Wreckage
Relena watched the news. She had been watching the news for hours, staring at the same images of an explosion, a mobile suit battle, a building on fire, on repeat. Although the news offered little information on what actually happened, although Heero told her nothing about his mission, she immediately knew that this was it.
Relena had been notified by Dorothy just before dawn. She had been woken up by the call. Dorothy spoke to her with an overly practiced tone of assurance and it was clear to Relena her new Chief of Staff was just managing her. Dorothy's efforts to contain the situation were of little use. Relena immediately and instinctively began to worry. Since the initial call, Relena hadn't eaten anything, hadn't spoken to anyone, hadn't even gotten dressed. She could do nothing but sit in bed and helplessly stare at her television in her bedroom as she struggled to focus her thoughts. Thoughts that threatened at any moment to burst in a thousand and one directions.
It was mid-morning now, and she had meetings all day. She wasn't going to make them and she knew that. She hoped that Dorothy knew it too because Relena simply didn't have the wherewithal to deal with such mundane tasks now.
She tried to convince herself to calm down, tried to contain the welling of tears and the pain in her chest. She thought about the missed call from the night before and her mind immediately jumped to the worst possible scenario. Had he called to say goodbye? Did he in the end do something stupid despite his promise? Perhaps it was necessary.
He always did that was necessary.
A few hours earlier
It caught him by surprise. The sonic boom and the rumbling of the floor that followed. A long ringing replaced his auditory senses as he waited for the tremors to stop. But they didn't. He knew something was wrong.
He followed the tremors down the hallway and towards one of the executive offices. Outside the window he could see the flames and smoke billowing out of the dockyard. It was followed by flashes of light that he immediately recognized as the discharge of a mobile suit energy weapon.
"Get out of there! Get out of there! Do you copy?" Hope's frantic voice returned along with his hearing.
Duo ran towards the elevator, but decided against it. He didn't want to run the risk of getting stuck or getting caught by the staff who were no doubt also beginning to evacuate. He made his way into the stairwell and found that people were indeed rushing to get out of the building. He cautiously followed them, carefully keeping at least a floor between them as they descended.
He was about half way down the stairs before a sudden violent shake almost threw him over the railings. That was the last thing he remembered.
Duo woke up with the sun on his eyes and a stinging headache. His mouth was dry and his joints ached. He tried to sit up only to immediately collapse back onto the cot where he had been sleeping. He let out a deep groan.
"You two are fucking maniacs," he could hear Hope's voice from a distance. There was a tinge of irritation in her tone. "I should've never listened to you."
He looked around and found her staring out of a grimy window of what seemed to be a large abandoned warehouse. Hope was staring into the distance, contemplating her choices. The rash decisions that she had made in the vain hope of impressing the two seasoned soldiers. Duo could immediately feel her frustration and judgment with and upon him.
"What happened?" Duo whispered as he settled himself back into the cot.
She didn't have the nerve to look at him. Her senses her still frayed from the events of the night before. Her hair was a mess, her pupils dilated yet still alert. Duo noticed the way she wore her Preventers jacket, arms holder in front of her, as if by sheer instinct, she was protecting herself.
"I don't know," Hope said severely. "Lost contact with Heero a few moments before the explosion."
"Did we get anything?" Duo asked as he closed his eyes again.
"What? What are you talking about?" Hope turned to look at him.
"From the executive computers," Duo asked as he sprung up from the cot and sat up stubborn, as if refusing to the pains in his body to get the better of him.
"How can you think about that now?!" Hope shouted at him. "You guys blew up half a building, the police are definitely looking for us, Luis and Roman probably want to kill us, and Heero is missing!"
Duo pushed himself off of the cot and after a few wobbles, regained his balance and slowly made his way towards Hope. "First of all, I didn't blow up the building and secondly, if Heero is right, it doesn't matter what we could've done. The Preventers couldn't be trusted anyway."
"And Heero?" Hope asked desperately.
"Ahh, he's fine."
There were still thin pillars of black smoke that rose from the ruins of the previous night's calamity when Sally brought her black sedan to a halt before the throng of cars that clogged the approach to Lucio's headquarters. She took a deep breath as she stepped out of her car into the mayhem of police, firefighters, paramedics, Preventers, and territorial authorities. It was going to be a long day.
She retrieved her Preventers jacket from the back seat and threw on her pair of aviator sunglasses. She made her way through the maze of police cruisers, ambulances, and unmarked sedans like hers until she reached the yellow tape and orange cones that marked the perimeter of the investigation. A young police officer stopped her and asked for her identification. Sally pulled her wallet out of her back pocket and flashed it.
"Pull it out," the man said sternly.
Annoyed but in no mood to make a scene, Sally pulled out the card from her wallet. But just as she was about to hand it over, another man intervened. He was a bit older than the young officer, wore a navy blue suit with a matching tie. He was clean shaven, well put together, with a healthy head of dark brown hair. Sally smiled.
"She's good," he said to the man, in his awkward Americanized Spanish. "She's with me."
Sally immediately recognized Matthew Sullivan, the deputy station chief of North America. He was a career diplomat who served as the point man for the North American nation states and the Alliance during the early days of the war. After the fall of Romefeller, he went to work for United Earth Sphere Unified Nation and found himself in the Preventers. He and Sally had worked together for a brief time during year between the end of the war and Mariemaia's insurrection.
"I'm with you, am I?" Sally said in an amused tone as the officer let her through.
"Don't start," Matthew said awkwardly.
"Well this really must be a big deal, it's not often you're south of the equator," Sally said as they made their way through pockets of men in various uniforms.
"More than you would think, Sally," Matthew said. "But there's an illegal weapon of war somewhere in that mess, several of them actually. I'd say this concerns us all."
"How noble," Sally teased.
"So what are you up to these days?" Matthew asked. "Still part of Une's black ops detail?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sally feigned ignorance.
"Alright, alright," Matthew said with a wave of his hand. Her denial was answer enough. "Une and her secrets, you can take the girl out of OZ but you can't OZ out of the girl."
"I'll tell her you said that," Sally said sounding rather serious.
"You wouldn't," Matthew said with a smirk.
After weaving their way past all of the emergency response workers, they entered the command tent that had been set up in front of the main entrance to the building. Inside the dark and humid tent were half a dozen men from various organizations huddled around a 3D projection of the site, as they bickered quietly among themselves.
Sally tapped Luis on the shoulder. He turned and immediately smiled.
"Sally, my friend!" He said warmly.
They exchanged a tender hug.
"I gotta make a call," Matthew said as he excused himself.
"Cocksucker," Luis spat.
"You two play nice," Sally scolded him as he were a petulant child.
"He thinks he can come here and commandeer the whole operation, fuck him, fuck his whole station," Luis continued.
"Calm down, we're all on the same side," Sally said.
"Yeah, doesn't feel like it, feels like it's every man for himself," Luis said as he looked around at the other men in the tent.
"What do we got?" Sally asked.
"We've got a clusterfuck, that's what we've got," Luis said. "Police, firefighters, territorial investigators, local politicians, and some from Brussels, all wanting to take charge of the investigation."
"What about the wreckage site?" Sally asked.
"That we've secure… for now," Luis answered. "At least under the governor signs an executive order telling us we have to play nice with the other kids."
"I meant, what about fires, toxins, undetonated ordinances, etc." Sally said.
"Oh yeah, that… Yeah, we got it under control," Luis said as he looked down.
"Okay good, let me know if anything changes. " With one quick motion, Sally snatched Luis' authorization badge from his belt. "I'm gonna need this. But you got this right?"
"Wait what? Where you going?" Luis asked, feeling suddenly very violated.
"I gotta do a thing," Sally said.
"You're not here to represent?!"
"Sorry, I've got orders," Sally explained as she slowly started to back away.
"Is this Une's thing? You know that's what started this whole mess right?" Luis started to get angry.
"Take it up with her, I gotta go," Sally said as she left the tent.
She left the command tent in a hurry and rushed into the lobby of the building. Sally pulled out her badge once again and flashed it to the receptionists still manning the front desk. Apparently they had not been given the day off and the phones were ringing non-stop. She followed the main corridor of glass and marble and made her way deeper into the complex.
She made an effort to smile at the emergency workers as they passed her by. And while she had spent her drive to the location memorizing its layout, she still found her eyes wandering, trying mark out certain visual landmarks that she knew could orient her. At first she was worried that it would make her seem conspicuous, but after realizing that everyone was much too busy doing their own jobs to notice her, she hurried along to her objectives without any further hesitation.
Sally reached the atrium where Heero and Duo had been the night before and surveyed the location area. LIke everywhere else, the space was filled with firefighters, police, EMTs, and government agents. When she was sure that no one here was taking any notice of her, she accessed the communications panel that Heero had used to establish a comms connection with Hope the night before and quickly, ran a program from her phone to terminate the datalink and scrub any existence of their activities from the night before.
"Why am I always cleaning up after you boys?" Sally whispered to herself.
After erasing all trace of Heero and Duo's intrusion from the night before from the company's public network, she moved on to the server farm and the private network. She got onto the main elevator and went down to the second basement. There she was greeted by two men in Preventers uniforms. She presented to them the authorization badge that she had taken off of Luis. Once they had scanned it, they let her into the server room.
It took her a few minutes of wandering through the rows upon rows of black monoliths until she found the unit that Heero had broken into. Again, she looked around, just in case, before she removed the transmitter and tucked it in her pocket. They certainly hadn't downloaded the entire database in the brief hours between when Heero had planted the bug and now, but Une couldn't allow for the possibility of other agencies, or her own for that matter, to discover their covert mission. They would have to do with the data that had already downloaded and hoped there would be something in all those terabytes that linked Lucio to the Barton Foundation.
Once she was finished in the server room, Sally retraced Heero's steps from the night before and headed towards the dockyard. She entered in the crowded space, again, filled with emergency workers, law enforcement, and investigators. She waded her way through the crowd until she reached the perimeter around the source of the explosion from the night before that had been secured solely by the Preventers, keeping the local and territorial police at bay. She flashed her ID and Luis' authorization badge and was let in.
"Sally!" Roman yelled as he approached.
Sally smiled at the second highest ranking Preventer in all of South America. They exchanged a warm hug.
"You just don't know how to stay away do you?" Roman said with a knowing look.
"And I thought you would be happy to see me," Sally said teasingly.
"Oh I would, the station a could use a girl with your skills," Roman said. "But alas, you're too good for us."
"Roman, you know I would love to work here," Sally said sincerely. "But what can I do? I've been assigned to the South Pacific. You know how Une is. What she wants, she gets."
"Bullshit," Roman laughed. "You're there because that's where your boyfriend is."
Sally gave him a knowing a look. She wanted to say something but decided against it.
"Tell me about what we've found so far," Sally said, changing the subject to the wreckage just a few meters away from them.
Roman's expression became severe as he walked over to the water's edge. There, in the shallow waters of the dock, was a archipelago was large chunks of metal, warped and torn into unrecognizable shapes. Only one of the Serpent's legs could be recognized as once a piece of a mobile suit.
"Geez, what a mess" Sally said as she surveyed the damage.
"There were reports of a battle," Roman said. "But this doesn't look like battle damage to me."
"Yeah… there's not enough of the suit left," Sally whispered absently, her eyes still transfixed on the sheer amount of destruction in front of her.
"We're thinking self-detonation," Roman said.
"Even still…" Sally said. "There's barely anything left."
The Valknut, Preventers Headquarters
Two days later
The black limousine pulled up the front gate of the Valknut, slowly but surely pushing through the crowd of reporters that swarmed the space in front of the compound. One of the guards that kept the crowds behind the barricade, came forward and opened the door of the car once it had come to a stop. Director Une emerged, stoic and undaunted by the media attention. She wore her Preventers uniform proud with a pair of black aviators.
She was escorted by two guards as they made their way to the gate. Reporters shouted questions at her, one on top of another so that the whole enterprise became an unruly mess of garbled accusations and incomprehensible rhetorical traps. It didn't matter, she had no intention of saying a single word to the media.
Two years from the war, the only times she ever came up in news coverage was when some politician found her an easy target to drag through the mud for a campaign stump speech or when some pundit wanted to remind the world how utterly unprepared she had been for her stepdaughter's rebellion. She had no love for the media and felt that she owed them nothing.
Upon entering the lobby of the Valknut she could hear as the building, as if all at once, silenced at her approach. The clacking of her heels against the marble floor was the only sound that could be heard until the elevator bell chimed and the stainless steel doors slid open. She stepped in. She turned to face the door. No one joined her. The door slip closed.
It had been two days since the incident at Lucio Internationale's headquarters and Une had yet to make an official statement. The media was getting restless, as her the politicians. They wanted answers, everyone did.
Upon reaching the second floor, Une stepped out of the elevator and made her way to her office. Her secretary meekly tried to say something as she approached only to be silenced by a single wave of the hand by Une.
She opened the door to her office only to find a familiar figure sitting in the chair across from her desk. The sandy blonde hair and the pink pantsuit, of course, Une thought to herself.
Une straightened her uniform, took her tablet out of her bag, and made her way past Relena, to her desk.
"Vice-Foreign Minister," Une said cordially but coldly. "What a pleasant surprise, how may I be of service?"
"Don't play dumb, Une," Relena replied in an equally cold but far more direct tone. "You know why I'm here."
"On the contrary, I have no idea," Une said as she tried to play the part of the cordial one.
"Heero, where is he?" Relena demanded.
"Heero? Ahh yes, the boyfriend," Une said, letting a little bit of her condescension slip through. "I have no idea, why? Is he missing?"
"Don't insult me," Relena said sharply. "I know you sent him on that mission."
"And why would you know that?" Une asked as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs.
"I wake up to the news of an explosion caused by a mobile suit battle two days ago, I haven't heard from Heero since. Now the press is closing in on you, demanding answers, what exactly am I missing?" Relena asked.
"You shouldn't believe everything you hear, you know that. Worse to make assumptions based off mere conjecture and speculation," Une said as she folded her arms across her chest.
"Where is he?" Relena pressed.
"If he's disappeared on you… again, maybe that's an issue between you two," Une said.
"Katerina… do you think I'm dumb?" Relena asked sternly.
Caught a little off guard by the question, Une hadn't the time to formulate a proper response before Relena continued.
"Do you think I'm aloof?" Relena pressed on. "I know what you call me. Princess, right? I know what you think of me. Spoiled…"
There was an intense silence between them.
"And you know what, that's fine," Relena said calmly. "We grew up different. You in the military and I in the Aristocracy. We've never really seen the world eye to eye. That's okay. We don't have to like each other to work together. But the thing is, right now we're sharing a man. And that man, it seems to me, is a lot more important to me than he is to you. So, I would appreciate it if you would just cut the bullshit and just tell me where he is."
"My, my, how the years have caught up to you," Une said as she dropped the façade of manners. "Government work as made you mean, Relena. And here I thought it was the good girl act that he was attracted to all this time."
"Don't patronize me, Une," Relena said. "You don't have enough friends in this town to do that."
"Oh, you think I'm afraid of you and your politician friends?" Une asked with a grin. "Word of advice, princess. Don't come into my office, into my agency, into my building, and threaten me unless you've got the firepower to do it."
"You think I'm bluffing?" Relena asked.
"I think you're worried sick about your boyfriend because he hasn't been answering your texts," Une said affecting a pouty voice. "But here's the thing, if Heero's on assignment for me and he's not contacting you. It's because he's doing his job. He's a big boy. He can take care of himself."
Relena's fists instinctively clenched as she was hit one after another with condescending insults that not even the most bitter of her male political rivals would hurl at her. She was about to threaten sanctions against the Preventers, but thought better of it. Instead, she let out a deep purposeful breath and swallowed her ego.
"Thank you for your time, Director Une," Relena said as she stood up.
"Thank you for visiting, Vice-Foreign Minister," Une said as she stood up.
Neither of them offered a handshake. Without another word, Relena turned around and walked out of Une's office. Again, the whole of the building fell into silence, this time at the approach of Relena. As if a mirror image, Relena put on her sunglasses as she made her way through the front lobby of the Valknut and out the front page just as her limousine pulled up.
20 miles outside of Lisbon, Portugal
November 7th, AC 198
Hope had managed to make contact with Une after several hours of trying to secure a satellite connection from the abandoned factory where they had camped out after the mission went awry. Hope tried her best to explain what had happened but Une was neither in the mood nor did she want to have the discussion over the network. She merely gave Hope an address that she go to and signed off.
After resting for a day, Duo was well enough to get going. They quietly left the country without issue and landed at Lisbon Portela Airport the next day. The flight had been tense and neither of them spoke very much. Hope was paranoid that the world was already on to them and knew what they had done while Duo feared incurring another round of the young girl's verbal wrath.
They rented a car at the airport and made their way to the address that Une had provided Hope with a day earlier. Once they were clear of the city, Duo let out a big sigh and sank into his seat and enjoyed the fresh ocean air that came in large periodic gusts from the west. They drove along a small two lane road that ran along the ocean and followed the car's navigation system until they reached a small private road that took them to a compound with a gate.
Hope pulled the vehicle up to the gate and pulled out her Preventer's ID, placed it against the infrared scanner on the driver's side and the gate slid open immediately. They found themselves in a large round courtyard with a large stone fountain in the middle. Hope circled the car around and pulled it to a stop right in front of the main door of the villa. Duo and Hope got out of the car and approached the black iron double doors matching curving inlays over the large milk glass panel. They could hear the door automatically unlock for them. They entered the house to find a open concept living room and kitchen furnished with minimalist decor with tones of grey and beige that opened out to a spectacular view of the endless ocean beyond.
Duo let out a whistle as his eyes traveled around the space and marveled at its understated beauty.
Hope on the underhand seemed to take no notice of any of it. She merely took off her jacket and tossed it on the couch and said in an irritated voice, "I'm going to take a shower."
Duo didn't protest. He began to explore the house as soon as he heard the faint sounds of the shower coming from down the hall. He immediately made his way into the kitchen and started to go through the cupboards, looking for something to eat. There wasn't much there, except for a few boxes of Animal Crackers, which he found a little strange but didn't think much of it. He was hungry and just about anything looked good to him at that moment. Next, he went through the fridge hoping to find some beer. But it was mostly empty except for a half dozen bottles of water. He a second he wondered exactly whose house this was.
Failing to find any alcohol in the fridge, he resigned himself to the couch with the box of animal crackers and a bottle of water. He took out the laptop out of Hope's bag and began to review the partially downloaded files from the Lucio executives.
A few minutes later, Duo heard the shower turn off and Hope emerged once again from the bathroom with her dark brown hair still wet, wearing a fresh white dress shirt. She look at him on the couch but didn't say anything. Her expression of anger and irritation were now gone, replaced with a sullen resignation. She made her way across the room and opened the glass door that led out to the beach and then the ocean. She breathed in the ocean air and exhaled slowly.
"I'm sorry," Duo said breaking the silence as he put the laptop down and stood up.
Hope turned to look at him. "No, it's my fault. I should've been more responsible. I should've pushed back."
"We strong armed you," Duo said. "It's what we do. It's what we've always done. Complete the mission, at all costs. We never think about the consequences."
Hope's expression softened. For the first time, she heard something in real from him, a sense of the weight of the long years that he carried, behind his sunny disposition and his tendency for sarcasm.
"We don't…" Duo said. "We don't have careers. Heero and I… we don't think in terms of the future. I'm sorry that we didn't take you into consideration."
"God, you don't get it, do you?" Hope said as a hint of rage reemerged.
"What?" Duo asked taking a step back.
"I don't give a fuck about my career right now, how shallow do you think I am?" Hope shouted as her voice began to tremble. "You asked me out… you asked me to care about you. And for a second I was stupid enough to do it! The first thing you asked me when I dragged you out of that building was about the stupid files! You don't care about yourselves. You or Heero! You're willing to throw it all away without a second thought! And here I thought…"
She stopped in the middle of her sentence. She didn't have the strength to say the words. Her eyes said it all, Duo had seen it all before. The sense of disappointment and suffering that came from all those he come into contact with. The war was over but he was still the God of Death.
They were interrupted by the sound of the front doors unlocking. They quickly created some distance between themselves and turned to face their visitor. Director Une emerged from behind the large iron doors. She was alone and she looked pissed. She said nothing to either of them as she kicked off her shoes and took off her jacket.
"Fancy place you've got here," Duo said, breaking the silence. "Didn't realize the Preventers had this kind of budget for safe houses."
"This is my vacation home, idiot," Une said as she made her way into the living room. "I can't have you two checking into official Preventers safe houses. There would be questions. Questions neither of you can answer."
Duo looked down at the box of snacks he had left on the coffee table. Suddenly, the Animal Crackers made sense.
"You..." Une said as she got in Hope's face. "What the hell did you do?"
"Wait, hold on a minute," Duo tried to interject.
"Shut up! I will deal with you later!" Une snapped at Duo.
"You agreed with their intel!" Hope stiffened her voice. "You supported me against Luis and Roman the whole time!"
"I did not authorize you to blow up Lucio's corporate headquarters!" Une shouted. "I put you in charge of this mission. I trusted you! You were supposed to keep these maniacs in check!"
"The situation got out of hand," Hope said.
"You don't say?" Une said as she began to pace around the living room. "Nine confirmed deaths! Six missing! Dozens injured! Millions of dollars in property damage! I've got families, various agency heads, members of Parliament, Relena Peacecraft, all demanding answers! And for what?! What did you accomplish for all of this!"
"A name," Duo said.
Une stopped. She slowly turned to look at him. He wore an expression of stern determination.
"What name?" Une asked viciously.
"Rinus," Duo said. "Rinus Van Der Deen."
Une looked back at Hope. Hope looked unsure of what Duo was talking about.
"It's all here," Duo said as he picked up the laptop off of the couch. "We've got email records between Rinus and one of the Lucio's executives."
Une took the laptop from Duo and opened the lid. She read through the document quickly but carefully. There he was, the name of that man she had been chasing since the end of the war. An immediate sense of relief washed over here and suddenly she felt lighter.
She took a deep breath, but not wanting to let any of her residual rage go to waste, she shouted, "where the fuck is Heero?"
Vustgaarde, Sanc Kingdom
November 9th, AC 198
Six days have passed since the incident in Buenos Aires but the situation was nowhere near resolved. Around the clock news coverage of what was called a potential terrorist attack had finally taken the media spotlight off of Relena and her recent string of tabloid scandals. But that was of no comfort to her. She would trade a thousand years of infamy just to have any news of Heero.
She had locked herself in her townhouse and hadn't seen anyone since her failed attempt to extract information about Heero's whereabouts from Director Une. She didn't sleep, she didn't eat, she had the television on all the time but the news couldn't tell her anything she didn't already know. And she was getting irritated by the sounds of the broadcasters' voices but she couldn't stand the silence. She couldn't tolerate the feeling of being utterly alone. She tried to remind herself that Heero was resourceful and capable of amazing things. He was the man who had saved the Earth from destruction. He was the man he had broken Mariemaia's rebellion. He was a hero. Hers and the world's, even if they didn't know it.
But none of that could keep her from worrying. Her mind took her on a tour of the worst possible situations, Heero killed by the explosion, Heero suffocating in the water, Heero shot dead by unknown assailants. She tried not to think of such things, but her mind insisted on torturing her.
There was a knock on her door. She wasn't in the mood to see anyone. Relena crept up to her door and looked through the peephole. It was Dorothy.
"Go away," Relena said through the door.
"Relena… this isn't helping, this isn't good for you, you need fresh air, you need to see people," Dorothy said compassionately.
"Unless you have news of Heero, go away," Relena repeated.
Dorothy said nothing.
"Anything, anything at all?" Relena asked desperately. She knew the answer but she had to ask regardless. She had to hope, she had to act out hope, or else, what was left for her?
"I'm sorry, Relena," Dorothy said softly. "I've checked with everyone I can think of, exhausted all my contacts, no one's heard anything."
Dorothy waited.
And waited.
She was about to knock on the door again until she heard the soft sound of Relena sobbing. It broke her heart. She couldn't force the issue again. Not today. She left. When Relena heard Dorothy depart, she collapsed to the ground and let her tears flow in full. She moaned in anguish and clenched her fists between her hair. Her tears flowed from her cheeks to the tiles of her foyer floor. They were happy. They were finally happy. Why did she let him go? How could she have been so stupid? She should've told him no. She should've made a scene. She should've fucked him in the car. She should've held onto him as he tried to leave and never let go.
She cried.
And cried.
And when she was all cried out, she fell asleep on the floor.