20-May-2003
edited: 01-Sep-2005
Title: The X Faction 1/? (sequel to 'Three Seconds')
Author: Kitty Chou
Archive: None... ask and you shall receive. *^-^*
Category: AU, Deathfic (or is it!?), Shounen-ai, Angst, Possible OOC (depending on how you think of the guys thinking)
Pairing: 3+4, 1+2
Disclaimer: *clears throat* I do not in any way, shape, or form own Gundam Wing or it's wonderful characters! I just pull them out to play and then clean them up and put them back when I'm done! I'm making no money and if you sue me you will receive no money because *shock* I have none. Oh, and I don't own Pac Man either.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, mentions of death (or is it!?)
Spoilers: Well, if you don't know who won on the show, then yes. Oh, and if you haven't read 'Three Seconds' yet, then this has spoilers for that.
Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback! It is for you that I get over my fear and start writing! This is no longer in First Person, yay! It switches between characters, though. Um... I think that's it!
Feedback: Please send feedback! ARNIE HUNGRY!!!
Four years... Had it really been that long?
Trowa stared at the ceiling fan for several minutes after waking, not ready to rise and face the day. The day was cruel and brash, so alive with warmth and light when it should be a cold, barren wasteland. How dare the world keep turning as it did. How dare the sun keep smiling down day after empty day. How dare the heavens not weep every minute of every painful hour. He was dead. He was dead and Trowa was alone.
He remembered that day with absolute clarity, unlike every day since that had since past in a shadowy daze. It was Friday, March 9 and a steady downpour of recycled rain was flowing through the colony. The circus was full because of this and everyone was excited, determined to make this a show they would never forget. And they wouldn't, because halfway though his act, Trowa faltered and fell from the high wire, snapping his arm on impact. The pain in his arm had been nothing compared to the aching in his chest, though.
At first, Catherine had thought he was having a heart attack and called frantically into the audience for a doctor. But he wasn't dying, he knew that immediately. He wasn't dying, but his heart was. He had lurched to his feet, pushing people aside carelessly as he ran from the tent, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm and chest. Once outside the tent, he ran through the rain to the large news screen a few blocks down, clutching his arm to his chest as he stared in horror at the rain slicked panel.
That was how Cathy had found him a few minutes later, standing in the middle of the downpour, staring blankly at the live vid feed from Earth as his heart slowly ripped itself to shreds. Everything seemed to fade to gray after that until suddenly, he was here, wasting his life away in an organization he had joined to satisfy the thoughts of revenge that swam through his bloodstream. But that revenge lay unfulfilled, no one could find the lone gunman who had destroyed his world.
Four years... Since Quatre was murdered on the steps of Rome. Since Duo disappeared in his obsession. Since Heero left Relena's service for the Preventers. Since Wufei had lost and gained a partner. Since Trowa became that partner.
His phone rang on the bedside table and he stared at it a few moments before picking it up. "Barton."
"Planning on coming in today?" It was Wufei. He should have expected that. Wufei usually called if he wasn't in by eight.
"Yes," he stated, planning to end the phone call there.
"When?" He could tell that Wufei was close to losing his temper, which he often did when it came to Trowa.
Trowa sighed; he didn't want to go to work today, though that was nothing new. He and Wufei had been working on discovering the whereabouts and intents of a terrorist group known as the 'X Faction' for the past year and recently, Une had assigned Heero and Sally to the case as well. Trowa hated Heero. They hadn't spoken in four years, not since Trowa had hit him at Quatre's funeral. Trowa felt no shame in blaming Heero, but then, neither did Heero.
"I'll be in soon," he stated blandly, rolling out of bed and heading to the kitchen to start some ramen, which he, like many, lived off of.
"Make it quick, Barton," Wufei snapped at him. "Yuy followed the X Faction hacker back to his operating system and managed to get some new information before their firewall blew up his laptop."
"Blew up?"
"Yes," Wufei sounded vaguely amused. "It created a virus called 'ARNIE' that methodically 'ate' everything right in front of him before telling the computer that it needed to self-destruct. Yuy is pissed."
Trowa chuckled softly, wishing he could have seen Heero as his laptop destroyed itself. Heero loved his computer. "I'll be in soon," he said again, hanging up and running his hands through his hair with a sigh.
Wufei frowned as the line went dead. Four years, and the truth of the matter was the day Quatre died, the rest of them had as well. Duo had become obsessed and found out everything he could about his death. He stopped coming to work and stayed in his apartment, going over the vid reels again and again. After a week or so, he disappeared entirely, and no one had been able to find him.
Whether he was dead or alive, Wufei didn't know, but he suspected that Duo had gone on a manhunt and did not want to be found. Wufei almost felt sorry for the gunman if Duo had indeed gone looking for him. Almost.
For nearly two years, they had worked together in the Preventers. Duo had been a good partner and Wufei missed him, enough that he would freely admit it, despite the weakness it suggested. He had challenged him constantly, discussing topic after topic in a passionate way that would have made any philosopher turn green with envy. Wufei had felt comfortable around him and connected with him in a way he hadn't been able to do since Treize's death, or rather suicide at his own foolish hands. But now... Everything seemed so quiet and dead all the time and Wufei often wondered if perhaps he had gone completely deaf.
He sighed again, lightly massaging his left temple as he looked over the new information on the X Faction. Before ARNIE had destroyed Heero's laptop, they had found a file codenamed Project Tulip Gonads M-0024. Inside the file were plans to build something called 'X-24' on a resource satellite in the L-4 colony cluster. Which resource satellite they didn't know, though Winner Enterprises owned almost all of them, so they suspected to find the base within one of the abandoned government satellites.
The name bothered him though. It was silly, crude, and it didn't make any sense or go with the plans to build 'X-24', even for a codename. He scowled at the name, silently demanding that it make sense. An idea came to him and, snatching up a pen from his ceramic pen cup (a gag gift from Duo that was shaped like a fat panda), he wrote down all the letters in 'Tulip Gonads M-0024' in alphabetical order, excluding the numbers for now.
A D G I L M N O P S T U
He frowned, tapping his pen against the desk in a particularly annoying fashion much like Duo used to do when he was frustrated. He glared at the letters, wishing they would simply rearrange themselves and save him the trouble, as he'd never been very good at anagrams. Something about 'O P S T' was pulling at him though, making him increasingly irritated as he tapped his pen faster. A knock came at the door and he jumped, losing his grip on the pen, which sailed across the room and landed on an old news clipping he had saved from the war.
"What?" he barked angrily as his secretary warily poked her head inside his office.
"Agent Barton is here, sir. He and Agents Yuy and Po are heading over to Room 402 for your meeting," she said tartly, pursing her lips at his temper. By now she was used to him and his moods.
"Fine, I'll be there shortly," he snapped, getting to his feet and moving to retrieve his pen.
As he did, he looked briefly at the clipping before turning to gather the information on Project Tulip Gonads M-0024. He froze suddenly, as he realized what the letters in front of him stood for. Whirling, he snatched up the news clipping holding it next to the letters to be sure. It matched perfectly and he nearly shouted in his excitement to the discovery before a feeling of dread washed over him. Hurrying out of the office, he nearly slammed into his secretary, but dodged her and sprinted down the hallway and up the stairs to Room 402.
Heero was pissed. No, Heero was flaming pissed. That's what Duo used to say when one of them would get riled up.
He had practically built that damn laptop himself and Duo had impulsively painted a picture of a cartoon bat riding a polar bear on the dark blue cover. That had been five years ago... Before Heero left him. Before Heero failed to do his job, leaving Quatre to do it for him. Before Duo had disappeared without a trace.
Duo used to joke that Heero loved his laptop more than he loved him. It wasn't true of course, and if it would bring him back, Heero would have blown up the damn thing himself. But it wouldn't bring him back. Nothing would. After all it had been Heero who left him, and he knew better than anyone that scorning Shinigami was a permanent deal. Duo was a firm believer in the saying, 'shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice'.
Heero seemed to be rather good at messing up his life. First he had broken the heart of the man he loved for a woman he had no intimate feelings for. Then he had failed to protect that woman, leaving his friend and ally to take the fatal shot meant for her.
And now his laptop, which had been a technological work of art, was now a big, smelly paperweight. Although, that wasn't completely his fault, it was ARNIE's. Heero decided that when he found the hacker who created ARNIE, he would do something incredibly nasty to him that would hurt a great deal for a long period of time. And then he'd send him to jail. Yeah...
Heero's thoughts of torture were cut off when Trowa walked into the room, his presence like a winter's breeze. Resisting the urge to shiver, he looked up into the icy hardness of Trowa's eyes. He wasn't looking for redemption or forgiveness, he deserved neither for his failure, but he was looking for something besides the freezing hatred Trowa had for him. He had utterly screwed up and Quatre paid the price, he knew this! He didn't need Trowa reminding him every moment of every day that he had completely and utterly fucked up his life and the lives of everyone around him.
He was startled suddenly when Trowa smirked and glanced at his laptop before meeting his eyes again. Heero saw red. His laptop was practically his heart, he depended on it to survive and he did not need Trowa fucking Barton smirking at him like he had damn well deserved this. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, Wufei chose that moment to burst into the room, talking as soon as he stepped over the threshold.
"I know what Project Tulip Gonads M-0024 stands for!" he stated triumphantly, depositing his folders on the table and moving to the dry erase board.
"Project Tulip Gonads?" Trowa questioned, looking curiously at his partner with a shadow of a smile.
"Sally, you explain it to him," Wufei said hurriedly, writing furiously on the board.
"Right," she stood as she was acknowledged finally, moving to her own laptop, which was connected to the projector at the front of the room. "Last night, Heero followed the hacker from the X Faction that hacked our database last night back to his main operating system. There he found a project called Tulip Gonads M-0024. The information he found details the construction of something called 'X-24' on a resource satellite in the L4 colony cluster. We believe 'X-24' to be a new form of mobile suit or some other such weapon of mass destruction. If we can get to the resource satellite, we might find the main base of operations for the X Faction as well as whatever it is they are constructing."
"What does the 'M' stand for?" Trowa questioned, taking the seat farthest from Heero.
"We're... not sure," Sally admitted. "It could mean 'mobile', but then it could mean 'mayonnaise' for all we know."
"Do we have any idea which resource satellite they might be using?"
"No, Heero was... cut off before he could discern which of the satellites they are using," she said delicately, glancing at her partner. Heero's jaw clenched in anger as Trowa smirked at him again. "We're assuming that it's one of the old government satellites. There's a team searching for any large transports made recently in that area."
"They need to check the WE satellites," Wufei stated suddenly from the dry erase board, earning him several sharp looks. "Project Tulip Gonads M-0024 is an anagram. Now, watch and ignore the numbers for a minute."
TULIP GONADS M-0024
A D G I L M N O P S T U
He waited until they looked at him questioningly before continuing. "Re-arrange the letters," he was writing again. "And you get this."
GUNDAM PILOTS
If Heero were a more expressive person, he might have gasped. He chose instead to narrow his eyes at the board and then at Wufei, who was looking rather pleased with himself. "And the numbers?" he questioned in a soft-but-deadly tone he most often used in matters such as this.
Wufei shifted slightly, which Heero read as discomfort as easily as if Wufei had written it on his forehead. "I...have a theory. You're not going to like it though." He turned back to the board and added something onto the end of 'Gundam Pilots'.
GUNDAM PILOTS 02 04
"It can't be!" Sally exclaimed, before reddening as she was accosted by two rather angry stares. "Quatre... Quatre died! And who knows what happened to Duo! It just... It can't be them."
The room was quiet for a moment, giving Heero's brain time to whirl into motion. He knew Quatre was dead. He had watched him die. But Duo... A thought suddenly struck him and he pulled out a notepad before writing the alphabet backwards. Twenty-four... 'X' was the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet. Frowning, he opened his laptop, remembered it had been fried, and got up to push Sally, who weakly protested, out of the way so he could use hers.
His fingers flying over the keyboard, the others watched the projector as hacked into the WE database. Searching through the shipping records, he suddenly found what he was looking for, and opened the file. On the screen was the record of a large shipment of gundamium shipped to a resource satellite no longer in use, though the record read that it was scheduled to be later transported on the satellite to be destroyed in the sun. As he committed the name of the satellite to memory, all hell broke loose.
An animated bat suddenly appeared in the center of the screen and the words, 'ARNIE hungry!' appeared in a bubble next to ‘ARNIE's' head. "Shit!" he exclaimed. He never tended to curse, but he was very surprised. "It's going to eat through the whole system!"
Darting forward, Trowa grabbed the network cable and yanked it from the laptop as Sally and Wufei pulled the power cords for the projector and the computer. The projector screen went blank, but ARNIE began to walk across Sally's computer screen, eating up the display like a Pac Man. Heero stood and moved away so Sally could watch with a dismayed expression as her laptop was destroyed. Moving to his own laptop, he lightly touched the silly painting there.
The bat beneath his fingertips was a mirror image of the one stalking across Sally's laptop.
End Part 1
Wow, it's so strange to go through this all again, remembering the little plot foreshadowing I put in even this early on... in fact even earlier in Three Seconds! *cackle* This is gonna be good.
(:./kitty/faction1)
