"I wanna be in your control, so unmerciful.
You can twist me and turn me, just don't let me go.
I wanna be your puppet on a string.
Baby I'm not holding back, we can do anything.
And even if I am crazy, it's cause you make me this way.
We're as close to love as we'll ever get.
I wanna be your marionette."
~Marionette by Antonia
Seto Kaiba had planned on being late to school that day due to a conference call. He could get away with it, after all. He ran a major corporation, and it took a fair amount of effort to keep it successful. He wasn't really sure why he still bothered going to school, aside from the fact that Mokuba claimed if Seto dropped out then so would he. He was staying in school so that his little brother did, but he didn't think he could put up with another year of this nonsense.
When his limo pulled up at Domino High School late that morning, he was surprised by the amount of activity. FBI agents were swarming the grounds, the entire school was roped off, and the dweeb patrol was among the few remaining clumps of students. Something was wrong, that much was obvious. He approached the federal agents fearlessly with the calm, cool demeanor of the businessman he'd become.
"What's going on here?" he demanded, addressing the nearest agent.
"We've got an emergency situation with a suicide bomber holding a classroom of students hostage," the probie answered promptly.
"Who?"
"The target's name is Ryou Bakura, he's seventeen years old. According to the witness, he came to class with a bomb strapped to his chest. We set a perimeter outside the classroom, evacuated all nonessentials, and EOD's on site sweeping for secondaries."
"How many hostages?"
"Eight students."
"Did the witness describe the device?"
"She didn't get a great look at it, but we're fairly certain it's not a deadman switch."
"What are his demands?"
"He wants his father brought to him by sundown. It sounds easy enough, but we can't seem to track him down."
"I could do it," Kaiba replied immediately, the FBI agent giving him a suspicious look. "I'm the best when it comes to computers. If you don't want my help, that's fine, but if I were you, I would do the best I would use the best resources I could get my hands on." He started to walk away, but was stopped when the agent called his name, making him smirk.
"Wait, Mr. Kaiba!" The brunette turned to face the agent with a smug expression. "We'd appreciate the help very much."
That was how Seto came to be set up with one of their computers, fingers flying across the keyboard as he effortlessly hacked into various databases and accessed all sorts of records in search of his classmate's father. The agents had seemed hesitant to include him, but once they realized that he was remarkably intelligent, had skills equal if not superior to their computer analysts, and was efficient and precise, they seemed to get used to him.
In truth, Kaiba was just a little curious, and since he had the time to help them, he would. He figured it'd be good for his reputation as well as a good exercise of his computer skills. Once they recovered Ryou's laptop from his house, another techie was investigating his hard-drive.
"What'dya got, McGee?" the agent in charge asked before taking a swig of coffee.
"He visited a lot of morbid websites about death and the afterlife. He certainly seems mentally disturbed—I mean, nobody sane keeps that many knives around their house—but he didn't access any bomb-making websites," McGee answered. Kaiba, who sat across from him, was paying more attention to the situation than either of them might think.
"The bomb-sniffing dogs didn't react to anything at his house, and Abby didn't find any traces of explosives among his things," the head agent commented, referencing their forensic scientist who was currently looking for any helpful clues among the teenagers possessions back at her lab.
"That means one of two things," Kaiba interjected without even looking up from his screen. "Either the bomb was built somewhere other than his apartment, or it's a fake." He glanced up briefly to see their reactions, then resumed his work. He'd lost Mr. Bakura's trail and had moved on to conduct some self-assigned hacking. For the sake of the case, of course.
"Do you think it could be fake?" McGee asked his superior, looking a tiny bit hopeful.
"We won't know for sure until we get eyes inside the classroom," the senior field agent replied. "The shots we've gotten of him at the window just don't show us enough for us to determine that."
"Have you tried to establish communication with any of the hostages?" Kaiba asked, butting in again.
"No, our witness said that he made them all put their cellphones on the teacher's desk," McGee answered, his face starting to light up with realization. "However, one of his friends ran in not long after the witness came out. He might still have his cell on him." He looked up at his boss with a grin, but he seemed unimpressed.
"What are you waiting for, McGee? Go get his number from one of his friends."
"Right away." McGee rushed out of his seat and went towards the geek squad, who were still waiting at the edge of the perimeter, refusing to leave out of concern for their friend.
"I think I can solve your problem," Kaiba said after a moment. The senior field agent gave him a strange look for a moment.
"Who are you?"
"Seto Kaiba, CEO of KaibaCorp. You?"
"Special Agent DiNozzo, FBI. I'm in charge of this operation."
"I'm almost done hacking into one of the computers in the classroom," Kaiba informed him, looking quite satisfied with himself. "Soon, we'll be able to see and hear everything that's going on in there."
"Nice work, kid," DiNozzo praised, making Kaiba look up at him sharply.
"I'm not a kid," he snapped, turning his attention back to the computer. Idiot.
Ryou was pacing the classroom anxiously as Tristan sat on the edge of the teacher's desk. He was acting paranoid—not shocking, considering their situation—and periodically he'd go to the windows and peek through the blinds. The hostages were silent, but Tristan was still trying to talk him out of this. Even if it was Bakura in control right now, as he suspected, he still hoped to get through to one or both of them.
"We can still make this right, Ryou," he ventured, breaking the tense silence.
"It's too late for that now." The words were harsh and sad at the same time. He glanced back at Tristan with those big brown eyes, looking hollow and hopeless.
"We can fix this—"
"Nobody can fix this!" he shouted, interrupting his friend. "Happy endings don't happen in real life, Tristan."
Tristan could hear the words he didn't say: "Happy endings don't happen for me." It was true that his life had been far from perfect, but it was nowhere near its end, not if Tristan had anything to say about it. There was still plenty of time for things to get better if he could just be patient enough to wait for them. Ryou turned around again and went back to the window, peeking between the closed blinds nervously.
"Target has been acquired, sir. I'm only waiting for your orders," the sniper on the opposite rooftop said into his earpiece, DiNozzo listening from the FBI's temporary command center inside the school. He had his sights on Ryou, who lingered at the window. DiNozzo watched the video feed Kaiba had pulled up on one of their computers.
"The shot's not clear," DiNozzo replied, seeing that Tristan was behind Ryou, and though he was at a distance, he didn't want to take that risk.
"Actually, with the angle he has, there's no chance of the bullet hitting anyone else," Kaiba pointed out in his usual cool, confident demeanor. "The shot is clear."
"All sniper units stand down," DiNozzo ordered suddenly, and the movement of the snipers putting their rifles away drew Ryou's eye. He didn't get a good look at who they were or what they had, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what they were there to do. He stepped back from the window as his heart-rate jacked up. He'd almost died. Standing there by the window, just a few seconds ago, he could have been killed. The weight of the bomb he wore was a constant reminder of how close to death he was at the moment, but that was different. He had control over the bomb, and it would be his decision to detonate when he did. If he did. The situation looked bleaker to the boy by the second, and he was starting to wonder if he shouldn't just send everyone away and blow himself up now. He didn't have the nerve to follow through with this.
You wound me with your doubt, Bakura said scornfully in the back of his mind as Ryou remained frozen in front of the window, his hand no longer on the blinds. I've thought of everything, and unless Marik screws up on his end, we'll get away with this and the authorities won't so much as reprimand you.
Marik? What does he have to do with any of this? Ryou demanded, confused. He vaguely remembered the Egyptian from the Battle City Tournament, but he also remembered that once he'd conquered his evil half, he'd cut all ties with the Spirit of the Millennium Ring.
I'd tell you, but you're a terrible actor, unlike myself. You can't know the truth, or you'd give us away.
What are you talking about? Ryou whined in his mind, confused and distressed by Bakura's "plan." Bakura appeared in spirit-form beside him, leaning his back against the window blinds and crossing his arms as he shot a sidelong glare at his host.
"Yadonushi, if you don't stop asking questions, I'll seal you into my soul room and take over completely."
Ryou nodded, too scared of Bakura's soul room to desire such an arrangement, and Bakura rolled his eyes.
"Stop it. Your hostages will wonder why you're nodding like that, and we can only get away with this if you don't make them certain that you suffer from schizophrenia or a dissociative personality disorder."
Ryou's pale face turned red with embarrassment as the Spirit mentioned the very conditions he'd once feared he had-thanks to the Spirit of the Ring, of course. He would have prefered that something be wrong with him instead of being possessed. Bakura smirked at him.
"I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to stay out of an institution for the criminally insane. I prefer my freedom. Now that I think about it, though," he continued, his voice deceptively gentle. It was the voice he always used when he was about to say something especially cruel. "You'd probably like it there. Lots of people to make friends with, room and board provided for you, no rent to pay, no homework to complete, and free drugs on top of that."
Ryou shuddered, sickened at the thought. He was already terrified of ending up in a mental hospital or a prison, and the idea of ending up in a place that was both a mental hospital and a prison made him feel sick and weak-kneed. Bakura chuckled, amused by his host's many fears.
"Your friend just sent a text message," Bakura said calmly, making Ryou stiffen. He should have remembered to ask Tristan to give up his cellphone as well. Bakura saw those thoughts, though, and ordered otherwise: "Turn and ask him if he just did something. He'll deny it, of course, but don't push the issue. Let him keep his phone."
But why?
"It's all part of the plan."
"That might have been our only chance. Why didn't you take the shot?" Cate asked Tony as Kaiba frowned at the computer monitor in front of him.
"He's not a target, he's a scared kid who wants to see his dad," he replied, a fierce look in his eye. He couldn't bring himself to kill a kid who was barely over sixteen. They hadn't yet exhausted all of their options, and unless he knew for sure it was the only way to save the hostages, he refused to give that order.
"Do you have Taylor's number?" he asked Cate, who nodded.
"McGee gave it to me before he went back to the lab to help Abby."
"Establish communication with him. Let him know that we're here and that we can see what's going on," DiNozzo ordered, and Agent Todd started to text the teenager immediately. As Kaiba was waiting for hits on Mr. Bakura's passport, DiNozzo called Abby and McGee back at the lab to see if they'd found anything useful while processing the troubled teen's belongings.
"You should see this," Kaiba said suddenly, beckoning Agent Todd over to the computer monitor.
"What happened?" she asked as she stood behind him.
"Bakura somehow knew that Taylor texted someone without even seeing him do it." Kaiba replayed that piece if the video so that she could see it for herself. Tristan hadn't made a sound when he texted back his reply and slid his phone back into his pocket, and a few moments after doing so, Bakura had turned around and sharply questioned his friend.
"There's no way he could possibly have known that," Kate said, seeing no solution to this mystery.
"Obviously there is, because he did," Kaiba corrected. He would have agreed with her if the facts hadn't been against her. "Either he saw it himself or someone alerted it to him somehow. He didn't see it himself, so someone or something must have tipped him off."
"There aren't any reflective surfaces in the room," she observed, watching the clip again as the live feed continued playing on Tony's computer. After a moment's thought, something occurred to Kaiba, and he minimized the video as he started going back through the coding he'd used to hack into the computer's camera and microphone.
"What are you doing?"
"The first PC I tried to hack was blocked for some reason," he said as his fingers tapped across the keyboard furiously. "I thought that maybe… Ah, I was right. Someone else hacked it first. I'll back-trace the feed and figure out where it's coming from."
"What's going on over here?" DiNozzo asked as he approached the two of them after hanging up his phone.
"I can't figure out what he's getting at," Cate said with a look of irritation.
"I think he's being manipulated," Kaiba said simply, still working on tracking the other hackers. "If someone else has eyes and ears in the classroom, they may be feeding him orders through an earwig. It makes sense. We already established that there's no way he could have possibly made that bomb himself, so someone else must have assembled it. There's no way he could have seen Tristan texting you, and if he had seen it himself, why would he have waited three seconds to say something about it? It's the only logical conclusion."
"There's no way that Taylor would be able to see an earwig under all that hair," Cate commented.
"Earwigs are short-range and only operate on a handful of frequencies," Tony said, turning away as he spoke. "I'll start scanning for any nearby signals not in use by one of our people."
"I'll text the kid and let him know what's going on," Cate said as she pulled out her phone to complete the task.
"If he's being controlled by someone else," Kaiba said suddenly. "Then they're probably the ones in control of the bomb." Cate and Tony exchanged a glance. This was a whole new ball-game.
One week ago...
"Hello, Marik," Bakura purred into his host's cellphone. "Long time, no see." He heard a heavy sigh on the other end.
"I already told you, Bakura, I want nothing to do with any of your schemes." Marik sounded annoyed; he was sick of having this conversation with the Spirit of the Millennium Ring.
"I think you'll want in on this one, Marik."
"Why, what diabolical crime are you committing this time?" He sounded entirely unconvinced that he would want any part of this.
"I'm doing something good this time, you pansy," Bakura growled. "And for my host, no less. You told me treat him better, didn't you? So how about you give me a hand?" Silence followed his words, which irritated Bakura even more.
"What are you doing for him?" Marik asked hesitantly, sure that teaming up with Bakura would get him into trouble no matter what, but at the same time, he sincerely hoped that Bakura was doing something kind for his host. He could afford to at least listen to his plan.
"I'm bringing his father back home, but I need your help. Are you still in touch with your Rare Hunters?"
"Maybe," Marik answered obscurely. "Why do you ask?"
"Because we need a scapegoat," Bakura answered, his tone casual and matter-of-fact. "Are you in or not?" Another few moments of silence, during which Marik considered his options.
"Alright, I'm in," he answered with a sigh of defeat. "But you have to promise me that nobody will get hurt."
"I promise," Bakura swore, grinning rather fearsomely. "Cross my heart."
Author Notes: Well that took longer than I thought it would! I anticipate two more chapters for this story, but we'll see how that turns out. I tried to quote the NCIS episode (S3 E18) as much as possible in order to make the FBI tech stuff make sense and seem realistic; if I failed miserably at that, I apologize. The FBI agents (Tony DiNozzo, Cate Todd, Timothy McGee, and Abby Sciuto) are all characters from NCIS, except they weren't FBI agents in that show.
I know that I've left a lot of things unexplained, but don't worry, I'm going to start tying up all the loose ends in the next chapter. If you enjoyed the story so far and you want to see what happens next, please leave your comments in a review, because the more reviews I get, the sooner I'll post the next chapter!
