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Segment 4:
Burning Bridges
Summary:
Determined to find one of the guardians of Crystal Tokyo, Sally and Wufei research Sally's old colleague, Amy Anderson, to try to find a connection. They are shocked to come to the conclusion that the suspected guardian, Sailor Mercury, would be over a thousand years old if alive. With this new evidence, Sally contacts Amy, who invites them to visit her in Germany. The two travel there, but before they can ask any questions, Amy's house is attacked by three Leute. Together, Wufei and Sally defeat them. Then, Wufei turns on Amy and demands her to confess being Mizuno Ami and Sailor Mercury. Amy hysterically denies it, screaming she "will not be Sailor Mercury again", and passes out.
Like most Earth-based government organizations, the ESIA headquarters was located in Brussels, Belgium. Thus, despite the unrelenting snow and sharp winds, Duo drove his cheap, old rental car through the city towards his target.
The ESIA building wasn't one of the most beautiful nor awe-inspiring buildings located in the city. It was about eight stories tall, located between two similar office buildings, and if not for the letters ESIA above the doorway, he probably would've passed by it completely. However, his determination to find the elusive Setsuna Meioh drove him onward.
Parking the "piece of shit", as it was dubbed, he strode into the building. A pretty young secretary glanced up at him from behind a window in the lobby.
"Good morning sir. Can I help you?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm looking for Setsuna Meioh," he replied.
The girl blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Meioh?" Duo repeated, wondering why the girl looked so confused. He stifled a moan as he realized the very likely possibility that his informer may have been using a false name.
"Um, sir? Miss Meioh's in a meeting with the Secretary of Defense right now. Do you have an appointment?" she inquired.
He breathed out a sigh of relief. "I…um…no. Is she available today?"
The girl shook her head. "I'm afraid not sir. As soon as her meeting lets out, she has business to deal with in the colonies."
"Damn," he cursed softly. "Could you just get me into her office for five minutes?"
"I'm really sorry, but—"
"Please?" Duo begged, leaning against the window. "It's really, really important. Couldn't you—"
"NO!" the girl snapped. "Now I'll have to ask you to leave or I'm calling security!"
"Look! The fate of the world depends on this! There's these aliens, and Meioh's the only one who has any information on anything!" Duo cried.
"Oh, yeah right. Like I haven't heard that one a thousand times," she rolled her eyes and pressed a button on her desk. "Security, I've got a man down here in the lobby who needs to be escorted from the premises."
A few seconds later, two burly looking men in blue suits wielding nightsticks appeared through the glass doorway.
"There a problem here Rene?" one of them asked.
She pointed at Duo.
He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry gentlemen. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."
"I'm sure. But we'll have to ask you to leave," the other security guard asked.
"See, that's where I start accidentally causing trouble," Duo apologized, then darted out the doorway and down the hall.
"What the hell? Get back here!" the first man hollered, chasing the braided man.
De ja vu all over again he thought as he rounded a corner and raced up the stairs. He climbed two flights, then randomly darted down the next hallway. However, he saw two more security guards at the end of it, who caught sight of him then joined in the pursuit. Thinking quickly, he ran into an empty office, and looked out the window. To his relief, he saw a fire escape. Pausing, he grabbed a wastebasket from the desk nearby and dropped it, hoping the sound would distract his hunters. Then, he quietly climbed up the fire escape to the roof.
Once at the top, he slid a tiny explosive into the door leading back into the building. It made a loud firecracker bang, then he pulled the door open. Dashing down the stairs, he came to a seemingly deserted hallway and stopped to breathe. As he did, he saw a man, a woman, and two small children come out of an office near the end of the hall.
"Well, Mr. Bailey. I assure you that this matter will be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. Until then, I wish you and your son the best," the woman replied.
Duo blinked. No question about it; it was Setsuna Meioh talking to Roderick Bailey, Secretary of Defense.
"Of course, Meioh. You've never let us down before," Bailey replied. "Boys, I think you ought to thank Miss Meioh for letting you play on her computer."
The two children's faces were dour and cold. Duo shivered. He knew one of them well. While one "boy" had blond, almost white hair, the other had reddish hair, and a large bump on the side of "his" head.
"Thank you Miss Meioh," they replied in a single voice.
But Setsuna didn't flinch. "You're very welcome. It was nice meeting you, Aaron, Elijah."
"Right then. We'll keep in touch, Meioh," Bailey replied, leading the Leute away.
Bailey paid no notice to Duo standing in the stairwell, but the Leute were more observant. Particularly "Aaron", who stopped and gawked at Duo incredulously at first, then angrily as he reached for something in his denim jacket. However, the other Leute touched his comrade's arm, and he stopped. The blond opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, Bailey called for them both to hurry along.
They glared at Duo, who uncontrollably shivered, then walked away.
"You're late," Setsuna said after they had disappeared down the hallway. "Come in my office before Security catches up with you and starts asking questions."
His mouth dropped as she led him into a large office with a lovely view of the skyline. She pointed to a wheeled leather chair across the desk from her own, and he sat.
"Coffee?" she asked, pouring a cup for herself from the machine on the counter along the wall behind her.
"Um…no. No," he blinked and shook his head. "And what the hell do you mean, I'm late?"
"I expected you to be pounding on my door five minutes ago, regardless of my meeting. Should I assume you waited out of courtesy?" Setsuna asked.
"Meeting? With the Leute?" Duo gasped.
She shook her head calmly. "No, with Roderick Bailey. Of course, Eljira controls him, but it is necessary to keep up appearances."
"And the other one? Aethrin?" he pressed.
"Eljira's body guard, I assume. Even with their excellent intelligence, I doubt they would've known enough about your visit to bother sending one of their assassins to kill you," Setsuna answered.
"Kill me? Why just me?"
"It's not just you. You're just the easiest to get at, like Kino was. Let's look at the facts. You'd have to have the devil's luck to catch Heero, Trowa would know if someone was trailing him days before they made a move, Quatre has enough bodyguards to form his own army, and attacking Wufei and Sally is suicide," Setsuna explained. "Meanwhile, you're frequently on your own, the government doesn't trust you, and there are less than ten people who will miss you if you die."
"Gee thanks. Anything else nice you'd like to say about me?" Duo rolled his eyes.
"You're very good at running," she commented, smirking slightly and sipping her coffee. "Any other questions?"
"Yeah, a lot actually. First off: You mentioned someone named Eljira?" he asked.
"Eljira ak Zhul. That was the blond one who left with Aethrin and Bailey. He's posing as the Secretary's adopted son, Elijah Bailey. I've got people keeping a close eye on him. It seems he may be one of the main leaders amongst the Leute," Setsuna answered.
"Who are these "people" anyways?" he put his hands behind his head and leaned the chair back.
"Descendents of friends of the Royal Family of Crystal Tokyo. That's how we were made aware of this problem. You can trust their accuracy," she replied.
"Huh. Really," Duo leaned forward. "Come on, Setsuna. Even if this is all true, how are these "friends" going to prove anything?"
She shrugged. "We can't make people believe, Duo. If we ignore warning signs, if we dismiss omens because they point to a seemingly ridiculous end, we will be faced with destruction. And should anyone who believed the scenario survive," she paused and took another drink of coffee. "Well then, I think we'll be hearing "I told you so" for a long time."
"Do you believe any of this?"
She leaned forward and rested her chin on her folded hands. Her eyes were very grave. "I believe it all, Duo. It will be a pity for the human race if I am the only one."
The two stared at each other for what seemed like hours.
"I guess that settles it then," Duo answered softly, then leaned back again. "So what can I do to help?"
"I was hoping you'd ask that," Setsuna said, then opened the drawer of her desk and handed him a small packet containing a passport, a credit card, and a shuttle ticket to L3. "I actually have a group of informers that I'd like you to check in on. Last I've heard, they've found some very good information dealing with new elements of Leute technology, but they don't want to risk sending the information here to Earth. I was actually on my way to see them in case you didn't show, but since you did, everything is ready ahead of time."
Duo blinked in bewilderment at her. "Are you like, a psychic or something?"
She smiled and patted his shoulder. "Of course not. It's like I said before: I'm very good at what I do. Now, the group consists of three females, but don't worry about age or features because they frequently change their appearances. They go by the name "Red Delta", and are usually operational in urban areas during the evening. If I were you, I'd check clubs, bars, hotels, restaurants, any sort of nightlife on L3."
"Hey, this doesn't sound too bad!" Duo grinned, intrigued by the thoughts of looking for beautiful women in exotic nightclubs. "How will I know them when I see them?"
"Don't worry, they'll know you. They won't be looking for you though, so you'd better hope they find you and recognize you. Now, I'd go out the back way if I were you. Robert and Louis have a tendency to remember faces," she answered. "And Duo…"
"Yeah?"
She tossed something at him. He caught it without thinking, then paused as he eyed it. It was a small, easily concealed handgun.
"Just a precaution," she replied, then gathered her things in a briefcase and walked out.
Sally kept glaring at Wufei the entire time as she moved Amy to the couch and pressed a cold washcloth to her forehead.
"What's your problem?" he muttered, piling the bodies of the dead Leute in the corner. Persephone the kitten stared curiously at them, then meowed loudly. Wufei gritted his teeth, but otherwise ignored the entire thing.
"Damn it Chang! You've been with the Preventors for ten years, and you still haven't managed to pick up any people skills? What the hell is the matter with you?" she snapped.
He stared her angry look down. "I don't let friendship get in the way of my job."
"This isn't about friendship! This is about treating a human being with civility!"
"She's almost fifteen hundred. You still think she's human?"
Sally gasped in shock at him, but Wufei was unfazed.
"How is she so different from the Leute? Granted, she didn't try to kill us, but what did Meioh say about the legend? That the Senshi were waiting until the right time to regain control?" he asked.
Sally bit her lip. It was true. The reason that the ancient guardians and the Leute were at war was for the control of Earth. Realistically, none of these people should be trusted.
"Still…" she began, then stopped as Amy moaned and opened her eyes. Shooting one more look at Wufei, she gently patted the side of her face.
"Amy? Amy, you okay?" she asked.
"Unh…Sally?" the woman murmured, sitting up. "What happened?"
"You passed out," Sally answered calmly.
Amy paled. "That's right. I did, didn't I? Because…" She moaned again and put her head in her hands.
Sally put a hand on her shoulder. "You want to talk about it?"
"No," Amy answered, then looked up and sighed. "But I'll have to, won't I?"
Her friend smiled weakly. "Hey, this is the whole reason we came to see you. We wanted to know. There's a few more of us now who know this whole thing about the Leute. Ever since Kino…um…"
"Died," Amy finished sadly. "I saw it on the news."
"I'm really sorry Amy," Sally said.
Amy shook her head. "She did her best; she always did. That's how Jupiter operated."
"So Lita Kino was Jupiter?" Wufei confirmed.
The blue haired woman nodded. "Yes. And despite what I said before, I am Mercury. I guess…I guess I wasn't ready to accept that again so suddenly. Especially since I've been scared out of my mind ever since I heard about Mako-chan. Or Lita, as she was going by."
"So, you've dealt with the Leute before?" Sally asked.
"Oh god…hundreds of times. Over years and years and years," Amy answered. "I'm assuming you figured out my age?"
"1,476 years old, right?" she said.
"Actually, 1,475. My birthday's in September," she smiled slightly.
"Oh yeah, I remember," Sally replied.
"So…can you tell us more about the Leute?" Wufei pressed.
Amy's face twisted into an expression of pain and sadness. "The Leute? They're monsters. From what I understand, their planet was once much like ours, but died out sometime around 3100. During its fall, they focused on building vessels that could transport its people to our planet. They'd researched it some time ago; researched us. Our lifestyle is not so very different from theirs, though their technology is more advanced than ours. Our very DNA is 98% identical. Once they'd landed, it was no trouble for them to blend it.
"From there, they only meant to live among us. But because they were always seen as children, they were treated like children. Locked away in group homes, forced to live on the streets, and imprisoned in laboratories when they did not age. Oh, history does sometimes exaggerate. They never attacked earth first. They rebelled, and fought for the rights of their people. And they won it.
"But soon, that wasn't good enough. They wanted to treat us the way we had treated them. They formed their own societies, their own government, and overthrew humans on the planet. Then, they started their holocaust. Humans were treated as slaves, as test subjects, even as a food source. It was the darkest time of our history. For the first time ever, we became an endangered species.
"That was when Serenity led us Senshi against the Leute. It was a difficult battle, and I don't want to explain the details of some of the disgusting things we had to do to win, but in the end, we did win. The Leute were destroyed. And the Earth was so grateful, Serenity became queen. That was the dawn of Crystal Tokyo.
"Years passed, and we noticed unrest amongst the people. Serenity met with representatives, but they seemed content. It was as if nothing was wrong. Then one night, we were attacked. By 70% of Crystal Tokyo! They had weapons, which shocked us because weapons had been banned at the start of Serenity's reign. The attack took us by surprise, and we barely escaped with our lives. We realized then that the revolt was organized by the Leute who had once again reinserted themselves amongst the populace that now sheltered them rather than hunted them.
"There was no way for us to fight back. Serenity ordered we disband and live as civilians, and to keep our eyes out for Leute. That's what we've been doing for the past four hundred odd years. Living normal lives, and moving whenever danger came to close."
Sally and Wufei looked at each other, then at the woman before them. There was no doubt anymore that her story was true.
"But why did the people suddenly accept the Leute if they'd tortured everyone those years before?" Sally asked.
Amy smiled grimly. "I told you, they're a technologically advanced people. One of their most brilliant creations is the process of altering brain signals."
"What? How can that be possible?" she gasped.
"I don't know how it all works, but basically, they have brain surgeons among them that can read the signals in your brain that come out as memories, dreams, personality, methods of reasoning, anything. In less than an hour with one of these surgeons, they could completely wipe your mind, make you into a supporter, give you dreams about world conquest, and even make the way you see the world around you change," Amy explained.
"So it's brainwashing?" Wufei asked.
"Brainwashing to the nth degree. Once all of this happens, the only way it can be reversed is by a Leute brain surgeon. And you can bet all the money in the world that once you're the way they want you, they will never change you back into the person you were. Never," she responded, then dropped her voice to a low whisper, so soft it was as if she weren't aware she were speaking it. "It happened to one of us."
"What? Who?"
Amy blinked and paled, then shut her eyes and shook her head. "No. No! That's why I told you I can't be Sailor Mercury anymore. If the Leute don't find me, she will."
"She?" Wufei continued.
"NO!" Amy yelled, then rubbed her temples. "Look…you guys need help dealing with the Leute, right? That was the reason you came to find me?"
"Yeah…" Sally answered.
"Okay, then I'll make you a deal. I'll help you deal with the Leute. But just the Leute. I can't help you with finding the others or making them join. But I promise I'll cooperate with providing any other information you want," Amy explained.
Sally and Wufei looked at each other.
"Give us a moment?" Sally asked. Amy nodded, and the two stepped into the kitchen.
"Well, what do you think?" she asked.
"I understand her not wanting to show off her powers. It's difficult to know whom you can trust. But she's offering information, which we're definitely going to need," Wufei pointed out.
"But no information on the other Senshi," Sally countered.
"We should take what we can get. If worse comes to worse, we'll get the truth out of her," he answered solemnly.
"Chang…"
He smirked sarcastically. "She's in?"
Sally paused, then nodded. "She's in."
They went back into the living room, where Amy was now stroking Persephone. She looked up at them with wide blue eyes.
"Well?"
Sally smiled. "You've got a deal, Amy."