The Purpose of a Heart
Chapter Seven:
He was standing outside Yami's apartment. The door seemed to be locked when he tried the knob and the curtains were drawn across the windows. Bakura knocked on the door, and when he got no answer, he tried knocking harder.
"Yami!" he called. Still no answer, and he began to feel nervous. "Yami?" Taking a few steps back, he hefted one of the rocks lining the driveway of the next house over, and lobbed it through the glass window. Despite the noise, no one came out to investigate. The inside of the house was dark, and Bakura felt uncomfortable as he climbed in the window and felt his way through the room to the hall. "Hello?" He called down it.
Quite suddenly, out of nowhere, a sharp pain hit his chest and he doubled over, knowing somehow, someway, that Yami was in trouble. Starting to run, he took off down the hall, but after several minutes there was no end in sight, and no doors. Where was Yami's room? It had to be someplace in this hallway, but still he saw no doors, and the hall seemed to go on forever. It was unreal, this was only a small apartment, where was this hall leading him? And where was Yami, because Bakura could feel it, something in his mind told him that the former pharaoh was in danger someplace. "Yami!" he shouted down the hall. "Are you here?"
"Yami…" Bakura muttered in his sleep at that moment. "Yami, where are you…" He tossed under the covers and his hand smacked against the side of his table, the pain waking him up. "Owch. Wha…?" He opened his eyes and found himself in his bed in the Compound. Yami's apartment and hallway were nowhere in sight. "A dream?" He rolled back over, rubbing his bruised hand. "So that wasn't real. Of course…Yami is in danger if I don't watch myself here…that must be where it came from." He sighed and rolled over.Unsettling dreams weren't exactly common to him, normally he never dreamed at all. He didn't like the helpless feeling he'd had in it. But at the same time, the reverie had done him some good. It was as if it were the signal he'd been waiting for to try out his half-formed plan he'd been toying with for the past week.
Bakura took a deep breath and crossed the crowded dining hall. There was virtually no place in the building to have a private conversation, but dinnertime was the best choice because of all the other people around talking to each other.
"Louis." He said, taking a seat beside the student, whose eyes were glued to an instruction manual for a video game, and a half-eaten bowl of ramen sat before him. Still, he swiveled his head around at the sound of Bakura's voice. He'd come to admire and even somewhat look up to the assassin.
"Yeah?"
"I need your help."
Against his better judgment yes, but nonetheless, Bakura spoke the truth. He'd decided that in order to find anything of use out, the only choice was to go straight to the source. And that meant searching the boss's computer files. No doubt that would be where the important information was. (And hopefully a less tacky desktop picture.) However, the boss's office was either inhabited by the man himself, or was otherwise under constant surveillance of a video camera that had the ability to tape everything in nearly a 360 degree view. The only place it couldn't tape was a five inch by five inch dead space directly above the lens, where a piece of black plastic secured it to the ceiling. There was no way he could get in and out of that office unseen, unless he had some help.
"Really? You need my help? For what?"
"Geez Louis, by all means, raise your voice. There might have been a few people in England that didn't hear you."
Louis lowered his voice guiltily. "Sorry."
"Okay, listen. I've got to get into the boss's office. But before I do that, I have to either short out his camera, or steal the tape from it. Both those things I can't do if he's in there, and I can't take a chance on him walking in on me. You follow?"
"I get your point, but I don't see what I can do."
"Then open your eyes. You've got to distract the boss long enough for me to sabotage his camera or steal the tape, and then get him out of his office long enough for me to get a good look in his computer files."
"How are you going to do that?"
"Old-school style, that's how. Open whatever documents he's modified recently, print them out, and get studying. Microsoft Word's one of the very few progams I know, it's my best shot."
"No, not that, I mean how are you going to even get close enough to the camera to mess it up? It'll tape you, and he'll still be able to see that it was you who did it. And if the tape goes missing right after you were in there, he'll know you took it." Louis shoveled noodles into his mouth. "It's a good plan, don't get me wrong, but it's dangerous. Even more dangerous than beating Blair up." He said, spraying broth from his ramen.
"Weren't you the one congratulating me for pushing the limits?" Bakura demanded, handing him a napkin. "Look kid, I need your help. Yami needs your help. And if I'm right about what's going on, then there's a bunch of other people that need your help too."
"Hn, I know, I know. It's just…they said they'd kill me if they ever found me out of bounds." Louis seemed very unlike his usual rowdy self, which concerned Bakura. He didn't like it when people acted unlike themselves. "It's one thing to offer advice to you, or listen for any information, but…I've told you before Bakura, I'm only here to save myself. I want to get out, sure, but I don't want to die doing so."
"And I don't want Yami to die!" Bakura argued back, temper rising. "I think this place is after a lot more than killing just a few people. There's something far bigger in the works. Look at all the people in this room and tell me there's not something bigger than all of us happening. If you help me, you could potentially be helping to save the world."
"I'm sorry Bakura. I mean, everyone has something they want to save. You have Yami and I have myself. We can't save both."
"If you'll help me, goddammit, then we can try."
He got no reply. Scowling, Bakura shrugged as he turned to walk off. "Fine, I'll carry out the plan on my own."
He got a few steps away before Louis asked curiously,
"Were you serious about possibly saving the world?"
Bakura turned back and smirked. The idea of being a hero always got to everyone in the end. "Better believe it."
Louis glanced down at the video game manual, and then toward a crowd of people resembling engineers, who were all seated at a table talking quietly among themselves, and who threw him dirty looks when they saw him watching them. Bakura waited. Louis looked back and stood up, smiling.
"What the heck, why not?"
He decided to just steal the tape. Upon investigation, he figured out there was no way to short out the camera with water from the ceiling, and there was no way to rig up a pulley system. Since the tape in the video camera was on the inside, it was impossible to tell that it was missing at a glance. Bakura waited till no less than three people had been in the boss's office before he sent Louis in, so that there would be a few suspects.
"Boss!" Louis burst in the door, panting.
"What is it?" the man shot up in his seat.
"I saw a stranger outside, he was looking around the parking area. I don't think he's buying the story about the poison gas being here. What should I do?"
Bakura, listening in a closet nearby, was impressed at how realistic Louis sounded. And this guy was wasting his time in college studying journalism?
Sure enough, the story about a stranger hanging around got the boss's attention, and the two ran off down the hall toward the stairs. Bakura, meanwhile, slipped into the office, removing the tape from the camera and sliding it into his pocket. He shut the tape door so that it looked as though the tape was still in there. Louis had said he could only guarantee fifteen minutes, so Bakura quickly grabbed some printer paper from a box under the desk, stuck it in the printer, and opened up Microsoft. He found very little that was of any use there, so he tried opening the My Documents folder instead, and there he found a bunch of text documents full of calculations. They looked important, so he printed those out.
As they were printing, he curiously opened up a program called "LDOP". He had no idea what the letters stood for, but the program revealed a lot of pictures, measurements, and diagrams of parts of something. Almost like blueprints. There were some paragraphs written in English as well, but he couldn't translate them.
"Ah…" he said aloud, highlighting the pictures and hopefully tapping Ctrl-P. To his delight, the pictures began printing. Bakura perched on the desk and checked his watch. Ten minutes had already passed.
"Where did you see the person?" Blair demanded.
Louis blinked. He and the boss had run outside, and on their way, acquired a small crowd, every one of them ready to beat up whatever idiot that had dared to walk onto the property.
"Um…I saw him in the parking area."
"Probably some no good car thief." Blair growled, dashing for the parking garage.
Louis kept his eyes trained on the side of the building. He and Bakura had decided upon a warning: if he saw the shades in the window of the boss's office open and close real quickly, that meant Bakura was going to need some extra time and to try and stall the boss as long as possible.
"Louis." The boss prompted, snapping his fingers. "What did the stranger look like?"
"He…he had short hair. And it was black." Louis nodded surely, figuring there had to be a millionshort-black-haired people in Japan."And he was wearing jeans and…ah…I think it was a green shirt."
"Do you know which way he was heading? Was he going toward the stairs, or back toward the woods?"
Louis didn't answer because at that moment, he saw the shades of the boss's office open and close frantically.
"Um…um…" Louis began nervously, now worried about what could have gone wrong, and how long he'd be able to keep people away. "Toward the woods. I think, but it was hard to tell, y'know, because we're surrounded by woods…"
Bakura was having trouble. Thanks to him stuffing a bunch of printer paper into the machine without making sure all the pages were flush, a royal paper jam had occurred. The paper jam to end all paper jams. He couldn't pull the stuck sheets out either direction without fear of breaking something in the printer.
"Dammit! Who invented these idiotic machines?" He demanded as he tugged at the stuck sheets. "I hate this! I hate computers, I hate printers, I hate the imbecile that invented them, I hate the company that made this PIECE OF CRAP…"
He yanked at the paper and it loosened unexpectedly, causing him to trip and fall. "Owch!"
On screen, the gray box cheerfully announced that the paper jam had been cleared, and warned him to follow the subsequent steps listed to avoid the problem in the future.
"I'll give you a problem…" Bakura muttered, rubbing the back of his head, his fingers dotted with black ink smudges from the printer.
He hoped that Louis was doing a good job holding the boss up.
"Well, you see, I came down here…why did I come down here again? Oh, right, yeah, I came down here because I was going to wash the car. See, the station wagon hasn't been washed in a long time so I thought I'd make it nice and clean for the next get-away time. So, I came down here to wash it-"
"Why didn't you bring any soap…and a bucket to fill up?" A tall woman that everyone referred to as Janie, who was wearing a jumpsuit like one would commonly see a mechanic wearing, spoke up suspiciously.
Louis faltered. "Well, I came down here first just to see if I needed to wash it or not. Then, if I had needed to wash it, I would have gone and gotten some soap and water and a bucket."
The boss cut in impatiently. "That's fascinating. Where did you see this stranger though?"
"Oh, well, I was down here, I was coming down to see if I needed to wash the car-"
"Yes Louis, I think we have established that." The boss sighed, looking at his watch. "Look, I'm very busy. I'd like you all to search the property, top to bottom. I've got to get back to my office."
Louis panicked and looked around wildly. "Ah-what's that! I saw something move over there, it looked like a flash of green! Maybe it was that guy's shirt. Let's go check!" He grabbed the boss's cuff and began dragging him across the dirt road.
"Louis, someone else can go look!" The boss unattached himself and began walking toward the Compound. "I was very busy and I'm glad you brought this to my attention, but I don't have to oversee it all."
"Wait!"
I HATE COMPUTERS! Bakura ranted to himself as he feverishly hit random buttons. Just as the print job was starting to end, the program committed what the red box on the screen proclaimed as a 'fatal error'. Bakura wasn't exactly techno-savvy, and the sudden announcement of a 'fatal error' didn't sound promising. It sounded like something quite the opposite. They are incomprehensible, idiotic, impossible machines that can't be threatened into working correctly. I hate everything that goes with the damn things. I hate the monitors and the mouse and the keyboard and the goddamn printer with its blasted paper jams, and all these stupid programs with their stupid Fatal Errors…
"Just a few more minutes Lou, just hold him off for a few more minutes." He begged as he pushed keys in hopes of finding a way around the problem rather than having to reboot the computer. Having to do that could easily get him caught. Some computers rebooted quickly, some slowly. It would be really bad for the boss to return to see his computer busy restarting, when it had already been on when he'd left it.
He remembered something Ryou had mentioned one time, Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Hopefully, he tried the three-key combo and miraculously, there, the computer offered up a list of running programs that he could cancel.
"I love you, whoever invented that." He said gratefully, nearly collapsing as he closed the programs.
"BOSS, ARE YOU SURE IT'S SAFE TO LEAVE THEM OUT THERE WITHOUT SUPERVISION?" From far down the hall he suddenly heard Louis's voice echo. "WHAT IF THE GUY IS CAUGHT? WON'T YOU NEED TO BE THERE?"
"Louis, you don't have to yell, I can hear you just fine."
Oh, screw it. Bakura thought quickly as he grabbed the papers he'd printed and, after contemplating his possibilities, finally stuffed them up the right leg of his jeans so that the tight denim held them against his skin. He quickly stationed himself in the chair in front of the desk and pretended to study the paperweight when the door swung open and the boss stopped in his tracks.
"Bakura?"
"Bakura?" Louis echoed, a questioning look in his eyes. Bakura purposely ignored him, giving the boss his most innocent look, which ended up looking more like a painful grimace.
"Ah, there you are. I wanted to talk to you, but you weren't here, so I decided to wait. That's a nice paperweight you have."
"Thanks." The boss gave him a funny look. Bakura concealed his ink-spattered fingers quickly. "So, what did you want to ask me about?" He asked as Louis vanished from the room.
"Well, you know I have that pay from my 'jobs', and I haven't done anything with it. I was thinking that I'd really like some Tonfa blasters. You know, the mini kind that come with a belt to hold them? I've always wanted some but could never afford them." Bakura, at least,telling the truth about that. He'd often wished he could add a pair to his collection of firearms."They would be impractical for this job, but still, they look like fun. So I wanted to ask you about ordering some." He crossed his legs, as he could feel the papers starting to slip.
"Ah, I see." The boss sat down in the chair thoughtfully. "That could probably be arranged."
Bakura nodded, and as he did, he realized with a start that he'd left the printer on, able to see the glowing green light over the boss's shoulder. Determined not to let it show in his face, he spent a good ten minutes after, chatting about Tonfa blasters, and when he finally left the office, he felt on the verge of collapse. All the boss had to do was see the printer was on, and that would have screwed everything up. He hoped the man would attribute it to having had it on before and forgotten. Once in his room he changed and tossed his jeans-papers and all-into the dirty clothes basket. Later on after dark, he'd retrieve them when he was sure no one would see him doing so on the video camera installed in the corner.
"Well, screw-ups and all…" Bakura said to himself as he flopped down on the bed to calm his racing heart. "…That was effective. Now I've got the information at least. Tomorrow I'll start looking it over." He rolled over onto his stomach and lifted his pillow, taking out his worn picture of Yami. "Pretty soon, you'll be safe. I'll make sure of it."
To Be Continued…
Author's Notes:
I know...this is a day late. I'M SORRY! But yesterday was so hectic, I hardly had time for my homework and to eat, much less get online to post. I know this chapter isn't much, but I promise the next will be far better. (I've begun it, it's coming along great.) So, sorry for making you wait, but I was just. Really. Busy. :collapses:
"Something bigger than all of us…" I thought I'd just point out that Yami uses a quote similar to this in episode 154. It's rather interesting, that Bakura would unknowingly use the quote himself. Not a major plot point or anything, but it's sort of neat.
It's amazing how many ways there are to draw scenes out, you ever notice that? It's also amazing how many stupid problems computers can have. While I love my Compy, he still drives me up the wall with madness sometimes! Arragg! There have been times when the proverbial hammer had looked inviting to use. Yes, yes indeed. Bakura-chan, I feel your pain.
Replies:
You Know Us: Yep, you're all up to date. :niko: Ah, well, had Bakura killed them, the story would have ended far too quickly…I must draw everything out, nice and long. :cackles: Ooh, very observant, the prologue IS an important plot point. :nods: Hahaa, Michelle-chan has a crush and she won't admit it! Aww…well, I hope that she won't be too hard to deal with later on in the fic. Until then, there is much to come, especially now that there's finally some solid plotlines forming. Yes, men are very…predictable…to say the least. :shakes head: Bakura's so cute with his crush, he acts like such a shy teenager. If only that stupid alarm hadn't gone off…:sigh:
Una1: Una-chan:glomps: Hi! Knowing that you weren't big on shounen-ai, I didn't think I'd see you this fic around, but I'm really glad you've decided to check it out. :niko: Aw, thank you! Yeah, Bakura's so lovable. Evil…but loveable. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. O.o Oooh, yes, 163 and 224…two of the absolute best episodes in the whole series. (Though I'll be too busy crying through most of 224, I might miss a good deal of it when it finally plays…) Yes, Dan Green really did a good job, I was impressed, and now have even more respect for him. Ahh, yeah, the Japanese version did have some better dialogue, it's too bad they had to cut out the, "so you came here to complain!", line…but oh well. It was still very good, ne? The Doom saga is really good, though Bakura would have made it better. Bakura makes anything better. :laughs: I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the fic to come!
Awright. Now that 163 is down, I've set my sights on looking forward to 173. xD It's going to be such a beautiful scene with Joey and Mai, I bet it'll make my dad cry. (I turned him into a Joey-Mai shipper and he's also a big sap…) The Doom arc is just riddled with all these beautiful scenes. I'm really glad the producers chose it to fill in space. It's too bad it's not in the manga, but ah well. I guess 343 chapters are long enough for the manga. (Yeah, so how did the anime end up being only 224 episodes with all that extra stuff, huh? Cause they condensed it, of course…) Yikes, I'm starting to break my resolution about short author's notes, I better shut it.
But the Doom arc rules! Just had to say it. So angsty and beautiful. :cries: I love it!
Right, I'll see you all next week. Until then, stay safe and don't go catching that nasty flu that's going around. :cringe: Mata!