Surviving on Your Own
Tracking
You would think tracking the former CEO of the galaxies most profitable business would be fairly easy. Well, you're wrong. Quatre's just as good as slipping through the cracks as the rest of us, but he's bound to turn up somewhere. Such a familiar face can only go unnoticed for so long. Iria is worried sick, and I'm not much better. I haven't slept since I got here.
Quatres driver, Hank, told me he dropped Quatre off at the shuttle port after he picked him up from Winner Enterprises. I called the Maganac group in the Middle East and spoke with Rashid. He told me Quatre's not there, and that he's extremely worried about him. He'll call me if he hears from him, or if he shows up. I was hoping Quatre would escape to the Maganacs, they're like a second family to him, but he must be so ashamed that he's gone off the grid.
I tracked the digital records of where he has taken his craft to. There's a stop to L1. There's no record of whether he has left the colony, he could have gotten out undetected if he wanted to. His financial accounts show that he has withdrawn all his money. If I were him, I would have stopped there, extracted all my money from one bank, and left immediately for a new place. I may have to go to L1 to find out.
I do my best to alleviate Iria's fears over the weekend before I leave for the L1 cluster. My own troubled thoughts keep me from sleeping. I nod off for short bouts of time, like before. The shuttle ride allows me some reprieve, and I actually pass out for two and a half hours on the flight. After that little nap, I break into Preventer files on my laptop.
Once we land, I meander through the shuttle port, looking at a map on my cellular device. I've hacked some Preventer files, and I've found that Heero is stationed on this colony. I need his help.
Using a separate prepaid cell, I call Heero's number that the Preventer files offered me. No one answered, and I didn't leave a message. There was no answer to Heero's apartment, and breaking in revealed that no one has been living here for a while. I'd like to say the empty, unlived in state of his residences surprised me, but it doesn't. His apartment gives off the impression of a lonely existence that goes hand in hand with his stoic persona. I had hoped he'd be happier, more well-adjusted than this. Anyways, he's not here and I have no idea where to find him. If he's not home on a Sunday afternoon then he's probably on an assignment.
Finding a small bistro restaurant, I order a salad, find a vacant table on the patio, and break out my laptop again. I have a feeling that Une has been keeping tabs on all of us, so there has to be buried files on Quatre. While eating, I find nothing on Quatre that I already didn't know.
Someone has the audacity to sit at my table. Looking up, I see a familiar blond woman seated across from me, and her blond friend standing behind her whom appears very uncomfortable.
I glare at the forked eye brow woman across from me.
"Excuse me, Trowa Barton?" Her friend asks.
"Yes."
"May we sit with you? I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Syl-"
"I remember you just fine Mrs. Noventa. Go ahead and sit. Ms. Catalonia already has."
Dorothy gifts me with a devil-may-care grin. Sometimes I wish it wasn't wrong for a man to punch a woman because I'd really like to rearrange her face.
She stabs at her own salad, Sylvia nibbles quietly on her sandwich, and I just glare at Dorothy over my open laptop.
"Why aren't you looking for the disgraced Winner heir on L4?" She asks me with an evil twinkle in her eye.
Fuck you, psycho bitch. "He left L4. I tracked him here."
Sylvia speaks up, "It's so sad that he's been-"
"I saw Mr. Winner not too long ago at soirée at Ms. Relena's estate," Dorothy interjects. "He and I got reacquainted in a very intimate way." She winks at me.
Closing my laptop, and placing it back into my duffel bag, I ask her, "What's that suppose to mean?"
Dorothy giggles, "Oh, you know."
"No, I don't." My eyebrows furrow into a furious scowl.
"We had a private party of our own in a parlor," she outright laughs, and Sylvia blushes. "It was kind of sad though. He lasted less than ten minutes." That wicked grin widens.
Anger and jealousy fill my chest cavity. I don't need her to explain any further to know what she's talking about. Picking up my glass of water, I chuck its contents in Dorothy's face. A shrill, angry cry escapes her mouth.
"Fuck you," I seethe in a whisper, leaning over the table. I stand up and leave. It's not a punch to the face, but it'll suffice.
Out on the main streets, I'm stopped by a hand grasping the inside of my elbow. Halting, I turn to face Sylvia Noventa.
"I'm sorry!" She bursts. "I don't understand why Dorothy enjoys pushing people like that, but I feel I must apologize on her behalf."
"You don't have to apologize to me for anything, Ms. Noventa, but thank you."
I turn to leave and continue down the street to I don't know where yet.
"I hope you find him!" She yells after me.
Me too...