~AC 197, March 3rd, L2-C687 International Shuttle Terminal, 4:07pm~
"Tro! Over here!"
Trowa turned around and began to make his way in Duo and Heero's direction. As soon as he was at a reasonable distance, Duo pounced and hugged him. Heero didn't move, just nodding a welcome to his comrade. After a minute, though, he stepped up and disentangled Duo from Trowa.
"God, how long since we saw each other like this?" Duo asked. "I think last time was for New Year's Eve at Relena's, wasn't it? That was the last time all five of us were…"
Duo stopped abruptly and bit his lip, suddenly realizing that 'all five of them' wouldn't be here that time and that it was precisely why Trowa was here.
"Any news from Iria?" Heero asked.
He looked calm and collected. Trowa was sure it was just a facade, but it was comforting in a way. He himself was very very close to panicking, a thing that did not happen often and left him very uneasy. Having Heero's strong support at a time like this was more than welcome. Especially since it was obvious that Duo was eating himself with worry over his best friend and couldn't hide behind his usual joker mask without being extremely tactless.
"Things have been… complicated on that side," Trowa explained. "I'd prefer to wait until we're in private to discuss any of this. Is Wufei scheduled to arrive soon?"
"His shuttle was just behind yours," Heero answered. "He'll be here any minute now. Duo, stop pulling your braid apart," he added, putting said braid out of harm's way.
"Sorry," Duo said sheepishly. "I just… I can't seem to just stand here and wait, I need to do something! You guys aren't helping, playing cool and collected even though you're not, y'know?"
Heero looked at Trowa, who nodded once. Heero took out the car keys and handed them to Duo.
"Why don't you get the car in front of the building while we wait for Wufei? We'll join you there."
Duo left hastily, comforted to have something to do that would take his mind off the situation. Trowa's gaze followed him as he wove his way through the crowd, before landing on Heero, questioning.
"He's been that way since you called," Heero said with a shrug. "He's very worried."
"What about you?"
"Oh, I'm worried too, but… he's fidgeting enough for the two of us, and I've always been taught it's needless to worry too much until you have all the facts. I'm waiting for the facts."
Trowa nodded to show he understood. Heero looked at him as if looking his for words before asking his next question.
"How are you, Trowa?"
Trowa remained silent a long moment, considering first the fact that Heero had asked the question, then the question in itself.
"I… don't know," he eventually answered. "Ever since I called Duo, I feel… disturbed, like something's wrong and I should know what and make it right again."
There was a short pause.
"I'm scared," Trowa added in a whisper.
Heero raised an eyebrow at the soft admission. Trowa was the last person he expected to admit to that kind of thing, but… this was not war anymore. Hiding their emotions was not necessary anymore, and given the situation, Trowa had every right to be scared.
The rest of the wait was done in silence, each of the young men contemplating their own thoughts and exchanging brief, nervous glances. They were so absorbed that they almost missed Wufei coming out of the terminal, snapping out of their trance only when a duffel bag was unceremoniously dumped at their feet.
Wufei looked tired and was wearing a crumpled Preventer uniform. From what Heero could see, he had come directly from his last mission without heading back home. His first words were a dry "What's going on?"
Heero and Trowa looked at each other, and Heero beckoned to Trowa to explain.
"I think Quatre's in trouble, but I'm not sure of anything," Trowa said. "Thank you for coming so quickly."
Wufei lowered his gaze.
"You asked for my help. I couldn't stand aside and not answer."
The tone was subdued, and both Heero and Trowa were sure that Wufei was once again remembering the mistake he had made siding with Mariemeia. The Chinese pilot had had some difficult moments at the beginning of the year. Although all of his friends had forgiven him and told him they understood, Wufei was a far cry from forgiving himself. Then again, Trowa was sure that Wufei was not here only out of guilt.
"Let's go to the car," Heero said, breaking the silence. "We head home first, then Trowa can explain the situation to us and we can see what we're going to do."
"Okay, explain now."
Trowa stopped pacing to face his friends. He ran a hand through his bangs before sighing with frustration.
"I don't even know where to begin."
Wufei narrowed his eyes, then seemed to come to a sudden decision.
"Since I've been away a while and I'm not acquainted at all with the situation, why don't you start after that New Year's Party we were all at?"
"It's pretty far away, don't you think?" Heero asked.
"Any details can have significance at that point," Wufei pointed.
"Right," Heero conceded.
Three expectant faces turned to Trowa, who shifted slightly, ill at ease. He was not used to being the center of attention. When they were all together, Duo or Quatre always attracted everyone to themselves. Trowa's most praised skill during the war had been his ability to become invisible, to belong in a crowd like he was meant to be there. To suddenly be under the intense scrutiny of three people, even if those were his best and only friends, was disturbing.
"After the party, I went back to L4-A001 with Quatre. We spent about a week together there before I left for the circus again."
There were some quizzical looks, mostly from Duo and Wufei, but Trowa did not elaborate on the subject. Why he and Quatre had decided to take a break and test their relationship was no one's business.
"He called me, regularly, almost every day. I dropped by a couple of times when the circus was around. We spent some weekends together, when he could find time."
"When was your last contact with him?" Wufei asked.
He was wearing what Duo called his Preventer face. Quiet, strong, reflecting on the facts displayed in front of him to try and make sense out of them.
"February 9th," Trowa answered. "The same day he called Duo."
"What happened on that day?"
"He just called me to tell me I wouldn't be able to contact him for the end of the week. He was taking a break from paperwork. One of his sisters had invited him for the weekend. I know he was looking forward to meeting them all, so it was a good way to start. He told me he would call back on Monday, when he would be back."
"Duo?" Wufei asked.
"He told me pretty much the same thing," Duo said, "except he didn't mention where he was going."
Wufei remained silent for a moment. Then he spoke again, in soft tones.
"He sent me an email, the same day."
Everyone turned to him.
"He wanted us to meet later, but he didn't specify why. He didn't give me a date, he knew I was off on a mission, but he wanted me to contact him as soon as I would be done. I didn't have time until today."
Heero frowned.
"He had planned to call Trowa back. He wanted to meet with you. Relena invited him to her birthday party and he accepted to come. A person who wants to disappear doesn't act like that. Especially Quatre."
"You're right, Yuy," Wufei said pensively. "He had planned to be back on time. I could accept that he was delayed, but a three-week delay? And he didn't contact any of us again, not even Trowa?"
"So the last contact any of us had with Quatre was on February 9th?" Trowa summed up.
"How could we not notice that he was not calling back?" Duo muttered, torturing his braid again.
"I noticed," Trowa said quietly.
Three sets of eyes turned back to him.
"When he didn't call on that Monday, I just assumed he had come home late and didn't want to wake me up by calling at night. Then, the next day, he still wasn't calling, so I did it. I only got Rashid, who told me he wasn't back and had probably wanted to spend a few more days at his sister's."
"And since he had told you he couldn't be contacted all weekend, you just thought he had no means to let you know, but he thought you wouldn't be worried," Duo kept on.
"Yeah. Rashid didn't seem worried. But when a week passed and I had still no news, I called again, and he wasn't there. Rashid was starting to get worried. Apparently, Iria was just coming out of hospital, she had asked for him and no one could tell her where he was."
"Tell them what you told me about his cell phone," Duo interrupted.
"I tried to contact him through his cell phone. It was just ringing away, no one ever picked up. After a while, my calls were automatically rerouted to the answering machine. And then, the last time I tried, the operator told me the contract had come to an end and the client hadn't renewed it, so the chip had been deactivated."
Wufei blinked several times.
"That doesn't make any sense," he said, voicing everyone's opinion. "This doesn't match with the rest… with what we know of Quatre. He is too thorough to forget something like this."
A heavy silence fell on the room. None of the young men liked what they were contemplating. Who could have taken down a Gundam Pilot and held him for three weeks without any of them knowing? Who could have known Quatre had been a Gundam Pilot? Was it even related to the fact that Quatre was a Gundam Pilot?
"There are four questions we need to answer," Heero finally said. "Where? Who? Why? And how?"
"I suggest we keep 'where' for last, since it's bound to take a while," Wufei suggested. "The same goes for 'who', since we obviously won't have our answers until we find Quatre back."
"What about 'why'?" Duo asked. "Someone having a grudge against him?"
"Or against corporations", Heero said. "He is a public figure, and the richest man of the ESUN. Some people don't like that."
"And terrorists often kidnap that kind of people to get money or pass on some demands to the government," Wufei agreed, before he frowned. "Except that doesn't work here. If someone had kidnapped Winner to make money out of him, they would have gone public about it. They would have asked for some stuff, contacted the media."
"Yeah, why wait three weeks for that?" Duo said. "Especially since no one noticed he was gone or in trouble."
"They could have tried to make a private bargain with the Winners," Heero suggested. "They have enough money and power to keep it a secret if they want to. What does Iria have to say about this?"
"I don't know," Trowa answered.
"You were supposed to call her, I gave you her number, why…" Duo started, before he was interrupted by Heero's hand tugging on his braid.
"Let him finish," Heero ordered sternly.
"I didn't actually get to talk to her. When I called, she was just out of hospital, and since Quatre wasn't here, one of her sisters had asked her to come at WEI. I only talked to her husband. I asked for her to call back. I gave your number, Duo, I hope you don't mind…"
"Of course not, that was the best thing to do!" Duo answered. "Well I guess all we have to do now is wait for her to call back."
There was a short silence.
"Do you think someone could have discovered he was a Gundam Pilot?" Duo suddenly asked.
"Our records are sealed by Preventer until we are twenty-one," Wufei pointed out. "Heero did the security on those files himself, no one can access them without him knowing."
"I know, but… it's a bit different for Cat, isn't it?"
"Explain," Heero demanded.
"Well, who does actually know we are Gundam Pilots? Lady Une, Sally Po, Noin and Merquise are all Preventers, so I don't think they would try to kidnap one of us. Besides, that would be completely stupid and bring nothing to them. Relena, but she's out of that picture too, because she's our friend and she's really nice and she likes Quatre a lot, if I didn't know better I would be sure she's his thirtieth hidden sister or somethin'. Then there's Dorothy…" Trowa tensed briefly at the mention of that name but kept his silence, "… but she would never do that. She's kinda screwed up now, from what Relena told Heero. Hey, you know, Tro, Rel actually told us she was thinking about going to see Quatre and thank him for all he did for her, so I don't think she'd go all nuts on him and kidnap him, and besides, she didn't contact him, did she?"
"If she did, he didn't tell me," Trowa answered dryly before turning his back on his friends, looking out of the window.
Duo looked taken aback for a moment. Trowa had never really let go of that grudge against Dorothy. He avoided her presence as much as he could, because, in Quatre's words, he couldn't trust himself around her. Quatre had wholeheartedly forgiven Dorothy, even volunteering to help her get out of the mess she was in. Consideration for his boyfriend and Dorothy's own refusal had kept him from doing so. Relena had taken on the duty of taking care of Dorothy, and sent regular news to Quatre. Trowa knew that Quatre sometimes wrote to the young woman, but he didn't want to be in any kind of contact with her if he didn't have to. She had yet to earn his forgiveness for hurting Quatre. Whenever official circumstances put them in the same room, she was careful to avoid him, and Quatre was reserved towards her. Trowa did not begrudge him the fledging friendship he had with the girl, but he didn't want to be included in it.
"Well, anyway," Duo kept on, breaking the awkward moment, "I had my face plastered on TV after I got caught on L2-C-I can't remember which number, but the only people who really know my face apart from the ones I already mentioned are Hilde and the Sweepers. Howard would cut the throat of his men himself if any of them disclosed our identities, and Hilde … well, she'd never do that to us!"
"We're not accusing anyone", Heero said, raising both eyebrows and soothingly caressing Duo's back.
"Yeah, sorry about that… Where was I?"
"Recollecting how many people know who we are," Wufei said helpfully. "And even knowing all of those people are our friends, it still makes an awful lot."
"Yeah, that's right. Well, as for Quatre, there was his Dad, but he's dead. The Maguanacs, but I guess we're pretty safe there too. God, they're so gonna freak out once they realize this is serious! And… his sisters."
"They knew?" Wufei asked in disbelief.
"Yes," Trowa confirmed. "I don't know how, since none of them actually lived on L4-A001 at the time he was training. But Quatre used his family's resources during the war. Some of his sisters probably deduced who was behind it. It was only logical after all."
"Quatre told me that Iria had praised him for being a freedom fighter when he came back home during the war. She told him his sisters were proud of him," Heero said wistfully.
"Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. I mean your family knew too, didn't they, Wu?"
"They did, but they're all dead now," Wufei answered shortly, trying not to snap.
"No one touched our records, I'm sure of that," Heero said. "But some other sources could have been used. Old video feedback from OZ surveillance cameras, OZ files on us when we got captured…"
"How could anyone get their hands on that?" Wufei wondered.
"Bitter soldiers can do a lot of things", Heero said pointedly, and Wufei blushed and looked away.
"That's only a hypothesis anyway," Trowa said quietly. "We have no clue of what motivated this."
"No, but we've got leads to follow," Heero answered.
"Okay, let's proceed to 'how'," Duo said, munching on his lower lip, which was a sign of intense reflection for him.
"Where does his sister live?" Wufei asked.
"I don't know," Trowa answered helplessly. "I don't even know her name. The only ones I ever met were Khadijah and Ahlam, at the beginning of this year. I didn't even meet Iria before I had to go back. From what Quatre told me, they're all scattered in the resources satellites around the L4 point. Some of them even moved down to Earth."
"Great," Duo grumbled. "That's gonna be easy."
"I can probably find all of their locations, but then we'd have to contact them all," Heero said.
"We can't do this by ourselves," Trowa interrupted. "This will take us far too long to get anything done with just the four of us."
"What do you suggest?" Wufei asked.
"We wait for Iria's phone call. If we're lucky, she'll know where he is, or at least where he is supposed to be at the moment. If not, well, I guess we can probably enlist the Maguanacs to help us."
"We will have to warn Lady Une," Wufei said.
"Why?" Duo asked.
"Because she has to know stuff like that. You know that some people accused us, not without reason, of being loose cannons and threats to the peace. One of us has just disappeared. He may have done it voluntarily, although I highly doubt it. Or he may have been captured by people who intend to use him or exact revenge on him. It is Lady Une's role to ensure none of us are actually used to threaten the peace. The sooner she's warned the better."
"We cannot file a missing person report," Trowa frowned.
"No, but his sisters can," Wufei said. "And if it appears he is really missing, then I'm sure Iria will do something."
"We have to keep it out of the normal channels, though," Heero said earnestly.
"Well, we're all Preventers here, aren't we? I don't think Lady Une would have to be pushed too hard to assign us on that case. Actually, I'm sure neither she nor Sally would want anyone else on the case. And it would give us official backup in case anything nasty happens."
"So now what?" Duo asked.
"We wait for Iria's phone call," Trowa said again. "And we hope she will have answers."
Since waiting idly had never been a needed qualification for a Gundam Pilot, the four young men set to follow the meager leads they had. Trowa and Heero were on Heero's laptop trying to retrace the possible route of the shuttle Quatre must have taken, while Wufei was on his own laptop writing a long, detailed and secured email to Lady Une and Sally Po. Duo had gone into the kitchen to prepare coffee for everyone.
"I suppose he took a WEI shuttle," Heero mumbled to Trowa, fingers typing away on the laptop.
"Probably. They're faster and equipped with stealth shields. And he could come back any time if he had one on call."
"Hn."
Heero hacked into the L4-A001 spaceport database and began to scan it with practiced ease. Even Trowa had some trouble keeping up with him as he went from one file to another. Then he brutally stopped on one window.
"I got one WEI shuttle that took off from L4-A001 on February 9th at 1500 hours local time. But…"
Heero frowned and typed a few commands.
"Something's wrong. There's no destination mentioned, and no flight plan."
"No one would have let them take off if they didn't give their flight plan," Trowa said, bending over Heero's chair to read the file.
But Heero was right. There were suspicious blanks in the record entry.
"The name of the pilot is not mentioned, nor the fact that the shuttle was carrying any passengers," Heero kept on. "In fact… the only thing it says about that shuttle is that it exists and took off at the specified date. There's only… yes, the serial number is still there."
Heero took a notepad and scribbled the number down. Duo came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with four steaming mugs. He put one on the coffee table next to Wufei, who muttered a thank you, gave one to Heero who just took it, still looking at his screen, offered the third one to Trowa, and began sipping on the last one.
"So, how's it going?"
"Someone tampered with the spaceport's records," Trowa said, pointing the blanks to Duo.
Duo took his time to read the document.
"That's utter crap! No controller in their right mind would let a shuttle take off with that little information!"
"Which means the records were tampered with after the shuttle landed, probably," Heero said.
"Don't they have something like backup copies?" Duo suddenly asked. "Y'know, in case the whole system must be rebooted, the computers in those places do something like one backup copy every five minutes so that everything can start again the soonest possible after an incident."
Trowa shook his head. How had they not thought of that? Thank God Duo was with them. He had an uncanny ability to find the simplest way out of a maze. His mind was working in a strange way, but none of the pilots could count the times when Duo's original thinking had taken him out of a mess, not to mention them all. Duo himself had pointed out more than once that it was just because he was crazy. Trowa was not sure if his friend had been joking or not.
Heero began looking for the backup copies, Duo and Trowa surveying his every move in the system. Everyone in the room jumped as a very unusual swear word escaped the usually reserved young man.
"Fuck! Someone deleted the file in the backup copies too!"
"Can you trace it?" Duo asked.
Heero shook his head.
"If they took that much trouble to make sure no one got to this file, they were probably careful enough to find a safe route to go in and out. I could probably find it, but not with this," he said, shooting a dejected glance at his customized laptop.
"Well, it confirms that something suspicious happened at least," Wufei said, hitting the 'send' button on his own machine and getting up. "And that whoever did this, they've got technical and financial means far beyond what we expected."
Wufei did not have time to elaborate. The phone rang. There was a paralyzed moment during which they all gazed at the phone without moving, before Duo finally broke his trance and answered.
"Duo Maxwell."
There was a short silence from the other hand, then a puzzled feminine voice.
"Duo? How come… I was asked… someone left a message telling me to call back here…"
Duo eagerly turned the visuals on. Iria's face appeared on the screen.
"Iria! Yeah, don't freak, that's the right number, just a minute!"
Duo grabbed Trowa and pushed him in front of the screen. There was a tense minute as Trowa looked at the woman in the picture. She looked so much like Quatre, and yet not. Her hair was blond too, but a shade darker, and her eyes a deeper blue, but there was no mistaking where the looks came from. Both Quatre and Iria looked like their mother.
"Hi. I'm Trowa Barton," Trowa finally said.
Iria's face suddenly glowed.
"Oh, that's you! Well, it's nice to finally meet you, Trowa! My brother almost drove me crazy talking about you all the time, I was eager to see what you looked like. I must compliment him, you're even more gorgeous than I thought."
Trowa felt a blush creep up his cheeks and hid it the best he could.
"Well, I hope you'll stop by soon with Quatre, anyway, I'd be glad to meet you in person. How is he, by the way? Can I speak to him?"
Trowa looked at his friends, then back at the screen.
"You mean you don't know where he is?"
"I... no. He's not with you?"
"What made you think he would be?"
"He was only supposed to be gone for a weekend, but when he didn't come back I assumed he had decided to extend his vacation and come see you."
"No, he didn't. That's why I called. I … I haven't had any news since February 9th."
"What? But … Hold on a second." She turned to the left of the screen, calling for someone who couldn't be seen. "Richard! Would you please call Rashid and tell him to come here as soon as possible? Thank you, dear."
She turned to the screen again.
"You have no idea where he is?"
"No. His cell phone is deactivated, he hasn't called or emailed anyone since that day."
"Damn. How come I didn't notice? Now just wait a minute, you're telling me that my little brother is missing? And has been for three weeks? And no one noticed?"
"Yes," Trowa just answered.
"But how… Oh, Rashid, thanks for coming. I have Trowa Barton on line. He is telling me that my brother is not with him and he has not seen him for three weeks…"
There was a muffled conversation at the other end of the line, then :
"Trowa? Excuse me for this. I… It seems something is going on. I… is it possible for you to come here?"
"Well…"
"We're coming too, Iria!" Duo said, suddenly appearing behind Trowa. "We've started working on this already!"
"Okay. I just… should I warn the authorities or anyone right now?"
"Not yet," Wufei said, appearing by Trowa's other side. "I wrote to Lady Une. I am waiting for an answer. Once I have it, you can consider filing a missing person report, but we'll have to do it discreetly. We will probably be the ones assigned on the case, too."
"Good. I… It's not careful to discuss this over the phone, is it?"
"No," Heero said.
"There's a Winner shuttle bringing workers back to L4-A001 leaving tonight. Do you think you can catch it? I'll clear everything with the port authorities and the crew."
"What time?" Trowa asked.
"8:20pm."
"We'll make it," Heero confirmed.
"I'll see you then. I… Goodbye, Trowa. I'd like to talk to you when you arrive, if it's okay."
"Sure," Trowa said hesitantly. "Goodbye."
The phone went dead. Heero was already packing his laptop and Duo was taking two duffel bags out of a closet in the entrance hall of the flat. Trowa couldn't help smiling in spite of the tension he felt. This old habit of keeping a light bag with just the essential items in it had not left any of them. Heero and Duo had kept their bags from the war too.
Since neither he nor Wufei had unpacked, they were ready to go in an instant.