Part 25 - Replace and strike any key when ready

Duo stopped blinking.

At least, this is the only way Carter found to describe what came next, because he had no idea what was going on. Duo was just crouching in front of the guy, holding his face in a strong grip and looking deep in his eyes without blinking. Carter opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but a sharp gesture and a glare from Wufei stopped the sound in his throat. He looked around to Sally Po, but she was watching Duo with rapt attention and didn't look in his direction. Iria's eyes were also glued to Duo and his prey. Shannon was trying to make herself scarce.

After ten seconds of being subjected to whatever Duo was doing the man began to shiver. His eyes widened brutally, and Carter noticed his pupils slowly dilating. If this kept up, the man would be blinded even by the feeble light in the room and feel dizzy and disoriented. And trying to make those clinical observations was distracting Carter from actually digesting the fact that apparently, Duo was making the man's pupils dilate with only a look, because that didn't make any kind of sense.

Ten more seconds and the man paled and opened his mouth as if to scream, but not a sound came out. He was shaking now, not just shivering, and he looked about to die from fright. Carter saw him try to raise his hand, but the move was stopped by something invisible midway and the hand fell back on the floor next to the man's body.

"Don't move," Duo said in a low, sugary voice that made Carter's hair stand on end. "You answer us politely now, okay?"

When the man only stared in Duo's general direction, the grip on his face tightened.

"Say you will answer the questions! Say it out loud!"

"I… I… I will... answer… the… questions," the man managed to choke out as if he had trouble breathing.

And indeed, his chest was rising and falling too rapidly, a clear sign of hyperventilation. But around Carter, no one seemed to care.

Duo finally let go of the man's face, trailing a finger along his jaw in an odd caress as he slowly stood up and turned to Wufei.

"He's all yours."

Wufei nodded tersely, and took Duo's place crouching in front of the man. Carter saw Duo retreat into a corner of the room away from everybody, where he crossed his arms on his chest and glared at the man from where he was. None of his comrades made a move to go near him, and Carter himself had a sudden urge to run very fast and the furthest away he could from Duo Maxwell. But he couldn't do it. His gaze fell down on his hands still clutching the gun Quatre had thrown his way, and he realized that he was gripping the weapon so hard that his knuckles were white.

"If you tell me what I want to know, I will try to make sure that he does not come near you again."

Wufei's voice was barely above a murmur, but in the dead silence of the room, it rang clearly. The man tried to locate where the voice came from, but in the state he was in, he could only look around, his eyes desperately wide, and fight the nausea and the dizziness that were sure to come with it. He nodded once.

"Good. Now tell me who sent you here," Wufei said.

It took less than ten minutes to Wufei to get all the information they wanted. The man didn't resist, just choked his answers, his breath coming shorter any time Wufei's voice showed irritation or disappointment. Actually the man didn't know very much, but he had some information. A name.

"Selim!" Iria hissed. "That little snake! I knew Neelah could never have done that on her own!"

"Who's Selim?" Sally asked.

"The dirtiest piece of filth to have ever set foot on that colony," Iria spat. "He's Neelah's husband! I can't believe I didn't see this coming! I should have…"

"Enough," Quatre interrupted quietly. "Now is not the time for this. We must evacuate the bodies and take care of… the rest," he finished, his eyes falling on the captive.

"I'll take care of 'the rest', man," Duo said, making all the adults in the room jump as he spoke again for the first time in half an hour.

"You don't have to, Duo," Quatre said softly, looking at his friend cautiously.

"Not now, Cat."

Quatre closed his mouth on whatever he was going to say and looked away. The other pilots just looked at Duo and said nothing. Iria, Sally, Carter and Shannon waited, in vain, for someone to explain them what had been going on in the last half hour.

Duo came closer and Wufei quickly made room for him, moving to the side. Once again, Duo seemed to do nothing but stare in the man's eyes with his own, unblinking eyes. Carter could only shiver as he watched. Eyes that did not blink. He had had no idea how freaky that could be, but now he would have done anything to be absolutely certain not to fall under the scrutiny of that gaze ever again.

Shannon gasped when the man suddenly started to convulse. Blood came out of his ears and nose, and he choked on it, but none of the pilots made the slightest move to help him, and Iria and Sally were too petrified to do anything. It only lasted a few seconds, then the man fell back against the wall limply, his eyes empty, the only sign he was still alive being his labored breath.

Duo blinked at last, his eyes weary and his face pale.

"I'm done," he said in a whisper, before opening the door and dashing out of the room. His footsteps echoed a bit in the corridor, then the sound disappeared.

"What was that?" Iria finally summoned the courage to ask.

"I think our prisoner just had a stroke," Quatre said in a flat voice.

"What?"

"Yuy, intensify your search on our new suspect," Wufei interrupted. "We won't get anything more out of him, right?" he added with a jerk of his chin in the man's direction.

Heero shook his head, and looked at Quatre. Quatre looked right back and nodded.

Heero took out his gun and shot the prisoner between the eyes. The body jumped slightly when the bullet impacted into it, then went very still.

"Now go find him," Quatre told Heero in a soft, but commanding voice. "He needs you."

Heero slipped out of the room silently. Quatre got up from the bed and went to the phone on his bedside table. He picked the receiver up and dialed a number.

"Rashid? We have seven bodies inside of the house, please see that they are removed and taken care of… One of them is in my bedroom, and Wufei will give you the locations of the others… Thank you, Rashid."

He hung up, and turned around to look at the corpse against his wall, his face void of any expression.

Carter finally exploded. He threw the gun on the floor and marched up to Quatre.

"Why the hell did you do that?" he yelled, not caring in the least that he might well be sentencing himself to a swift death.

"Because we didn't have a choice," Trowa answered from behind Carter.

The psychiatrist glared at him.

"There's always a choice," he snapped, seething.

"Kill or be killed. We chose not to be killed. If you don't like it, you know where the door is. We're not holding you back," Trowa said calmly.

"But..." Carter sputtered.

"We do not enjoy killing people on a regular basis," Wufei cut in. "If they had left us alone, we would not have touched a hair of their head. It may seem childish, but they started it. We did not ask to be attacked and threatened with death. We did not want it. And we will not sit back and watch as those we love are attacked. Not anymore."

"I… you can't…"

Carter jumped as Quatre's hand caught his arm. Such a small hand, Carter thought as he looked at it, but it held such hidden strength, such power. He finally looked up to meet Quatre's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Quatre murmured. "I'm sorry you had to see that, but they are right. If we hadn't done anything, they would have killed us all. They would have killed you too."

"This man couldn't hurt you anymore," Carter protested.

"He could have," Wufei said. "No loose ends. Having your back unprotected is the surest way to get hit. We cannot risk it."

"I…"

Wufei stalked to the door and opened it, before shooting a meaningful look in Sally's direction. Sally seemed to take the hint, because she suddenly shook her head as if to clear her mind. She went to Carter and began to push him out of the room, while Iria was helping Shannon stand up.

"Try to have some rest," the blond doctor said worriedly as she left the room and closed the door behind them.

Quatre sighed deeply and flopped down on his bed, a hand clutched on his heart.

"Cat? You want me to put the settings higher?" Trowa asked.

"No, leave it. If I don't start now, I'll never rebuild those shields," Quatre said through gritted teeth before looking up at Wufei. "You're alright?"

"Not a scratch," Wufei answered.

"Good. I hope... I hope Duo is okay."

'Just keep running. That's it. Put your left foot on the ground, and then the right, and then the left again. Just like that. Just listen to the sound it makes when your feet hit the ground. Make more noise. More noise. Don't listen to the screams, just make more noise…'

Duo didn't really know when he had started to run, but he didn't really care. The mansion's gardens were large enough for him to run around all he wanted without being bothered or leaving the property. He just ran, listening to the pounding of his own heart.

He came to an abrupt halt without really knowing why or where he was, just that he had to stop. He closed his eyes, panting, and tried to ignore the way his head was spinning.

'No one touches my family and gets away with it!'

When he heard the soft footsteps approaching, Duo knew that Heero was deliberately making noise to warn him of his presence, but he didn't move. He just stood there, breath short, sweat burning his eyes.

Heero came near him cautiously, assessing Duo's state of mind with one look at the tense shoulders and shivering body. Very slowly, he took Duo in his arms from behind, resting his cheek against the American's shoulder blade. They remained silent for a long moment, listening to Duo's rapid breath slowly calming down and coming back to a more normal rate.

"I hate that," Duo said under his breath.

Heero just held him a bit tighter.

"Is it… bad of me to be happy that the bastard suffered? Does that make me a horrible person?" Duo kept on.

"I don't know," Heero answered. "I… I don't know."

"He's dead."

It wasn't a question. Sometimes, Heero had to admit that Duo knew him just a bit too well.

"Yes."

Duo's whole body seemed to relax, as if that simple word managed to make all the tension go away.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"I didn't do it for you."

"I know."

"How are they?" Iria asked Sally as the doctor came into her bedroom.

"I gave Shannon a mild sedative and she's sleeping. Carter is… I don't know how he is. He wouldn't talk to me, and he slammed the door of his bedroom."

"He is upset."

"That's quite understandable given what he just witnessed. Anyone would be. Where's Richard?"

"Off to our elder son's place. I called him at work and told him not to come back to the house and just take the first flight he could find and call me as soon as he would be there."

"Are you planning on giving your husband a heart attack?"

Iria smiled weakly.

"I explained the situation as well as I could. He was not happy, but he knows better than to argue with me."

Sally raised an eyebrow and smirked. However, when Iria sighed and began to massage her temples, Sally took a seat next to her.

"How are you?" she asked in a concerned voice.

"I honestly don't know."

Sally caught her hand and kept it in hers.

"I guess you never really saw that side of him, heh?"

"I had some glimpses, but I just… I feel ridiculous, Sally, I had no idea… I just… I don't know him anymore."

"Let's say you don't know everything about him and it's fine that way. You're not supposed to anyway."

"Sometimes I get the feeling you know him more than I do."

Sally smiled.

"I did spend an awful lot of time with Quatre at the end of the war and I saw him directing the final attack against the Libra, and it was really impressive. But he's not my brother."

Iria just remained silent for a moment.

"Are you going to be alright?" Sally finally asked.

Iria shook her thoughts away.

"Oh, yes! You know, I was thinking just that before… all this. I was just thinking that I didn't really know him anymore and that I should have taken the time to know him better now that he is all grown up, and then…"

"You had your head shoved into what he really is first-hand."

"You could say it like that," Iria admitted. "I just… I can't believe the sweet boy I knew is gone."

Sally shook her head with a smile.

"He's not, Iria. He's still there. But he's matured a bit now, and he knows that being sweet has never kept anyone alive."

"It is going to sound stupid, but I am still glad the others are here to help him."

"It's not stupid," Sally assured her. "Thank God they all have the others. No one else can really know what they went through, but together, they can face it and defeat it."

"I just need a bit of time to get used to it," Iria said, her voice shaking a bit. "I guess we should just leave them alone for today. They need the rest. And so do we."

"Yeah, that's the best thing to do. And we can count on Heero to do his computer search anyway, so tomorrow morning will be soon enough to speak about that again. Now try to take a nap or something," Sally said, making her way out

"Sally?"

"Yeah?" Sally answered, stopping and turning around.

"I think you should go speak to Dr. Carter now, don't you think?"

"He's a big boy," Sally grumbled.

"Please. He needs to talk before he blows up or something. He helped us a lot, and we are not being easy on him at all. I think we owe him this, at least."

Sally stared at Iria for a moment, then she shrugged.

"Alright, I'll go see him and do my best to cool him off."

"Thank you."

"Don't get all worked up about this, okay? Rest!"

"Yes, doctor," Iria answered with her first sincere smile since the beginning of the conversation.

The knock on his door interrupted Carter in his frantic pacing up and down the bedroom he had stormed into. Taken at unawares, he just stared at the door with a blank look and didn't answer. The door opened anyway, and Sally Po came in. First, she just slipped her head through the opening. Then, when she saw him standing there, she gave him a little crooked smile, came in all the way, closed the door, and leaned on it. To her credit, she did not ask him how he was or if he was alright.

"Burning a hole in the carpet has never solved anything," she said, amused.

Carter looked at her incredulously. Then he shrugged and smiled too, feeling a fraction of the awful tension that had been piling up on him going away.

"Walking usually helps me work things out, and I… I just needed to move, and I don't think it would have been wise for me to get out of here like I wanted to."

Sally nodded and hugged herself.

"How can you let them..." Carter asked in a subdued voice. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because nothing I could have said would have changed a thing," Sally sighed. "They trust me and they know when they shouldn't argue with me, but this is… different."

"They killed a man!"

"Seven."

Carter stopped dead. He had forgotten about the others. Sally kept on with grim determination.

"They killed seven men in self-defense, because they were attacked. Quatre was right. They would have killed us all if they hadn't done anything. I think maybe Duo's actions demonstrated some unnecessary cruelty, but…"

"Unnecessary? That was downright torture, that's what it was!"

"Don't talk about things you do not understand," Sally snapped a bit more harshly than she had intended.

She looked away, pushing a lock that had escaped her usually neat braids out of her face.

"Just hammer it in your little head, Doc. They do not live in the same world as you. Not everyone in this world admires the Gundam pilots and I'm sure you know about that. For every Gundam fan you get two Gundam haters. Everyone has a son, a wife, a husband, a nephew, a cousin who was killed in a Gundam attack. In spite of all they did for peace, a lot of people still think that they are murderers and that peace would have happened anyway without them. There is a very good reason why their identities were not disclosed after the war. Lady Une went to great pains to secure all Oz and Alliance material speaking about them. They're not even officially employed by Preventers. And they know very well what torture is. Believe me, they experienced it a lot, and they were not on the good side of it. If there is a good side, of course", she finished ironically.

"This isn't an excuse for… that! " Carter protested.

"No, it's not," Sally agreed, taking him by surprise.

She finally came a bit closer, looking at him straight in the eyes.

"It's not an excuse, but I cannot make myself blame them. I know that this guy didn't deserve it, and yet… I can't feel sorry for him. I don't know why. I just know he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that he had no idea what he was getting himself into. But in the end, the one responsible for his death is the one who sent him here."

"You all have some fucked up logic here, you know that?" Carter grumbled.

She just smiled again, a bit sadly.

"Quatre… Quatre told me… that they had fought for peace, but this peace would never be for them," Carter kept on a bit hesitantly.

"They're different, Doc. Different from anyone you've ever met. The sooner you realize that and stop trying to scrutinize them, the better. They kind of like you, and Quatre trusts you. Don't try to give them more than they will accept. Just do what you can. For them, it's enough."

"It's frustrating."

"Talk about stating the obvious!" Sally laughed.

Carter finally smiled.

"I made a fool of myself, didn't I?"

Sally sobered up a bit.

"Of course you did. But I'm relieved you reacted that way. If you hadn't, I would have been worried about you."

She patted his arm.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You've been through a lot in the last week. It's normal for you to be a bit lost, but don't take it out on them. They're not going out of their way to be nice to you, I'll admit that. Don't take offense. They're being cautious."

"I'll try to remember that. I just... It's like I have to forget everything I ever learnt in med school and start again from scratch. It's… overwhelming."

"You'll be alright," Sally said, patting his arm again. "You proved that you can adapt quickly and that your head is soundly attached to your shoulders. I wouldn't have asked you to come if I didn't believe that you could do it."

"Thank you," Carter answered softly.

"Will you be okay, now?"

"I… I think so. I just… have to think about it."

"You do that. Oh, and try not to get too much in their way today. They will probably hole up somewhere to cool down anyway. Have some rest, call your family or Dr. Hewley if you want to, take care of yourself. You deserve a bit of alone time, too."

She squeezed his arm a bit, then went out of the room, softly closing the door as she left. Carter just looked at his arm, then rubbed the spot where she had put her hand. It was still warm.

~AC 197, March 16th, L4-A001, Winner Mansion, 9:05am~

Just like Sally had said, no one had seen the boys since yesterday. Apparently, they had gathered in Quatre's room and stayed there all night, too. None of the adults knew if they had eaten anything or even slept, but it seemed wiser not to ask questions. When Carter, Sally and Iria went to join them, they apparently had showered and changed, and they were back to their usual selves.

"Good morning," Iria said, with a neutral smile.

"So, what do you have?" Sally asked, going abruptly to the matter at hand to avoid awkward greetings or silences.

"Well, Neelah's husband seems to have disappeared," Wufei said. "According to the Winner database, he apparently took some holidays about six months ago and didn't check in again once they were over. He has been in touch with his workplace and said that he had family problems. Officially, he is now on unpaid holiday."

"He planned this," Iria fumed.

"What I wonder is how he found that satellite," Duo cut in. "And how did he know how to use what was on it?"

"The satellite is Winner property," Iria said. "And… it's his job."

Wufei frowned.

"His job description on the database says that he is a recycling supervisor."

"Yes. He makes sure that old installations on unused satellites are dismantled and that the premises are secure. And he's also supposed to take care of the recycling of dangerous products."

There was a small silence.

"Am I the only one to find that strangely ironical?" Duo suddenly asked.

"Not really," Sally said. "So what you're saying is that he basically found the satellite by accident?"

"That is what is most probable, but… What I don't understand is that this satellite was sealed in 178. That was a long time before he married Neelah and was offered a position in WEI. That satellite had no more resources to offer, and it was too far away in the outer rim to make a good communication satellite, which explains why very few people knew about it."

"I had to do some research in the database before I found it," Quatre admitted. "And this is exactly why I chose it. I didn't erase the information about it in the central database because it was useless. All we did was reroute the chemical alarm signals to our own system, and plug the security system in our own central computer so that no activity would be recorded here. That's all."

Duo snorted, and everyone looked at him.

"You guys don't know a lot about the chemicals black market, do you?"

He scratched his head as if looking for what he was going to say.

"Chemicals are what sells best on the black market. People who sell them make a lot of money, and they make it fast. More profit than drugs, big clients who always pay, and there's almost no risk since most of the stuff either comes from the skulls of mobile suits and shuttles that no one ever bothers to check, or from sealed resource satellites that are not properly watched. Some of the Sweepers did that too during the wars to keep the ships afloat. There were times when this was the only thing that generated money, so we'd keep the metal parts and some of the chemicals, and we'd sell the rest, mostly to resistance fighters. The guy we're looking for, he's in the best position to do that. He's got the info on where the stuff is, he's got enough money to pay people to work for him, and he can even pretend to make legitimate sales using the WEI name."

"If this had not happened to Quatre, he would never have been caught," Iria said, eyes wide. "I cannot believe no one noticed!"

"Nothing shows in the company's books," Wufei said. "This has been done very cleverly."

"So that's how he got the money to hire killers and give them the best equipment," Sally summed up. "But how could he know what was on that particular satellite?"

Quatre winced.

"I don't think that Instructor H took the time to hide his notes when he was arrested by OZ. He had to make sure to leave the satellite first so that no one would find it, and he did it in a hurry. When... when I came back to take Zero, I wasn't really thinking about that. And I honestly never thought about it ever since the wars ended. We stored the Gundams in the sub-levels of the old Lunar Base, and after that we destroyed them. I didn't even think that there would be something left there. It's a bit stupid of me."

"If you dare say that it's your fault, I'll strangle you," Duo threatened.

"Okay, I won't say it."

"Don't think it either," Heero added.

Quatre was opening his mouth to answer when he noticed Dr Carter looking at him pointedly. He smiled sheepishly.

"I'll try," he promised. "I will do my best, I swear, not to blame myself again. But I can't be sure I will manage."

Carter nodded and smiled warmly at him, looking like a teacher proud of his hard-working pupil.

"Now we have only one little problem," Sally said. "Since he disappeared, we don't know his location."

"Actually, we do," Wufei said quietly.

He turned to Heero. The Japanese typed a few commands on the laptop that was on Quatre's bedside table and the screen displayed a map of the L4 cluster.

"He was careless," he explained. "Or more exactly, one of his employees was careless. Someone we know."

"Who?" Iria asked.

"Jay Maleda. He called his boss from a phone booth near the Fatimah Clinic on March 6th around 10pm. The call was directed to a cell phone. The number of the cell phone wasn't even encrypted. It was very easy to find who it belonged to. I've been screening incoming calls to that number in the phone company's records to be sure this is the person we were looking for. Then, I located the cell phone."

"The com satellites," Sally murmured. "If he's using a cell phone, the signal goes through a com satellite."

"Apparently, he's using just a plain phone and he didn't take any precautions to make sure the connection was untraceable. He's here."

Heero pointed to a small dot in the outer circle of the cluster.

"This used to be a mining station too," Iria said. "It was closed two years ago."

"You really need to do that inspection on your company's satellites, CEO," Duo said to Iria. "Looks like some have unpleasant vermin on them."

"I will give a call to the head of the mining department as soon as possible," Iria said determinedly. "And we have to make those inspections regularly. I cannot believe that no one thought about that before. Father was really naive about human nature sometimes."

"How are we gonna play this?" Sally asked.

"We cannot settle this publicly, I think we all agree on that," Iria answered. "And I want to make sure that Neelah is safe. It looks like she was deeply influenced by Selim to act that way, and the place she needs to be in is a psychiatric facility. As for the rest…"

"I vote for going to see that guy and asking him why and how he did that. And then dismember him for it," Duo said, raising his hand.

"The Maguanacs can find a place where he could be detained," Quatre said. "At least if it has to come to that."

"You really think he'd just come along willingly, Cat? The guy risked everything to have you killed and we're not even really sure why. Soon, he's gonna know that the team he sent failed, and he's not gonna be happy about that. If I were him, I'd take all the money I made from my little trades and the new shares I got from my lovely wife and get the hell away from here."

"Yes, but he can't get the money from the shares yet," Iria said. "The new redistribution has to be approved by the Board. It could take weeks."

"Do you think he could hurt Neelah?" Quatre asked.

Iria shivered.

"I hope he won't, because if he does, I swear there is nothing in this world that can save him!"

"Well, we know where he is," Sally said. "The only thing we have to do is go there and ask that gentleman a few questions and make him come with us. I don't think the people working for him will stay in the area too long once we're there. I'm sure we'll find a way to make them understand that they will be better off keeping their mouths shut. Of course, if they attack us, we may have to retaliate, but let's hope they will be a bit more intelligent than that."

"I agree," Wufei said. "No victims if possible, only strike back if attacked first. We will need a shuttle, too. A bigger one than the one we have here."

"I'll call Howie," Duo said with a grin.

"We have enough weapons here," Trowa said. "We can take everything we need in the bunker."

"I'll print out the satellite schematics and design a virus to infect their computer system", Heero added.

Everyone in the room turned to Quatre, who was sitting on the bed, arms crossed on his chest and a defiant expression on his face.

"Don't even think about it," he said in a menacing voice. "You're not leaving me here!"