Too Lost to be Saved
by: WolfCry17
disclaimer: I do not own any of the gundam wing characters.
AN: I am so very sorry this took so long! I was really planning on getting a few chapters out during Christmas. Heh, yea... right! Well, I can go on and on with lame excuses, but I am not really in the mood to bring forth the effort and the truth is mainly, I am LAZY! But, what can I say?
Anyway, despite my lack of effort, I would really like to thank everyone who has reviewed my story thus far. I really would never have made it this far if it hadn't been for all of your encouraging words. I have written many stories in the past, none of them posted though, and I never made it past chapter 2. So, thank you so very much, Nubia, Airen2, and GundamGal'05. I really appreciate your thoughts.
And hey, I have some decently good news...I am already starting chapter 8, so hopefully by the end of next week, I will have it up. *crosses fingers*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
Chapter 7 ~ Running out of time
October 23, A.C. 197, 5:00 pm
"Mr Jefferson, sir, the three officers Amanda Collins, Dedrick Daniels, and Damon Allecks have finally returned from their mission to destroy the files of the eleven doctors," rough, calloused fingers grasped unto a thin clipboard as a young man read the information contained upon the clipped sheets of paper to his superior. Azure eyes glanced from the clipboard and watched a bulky office chair turn to reveal its bulky occupant as a ring of thick smoke emerged from his chapped lips.
The short, bald man rested his elbow on his nearby desk to prop up his large head as his other hand removed a long pipe of niccatine from his mouth. Small, beady eyes resonated an eerie gaze toward the fidgeting man with the clipboard. "Good. Send them in right away. I want confirmation that those papers were completely erased from this life." A plastered grin, etched upon the man's face, signaled satisfaction as the subordinate officer saluted and turned to retrieve those requested.
Within minutes, the loud swoosh of the automatic, sliding door alerted Mr. Jefferson to gaze up toward three officers: a young woman whose raven hair was pulled tightly into a braid, a scrawny man who appeared injured in the leg from a bullet wound, and a tall man who hardly spoke a word. "Did you acquire and destroy those documents?" The bald man stood from his oversized chair and pulled open a side drawer in his desk.
The three before Mr. Jefferson stood silently until the scrawny one stepped forward. "Sir, my team ran into some... difficulties."
Mr. Jefferson, surprisingly unfazed by the revelation of their total failure, pulled a shiny silver pistol with 24K gold edges that accented the deadly monstrousity. He delicately fingered the soft designs etched into the gun's surface, never once gazing up towards the distraught officers.
The braided woman, Amanda Collins, stepped hesistantly forward in a nervous response. "Sir, two individuals claiming to be colonial sweepers from Maxwell & Schebieker Sweeper Incorporated managed to get past security into the facility. They found the documents on the eleven doctors we abducted, and... we are assuming they were Preventer agents."
"I see," Mr. Jefferson remained fixated upon the silver pistol, "did you recover them?" The answer was evident. A deep rise in tension was solid proof. The bald man rounded his desk slowly and perched himself on the edge, waiting expectantly.
The scrawny one, Damon Allecks, gulped, restricting his throat from allowing any air through. "We were caught in crossfire and then a chase. However, we lost the two and the papers when they accidentally slipped and fell seven stories down in the most wrecked section of the building. There's no way either one could have survived that fall."
Dedrick Daniels, looked up suddenly and shot Allecks a warning glance, intervening with his own account, "We have no evidence to confirm that! When we searched ground zero where we estimated they would land, we found nothing, not even so much as a trail of blood. The papers are gone, we know that much. The question is are they permanently gone or do we have reason to suspect they are currently in the wrong hands?"
"Indeed," Mr. Jefferson slammed the barrel of the pistol upon the mahoghany surface and ran the end along the edge of the desk, creating an eerie screech as it scratched the unrepairable material.
Damon Allecks watched suspiciously as his boss and commander manuevered his most prized pistol along the edge of the desk. Damon felt the shins of his legs suddenly shake uncontrollably as he fought the urge to hide like a coward. "There is absolutely no possible way those preventer agents, if that was indeed whom they were, could have survived. Despite our lack of evidence! It defies all logic!"
A devilish, yet amused grin crept upon the wrinkly face of Mr. Jefferson, "Possibility is quite different from probability, Mr. Allecks. Does the name Maxwell mean nothing to you, Mr. Allecks? That is the very name of the 02 gundam pilot of the gundam Deathscythe Hell, Duo Maxwell. After serving under both Tubarov and Dekim Barton during the eve wars, you should have been well aware of that simple fact. But then again, Mr. Allecks, you were never a man to take lightly to minor details and your incompetence was further proven when you allowed Une's daughter to escape the facility." Mr. Jefferson pushed himself away from his desk and approached a now kneeling Damon Allecks. Mr. Jefferson quickly brought the barrel of the pistol to feel the skin of Allecks's forehead as he continued to interrogate him. "Now, because of you, Une's daughter and those eleven files are in the hands of the preventers. Because of you, my entire research facility lies in shambles, and my cover was almost blown out the roof."
Damon Allecks's eyes widened as drops of sweat wettened his forehead and collected upon the smooth surface of the pistol. "Please, Mr. Jefferson, please... let me explain... you don't understand... I did everything I could, please... give me another chance..." Damon felt warm tears glaze over his eyes as he starred into Mr. Jefferson's own sinister ones. Blood. They were thirsty for blood! Those eyes lusted for the aroma of crimson blood!
"Explanations? Your pathetic excuse as a slip-shot officer and your lack of accomplishment is all the explanation I need. The other one might be dead, but I can assure you, that gundam pilot is still alive. I will no longer risk allowing you more chances in my plans. Life is based on only one chance, and you can never change it once you've taken it."
Damon's eyes widened once more for a brief second, when his entire lifetime flashed before him, and then a loud shot rang throughout the room as fresh blood spilled out leaving a crimson trail down the now unsightly face of Damon Allecks. Amanda looked away in utter disgust as Dedrick closed his eyes to save him the unpleasant sight. Mr. Jefferson smiled sadistically toward the revelance of the thick red substance as it stained the tile in a small pool beneath the dead man. He took a small hand rag and quickly wiped away the blood and sweat mixture off the edge of his gun before quickly discarding the rag in the nearest trash can.
"Sir, give us 72 hours. My partner and I will correct the mistake Allecks made by retrieving those papers before it is too late." Amanda forced herself to regain her composure and speak forward to save herself and her partner, Dedrick, from sharing the same fate.
The newly cleaned pistol was once again placed inside its protective case within the desk's side drawer. "72 hours! In 72 hours, the preventer organization, not to mention the former gundam pilots, will be well aware of our operations, and we will be finished. No, it is already too late to fix Allecks's mistake. I have a different mission in mind for the two of you now, my dear Amanda. Oh, and by the way, let this incident serve as a reminder and warning to you both. I can not afford any more mishaps."
*~*
A sudden, obnoxious beeping filled a tiny room bathed in darkness, interrupting the drowsy man who had been previously resting on the single bed. He abrubtly surged upward to answer the call on his vidcam, knocking over books, pens, and other inanimate objects in the process. "Carl Jackson, here."
A gentle tapping of a pen upon a pile of papers greeted him as he watched the face of his superior J.C. Jefferson fill the screen with a more than irritated look radiating from his gray eyes. "My son, I hope you are completing your mission successfully with the Vice Foreign Minister."
Carl grinned, quite amused at the very mention of the title assigned to the beautiful, niave girl whose life lay in his hands. "I have resourcefully captivated onfidence with the head of preventers, who fully trusts me with the dear Miss Relena's life. Miss Relena, herself, is well confused with her beliefs at the moment, which was manifest when I addressed that simple fact to her. She's thoroughly lost and vulnerable, which supplies us with the perfect opportunity."
J.C. Jefferson's own eyes glimmered with utter amusement along with much mischief at the revelation of the minister's growing incapabilities. However, that sensation soon transformed into sternness as he rested his forefinger and thumb against the temple of his head. "Excellent. Unfortunately, the inapt officers who volunteered to join our cause are nothing more than amateurs in this for their own gain. I had to... relieve one officer of his duties earlier today. The very one in fact who had managed to let the Une girl slip through security and escape. He failed to retrieve the documents on our eleven scientists, and it won't be long until the P.O. has their hands where they don't belong. I fear time has run out. Fortunately, we still have a strategy. Can I safely assume, my son, that you will take care of it?"
Carl Jackson nodded enthusiatically, "Though, it will be a shame to damage such a beautiful, goddess-like creature, I can safely assure you, it will be taken care of. Tomorrow, after all, is the Vice Foriegn Minister's public speech with Colonial Ambassador Winner. It will be crowded, but the perfect set up to commence our operation, especially, despite the irony, when I will be in charge of the minister's safety." Carl messed with his left eyebrow, absent-mindedly pulling various strands of hair in a somewhat cocky habit.
"Then its up to you, my son. I will send my people in at 1500 hours tomorrow, and it shall lead from there. Report here at 2200 hours if you succeed to begin the next step," J.C. Jefferson barked in a commanding voice before terminating the secure line.
*~*
Quatre clumsily stumbled down the long corridor of Preventer headquarters as he juggled a large, flimsy box that was topless and full of files in one hand while he carried a tray of take out in the other hand with a styrofoam cup in his mouth. He almost fumbled over as he tried to support the cardboard box with one knee. Once he reached an isolated, mechanical door, he turned to elbow in the security code to provide him entrance.
Three solemn occupants hardly noticed his sudden intrusion as Quatre scrambled to the nearest table to relieve him of his restraints, mainly the testy box. Once free, he collapsed effortlessly into a chair as he wiped his forehead.
"Heero, do you really think this is necessary?" Wufei flipped through the very documents Quatre had previously discarded upon the fold-out table. "Sally and I have been through every detail of these documents a dozen times over. All we recovered from the rebel faction's database was useless information of lab samples, experiments, and test results."
"Hn."
Quatre and Wufei glanced at Heero, who was typing away tirelessly, then looked at each other. "Hmph," Wufei smirked skeptically, releasing the papers back into the box in the process. Quatre starred back toward the persistent Heero Yuy with worry etched in his emerald eyes toward the unperturbed pilot. When Lady Une rejected Heero's assumptions of Carl Jackson, or really Andrew Morris Jefferson, due to the lack of evidence, Heero buried himself into developing a more advanced security system, despite the perfection of the previous one, and kept his eyes glued upon the recovered information on the situation. It didn't matter how irrelevant it appeared to the rest of them.
Unfortunately, despite the many hours spent researching, they were no better off than Wufei and Sally were before they arrived. The matters continued to worsen as the sands of time relentlessly fell against them. Quatre knew Heero believed Relena was in grave danger, especially when she was under the watch of Carl Jackson, but they had no leads to back it up. Quatre also knew that the public speech at 2:00 tomorrow was what had Heero plastered upon the computer screen, inspecting the Vice Foriegn Minister's security layout for the following day.
However, despite all of the precautions that the P.O. was unmistakably taking, Quatre strongly felt that if they were going to solve this mystery, they were going to need some more help and some kind of lead. Somehow, a disturbed gut feeling was trying to warn Quatre that something horrible was going to happen tomorrow, and he was sure Heero felt it too.
*~*
Small droplets of rain fell soundlessly in the night air against the large glass window and then trailed smoothly down the surface. Relena Darlian peeked up to awknowledge the unexpected shower. "That's funny... there wasn't a cloud for miles not even half an hour ago." Relena gave a bewildered look as she lightly tapped her pen against the tip of her nose in contemplation before attempting to return to reciting the speech before her. However, five minutes had barely passed when a soft thud was heard throughout the room signaling the dropping of the speech and Relena's defeat.
No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't keep her mind on the task at hand. Every little thing interrupted her train of thought, making her start all over again just to be interrupted yet again for the whole process to repeat itself. She slouched miserably upon a cushioned couch, which supplied no form of comfort to relieve her growing headache. This sudden shower wasn't the only odd thing that had been occurring around here. Dorothy Catalonia had not only not showed up this morning to the office, but had completely disappeared altogether, which quite frankly, baffled her.
previously that day...
Crowds of noisy people including uniformed preventers, ambassadors, and representatives from all around the Earth Sphere flooded the entirety of ESUN Central as a single, honey blonde politician manuevered around. With a small suitcase full of signed paperwork for vetoes, proposals, and bills, Relena Darlian claimed the last elevator for herself and was about to lean her head against the wall as she listened to the elevator doors close, but then caught. She opened her eyes to inspect the source of the problem and found her bodyguard, Carl Jackson, who was holding the doors open to squeeze through. Relena mentally shuddered as he moved in to stand beside her before embracing his presence with her political mask.
"You know, Ms. Darlian, I can't protect you when you are trying, intentionally, to lose me after every corner," Carl patronized her with anything but an angry look.
Relena choked back when she noticed the pure amusement that flickered across his eyes and then punched in her floor number to allow the doors to close once again. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Jackson, but I thought you were right behind me. I have too many important things to worry about to take the time to look back to confirm whether or not you can keep up."
Carl smirked merrily, "Very intelligent, Ms. Darlian, but I am well aware of your love of ditching bodyguards to escape to a few minutes of freedom. Not that I blame you." Carl watched Relena's eyes move away from him toward the number displayed above the doors to indicate which floor they had reached.
As the doors opened to Relena's floor, she looked back with a bewildered look, "I really don't have time for a lecture on what I do with my personal life. And the last time I checked, you had no say in it. So, if you will excuse me."
"Well, last time I checked, I was your personal bodyguard, which means I am in charge of your life for the time being, which includes your personal life."
The very fact numbed Relena to the core, and she found she couldn't exert any energy into her legs to move. There it was again, that claustrophobic feeling. That simple, overwhelming feeling always seemed to drown Relena when her life was being controlled by someone other than herself. Her eyes seemed to cloud over a second before she realized something was astray. "Where's Dorothy? She's never late." Relena turned abrubtly to Carl for some answers.
Carl's eyes took on a sudden change from sole amusement to extreme gravity at the mention of Relena's personal assistant. "Miss Catalonia contacted me last night informing me that she was assigned to a classified mission by preventers and will be gone until further notice. That was all I was told, Ms. Darlian."
back to the present...
The soft thumping that had previously sounded outside the window had turned into a thunderous downpour. Relena found herself tapping her pen upon the tip of her nose once again in contemplation. She had mentally noted the sudden change in expression on Carl's face earlier that day and was immediately suspicious. Why didn't Dorothy contact her herself instead of Carl? She abhorred Carl's every presence and went out of her way just to avoid eye contact. The questions that ran through her mind plagued her like poison. 'It just doesn't make any sense!' Dorothy had promised Relena that she would help her with the case on the disappearances. Not only that, but Dorothy never participated in any preventer operation.
Nothing made sense, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt Carl lied to her straight in the eye, which infuriated her. Relena glanced toward her small laptop that laid next to her on the couch. She pulled up a file which held a concensus of the rate of people disappearing in the last three years, which shockingly enough skyrocketed since the end of A.C. 195. What was even more baffling was the fact that the majority of those disappearances consisted mainly of children, particularly war-orphens, ranging from six years of age to thirteen and fourteen. It didn't seem like much of a significance at first, just downright disturbing, until she realized that the day that the rate had begun to skyrocket was the exact same day that the first doctor, Dr. Ruano-Saal had disappeared. Whether it truely held a magnitude or was nothing more than a coincidence remained egnimous to Relena.
Frustrated, Relena walked toward the large panel glass to watch the streaks of lightning light the darkened world below creating a dangerous beauty across the sky. She knew it was dangerous to stand so close to a window during a thunderstorm, especially in one of the highest floors of the building. Yet, the nearness of such danger intrigued her mind, and made her feel more free than she could anywhere else. 'Heero.'
*~*
Intense prussian blue orbs suddenly jerked to a single window in the congested hotel room and starred blankly at the rigorous downpour that cleansed the world outside. 'Relena.'
Several seconds passed in what seemed like an eternity before he returned to a vidcam infront of him that he had connected to his laptop. He hacked effortlessly into the preventer computer mainframe, entering whatever necessary codes were required to lock into the information he needed. He then leaned back to run his calloused hands through his untame locks of brown to massage his head from a persisting headache while he waited for the computer to process the connection. What was he thinking? How the heck was he going to follow through with the minor task he had assigned to himself to complete tonight.
He quickly jerked forward when he caught sound of a dialing tone, a connection, and then a series of rings. His eyes hardened into a absent stare as the vidcam lit up signaling the line had been answered. His lips were instinctively pressed into a thin line as he watched a familiar cascade of platinum blonde hair and icy blue eyes fill the screen and return a baffled look back at him before returning the same absent stare that was being sent.
"Heero Yuy."
"Zeches."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
AN: There's Chapter 7, finally! I hope you enjoyed it! The next chapter will be a little more action packed, but I don't want to give away the plot, but I will tell you, everything will come together with this next one...and I am planning on every character making an entrance in this next one, so hold on to your seats!
Chibi Wufei: Yea right... you haven't even written half of the next chapter!
Author: SHUSH YOU! Writing is an art that takes delicate precision and lots of time.
Chibi Wufei: What's the complication? You pick up a pen and move your hand. Not like it takes serious brain power.
Author: *eyes widen, then sighes* Well, excuse me, Mr. everything-you-can- do, I-can-do-better, but I am not so fortunate as you.
Chibi Wufei: Denying the facts is a tremeduous sign of weakness.
Author: *pulls out the dreaded pen and pushes chibi Wufei off the table and into the trash can with it* So is arrogance!
by: WolfCry17
disclaimer: I do not own any of the gundam wing characters.
AN: I am so very sorry this took so long! I was really planning on getting a few chapters out during Christmas. Heh, yea... right! Well, I can go on and on with lame excuses, but I am not really in the mood to bring forth the effort and the truth is mainly, I am LAZY! But, what can I say?
Anyway, despite my lack of effort, I would really like to thank everyone who has reviewed my story thus far. I really would never have made it this far if it hadn't been for all of your encouraging words. I have written many stories in the past, none of them posted though, and I never made it past chapter 2. So, thank you so very much, Nubia, Airen2, and GundamGal'05. I really appreciate your thoughts.
And hey, I have some decently good news...I am already starting chapter 8, so hopefully by the end of next week, I will have it up. *crosses fingers*
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
Chapter 7 ~ Running out of time
October 23, A.C. 197, 5:00 pm
"Mr Jefferson, sir, the three officers Amanda Collins, Dedrick Daniels, and Damon Allecks have finally returned from their mission to destroy the files of the eleven doctors," rough, calloused fingers grasped unto a thin clipboard as a young man read the information contained upon the clipped sheets of paper to his superior. Azure eyes glanced from the clipboard and watched a bulky office chair turn to reveal its bulky occupant as a ring of thick smoke emerged from his chapped lips.
The short, bald man rested his elbow on his nearby desk to prop up his large head as his other hand removed a long pipe of niccatine from his mouth. Small, beady eyes resonated an eerie gaze toward the fidgeting man with the clipboard. "Good. Send them in right away. I want confirmation that those papers were completely erased from this life." A plastered grin, etched upon the man's face, signaled satisfaction as the subordinate officer saluted and turned to retrieve those requested.
Within minutes, the loud swoosh of the automatic, sliding door alerted Mr. Jefferson to gaze up toward three officers: a young woman whose raven hair was pulled tightly into a braid, a scrawny man who appeared injured in the leg from a bullet wound, and a tall man who hardly spoke a word. "Did you acquire and destroy those documents?" The bald man stood from his oversized chair and pulled open a side drawer in his desk.
The three before Mr. Jefferson stood silently until the scrawny one stepped forward. "Sir, my team ran into some... difficulties."
Mr. Jefferson, surprisingly unfazed by the revelation of their total failure, pulled a shiny silver pistol with 24K gold edges that accented the deadly monstrousity. He delicately fingered the soft designs etched into the gun's surface, never once gazing up towards the distraught officers.
The braided woman, Amanda Collins, stepped hesistantly forward in a nervous response. "Sir, two individuals claiming to be colonial sweepers from Maxwell & Schebieker Sweeper Incorporated managed to get past security into the facility. They found the documents on the eleven doctors we abducted, and... we are assuming they were Preventer agents."
"I see," Mr. Jefferson remained fixated upon the silver pistol, "did you recover them?" The answer was evident. A deep rise in tension was solid proof. The bald man rounded his desk slowly and perched himself on the edge, waiting expectantly.
The scrawny one, Damon Allecks, gulped, restricting his throat from allowing any air through. "We were caught in crossfire and then a chase. However, we lost the two and the papers when they accidentally slipped and fell seven stories down in the most wrecked section of the building. There's no way either one could have survived that fall."
Dedrick Daniels, looked up suddenly and shot Allecks a warning glance, intervening with his own account, "We have no evidence to confirm that! When we searched ground zero where we estimated they would land, we found nothing, not even so much as a trail of blood. The papers are gone, we know that much. The question is are they permanently gone or do we have reason to suspect they are currently in the wrong hands?"
"Indeed," Mr. Jefferson slammed the barrel of the pistol upon the mahoghany surface and ran the end along the edge of the desk, creating an eerie screech as it scratched the unrepairable material.
Damon Allecks watched suspiciously as his boss and commander manuevered his most prized pistol along the edge of the desk. Damon felt the shins of his legs suddenly shake uncontrollably as he fought the urge to hide like a coward. "There is absolutely no possible way those preventer agents, if that was indeed whom they were, could have survived. Despite our lack of evidence! It defies all logic!"
A devilish, yet amused grin crept upon the wrinkly face of Mr. Jefferson, "Possibility is quite different from probability, Mr. Allecks. Does the name Maxwell mean nothing to you, Mr. Allecks? That is the very name of the 02 gundam pilot of the gundam Deathscythe Hell, Duo Maxwell. After serving under both Tubarov and Dekim Barton during the eve wars, you should have been well aware of that simple fact. But then again, Mr. Allecks, you were never a man to take lightly to minor details and your incompetence was further proven when you allowed Une's daughter to escape the facility." Mr. Jefferson pushed himself away from his desk and approached a now kneeling Damon Allecks. Mr. Jefferson quickly brought the barrel of the pistol to feel the skin of Allecks's forehead as he continued to interrogate him. "Now, because of you, Une's daughter and those eleven files are in the hands of the preventers. Because of you, my entire research facility lies in shambles, and my cover was almost blown out the roof."
Damon Allecks's eyes widened as drops of sweat wettened his forehead and collected upon the smooth surface of the pistol. "Please, Mr. Jefferson, please... let me explain... you don't understand... I did everything I could, please... give me another chance..." Damon felt warm tears glaze over his eyes as he starred into Mr. Jefferson's own sinister ones. Blood. They were thirsty for blood! Those eyes lusted for the aroma of crimson blood!
"Explanations? Your pathetic excuse as a slip-shot officer and your lack of accomplishment is all the explanation I need. The other one might be dead, but I can assure you, that gundam pilot is still alive. I will no longer risk allowing you more chances in my plans. Life is based on only one chance, and you can never change it once you've taken it."
Damon's eyes widened once more for a brief second, when his entire lifetime flashed before him, and then a loud shot rang throughout the room as fresh blood spilled out leaving a crimson trail down the now unsightly face of Damon Allecks. Amanda looked away in utter disgust as Dedrick closed his eyes to save him the unpleasant sight. Mr. Jefferson smiled sadistically toward the revelance of the thick red substance as it stained the tile in a small pool beneath the dead man. He took a small hand rag and quickly wiped away the blood and sweat mixture off the edge of his gun before quickly discarding the rag in the nearest trash can.
"Sir, give us 72 hours. My partner and I will correct the mistake Allecks made by retrieving those papers before it is too late." Amanda forced herself to regain her composure and speak forward to save herself and her partner, Dedrick, from sharing the same fate.
The newly cleaned pistol was once again placed inside its protective case within the desk's side drawer. "72 hours! In 72 hours, the preventer organization, not to mention the former gundam pilots, will be well aware of our operations, and we will be finished. No, it is already too late to fix Allecks's mistake. I have a different mission in mind for the two of you now, my dear Amanda. Oh, and by the way, let this incident serve as a reminder and warning to you both. I can not afford any more mishaps."
*~*
A sudden, obnoxious beeping filled a tiny room bathed in darkness, interrupting the drowsy man who had been previously resting on the single bed. He abrubtly surged upward to answer the call on his vidcam, knocking over books, pens, and other inanimate objects in the process. "Carl Jackson, here."
A gentle tapping of a pen upon a pile of papers greeted him as he watched the face of his superior J.C. Jefferson fill the screen with a more than irritated look radiating from his gray eyes. "My son, I hope you are completing your mission successfully with the Vice Foreign Minister."
Carl grinned, quite amused at the very mention of the title assigned to the beautiful, niave girl whose life lay in his hands. "I have resourcefully captivated onfidence with the head of preventers, who fully trusts me with the dear Miss Relena's life. Miss Relena, herself, is well confused with her beliefs at the moment, which was manifest when I addressed that simple fact to her. She's thoroughly lost and vulnerable, which supplies us with the perfect opportunity."
J.C. Jefferson's own eyes glimmered with utter amusement along with much mischief at the revelation of the minister's growing incapabilities. However, that sensation soon transformed into sternness as he rested his forefinger and thumb against the temple of his head. "Excellent. Unfortunately, the inapt officers who volunteered to join our cause are nothing more than amateurs in this for their own gain. I had to... relieve one officer of his duties earlier today. The very one in fact who had managed to let the Une girl slip through security and escape. He failed to retrieve the documents on our eleven scientists, and it won't be long until the P.O. has their hands where they don't belong. I fear time has run out. Fortunately, we still have a strategy. Can I safely assume, my son, that you will take care of it?"
Carl Jackson nodded enthusiatically, "Though, it will be a shame to damage such a beautiful, goddess-like creature, I can safely assure you, it will be taken care of. Tomorrow, after all, is the Vice Foriegn Minister's public speech with Colonial Ambassador Winner. It will be crowded, but the perfect set up to commence our operation, especially, despite the irony, when I will be in charge of the minister's safety." Carl messed with his left eyebrow, absent-mindedly pulling various strands of hair in a somewhat cocky habit.
"Then its up to you, my son. I will send my people in at 1500 hours tomorrow, and it shall lead from there. Report here at 2200 hours if you succeed to begin the next step," J.C. Jefferson barked in a commanding voice before terminating the secure line.
*~*
Quatre clumsily stumbled down the long corridor of Preventer headquarters as he juggled a large, flimsy box that was topless and full of files in one hand while he carried a tray of take out in the other hand with a styrofoam cup in his mouth. He almost fumbled over as he tried to support the cardboard box with one knee. Once he reached an isolated, mechanical door, he turned to elbow in the security code to provide him entrance.
Three solemn occupants hardly noticed his sudden intrusion as Quatre scrambled to the nearest table to relieve him of his restraints, mainly the testy box. Once free, he collapsed effortlessly into a chair as he wiped his forehead.
"Heero, do you really think this is necessary?" Wufei flipped through the very documents Quatre had previously discarded upon the fold-out table. "Sally and I have been through every detail of these documents a dozen times over. All we recovered from the rebel faction's database was useless information of lab samples, experiments, and test results."
"Hn."
Quatre and Wufei glanced at Heero, who was typing away tirelessly, then looked at each other. "Hmph," Wufei smirked skeptically, releasing the papers back into the box in the process. Quatre starred back toward the persistent Heero Yuy with worry etched in his emerald eyes toward the unperturbed pilot. When Lady Une rejected Heero's assumptions of Carl Jackson, or really Andrew Morris Jefferson, due to the lack of evidence, Heero buried himself into developing a more advanced security system, despite the perfection of the previous one, and kept his eyes glued upon the recovered information on the situation. It didn't matter how irrelevant it appeared to the rest of them.
Unfortunately, despite the many hours spent researching, they were no better off than Wufei and Sally were before they arrived. The matters continued to worsen as the sands of time relentlessly fell against them. Quatre knew Heero believed Relena was in grave danger, especially when she was under the watch of Carl Jackson, but they had no leads to back it up. Quatre also knew that the public speech at 2:00 tomorrow was what had Heero plastered upon the computer screen, inspecting the Vice Foriegn Minister's security layout for the following day.
However, despite all of the precautions that the P.O. was unmistakably taking, Quatre strongly felt that if they were going to solve this mystery, they were going to need some more help and some kind of lead. Somehow, a disturbed gut feeling was trying to warn Quatre that something horrible was going to happen tomorrow, and he was sure Heero felt it too.
*~*
Small droplets of rain fell soundlessly in the night air against the large glass window and then trailed smoothly down the surface. Relena Darlian peeked up to awknowledge the unexpected shower. "That's funny... there wasn't a cloud for miles not even half an hour ago." Relena gave a bewildered look as she lightly tapped her pen against the tip of her nose in contemplation before attempting to return to reciting the speech before her. However, five minutes had barely passed when a soft thud was heard throughout the room signaling the dropping of the speech and Relena's defeat.
No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't keep her mind on the task at hand. Every little thing interrupted her train of thought, making her start all over again just to be interrupted yet again for the whole process to repeat itself. She slouched miserably upon a cushioned couch, which supplied no form of comfort to relieve her growing headache. This sudden shower wasn't the only odd thing that had been occurring around here. Dorothy Catalonia had not only not showed up this morning to the office, but had completely disappeared altogether, which quite frankly, baffled her.
previously that day...
Crowds of noisy people including uniformed preventers, ambassadors, and representatives from all around the Earth Sphere flooded the entirety of ESUN Central as a single, honey blonde politician manuevered around. With a small suitcase full of signed paperwork for vetoes, proposals, and bills, Relena Darlian claimed the last elevator for herself and was about to lean her head against the wall as she listened to the elevator doors close, but then caught. She opened her eyes to inspect the source of the problem and found her bodyguard, Carl Jackson, who was holding the doors open to squeeze through. Relena mentally shuddered as he moved in to stand beside her before embracing his presence with her political mask.
"You know, Ms. Darlian, I can't protect you when you are trying, intentionally, to lose me after every corner," Carl patronized her with anything but an angry look.
Relena choked back when she noticed the pure amusement that flickered across his eyes and then punched in her floor number to allow the doors to close once again. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Jackson, but I thought you were right behind me. I have too many important things to worry about to take the time to look back to confirm whether or not you can keep up."
Carl smirked merrily, "Very intelligent, Ms. Darlian, but I am well aware of your love of ditching bodyguards to escape to a few minutes of freedom. Not that I blame you." Carl watched Relena's eyes move away from him toward the number displayed above the doors to indicate which floor they had reached.
As the doors opened to Relena's floor, she looked back with a bewildered look, "I really don't have time for a lecture on what I do with my personal life. And the last time I checked, you had no say in it. So, if you will excuse me."
"Well, last time I checked, I was your personal bodyguard, which means I am in charge of your life for the time being, which includes your personal life."
The very fact numbed Relena to the core, and she found she couldn't exert any energy into her legs to move. There it was again, that claustrophobic feeling. That simple, overwhelming feeling always seemed to drown Relena when her life was being controlled by someone other than herself. Her eyes seemed to cloud over a second before she realized something was astray. "Where's Dorothy? She's never late." Relena turned abrubtly to Carl for some answers.
Carl's eyes took on a sudden change from sole amusement to extreme gravity at the mention of Relena's personal assistant. "Miss Catalonia contacted me last night informing me that she was assigned to a classified mission by preventers and will be gone until further notice. That was all I was told, Ms. Darlian."
back to the present...
The soft thumping that had previously sounded outside the window had turned into a thunderous downpour. Relena found herself tapping her pen upon the tip of her nose once again in contemplation. She had mentally noted the sudden change in expression on Carl's face earlier that day and was immediately suspicious. Why didn't Dorothy contact her herself instead of Carl? She abhorred Carl's every presence and went out of her way just to avoid eye contact. The questions that ran through her mind plagued her like poison. 'It just doesn't make any sense!' Dorothy had promised Relena that she would help her with the case on the disappearances. Not only that, but Dorothy never participated in any preventer operation.
Nothing made sense, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt Carl lied to her straight in the eye, which infuriated her. Relena glanced toward her small laptop that laid next to her on the couch. She pulled up a file which held a concensus of the rate of people disappearing in the last three years, which shockingly enough skyrocketed since the end of A.C. 195. What was even more baffling was the fact that the majority of those disappearances consisted mainly of children, particularly war-orphens, ranging from six years of age to thirteen and fourteen. It didn't seem like much of a significance at first, just downright disturbing, until she realized that the day that the rate had begun to skyrocket was the exact same day that the first doctor, Dr. Ruano-Saal had disappeared. Whether it truely held a magnitude or was nothing more than a coincidence remained egnimous to Relena.
Frustrated, Relena walked toward the large panel glass to watch the streaks of lightning light the darkened world below creating a dangerous beauty across the sky. She knew it was dangerous to stand so close to a window during a thunderstorm, especially in one of the highest floors of the building. Yet, the nearness of such danger intrigued her mind, and made her feel more free than she could anywhere else. 'Heero.'
*~*
Intense prussian blue orbs suddenly jerked to a single window in the congested hotel room and starred blankly at the rigorous downpour that cleansed the world outside. 'Relena.'
Several seconds passed in what seemed like an eternity before he returned to a vidcam infront of him that he had connected to his laptop. He hacked effortlessly into the preventer computer mainframe, entering whatever necessary codes were required to lock into the information he needed. He then leaned back to run his calloused hands through his untame locks of brown to massage his head from a persisting headache while he waited for the computer to process the connection. What was he thinking? How the heck was he going to follow through with the minor task he had assigned to himself to complete tonight.
He quickly jerked forward when he caught sound of a dialing tone, a connection, and then a series of rings. His eyes hardened into a absent stare as the vidcam lit up signaling the line had been answered. His lips were instinctively pressed into a thin line as he watched a familiar cascade of platinum blonde hair and icy blue eyes fill the screen and return a baffled look back at him before returning the same absent stare that was being sent.
"Heero Yuy."
"Zeches."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
AN: There's Chapter 7, finally! I hope you enjoyed it! The next chapter will be a little more action packed, but I don't want to give away the plot, but I will tell you, everything will come together with this next one...and I am planning on every character making an entrance in this next one, so hold on to your seats!
Chibi Wufei: Yea right... you haven't even written half of the next chapter!
Author: SHUSH YOU! Writing is an art that takes delicate precision and lots of time.
Chibi Wufei: What's the complication? You pick up a pen and move your hand. Not like it takes serious brain power.
Author: *eyes widen, then sighes* Well, excuse me, Mr. everything-you-can- do, I-can-do-better, but I am not so fortunate as you.
Chibi Wufei: Denying the facts is a tremeduous sign of weakness.
Author: *pulls out the dreaded pen and pushes chibi Wufei off the table and into the trash can with it* So is arrogance!