Shadows of Yesterday
CHAPTER THREE: IT'S BEEN AN HONOR
Unfortunately, forming a top-secret hush-hush black-ops division is easier said than done.
Duo and Sam had been quick to commandeer a conference room, and after fifteen minutes of laughter, rolling wheels, running footsteps and shouts of, "Faster, Tahary! They're after us!" they had half a dozen white boards arranged around the edge of the room, along with a generous supply of markers.
Things went to hell in a hand basket the moment Duo discovered that the markers were scented.
That was an hour ago, and Sam was now sitting in the center of the conference table, eyes wide, watching as Duo put the finishing touches on a six-board mural of...actually, he wasn't quite sure what it was, as Duo was, unfortunately, not a possessor of great art skills.
He didn't even want to think about that blob that looked suspiciously like Treize Khushrenada in a tutu.
Coupled with the maniacal laughter bursting from Duo every few minutes or so, agents took great care to avoid Conference Room 1C that day...in fact, that entire hallway was suspiciously empty for several days afterwards.
This was the scene Une came upon when she finally dared to poke her head into the room, even with several agents trying to stop her...and some of the more religious ones crossing themselves when they couldn't.
"Tahary...do I really want to know?" she asked the man, unperturbed by the fact that he was sitting in the center of the table.
"No, m'lady, I don't think you do," he replied. "Anything in particular you needed to tell us?" he asked, watching Duo scribble the final touch onto his masterpiece—a scrawl that could have said Shinigami; he wasn't quite sure.
"Actually, yes. It seems I was correct in assuming that nothing would get done until you were actually given something that would help you be...productive, so I took the liberty of procuring said something."
Duo bounced over immediately. "Really? What'cha got? Is it more of these awesome markers? 'Cause these things are fuckin' awesome, except the licorice, but really—"
He continued to babble on, while Une looked at Sam with a raised eyebrow. "Did he by any chance have caffeine at any point?"
"No...I don't think—oh my."
"What?"
"I think there was a coffee scented marker..."
"Oh my, is correct...MAXWELL!"
He snapped to attention out of reflex, his mouth stilling. "Yes, Lady?" he asked meekly.
"If you don't calm down and actually get to work, I will make good on my earlier threat. Entrails and throat ring a bell?"
He nodded, the maniacal light already fading from his eyes.
"Now, I am having you two brought the files of every Preventer's agent in the organization. It is your job to decide who has the ability to be brought into a division such as the one you are forming. Choose wisely, and have a number in mind before you begin."
They both nodded, Sam having finally got off the table.
fShe began to leave. "The files will be here in a few minutes. Oh...and Duo?"
"Yes?"
"Have that mural cleaned up by the time they get here, and I might forget that you put his Excellency Treize in a tutu."
Wide-eyed, Duo swiftly set to cleaning the board, Sam helping him—he didn't want to lose his new friend to the wrath of Lady Une.
Ten minutes later, they had just cleaned the last bit of ink off the boards when there was a knock at the door. Sam went to open it, admitting a petite girl pushing a cart full of boxes taller than she was.
"Are you two the ones I was supposed to deliver these files to?" she asked, slightly out of breathe.
"Yeah, I think so," Sam replied, as Duo came over to peer at the cart.
"Is this it?" Duo asked. "Wow, that shouldn't take too long..."
The girl laughed. "Oh, no. There are about seven more just like that waiting to be delivered up—call down when you finish with this one and the next one will be sent."
She left, leaving two wide-eyed boys to stare after her.
Duo finally spoke. "Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"It's been an honor knowing you."
"Same here."
"On three?"
"On three."
"...three."
And so began the crusade against the paperwork.
Six hours later, had any agent dared to stick their head into Conference Room 1C, they would have thought they'd come upon a bomb-site.
Boxes were stacked everywhere, overflowing with files. Papers were scattered across the table, along with more of said files. Had they dared to look closer, however, they would have seen that it was an organized chaos. Eight carts were pushed against the wall, seven of them stacked neatly with closed boxes, the eighth with only two or three.
Dominating the room were six whiteboards, four of them covered in names, two of them holding lists and diagrams.
The two with lists and diagrams were labeled, "What we Want," and "What we don't Want," the latter having a far longer list.
Three of the others were labeled "Yes," which had what looked like forty names on it, "Maybe," which had about fifteen, and finally, "No," which took up the final two boards and had too many names to count.
And in the center of all this chaos were two boys, both looking to be about twenty years old, one with violet eyes and chestnut hair in a frayed-looking braid, another with shaggy black hair and brown eyes, both in heated discussion over one of the many files scattered across the table. They both looked like they had been there for hours, a fact attested to by the many cans and cups scattered around them, and what looked the remains of a meal from a fast-food place.
Their argument went something like this...
"Goddammit, Sam, it won't work! He's too unyieldin', too specialized—he's got the stealth skills, but he lacks everywhere else, and he won't be able ta be retrained!"
"But look at this! His ability with poisons—"
"—is mediocre at best, and won't amount ta anythin' in the actual field! Combinin' stealth with poisons usually requires blades or needles, or damn good infiltration skills, which he doesn't have! Look at this—his aim is terrible, he'd never get anyone with a poisoned blade, let alone a needle! Stealth isn't everythin'—they need ta be well-rounded, and combine other skills with their stealth."
"...alright. His name goes on the 'no' board."
Duo buried his face in his hands, letting out a long sigh. After they had finally gotten down to the serious work, the last six hours had been the longest of his life. He and Sam had very different ideas on what was needed in a prospective agent. So far the only things they had truly agreed on was that they needed stealth skills that were very good or could be retrained to a proper level, and that once they chose all the agents, all of them would be completely retrained to be black-ops agents.
"I'm sorry, Sam," he finally said, voice weary. "I didn't mean ta snap at ya. We've been in here way too fuckin' long."
Sam sat down again, recapping the marker, and sighed too. "It's okay. I know. Seriously, what the hell made Une think that the two of us, two guys who are still practically kids, could do this?"
He shrugged. "She saw somethin' we didn't. I suppose we have ta trust her judgment."
Seth shrugged too. "Guess you're right. Well, I think that's another box," he continued, putting the latest file back together and stacking it back in the box beside the table. Seeing that it was now full, he closed it up and took it back to the cart, before returning with yet another box.
"Let's see," he said, fishing the first file out of the box. "Next up, Agent 01, also known as Heero Yuy—"
"No," Duo cut in, his voice cold and hard. Sam looked up, surprised at the tone.
"Why?" he asked, flipping the file open and thumbing through papers inside. "Look here—he's got decent stealth skills, and he's got pretty much a perfect track record with missions, he's genius-level with hacking and has great hand-to-hand skills, he's deadly accurate with a gun, hell this guy is like—"
"The perfect soldier," Duo finished in a tight, quiet voice. "No. He's not joinin'."
"Why the hell not, Duo?" Sam asked, getting frustrated. "What is your problem with...him..."
He paused, his voice trailing off as he reached a sheaf of papers at the end of the pile. He read the title of it and his eyes went wide, flicking to Duo across the table who had his head in his hands, eyes trained downward.
"Oh," he said softly. "All right. He'll go on the 'no' board. But one of these days...you really need to explain to me why you hate them so much, Duo."
Duo didn't reply, only continued staring at the table as Sam wrote the name on the board and placed the file in another empty box waiting to go back on the cart. They continued to go through the files for another hour, and when Duo took the ones for Wufei Chang and Trowa Barton and put them in the box without saying anything, writing their names on the board, Sam didn't say a word.
Une stood outside Conference Room 1C with a sense of trepidation, almost afraid of what she would find inside.
Eventually, though, she worked up the courage to open the door and step inside. What she found shocked her.
Eight carts were lines up against the wall, all of them filled almost to the top with boxes. Next to the carts were two whiteboards labeled "no," filled with what looked to be hundreds of names. Next to those was a single whiteboard that had been labeled maybe, which only had around twenty names—sixteen of them run through with a line of ink, four of them with stars next to them.
The fourth board was the one she was interested in—the one labeled 'yes,' which looked to have fifty names written on it in blue ink, with what looked to be the same number of files stacked beneath it.
She ignored the last two boards—just lists and diagrams—in favor of looking for the two boys who had been in here for the last eight hours.
What she saw made her smile. Seth was curled up in a ball on one of chairs, head resting on his knees, fast asleep. And Duo had his head pillowed on his arms, torso sprawled across the table, also asleep.
She shook her head, before heading over to the stack of files beneath the 'yes' board and grabbing some of them. She took a seat at the table and opened the first file, content to wait as it was only seven 'o' clock in the evening.
She was around three quarters of the way through the files, internally applauding the two of them—they had stuck notes into each file about why they chose each person—when the door banged open, admitting a harassed looking agent.
"Lady Une!" she yelped. "There you are! Quick, you have to get to Conference Room 3F! The L6-XZ789 delegates showed up unexpectedly, and they're refusing to leave until they talk to you—what happened in here?"
She had just then noticed the contents of the room—specifically, the dozens of file filled boxes and the two boys asleep on the table; actually, the formerly asleep boys, for her voice had served to wake them.
"Mm..whazzat?" Duo mumbled as he looked up, violet eyes still sleep hazed. "What on Earth..."
That was when he noticed where he was, and who was there. His eyes widened.
"Sam!" he yelped, reaching across the table to smack the other boy, who was just stirring. "Wake the fuck up! Une's here!"
"Huh?" Sam said intelligently, looking up, the side of his face patterned with his Preventer's jacket. His eyes widened too. "Oh, shit—we're so sorry, Lady Une, we didn't mean to fall asleep—"
She cut him off, her voice tinged with amusement. "It's all right, Tahary, at least you two finished what you were doing before you fell asleep. Now, I have to go, but I just wanted to tell you two good job on your choices. I didn't make it through all the files, but from what I've seen the rest of them should work very well."
Duo rubbed his eyes, still slightly dazed. "Huh, thanks Lady. I would have had a pretty big bone ta pick with ya otherwise, considerin' we spent the last eight hours in here, goin' through fuck knows how many files."
She shook her head exasperatedly. "Yes, well, good job. I suggest you boys go and get some actual sleep, though, on actual beds...because tomorrow you're going to have to start figuring out the rest of the details of your division, as well as start contacting these agents to meet them in person. They are stationed throughout the Sphere, you know."
They exchanged twin wide-eyed looks before letting their heads fall to the table, groaning.
"We're goin' ta need alcohol tonight, Sam," Duo moaned.
Sam only nodded, not trusting himself to speak intelligently at that moment.
"Lady Une," the girl who was still standing at the door said, sounding rather urgent. "Please...the L6 delegates..."
She looked up, slightly startled. "Oh, right! Well, I expect to see you two bright and early tomorrow, boys, try not to get too drunk, please?"
And with that she was gone, leaving the two dumbfounded boys behind.
"Did Lady Une just give us...permission to get drunk?" Sam asked.
"I think she did," Duo replied, just as shocked. "Hey, Sam, that reminds me...ya got a couch or somethin' I could crash on? I sold my apartment before I left L2 and my duffel bag which I'm currently not quite sure where it is is the only stuff I've got..."
"You mean the duffel bag over in the corner there?" Sam asked, pointing. "And yeah, sure, my couch is your couch for as long as you need. Least I can do, you know."
Duo nodded. "Thanks, man. All right, let's get the hell out of here before Une decides ta torture us with more paperwork..."
"Yeah," Sam agreed as they headed out of the room, careful to close and lock the door behind them. They didn't need some nosy agent coming in and finding out what they were up to.
The two of them visibly relaxed as they finally escaped the huge building, and Duo flung an arm across Sam's shoulders as they headed towards the parking lot.
"So, Sam, my good buddy, where's the best place around here ta get smashed?"
Just letting you know I do not in any way condone underage drinking, but a lot of countries have drinking ages of 18, this is how many years in the future, Duo is somewhere around 19, Sam 21 or 22, and I say they can legally drink in Sanq!
Anyways, yes, I know this chapter was rather boring, but you have to admit it was funny too! Duo with scented markers! And we got a bit of pilots, didn't we? I promised last chapter to tell about pairings and such this chapter, so here we go.
Pairings...I am not revealing. In fact, there probably won't be very many, if any at all, and if they're there they will be vague and backgroundish. A reviewer asked about yaoi—my answer is while I read it, I am incapable of writing it, and GW is the only series I would ever consider writing it for...so it's a big, gigantic MAYBEMOSTLIKELYNO.
WARNINGS: Well, language obviously, alcohol, violence, eventual angst, maybe romance/yaoi, and anything else I might think of.
Also, I edited the first three chapters minorly, nothing really big—little mistakes and such which I thank people for pointing out. I promised one reviewer a quick Duo's accent guide, because I now realize there are people reading for whom English is not their first language. "Ya" is you, "Ta" it to, "Da" was the, but has been removed, and any –ing endings are replaced with –in'. I thank everyone who has reviewed—maybe this will end up my first story with over 100 reviews!
I disclaim anything you recognize as not belonging to me.
Ciao!