Bishi Pile Challenge:

Major challenge response: Organisation, Conspiracy, Trust, Information

Minor challenge response: Flight, Assassination, Codes

Word count: 2,630

Series: Friends 2: Friends and Enemies

Author: Karina

Pairings: Zechs + Duo, Trowa x Quatre

Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters.

Many thanks to Katie and ShenLong Deb for betaing this fic.

Warnings: No apology given for Aussie spelling, but fair warning given.

Character Challenge:

Chapter 12

Without a decent headset the thunder of the rotor blades made conversation almost impossible. The noise was a deterrent to conversation, but the watching eyes were the biggest reason he reclined on the stretcher and played at being passive. They needed to see and believe they held control.

Every minute he could spend gathering his physical strength was to his advantage. His nanobots were programmed to heal him of physical injury and whilst he remained still and settled all of the efforts of the micro robotics were directed at his physical infirmity. Every minute offered that much more healing, increasing his chances of acting decisively should they make a move against him.

How far would they go?

It was an important question, one he could not at present answer. Why had they not put a gun to his head and attempted to finish the job? He would have expected them to the minute they were clear of the air terminal; instead he had been given the opportunity to receive professional medical treatment.

Questions.

Why had Marcus not been silenced? Did they plan to silence them both? The earlier attempt to take his life had failed and he had to wonder if Marcus was a survivor of a failed attempt now patiently waiting for a second strike against him? In a purely professional capacity there were marked similarities in his and the other man's personalities.

Questions abounded and he was no nearer to enlightenment now than he had been up on the mountain. There was too much he did not know.

Nor was he likely to get much in the way of answers for a time. He needed to proceed with caution, to be calm and focused, and above all to trust in himself and his abilities. That was the only way he would survive this situation.

They had been in the helo for hours now and no one had spoken. He was tempted to initiate the integration function to activate the new nanobots, but there was the chance that he might need to take immediate action and he dared not be distracted. The doctor and his tech had taken a chance with their lives, upgrading the nanobots in his system. He did not know if he could trust the integrity of the new system so it would be best to monitor the integration progress carefully. They would not have been ordered to enhance and upgrade him, not if certain persons were now in control.

Not if the one who had instigated the assassination attempt was planning on trying again.

The fact that they had acted, giving him something of an advantage, if he could trust the upgrade, suggested that the one's now acting to take control of the organisation might not be as thoroughly enmeshed at the top as he had assumed. Not as yet. It took time to effect a take over of a complex organisation, particularly when the organisation was made up of individuals who had their own ideas and ideals and claimed more than the average strength of will.

They, the other agents who were not so dissimilar to him, were neither soulless nor mindless. To take on the work they had been doing in the past few years required certain unique characteristics, not the least of which was a stubborn streak a mile wide teamed with the use of a special skill.

They were not many in number but they were extremely good at what they did, and not one of them was inclined to take on a task without first asking questions. Very pointed questions. If the answers to those questions were not forthcoming, or the answers were not considered to be satisfactory, then they would not take on the requested task.

They had the right to refuse.

It was a fail safe that had served them well, but perhaps certain persons had decided having agents with a conscience and the will to listen to it was an inconvenience? The organisation had been cobbled together over time, not laid out on paper and planned in minute detail before it had begun operations. It had begun small, a few people taking an interest in the politics and business activities of certain important persons and it had grown from there.

Agents were free to consult more than their immediate handlers if they were uncertain of, or with, the requested missions parameters and they were not generally afraid to disagree and speak out.

There were many followers of protocol, of course, those who acted as directed because that was the order given. The make up of the organisation was not unlike Preventers, though they were much smaller in number, though not in influence. There were agents who would be willing enough to act without question, but the really effective agents, those with that particular 'something', they never simply accepted a directive.

They really were, in a sense, a fail safe. They listened to their conscience and did their own research and investigation into the why of the directives handed down. Not all of them agreed all of the time on how to handle a particular case and they were free to object, refuse or negotiate aspects of the assignment.

He was a case in point.

/And they want to silence me./

Some medical personnel were not in agreement with the new policy, that much had been made clear to him and there was Marcus. The agent had made his opinion apparent, but he could check that when they had the time to relax. He could assure himself of who was friend, neutral or foe in the darkest hours of the night… or whenever he had the time to indulge his particular speciality and his subjects dropped their guard.

He had touched them, marked them. The fact he had physically touched the individuals, or they had touched him, enhanced their individual identities to his mind's perceptions, enabling him to establish a mental link over distance should he need to do so. Physical contact enhanced his awareness of an individual, though touch was not necessary for him to use his particular talent. Provided he knew his target's identity and he was in reasonably close proximity, he could make contact when their defences were lowered, but physical enhancement through the medium of touch extended his range and the speed with which he could establish contact.

He would be examining Marcus and his intentions at his first opportunity to determine if he had an ally he could rely on who was, like he, exceptional at what he did.

He simply could not afford to trust word of mouth alone.

Some of the fail safes had failed, dramatically so given the organisation had taken such a turn so quickly. More than one person had to be behind the infiltration and takeover, and he would need to determine just how many people were behind the recent changes in policy.

If he was not alone in this endeavour then so much the better.

He kept his head down, eyes closed, enhancing his other senses. The helo was beginning to stink with so many individuals crammed into its confines, the stench of heating mechanics, chemicals and hot, stinky humanity making a cocktail of scent he was all too familiar with. No one left their seats or spoke; professionals waiting in silence, biding their time and resting before action was required.

Their flight was now evening out, smoother without so much turbulence, marking their departure from the mountains. He had no difficulty in marking the subtle alteration in the dominating roar of the rotor blades, a hand pressed unobserved to the naked steel picked up the change in the vibrations of the cabin. He cracked an eye open just enough to check the placement of each individual through shielding lengths of his hair, noting their varied states of alertness. Two were dozing, potentially deeply enough for him to establish cursory links to them for later access.

He had to decide, here and now, how far he was willing to go.

Did he dare to allow his principles to obstruct the need to act?

Establishing such links with unsuspecting, unknowing minds was against the strict code he had devised for himself. There was no code of conduct in existence governing what he could do and since his sojourn in Epyon his fledgling talent had grown considerably. He had made a conscious decision to set limits, to set out painstakingly thought out do's and don'ts to limit himself for the protection of other people.

Not everyone with a type of psychic talent had the conscience or inclination to take that step. Some individuals did not care to, but he had existed on the border between sanity and insanity in that thrice cursed nightmare of an operating system Treize had installed in his mobile suit. He knew what it was to have his mind raped and he had promised himself he would not invade anyone's personal privacy for his own gain; to force anyone to take action against their own conscience.

There was no rule of the land, no law, to forbid him from entering into another person's consciousness, but the truth of that was simply that no one wanted to go through the nightmare of formulating such a code of ethics and enforcing it.

It was easier to think that there was no such thing as psychic phenomena.

It was so easy for the human condition to indulge in ignorance as pure bliss.

How many of the select few psychic agents had sided with the new administration? How many of the people he had worked with were now opposing the very ideals that had drawn them to work together to protect, to further, the peace?

What could they do if they broke away from the organisation?

Run?

To where?

Most of them had spent half their lives running from one thing or another in the past. They tended to be outsiders, those who existed on the fringe of society because it was safer to be ignored, unknown. To hide what marked them as being different. Those who had been there, in that shadow world of simply existing, not truly living, would not be inclined to return to it. They had found acceptance in the organisation and they would not be keen on turning the clock back.

Take the organisation back? Easily thought, not so easily done. Much would depend on how many had turned, fully accepting the new direction. Much would depend on a great number of factors and it would take time to sort through them all, time he might well not have.

He was being taken back to the fold, but for what purpose? He could not trust anyone until he had had time and the opportunity to delve into their subconscious and ascertain their deeper intentions. Individual people might not, initially, realise what they intended to do and he was not inclined to take a knife in the back, physically or figuratively, because someone had tipped over the point of no return at a critical moment.

One could only prevaricate for so long.

So many crucial factors needed to be considered and when could he say with any certainty that it was safe to begin his probes? He had to consider himself to be in a secure location, with a secured time frame, to begin working with his speciality. Neither factor might be easy to achieve, although he had been careful not to reveal all of the facets of his talents.

He had learned early to keep an ace up his sleeve.

They knew something of his abilities, but they did not know or understand exactly how he did what he did. That was true of so many of the psychics who were the agents at the core of the group's effectiveness. How do you measure something you do not understand? How do you define in words something that simply does not have the words to adequately describe it? They had been trying to understand, to define psi talents, but so little was understood at the present time.

It would be his greatest asset, that ignorance. He could make it work for him.

He needed to be wary of a great many factors, of course. Relena was a public figure and they would make use of her against him, either in the belief that threats to her would allow them to control him, or to affect the outcome of their plans for the ESUN. She really was his only weakness.

He had taken great care to separate himself from Noin. To keep her safe from exploitation, from him as well as those he worked for, it had been his only option. She would not understand, of course, and he was not inclined to try to explain it to her either. She was a strong woman and she would not like to think he had thought her vulnerable and in need of his protection, but wanted or not, he had chosen to protect her. There would be no going back; he had made sure of that. Their relationship was water under the bridge as far as he was concerned.

He had made the cut as clean and as deep as he could to give her a chance at a future, but he could not make such a cut with Relena. Not even using the ice cold clarity that Epyon had granted him could he divorce himself of the ties to his sister. Too long had she been an absent but warm part of his life, of his dreams and beliefs. He had known she would make a difference to the world, that she was a true Peacecraft, and his existence was only to protect her so that she could do her work. The work their father had died for.

/Crap./

He was losing focus again and that was not good given the situation. Epyon had enabled him to focus on a desired course and dedicate himself to the pursuit of it to the exclusion of all else. That sort of clarity was what he needed now. He needed to step back, look coldly, clinically and logically at the structure of the organisation. He needed to place his trust in Yuy and the Preventers to keep his sister safe from whatever he stirred up extricating himself from the web he had willingly walked into.

If Maxwell kept his word and kept out of it, if Yuy kept Relena safe and resisted the temptation to dabble… There were a great many if's, unfortunately, and at the present time he had not realised even half of them.

There it was again, the change in the helo's revs, the subtle alteration in the hull's vibration. His time was running down. He needed to know where they had brought him and he would need to take note of as many details when they arrived as he could. They would be landing soon and if he desired to leave this outpost alive, and he did, then he would need to find every advantage possible.

The red head stirred near him, aware as he was of their proximity to landing, and he wondered if Marcus knew their destination. There was a subtle tension in the man that suggested much Zechs did not like.

How much did Marcus know? How deeply was he involved? How many factions was the organisation evolving into? He needed to delve deep into the man's subconscious and ascertain if he could trust the man. Sometimes it was best to look at everyone as 'the enemy'.

Until they proved otherwise.

And that was his personal moral dilemma resolved, was it not? Survival had always featured high on his list of priorities.

End

Karina Robertson 2011