FOURTH CHAPTER

Heero finally summoned enough courage to visit the damp, dingy alley. It was nearly midnight, and the sky above seemed to agree with his foul mood, since it was laden with thick, dark clouds that promised rain. The place, set between a couple of rather tall apartment buildings, was even darker than the street outside.

A large neon sign flashing pink letters showed him his destination. Heero merely sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets before walking over to a moldy wooden door. To his bad luck, the hinges creaked loudly when he opened it, drawing towards him some unwanted stares. Ignoring the eyes that fell upon him, he sat at the bar.

At an old, forgotten and nearly run down men's club in the darkest streets of New York, Heero and Wufei had gotten word from their old acquaintance, J.

"What can I get ya?" asked the fat bartender.

"J"

For a while, the bartender looked at him through narrowed eyes, carefully studying him. He discovered Heero was dead serious.

"He's upstairs… and he's not in a good mood"

"Well good, 'cause neither am I"

And so, Heero was allowed to climb a hidden staircase next to the bar into darker rooms at the place's second floor. J, an old man with long hair and large, fly-like glasses was lazily smoking on a couch in the corner of the first room Heero came to. Just like the place outside, the room seemed as run down and musty beneath the dim light of a computer's screen.

"I see you finally decided to drag your sorry ass here," said J between puffs of white smoke.

"Then I guess you already know what I'm looking for"

J took a long drag of his cigar before smirking darkly. Heero knew perfectly well what that smirk meant: as always in these sort of businesses, whatever information J might provide him with wasn't going to be for free.

"Well, since you only go for the bigger fish, I'd say you're after the Winner Co. hacker"

"What's the price?"

J was the owner of the men's club, or at least for the moment, since he wasn't really the type of man to just stay put somewhere. He was a hard to find man, and yet an excellent source of information for Heero's job. Heero and him had some history together that not even Wufei was fully acquainted with. Apparently it was J who first suggested that Heero become an assassin.

"He, he, for an old friend? I want 10 of what you get"

"…forget it"

"He, he, he. All right, all right… let's see…"

While J lit another cigar, Heero pulled a large roll of bills. J inhaled deeply and got to business.

"There's a list of 5 that could be your hacker, and they're all men"

Heero laid down a thousand dollars on a table. J had just narrowed his search to a bout a 40 of the population. After all, there are more women that men, same goes for hackers. J stared hungrily at the bills and prompted himself to give away as much as he could… business wasn't going well those days.

"You might be wanting to look for a guy around your age… between seventeen and… twenty five, I'd say"

Another thousand dollars were set down.

"Also, he's staying here, in the U.S.A."

Yet another thousand.

"And before I forget, he travels alone"

You guessed right, a thousand more.

At this point J stopped talking and scratched his beard thoughtfully. Heero eyed him curiously and then looked down at the four thousand dollars lying on top of the metallic table.

"Just four?" asked the assassin with the slightest trace of mockery.

"Wait, I'm sure I had at least the fifth…"

"I'd say you're starting to rust" Heero finally folded the rest of the bills and put them away, "if you get anything else then give Wufei a call"

The old man stomped his foot angrily against the floor, but nevertheless took the money in one swift motion. Without counting them or checking just to check if they weren't fake, he pocketed the dollars and stood up to shake Heero's hand.

"I knew I had the fifth one. It must've been something not quite important or I wouldn't have forgotten about it… Anyways, it's a pleasure doing business with you."

"Hn…"

"Make sure you stop by and take a look at my girls" J winked an eye.

"…"

"He, alright, alright. Do come by again then, he, he"

Heero left the dark room as soon as possible. He was the kind of guy that went straight to the point, not bothering to linger in useless, stupid banter, and was glad that his visit to the place was over in less that fifteen minutes. He thoughtfully rolled over in his mind what he'd just picked up from J. He was supposed to be looking for a male hacker, around his own age who traveled alone and was currently living in the U.S.A. It wasn't really that much help, considering the population of the entire country, but at least it was a start, and being as he was the best, he was sure he'd have his payment in less than four, maybe five, months.

"Now I have to call Wufei" thought Heero, "and have him begin the hunt."

Out of maybe morbid curiosity he looked back at the girls on his way out. A couple of them were making one of those oh so common dances and some drunken customers were trying without success to grab a hold of one.

"Disgusting" thought Heero as one of the girls' mad laughter rang in the nearly empty place.

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Taking a paper towel next to him, Duo dried the warm droplets of water pearling the surface of his face. Staring at his reflection in the dirty mirror hanging in front of him, he discovered that the guy looking back at him seemed a little bit worse for the wear, but at least still fully awake and surprisingly well held together. He was about to wonder how to best fix himself, considering the place he was at, but stopped as he decided it would be a hopeless cause. The only thing he tried was a little shake of his head to try and get rid of the faintest trace of hangover that was somehow slowly crawling up his entire body.

"Way to go, Maxwell" he thought, "now get your ass out of here before you get into any trouble"

Despite what a first impression might give away, Duo Maxwell had a bit of an obsession about being in self-control. He hated it when things got a bit out of hand and it didn't come as a big surprise the fact that he absolutely despised getting drunk. One surely commits a lot of stupid things under the influence of alcohol, things one doesn't really remember afterwards after all.

Leaving the restroom Duo was at currently, he saw the entrance door shutting itself behind what must've been just another customer.

"How in Hell's name did I come to such a place?" he mused as he stared at the fat bar tender that was cleaning a glass with a spotted rag.

A shrill laugh cut Duo off his musings and he turned to see one of the striper girls teasingly playing with a drunken bum.

"Yep, you better get out of here, fast"

For an unknown reason, Duo had found himself walking into that dead end alleyway at nearly ten o'clock in the night and entering a men's club for a drink. Even though he wasn't all that fond of alcoholic beverages, he ordered a couple of beers, which soon became a stronger drink. He kept getting drunk like that until he saw in his wristwatch it was nearly midnight.

He supposed his bad mood had something to do with him not being able to find what he'd been looking for in his computer for maybe the first time in his life. But then again, Duo wasn't really straight and he kept wondering why a men's club, of all places.

As he slowly made his way across the tables in front of the bar, an unseen girl cut his way placing a hand on his shoulder. "Leaving so soon love?"

Duo glanced back at the girl. She was shorter than him by a good amount of inches, barely reaching his chin with the top of her head. She was a slim brunette with a great lack of clothes, bothering only to cover the essential… barely. He gave her a cheesy grin and swept her hand off his shoulder with a mere shrug.

"I must" he answered offhandedly, and turned once more to leave.

"But…"

"Good-bye!" he raised his tone to cut off whatever the girl had to say and quickened his pace. Finally outside he stretched and saw a shadow move between the darkness and turn the corner. He supposed it was the customer that he heard leave just when he was exiting the restroom.

"Well" he spoke out loud to himself, "off to find trouble elsewhere… and maybe get some sleep"

Whistling a tune he didn't even know he knew, he slowly made his way across some six blocks to the small motel he was staying at. Mastering the dizziness that threatened to get hold of him, he produced the key card of his room and pushed the door open, nearly falling to the floor after momentarily losing his balance. It took him a while to focus his eyes. He leaned heavily on the door, shutting it behind him, while he regained control over himself. In front lay the bed neatly made and a desk on top of which his laptop rested.

At first he made for the desk, griping the back of the chair firmly to avoid a nasty fall, but as he stared at the black device, he realized that another search would prove as fruitless as the previous one, even more so in his current state. No matter what he did, he wouldn't be able to find Heero Yuy that night.

True, he could always go back to his hotel room, since he'd already been there twice and had no trouble in finding it all over again, but he was damn sure Heero wouldn't stay there forever. Being that as it was, he had decided to poke around in the net in search for some background information on Heero Yuy, but had found nothing about him, not even using a great deal of his hacking abilities. He had tried looking for something at the hotel's archives, but had only come across the name Chang, Wufei, which had sent him panicking. Then again, making a double take, he remembered having heard Heero himself call someone like that on the phone and he assumed that Wufei was the guy he'd met the other day he'd gone looking for Heero. So he wasn't really too lost, but all the same, not a word on a man named 'Heero Yuy'.

Finally sitting at the bed's edge, he began unstrapping his black boots thinking glumly about whatever this could mean. "Maybe it was a fake name" he thought. After finishing with his boots he pushed himself to the center of the bed. "I guess I'll just have to…" a big yawn overtook him, "see tomorrow…"Without bothering to get undressed Duo fell asleep almost immediately, snoring loudly.

He might not have liked it, but he was slowly becoming more and more obsessed with this guy. He usually told himself it was only to give him his clothes back and to get even for being treated the way he had been when they met. Duo could still remember the cold and harsh way Heero had shooed him from his hotel room, and this, according to Duo, was another good reason to be Heero-hunting, just to get even for the rudeness. …See if you'd actually believe that.

XXX XXX XXX

"So, how's the old man?" asked Wufei absentmindedly while walking around the room, collecting a bunch of stuff in his arms.

"Huh?" Heero was surprised by his friend's sudden inquiry. He had just locked the door behind him and had found a very hurried Wufei darting back and forth laden with things belonging to them.

"J"

"Well… he's fine… Speaking of which, what exactly are you doing?"

Wufei paused long enough to turn and look at the guy standing right in front of the door. After really making sure it was no other that Heero Yuy himself, he sighed in what was unmistakably discontent.

"Heero, I told you we were leaving tonight"

"Wha-?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten! Really, you'd have thought that for someone such as yourself you'd pay more attention to details. I still wonder how do you manage to be the best at what you do."

"I… I'm sorry Wufei, I've had my mind focusing on something else lately… I…"

"Oh, just shut up and make yourself useful" Wufei walked right over to Heero and gave him the trinkets he'd been carrying around, "here. Make sure you get everything packed while I go check out at reception. There's not much left."

Wufei took the card key Heero had just used to get in and left the room. Even if it was midnight, there was no changing Wufei's mind. They usually switched hotels just like that, unexpectedly and at ungodly hours. According to Wufei, it was just as a preventive measure so they wouldn't get caught by revengeful victims of their job, but this was a top in the unexpected. Heero had kind of being hoping they'd stay for at least two more days.

"Not that stupid Maxwell again" thought Heero as he reminded himself of the real reason he had been hoping to stay put longer, "you're not seeing him again and that's final. After all, what are the real chances of seeing a guy again in this city." He then remembered Wufei talking about a guy dressed in black coming to their very room…

Well, no use worrying about that anymore. He was the best, hired assassin in probably the entire world and he couldn't really afford to have something like that gnawing at the back of his mind. Right now he only needed to concentrate in finding the hacker and getting paid for it. If, and only if, he could get the chance to search the guy after he was done, well… he might try it.

Heero mentally slapped himself for even thinking about the guy once more. He was cold-blooded, he was ruthless, he was methodical… he couldn't afford anything else to interrupt this. "No" he firmly decided as he made his way to the suitcase lying on top of the bed nearly filled with clothes, "I can't afford any interruptions… after all, I'm used to simply being alone, with only Wufei. I don't see why this Duo character should make any difference." And with such thought at mind he completely let the Maxwell issue drift away from his mind…

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A/N: …hello? Anyone there? …mmm, well, if no one's there to read this then serve me right. If there is then… I'M REALLY SORRY!!! :( I do realize it's taken me forever to update this fic, but I would never forget about it, honest! Anyways, I'm really sorry for being such a lazy oaf, but I do hope you like this new chapter… Once again I'm sorry, and I hope you have an excellent new year.