Disclaimer: I don't own a thing (as sad as that realization is), except for the words I've written.
Warnings: Rated for adult language (Duo's got quite a surly mouth and mind), some violence, mild adult themes, and mild lime/lemon.
A/N: Here we go, winding down to the climactic ending! I've got it about 95 percent done from here on out (look for about three more upcoming chapters) thanks for those of you who stuck with it till the end. Read? Review?
Maxwell
Chapter 24: Tell Me What You Saw
Gold Lion - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Duo had never felt this type of adrenaline in his life. Something fueled by fear and anger and shock all wrapped up into a single moment of complete and total 'fuck you' towards whoever it was suddenly controlling their lives like puppets on flimsy string. He was done with it all, not caring, not arguing, just fucking done.
The bodies fell to the ground just as something sharp and metallic managed to scrape a thin line down the outside of his left bicep, cutting through the fabric of his worn t-shirt, just a scrape, but it could have been much more if he'd been only a centimeter off in his action. The man beneath him was stirring immediately, the impact only jarring their thoughts for a second before both Trowa and Duo were scrambling for their weapons again, vision flicking to the building only to be met with the smooth surface of a locked door, no gun or enemy visible, even now mere seconds after the shot had been fired.
They were silent, still on the ground, staring without breathing, eyes combing the surroundings only to come up empty. It might have been a bad thing, they'd not made an ID, but of course they were also not being shot at anymore, so perhaps not such a bad thing after all.
Wufei was the one to finally break the quiet. He was on hands and knees before them, Duo pushing off the pavement to raise up, while Trowa leaned against an arm to make eye contact with the other two ex-pilots.
"Look familiar?" were the first words spoken, Wufei's voice was rough as he splayed a hand towards Duo, a small vivid green dart laying against his upturned palm.
Unfortunately it did look familiar, too fucking familiar. But somehow, looking down at the little dart, Duo's shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch in realization that it had not been a deadly bullet aimed at their tall comrade, even if the dart held something possibly more dangerous within its hollow tube. It had been the same exact thing that had put Duo so rapidly to sleep, the same thing that had fucked with his muscles, with his body and mind, but still not an immediate death. No, more like a prolonged, mentally torturous death involving tubes and monitors and blood, lots of blood.
Duo swallowed once. "Fuck," he muttered out, the only conceivable thing he could force his mouth to say.
He turned to find Trowa's eyes studying the small dart, something odd in their depths, something like unsteady trepidation. Not a sight Duo was at all used to from the man that could seemingly tame lions with a single, powerful glance. Had he been staring down a bullet, would it have garnered the same reaction? Certainly they'd all stared down their own death more than one time during the war, even now afterwards. But this dart, the meaning behind it, was much more frightening than any thought of true and permanent death.
It was uncertain and that seemed to be what made Duo, and apparently the rest of his comrades, so uneasy.
"I'm the only one left." Trowa's gaze found Duo, the words more of a statement than a question at this point. Everything was becoming real for him, just as it had the seconds before Duo had lost consciousness outside the casino on L2.
The braided man felt his mouth run dry. He could handle it happening to himself, but how was he supposed to comfort his friend? But of course Trowa didn't need comforting, he needed answers like they all did. He needed someone to confirm what he already apparently knew.
MR was after them, wanted all of them, needed all of them, and Trowa was the last one to go. Damn it all and they were getting way too fucking close.
They made it back inside in less than a minute. Ten minutes later they were traveling in two separate taxis towards a neighborhood north of Sanc to a small house rented by Lucrezia Noin, previously offered to them after she'd been called away for Preventer business on L4. Twenty minutes later they were standing in the small foray, taking in a modestly furnished home with two bedrooms and one bath and a kitchen the size of a closet, but it would do. In their lifetime they'd all been housed in much less accommodating conditions, this was luxurious for an impromptu safe-house.
Duo followed Heero slowly up the stairs towards the master bedroom, something he'd begrudged, but hadn't possessed enough stamina to argue against his fellow companions when they'd made the decision of sleeping arrangements. He sat on the bed and watched Heero setting up his laptop, charging a cellular phone, dumping their duffels in the corner and generally trying to distribute what little they had gathered with them of their lives thus far.
"Look at me, Quat."
"All that we've got that you don't are cell phones."
"But what have I got that you don't?"
He stretched his arms above his head, the tension releasing ever slightly from his muscles with the effort. Duo thought that maybe he was a bit closer to the answer he owed Quatre- but still he wasn't quite certain.
Heero sat down next to him, fumbling, and it was odd to see the man in such a way that he actually seemed- nervous.
"Alright?" Duo muttered, eyes slanting to capture the other man's true reaction.
Heero shrugged. "Are you?"
Of course he would fucking deflect the question, only seemed natural what with everything else going on lately. Duo sighed. "I'm fine- you know you don't have to follow me around all the time. I can take care of myself."
There was a nod and then Heero fit him with a quirk of the brow. "Do you want me to leave?"
Damned his gut for clenching at simply the thought. Duo shook his head. "No, I don't."
There was silence then and Duo swallowed down the words bubbling up in his throat in light of a better and more pressing subject at hand. "I've been doing some thinking on the doc that had me in lock-up at the med facility. Meister R."
Heero ran fingers over the edge of the bed where the braid fell between them, but didn't say anything, only waited for the other man to continue. Duo licked his lips. "He couldn't have been in charge- he was anxious and all-too forthcoming. There are other people involved here."
"Sean Davis?" Heero supplied, eyes not bothering to look up in Duo's own skeptical ones. It was still a long-shot, he knew that, to accuse a Preventer of such a thing. But they'd been accruing evidence, hadn't they? Fucking circumstantial, but something nonetheless. And if he was going to trust anyone's judgement through the Sphere it was going to be his fellow ex-pilot's.
"If what Trowa says is true, these people are after our abilities- they want control over five of the most powerful and influential men in the Sphere- but recreating us for that purpose can only lead to one thing."
Heero looked grim when their eyes finally met. "War. Power hungry people only ever lead to war."
Duo averted his vision at the tone. "You said that Menta Rolland seemed concerned about her father. Perhaps he's being held against his will? Made to experiment because of his ties to the other scientists during the war?"
"Wufei and I have already logged that as a distinct possibility." Heero too lowered his eyes, but only to hide them from Duo's now incredulous gaze. Had the two been managing to work together again? He damn well hoped so, they made nearly as good as team as he and Heero ever did.
"Duo-" his name sounded foreign in his own ears for some reason. Still Heero wouldn't look at him. "After Trowa rescued you- after he met up with us- you said something-"
The braided man felt his entire body stiffen. Said something? Shit, that could mean anything. Had Trowa not been totally truthful with him earlier? Perhaps Heero knew more than he needed to already.
Fingers brushed against his thigh. "You said that Trowa had 'put out the fire.'"
Duo tried hard to fight back a shudder at the all too familiar memory. Hell, now was not the time for this. He shook his head vehemently. "Just like Tro said, I lost a lot of blood. I was severely out of it. Shit, I mean-"
Heero had grabbed his wrist then, stalling the other man's words abruptly with his own interjected ones. "I don't need to know, Duo. I'm sorry for bringing any of it up. But I do need you to understand that I am here- if you need to- talk about anything."
Eyes feeling heavy in his skull, Duo stared at him, not at first comprehending the words that had just fallen in the air between them. Who was this man and what had he done with Heero Yuy?
Duo let a soft smirk play at his lips. "Okay," he said, for lack of a better response. In reality, he had no fucking clue what to say. This empathy was certainly new for their sorted relationship.
Heero seemed satisfied by that, but he too acted unsure and odd over what had just transpired between them. It would just take practice, Duo supposed with a rather amused laugh all to himself. A shit-ton of practice.
"We've got to try it- better than nothing right now at least."
Wufei was staring with sharp eyes from his position in between Heero and Duo's frames, having offered the window seat to his still 'recovering' friend- fucking nice of him in an odd sort of Chang-like way.
Duo, of course, was speaking of the cellphone they had since retrieved from Sean Davis' vehicle before all hell had literally broken loose not more than an hour beforehand. Trowa turned ever slightly from his position in the passenger seat to observe Duo wordlessly, while Quatre focussed his attention on driving and perhaps organizing his thoughts for their upcoming- and unscheduled- meeting at the Winner Corp offices. Heero's limited hacking had proved to be quite interesting- hell, go figure.
Wufei had yet to disagree like Duo had been expecting him to do, and so he held the phone to his ear to wait for the inevitable- probably a voicemail box.
The phone rang once, twice, three times. Duo was starting to deflate, realizing nothing was going to happen, just as Wufei could have told him, just as his subconscious could have predicted. But then there was an unmistakable click and the sound of hurried movement on the other end.
"What the hell is going on? Where are you?" The voice was deep, slightly mechanical coming through the tech, but still somehow familiar. Angry and annoyed.
Duo chose not to answer, instead listening for background noise- anything at all to give him a damned clue. Shit, but it was hard to keep himself from answering the voice, questioning, threatening.
"Hello?" the man asked, sounding even more annoyed now- even more familiar. And yet, somehow not quite who Duo might have predicted.
With a tightening of his jaw Duo licked at his lower lip. "Who is this?" he wondered, like he had every right to ask, like he'd just accidentally dialed the wrong number and needed the confirmation.
There was a long pause and for a second he thought he might have gone too far, gotten too cocky, too fucking confident, but then the man was back- this time sounding even harsher than before. "No, who are you?"
"You're guys failed- they're dead now," Duo ventured to bluff, ignoring the dark eyes he received from the men on either side of him. "And now we're coming for you."
His voice had grown exponentially deeper in the last seconds of this odd conversation. Something about the man he was speaking with, something about the familiarity, it brought that edge out of him. Fucking Shinigami. Everything was flooding back to him now; photographs, Heero's dead body, Sean Davis, those hallucinations, the blood.
"Maxwell?" The sound of his own name made his mind jump back to reality.
Duo frowned. "You know my name- doesn't seem fair that I don't know yours."
"Life's not fair, is it?" the voice sneered back at him.
"Yeah, and it's about to get really unfair for you especially," Duo shot back, catching Wufei's wrist before his hand could make contact with the phone still pressed to his ear.
The man just laughed. "You're nowhere."
"Look outside."
Duo listened carefully as a chair scraped against hardwood floor, the sound of leather shoes clipping something- an edge of a table or desk- the sound of thick, venetian blinds. Then there came another chuckle, this one less confident though. "You're nowhere," the man said again, some odd mixture of anxiety and relief flooding his tone.
"Believe what you want or not," Duo replied cooly. "But believe me when I say that we'll be seeing you very soon- and we'll be taking a nice helicopter ride, just like the one you used to dispose of your little experiment. But trust me, you won't be as reluctant to die as your 'Heero Yuy' probably was. No, after I'm done, you'll be begging me to jump out- fucking count on it."
And with that he ripped the phone from his ear and dropped the call, nothing but a snarl resting on his lips as he met Quatre's eyes in the rearview mirror. No one said anything for several long minutes, perhaps unsure of whether that warranted a discussion or not.
Wufei was the first brave soul- hell incredibly brave considering the tone he chose to go with. "Was that entirely necessary?"
Duo fit him with a sidelong glance. "You're going to think I'm crazy, but that guy sounded like someone we know."
"Who?" Heero was the second brave soul, his voice low, but intrigued- at least not sardonic like Wufei's.
"Quinze."
"Not possible." Wufei was shaking his head, placing arms over his chest vehemently disagreeing before anything more could be said on the matter.
Duo rolled his eyes. "You don't think I don't realize it's not fucking possible? But shit, a lot of things lately don't seem possible and yet they still keep happening, don't they?"
He turned to Heero then to see the man's reaction, but there was nothing but an utterly blank face to stare at. Duo looked to Trowa, but the man had averted his eyes, perhaps feigning deep thought. Next was Quatre, but his vision was focussed on the road ahead of them now.
With great irritation, Duo wrenched his vision back to Wufei. "Well?"
The man was chewing at the inside of his lip, not an action Duo had ever seen him perform before. He was nervous, or perhaps begrudging to admit that the idea was not so farfetched after all. "It would account for one thing," Wufei began slowly. "The M.P. initials. We know Quinze's involvement with the man- he was somewhat obsessive towards the end."
"The identity 'Milliardo Peacecraft' doesn't exist anymore," Heero supplied, now staring a hole in the seat before him.
Duo pulled at the joints on his right hand. "Maybe all the more reason to use the initials to cover for someone else."
Quatre's eyes flickered in the mirror again. "There seems to be an awful lot of people piling up in our list of suspects. You don't think they could actually all be involved?"
Trowa's hand waved out the front windshield. "I think we'll be narrowing it down shortly," he said as the vehicle pulled into Winner Corp's parking garage, the next bridge of their ongoing journey falling into place.
They were sitting in a conference room, one vaguely reminiscent of the space Duo and Wufei had occupied many days ago upon their first visit to Winner Corp in search of Quatre. Now, said man- the CEO, was standing with shoulders hovering over firmly placed hands on the table-top, leaning forward with an entirely intimidating expression on his usually composed features. Quite frankly, Quatre Raberba Winner was fucking pissed.
"Iria this is a very serious matter," Quatre said to the woman sitting across from him, his other four companions scattered about the room trying to come off as impartial observers. His voice was soft, but eyes piercing.
Iria sat stiff-backed in her chair. "And so is the matter of hacking into our servers, little brother."
Duo winced at that, but Quatre did not seem phased by the mention of his relative age- hell, he'd probably gotten quite used to it over the years. So instead of responding in kind, he tapped a stiff forefinger towards the papers he'd spread out on the table between them.
"Our servers, yes. Regardless of how I have retrieved this information- our servers have shown me a research program that has been hidden from public records- including any records that the CEO might have access to, which at this current juncture seems- for a lack of a better word- entirely shady."
After holding her brother's gaze for a few heartbeats, Iria's eyes averted to the papers, scanning them with a knowing look that set Duo- and presumably everyone's- teeth on edge. "The man behind this research is no longer employed with the Winner Corporation."
"Yes, that much is clear to me," Quatre responded, finally taking the chair he'd so impulsively stood from a few moments before. "What I want to know now is why his grant proposal was published in a Sphere wide news article."
"We denied the grant proposal-"
Quatre's fingers curled into fists. "Iria."
She met him with a sharp frown. "I do not know why it was published- all I know is that once we came across the underlying meaning of the research we severed ties with the man immediately- Sean Davis, if I recall correctly."
Sean Davis. There it was again, the name that seemed to crop up all around them with little to no fucking explanation. Duo watched as the wheels in Quatre's brain could practically be seen spinning on their axis.
"This man?" he asked, picking up the photograph of the older, graying employee that Iria had sent to them days before during their communicator conversation.
Iria nodded once, apparently realizing the depth at which she'd now dug herself down. She frowned. "It's not like I know him personally, Quatre."
Quatre replaced the image back onto the stack of his recent intel, ignoring the comment. "Underlying meaning," he repeated, voice steady.
Duo's eyes flicked to Wufei who caught his gaze pointedly before the Preventer opened his mouth to finally interject. "This former employee wanted to use Winner Corp funds to further his research into blood cell replication."
Iria swiveled to stare at him, the expression on her face giving away more than necessary. She was first shocked and then clearly defeated. "Yes," she whispered, her shoulders slumping.
"This man, Sean Davis- whether he be in relation to Agent Davis or not- would have been desperate for funds," Quatre said then as he stared down his sister's ever-weakening composure.
Heero grunted once, pushing off from the wall he'd been leaning against. "Desperate enough to publish the article himself in hopes of an interested party to back his research?"
Duo walked towards the table, fingers going to splay against the wood at the head of it. "The man I spoke to on the phone earlier- I couldn't make out much, but wherever he was it sounded like an office. No outside noise, no other voices. A secure space, behind locked doors maybe." He specifically left out the part about his idea as to just who the man's identity was, as shit he didn't need another lecture about plausibility right now.
"The benefactor, perhaps?" Trowa ventured from his place in the corner nearest a large, glass window, vision not leaving the un-secure streets below.
"Perhaps our two Sean Davis' might actually not be the same." Wufei made his way towards Iria now, gesturing towards the image in front of her.
"Speculatively," Duo added for good measure, just a hint of a smirk attacking his lips.
But Wufei ignored the jab intended for him, dodging it in lieu of something more interesting. He picked up the image between thumb and forefinger, studying it closely. "Have you ever met a Menta Rolland?" he asked, directing the question towards the woman next to him.
Iria shook her head slowly, eyes blinking. "I-I don't know. I meet with a lot of people- I suppose- maybe." Her voice cracked as a flush ran over her cheeks.
Suddenly Quatre was on his feet again, hand pushing forward to clasp over his sister's own. "It's alright. You've been helpful, sister." He smiled down at her, trying to calm and reassure.
Wufei, in his own right, stepped back nearly tripping over Heero as the man came to pluck the photograph from the other's fingers. He stared at it through narrowed vision and then spun the image to pan it across the awaiting eyes scattered throughout the room. Red hair, specked with gray. A sharp nose, blue eyes.
"A family resemblance," he stated. "Meister R?"
Duo's mouth hung open for a fraction of a second. "Held against his will- or the mastermind behind the whole thing?"
Quatre tore his eyes away from the image of Sean Davis to focus back on Iria. "I'll need a list of all the hospitals and facilities cued for the renewal program."
As if their mind's were suddenly linked, all five men were filtering towards the room's entrance, Quatre and Wufei gathering up the papers and photographs still staring up at them from the conference table.
"Where are you going?" Iria asked, standing now in somewhat of a panic.
Quatre looked to her, mouth set in a grim line. "We've got to get to Preventer Headquarters- there are a few important questions we need to ask of a certain Commander Une."