Archive: http://www.fanworkrecs.com
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters from Gundam Wing, I just play with them for non-profit fun until they run screaming back to their creators.
Warnings: AU - AAAAAAAAAAAU. Some yaoi, lemon, violence, language. You should be a legal adult to read this. Open-mindedness helps, too.
Pairings: all over the map; Duo-centric. yaoi and het.
Author's Notes: A huge helping of "suspension of disbelief" would be appropriate before you read this. I'm sure J or G could explain the science behind it, but they're kinda dead right now...
Part 5 ~ Scraps (cont'd)
"Mewc!"
Duo rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and said, "Whaaaaaaat?"
"Mewc, you siwy Daddy!" the little girl pointed her finger at him and laughed delightedly.
He ran the syllables through the child-to-English translator he was building in his head, and finally came up with "Milk, you silly Daddy."
"We're all out of milk, sweetie. Would you like apple juice or water?"
Duo hid a smile as Helen pondered this life-or-death decision. It worked every time - when you couldn't give them what they wanted, distract them with a choice about something else...
He stilled suddenly. Distraction. That was the key. Just like that clever, innocent-seeming lock, the office was designed to draw the attention while yielding nothing. It was merely a diversion - look at me, all secure with no windows and a serious lock. The good stuff would be nowhere near there.
Damn, he really was a genius.
He helped Helen finish her lunch and brushed her teeth, feeling anticipation zinging along his skin. He got her settled down for a nap and read her a story, carefully taking his time and not rushing things. Children knew when you wanted to be elsewhere, and usually did whatever they could to prevent you from going.
As soon as she was asleep, he was out the door. For the first time he was grateful for the dearth of customers. He really didn't want anyone around as he searched the yard.
Knowing his own methods, it didn't even take him half an hour to find it. One of the stripped machines was bolted down to the deck plating that served as the ground for the colony. A few minutes of careful searching revealed a switch inside a recessed panel in the machine.
He checked the lines of sight, nodding to himself as he realized that this particular location wasn't visible from the yard entrance, the machine shop, or any of the neighbouring buildings. Those haphazardly-placed piles of scrap weren't so haphazard after all.
Duo hunkered down behind the machine and flipped the hidden switch. The plate bolted to the bottom rose a few inches with a muted >whoosh< of inrushing air. He pushed the machine and its counter-weighted plate to one side, revealing a narrow shaft leading down into the darkness, a makeshift ladder bolted to the inside.
After a last-minute check for approaching hordes of customers waving fistfuls of money, he swung himself onto the ladder and descended quickly.
He found himself standing in a cramped area - not a service tunnel, but the spaces between the various life support machines that lined the colony's hull. On either side, heaters hummed and air recyclers hissed; beyond them would be the official access routes for repair and maintenance workers.
He checked the floor, finding traces of his own footprints in the dust and, more importantly, a flashlight. He switched the light on and followed the slight trail, squeezing between the backs of the machines and trying to keep his braid from catching on the odd protrusion.
He soon came to a wide area; the clamps and marks left in the floor showed where one of the large machines had once stood. At the edge of this space, right near his feet, was a small pile of items - a tool kit, a mechanic's overall, a clipboard, and a small box of computer disks. His gaze flicked over them and fastened on the centre of the open space.
It was filled with a large stockpile of gundanium scraps - plates, Vernier engine parts, pieces of a beam sabre.
He made a slow circuit of the area, his mind buzzing with questions as he looked for anything else he might have hidden away.
Why would he be hoarding gundanium? And why would it be hidden away? Was it illegal to possess the gleaming metal in this universe? Was he smuggling it in for something?
When he reached his entry point again, he hunkered down and picked up the clipboard, flipping through the pages. When he realized what he was looking at, he had to laugh. Apparently his alter ego was secretly maintaining the colony's life support machines in this section, to avoid having any of them break down and risk having a repair crew discover his stash.
His easy grin faded to a thoughtful frown as he regarded the computer disks. The information on them was probably what he was looking for. He snatched the box up and headed back to the ladder. He didn't dare stay down here any longer - someone could come into the yard and see the access shaft.
Duo listened intently, but could hear no sound from Helen's room. Good; maybe she would stay sleeping long enough for him to look through his find.
He made his way back to the computer, which had finished booting up while he was checking on his daughter. He inserted the first disk, which was simply labeled with the number 1, and checked the contents.
There were several files, vid-logs from the look of them, ranging from six months to a few days old. He pulled up the oldest one and settled back in the rickety chair.
The screen fuzzed for a moment, then cleared to show his own face. His alter ego looked grave - worried, even. The image on the screen took a deep breath and began to speak.
"I'm making this log because... there's trouble brewing, I know it. But I'm not sure where it's coming from. And if something should happen to me, I want there to be a record of what I've discovered, so the information isn't lost."The young man sighed and rubbed his face. "Best scenario - what I've run into is just some rich guy with a fetish. Worst case - we're headed for another war."
"Yeesh, I'd better start at the beginning... My name is Duo Maxwell. I used to be a gundam pilot, but now I run a salvage yard in the New Nyc sector on L2. I accept all kinds of scrap at my yard; gundanium is just one of the metals I come across. But lately, starting about 2 weeks ago, gundanium has become very scarce.
"I heard through other vendors that stocks were getting low, but no one seemed able to point to any one person buying it up. I asked around and made up a list of the customers who asked for it - it's on disk #2 - but most of the names were just middlemen hired to fill an order from somewhere else."I dug a little deeper and discovered that all the orders were coming through one man, Alvek Wheat. Wheat is a businessman with contacts off-colony. He also runs - oh, I mean, is *alleged* to run - the largest crime ring in the Shytown sector. He's a much bigger fish than the others involved.
"I was pretty sure there was something dirty going on, but all I had was some businessman buying up gundanium like he wanted to plate his house in the stuff. Tacky, but not illegal. And definitely not enough to get the Peacekeepers involved. Soooooo... I paid a little visit to Mr. Wheat's mansion last night, while he was busy wining and dining the colony planning committee."
He grinned suddenly, eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter. "Hey, Tro, if you're watching this - I did it just how you said you would infiltrate Relena's palace if you had to! Remember? I wore a good suit, and carried a fancy electronic organizer, and walked in behind a group of guests as if I was one of their flunkies. Then, when they went in to start mingling, I just slipped into the hall, and I was away. It worked like a charm!" He chuckled, obviously very pleased with himself.
"I went up to check out Wheat's office, and found the details of the order. There wasn't a total amount specified, just a note that any gundanium found was to be bought, no matter the purity of the alloy.
"Now, it could be the buyer is an idiot who hasn't got the faintest clue about the different grades of alloy. But I have a bad feeling that it's the opposite - that whoever this buyer is, he wants whatever he can get because he's building something complicated, something that will need different grades for different parts.
"Well, I still didn't have enough to call in the Peacekeepers, so I triggered a little accident I'd set up near the gundanium stores and waited to see the reaction.
"It worked all right; Wheat left his guests and came up to his office to deal with the mess, and I was right there to hear every word. Of course, Wheat has anti-surveillance equipment, so I wasn't able to record anything that was said, but I remember it well enough. The full transcript is on disk #2.
"The important bits are that he said the gundanium shipment would be gone within the month, but until then they were to guard it with their lives, because the buyer..." he took a deep breath, "...the buyer was a gundam pilot, and if they failed him he would rip out their hearts."
"I truly hope Wheat was lying, or bluffing, to impress his gang. But he doesn't seem like the type who needs to do that. And if he's right...
Duo smiled bitterly and shook his head. "A gundam pilot buying up gundanium... The most likely answer is that he's rebuilding his suit - something that the Peacekeepers should know about and prevent. The problem, of course, is that some of the highest-ranking Peacekeepers were gundam pilots once - Hell, His bloody Imperial Majesty flew a gundam during the war! And the only other powerful friends I have are either pilots or mixed up with them somehow.
"I've been thinking about it all night. I wouldn't have thought that any of the pilots would have wanted to risk the peace we fought so hard for. If I can be wrong about that, then I can't trust my judgment at all when it comes to my friends. It could be any one of them.
"Or two or three of them...
"I truly don't know who to trust. If I tell the wrong person, I'll likely end up dead. Or my family will. But if I don't stop him, he'll end up with the only gundam in the Earth Sphere - and a pretty well invincible bargaining position.
"Aaaaaaargh!" He ran a hand through his bangs and over his head, pulling the long braid over his shoulder where he could tug on it. "I need more information before I can decide what to do. I have to find out who exactly is involved, and more importantly, who isn't. But I'll have to be really careful - if the buyer finds out I'm hunting him..." His voice trailed off, and a moment later he reached out and ended the recording.
Duo whistled softly. No wonder he'd looked worried.
The Peacekeepers - would that be the common name for the Security Services that Wufei and Heero were part of? They sounded like this universe's version of the Preventers, only they worked for 'His Imperial Majesty', whoever that was.
Well, whichever one of the pilots that was.
He frowned slightly, thinking about it. Quatre? He was certainly rich enough to be an Emperor. Not Trowa, surely, unless he wasn't a nameless mercenary in this universe... Wufei? Well, maybe... hadn't he been the heir to L5 before it was destroyed? Heero? He wasn't royalty...
A little shiver ran over him as he realized that one way a commoner could become an Emperor... would be to marry an Empress. Relena had been Queen of the World at one time... perhaps in this universe she had become somewhat more?
End Page 8
(:./wingnut/alter8)
