18-Feb-2005
I had a weird dream this morning, and this is how it went...
He ducked through the shadows, heart racing, gun at the ready. There were two Preventers standing watch near the entrance, and a third just inside; they hadn't seen him. The three talked for a while, their voices low, and then the third moved on, and that was when he made his move.
He dove forward, firing; two flawless shots straight to their hearts before they could think about reacting or sound the alarm. He paused long enough to be sure they were good and dead, dragged the bodies out of plain view, grabbed the ID badge of the one that most closely resembled him, and dashed inside.
He avoided the more populated areas and sneaked into the loading bay, where crates of food were being loaded onto the luxury-class shuttle. One more murder, the body carefully stuffed between two loaded crates, and he was in. He hid among the tons of food being donated as famine relief; the L2 story had been all over the news, and people from all over the globe had rallied to Relena Peacecraft's call for support. But he didn't care about inexplicable pestilence that wiped out a Colony's crop yield and left the inhabitants starving to death. All he cared about was his goal--forcing the Peacecraft woman to read the statement he'd prepared, and then killing her. He was prepared to die trying.
The takeoff was rough, and he was tossed about a bit, battered among the crates, as was the body of his latest victim. As soon as they'd escaped atmosphere, though, he was off, pulling himself past the thankfully well-stowed crates and out of the storage area, into a corridor where the artificial gravity had been activated. He landed with a graceful, nearly-silent thump, and then he was off.
The corridors of the shuttle were a warren, but he'd managed to get enough intel to know where he wanted to go. He ran into several Preventers along the way, and wasted no time in killing them. He was in a hurry, now, it was only a matter of time until someone discovered his presence and raised the alarm.
There were three familiar faces in the control room, and he walked in casually, flashing the ID badge he'd stolen.
"I didn't know you were on this flight... " Quatre said, and then his blue eyes widened he as was shot, point-blank. Trowa was the next to go, taken out before he could properly execute the tackle he'd been planning. Wufei was the hardest to kill, and he had to shoot the Chinese man through the hand to stop him from hitting the alarm before firing two more shots, clean through the heart.
"Give it up," he said. "You're dead." But Wufei was already on the floor, crumpled in a heap, eyes closed in a death totally unbefitting a warrior.
He paused only long enough to alter the heading of the shuttle, and then he was out in the corridor again, gun hidden and ID in plain sight. He passed by several Preventers, nodding a greeting to them, and once their backs were turned he shot them dead. He stood over their dead bodies and reloaded his gun; one of the men was still moving, but then he stopped.
/Good,/ he thought. /I didn't want to have to fire a second round./
He made his way through the shuttle, killing everyone, and when he ran out of ammunition he tossed the gun aside. There was a lone Preventer standing guard in front of Peacecraft's room.
"Hey," Duo said, grinning at him. "I didn't know you were with us--" He stopped, spotting the fake ID, but by that time Heero had gotten close enough to break Duo's neck. The expression on Duo's face as he fell down dead was one more of anger than anything else, but he imagined he saw a hint of betrayal there as well. He took Duo's gun and fired a round into his chest, just to be sure he was good and dead.
"Nothing personal," he said.
And then he was in Relena's room, and she was happily surprised to see him until he threatened her with the gun.
"You're going to read this statement and I'm going to broadcast it," he said. "Or I'll kill you."
"You'll have to kill me, then," she said, lifting her chin defiantly. "I won't do it."
"You will," he said, and he picked up her pet cat, her prized Angel who had appeared in so many of Relena's recent publicity photos. He tortured the cat to death, and then he turned to Relena.
She read the statement, crying, and then he killed her and desecrated her body. The shuttle shook under grappling hooks, and there was a horrifying groan as the hull was breached, but by the time the arriving Preventers made their way through the carnage, he had already shot himself dead to avoid capture.
Lady Une picked her way over Duo Maxwell's dead body in the doorway and looked down at him, the terrorist who had done away with so many of her finest, laying on the floor dead with a sweet, peaceful smile on his face. "Get up," she said, kicking his foot.
Heero sat up, and pulled off the hastily scrawled sign that said "dead--gunshot."
"That was too easy," he said.
Relena smacked him on the head, and he winced. "You killed my cat, you jerk!" she said.
"But I was being the bad guy!" Heero replied. He went over to the cage he'd put the cat in, pulled off the sign that said "dead--mutilated in a horrifying way," and let Angel out. "Good girl," he said, and Angel purred contentedly in his arms as he smoothed down her fur and handed her over to Relena.
"You *cheated*," Duo said. "I was looking for a bad guy, not a friend with a fake ID."
"A friend with a fake ID is the baddest of bad guys," Heero said.
"Yeah, well those paintballs hurt like a bitch," Duo said sourly, pulling off his "dead--broken neck and gunshot" sign. "I caught on to you a second too late."
"Sorry," Heero said. "But I *was* being the bad guy. And I had to shoot you to be sure you stayed dead."
"Bastard," Duo said, but it was with a good-natured grin.
"Well, the exercise was a success," Une said. "You definitely identified some areas where security needs improvement."
"All in a day's work," Heero said. "No hard feelings?"
"Nah," Duo said, "no hard feelings. But drinks are on you."
"And you definitely owe one to Jenkins, too," Quatre said from the doorway. He looked remarkably healthy for a man with a "dead--gunshot" sign still stuck to his chest.
"Jenkins?"
"The guy you killed and stuffed in the storage room with you. He got tossed around a bit during the simulated takeoff."
"Oh," Heero said, a little shamefaced. "I didn't think of anything but getting him out of sight."
"He says he didn't care because he was dead. But I'm sure a drink wouldn't hurt."
"Agents," Une said. "We'll call it a day. Tomorrow, you get a whole new training scenario. I recommend that you don't stay out too late and get a good night's sleep. And Minister Peacecraft, thank you for playing along."
"It was my pleasure," Relena said, smiling, and as she pulled off her "dead--mutilated in a horrifying way" sign, more "murdered" agents arrived. There would be a debriefing session, and they'd go over the details of Heero's mission and the ways in which today's mistakes could be avoided in future, and once the meeting adjourned Heero would be pressed into buying the first round of drinks to prove that even though he was the baddest of the baddies, he wasn't really a bad guy. Lady Une would have reports to file, and Relena would have a store of verbal ammunition to use against anyone who argued that Preventers were unnecessary or complained about their training costs.
All in all, it had been a very successful day. Heero was looking forward to seeing what tomorrow's game would be like.
The End
(:./yoiko/terrorist)
