietly, Wufei actually volunteered. He was the first to do so. "Master O was a great man, and I was honored to have him as my teacher."
"Oh!" Duo bounced up, and the hammock made funny jerky motions, "Wasn't he the one who did that neat essay on the manner in which martial artists cope with death and talk about it! God damn, that was one fine bit of work."
"Yes." Wufei said darkly. "It was."
"Hm." Quatre considered out loud. "Was his name really O?"
"O, the connotations." Duo said lecherously, waggling his eyebrows.
Wincing at the pun, Trowa covered his eyes and Quatre giggled. Heero tried to figure out what the connotations were, and decided to research it once he returned to a part of the globe containing multiple satellite servers.
Wufei actually snickered. "No, that wasn't his real name. O was actually the initial of his middle name, Oscine. Perhaps, he thought that songbird name of his was too weak. You wouldn't believe me if I told you his first name."
"Tell us!" Quatre pressed.
"Nightingale."
"No way." Duo groaned, covering his indigo eyes with his hand. "No fucking way. No way, man. And I like worshipped that essay too! Ruined!"
"What was his surname?" Trowa asked.
"Avian."
Even Heero snorted, and Trowa was outright laughing. Quatre seemed to be choking on his tongue, and Duo had fallen out of his hammock but was laughing to hard to free the foot that was stuck up through the mesh and into the air. It took a while for everyone to calm down. A moment later, when the wisewoman's apprentice peered into see if they were all right, they broke out into laughter again. It took nearly fifteen minutes for Duo to calm himself long enough to get his foot out of the hammock so that he could climb back up again.
A sweet relaxing silence fell over the house back with the rich more-familiar jungle sounds, and the noises of a village settling into sleep. It was…comfortable.
"How about you, Heero?"
"Hn." Heero looked away, but everyone was still just watching him expectantly, so he felt oddly obligated to speak. He was the only one who had not contributed. "I was raised by Dr. Jay. He may have published under the name Morior."
"No fucking away, that creep? Damn, Heero. He raised you?" Duo was angry.
"Yes." Heero paused and wondered at that, so he queried, "Why do you ask that?"
Everyone was ominously quiet.
"It's just…just that…." Quatre began slowly, his voice small and unsure, but he began gaining strength and warmth. "I know my first textbook, my beginning textbook, had a section on ethics in it. You know, what an anthropologist should do and what he shouldn't, that sort of thing. And…Jay Morior was cited as a negative example of professional behavior. Actually, the negative example. As in, the negative example."
"Hn." Heero reflected. "What infraction?"
"Well, every infraction, really. Over a hundred counts of murder one and I can't really remember the remainder of the specific charges." Quatre admitted, and then paused uncomfortably. "I'm sorry. I mean, I wouldn't want to insult someone who has been important to you…"
"No." Heero felt the urge to deny this assumption, but he could not understand his motivation for doing so. Yet, Jay had played an important part of his formation, but he was not a…guiding force.
"Oh…" Quatre let out a puff of air. "Yes."
"The pursuit of truth is important." Wufei said, impatiently. "Your mentor wrote detailed and accurate journals of his experimentations. All records of his actions indicate blatant disregard, disrespect, and dishonor of the universal human rights, human decency, and the human capacity of anthropology. In his lustful pursuit of ultimate knowledge, he committed murder, illegal genetic splicing and testing, human cloning, enslaved, and various acts of torture and mutilation. He was also being tried for high treason, money laundering, trafficking, drug use and dealing, malpractice, gross abuse and negligence. I believe that many of his actions otherwise violated international laws and treaties."
It was silent. Heero thought that he was supposed to say something, but Jay had never trained him in social etiquette.
Of course, Duo being Duo, he managed to diffuse it. "Fuck! I wonder how he had enough time to commit all of those crimes! I mean, damn man, what the hell? Where did he get it all? Was it like a full time occupation? I bet that's not something you'd see at one of those college career fairs: recruiting sociopathic anthropologists, come here for your fun four years!"
Somehow, uneasy laughter made all of them relax, and then they sat there in the quiet again. No one seemed quite sure where to pick up.
"It was pretty high profile." Quatre whispered as if he was giving Heero some sort of out on the subject. "Pretty sensationalized. I didn't really keep track of it."
"Yeah." Duo agreed, swinging in his hammock. "I remember, 'cause I was real little at the time. Like five or something and my friends used to tease me and little 'uns about being kidnapped by old Morior and kilt. Whatever happened to him?"
"I don't know." Quatre whispered, glancing over at Heero. "One day, he just…just vanished. Just disappeared."
"He died, July 2138." Heero stated.
So quiet. A baby was crying across the village, and there was the sound of animals snuffling through the underbrush. A bird shrieked. The mosquitoes whined.
Softly, Wufei muttered something that sounded like, "Good."
"Hey…" Duo casually leaned over, and landed with a thump on Heero. "Heero, you okay? Seriously."
"Hn." Heero grunted.
"Fine." Duo whispered back. "See if I care."
But that night, after the torch had been dimmed and Wufei had begun muttering in Chinese and Trowa was making up for his earlier silences with a monotonous snore and Quatre was beginning to squeak in his sleep, only then did Duo startle Heero.
Pulling his sleeping bag down of his hammock, curling up against Heero just enough to limit the usual set of his limbs, Duo sighed and whispered quietly, "Oh, Heero, damn. I had no fucking clue. No clue.
"Oh, my Jesus, have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Take all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy. Amen."