Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Devil's Due ❯ - 54 - ( Chapter 54 )

— 54 —

March 21, A.C. 205. Base. 11:30 am

“Hey, baby,” Chai muttered, answering her cell phone quickly.

“Hey, baby,” Jor returned, sounding somewhat tired. “I wanted to call and tell you we’re staying a few more days.”

“Why?” Chai asked blankly, looking up to Shin. They were sitting in the woman’s living room while Raul played a fairly involved game of monster-trucks with Chip.

“Because,” Jordan returned, “his mother says he calls her every other week and he’s in China. It’s that other week, and I wanna see if he’s lying to his mommy or not.”

“How are you going to pull that off?” Chai demanded, considering that. “I mean…he doesn’t know you…”

“It’s a tap on her line,” Jordan returned dryly. “We did yard work for her this weekend and I set it up…I told her we were leaving today, so we’re gonna lay low and wait until tomorrow night and take the red-eye home.”

Chai sighed heavily.

“What news?” he asked.

“Judas is set and rolling,” she returned. “Nothing more there. Xane was rolling before he was fully set, but he has an address now of questionable intent…nothing more with that.”

“And Raul?”

“He’s sitting here playing with Chip,” Chai returned dryly, giving the man a look. She knew he was trained well enough that he was listening.

Raul flashed her a grin.

“How are you?” Jordan asked, accepting that.

“I’m fine,” Chai returned. “Quatre’s in the house at night so I don’t have any issues…Shin’s either going to sleep over at my place from now on or get Raul to crash here.”

“Raul hasn’t been?” Jordan sounded annoyed by that.

“Tell him,” Raul ordered her, stopping his play to give her a look.

Chai gave him a very level look. “No, he hasn’t been.”

Jordan went silent in the way that suggested anger.

That wasn’t fair.

Chai sighed. “He tried, but she chases him off around nine.”

“Give me that,” Chance was muttering to Jor. There was a moment of strange sounds before she could hear Jor cursing in the background. “Chai?”

“Yeah?” she returned.

“Can I talk to my wife?”

Chai grinned slightly, passing the phone to Shin.

“Hello?” she asked him, then fell silent. After a moment she started muttering to him quickly in Chinese.

“Okay, that’s not fair,” Raul muttered, looking to Shin. “I haven’t had the chance to sit down and learn that language yet.”

Chai flashed him a grin.

Shin’s tone turned annoyed and Chip looked up to her in confusion.

“What did she say?” Raul asked the boy curiously.

“She said you’re not her husband,” he returned, giving the male a confused look. “Who is she talking to?”

“Your dad,” Raul returned. “Your dad and Uncle Jordan want me to sleep here at night to make sure you two feel comfortable.”

“But Mom makes you leave,” the boy protested, blinking at him.

“Which is why she’s annoyed with your dad.”

The boy snorted, then rammed his car into the one Raul was holding with a crashing noise.

Raul grinned and went back to the game himself.

“Fine, whatever,” Shin snapped irritably, then passed the phone to Chai as she focused her glare at Raul.

“I didn’t do it,” Raul informed her, barely looking up from his play.

“You get the couch.”

“Or the floor,” he pointed at the window. “Depending on if Chai lets me steal a mattress or not.”

Shin glared at him a moment longer before grinning and looking away.

“Reasonably pissed, yes,” Chai agreed to her husband sweetly. “Riley wanted me to tell you she’s bored.”

Jordan snorted.

- -

March 21, A.C. 205. Base. 12 pm

“Hey,” Raul greeted Trowa as the guy climbed into his car. “How are you?”

“Starving,” Trowa returned easily. “What happened to you finding Max?”

“The ladies decided they wanted my attention,” he returned with a shrug. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh well,” Trowa returned, making a face. “You’re not my guy.”

“Hey, I tried,” Raul retorted happily, pulling away from the curb. “You’re the one who didn’t want me.”

Trowa laughed at that, resting his head backwards as he studied the roof of the car. After a moment, he turned and looked around the back seat.

“What?” Raul asked skeptically.

“This is a piece of shit,” Trowa returned happily.

“Oh haha,” Raul retorted as they turned down the street to the houses. “At least it runs.”

“Mine runs…and is not a piece of shit,” Trowa noted, pointing out his own car as Raul parked on the street.

“Yours is also expensive,” Raul retorted, climbing out and looking up as Wufei’s car appeared a few houses down. “I can’t afford your car.”

“You can if you buy it from me,” Trowa noted happily, moving up to unlock the front door.

“And what’re the chances of that?” Raul retorted.

“Slim to none,” Trowa grinned, throwing the door open and shaking his head at the interior…and the damn beeping sensor.

“Hey,” Wufei greeted them as he slid tiredly from his vehicle, popping the trunk.

“What’s up?” Raul asked, blinking at him. He was obviously down, and his expression wasn’t happy. The spy had to grin slightly to himself since the man’s hair was still loose around his shoulders.

“Stop looking at me,” Wufei snapped at him almost threateningly as he grabbed out a bag…he was also glaring.

Raul stepped back, not sure how to react to that.

“I’m so fucking tired of being watched,” Wufei snapped, shoving the bag hard into Raul’s chest. “If you keep staring at me, I swear I’ll kick your ass.”

“Calm down, cowboy,” Trowa suggested, moving up behind his friend.

“Touch me and I’ll kick you,” Wufei grumped at him, turning to glare at him as Trowa stopped short with his hands behind his back. Wufei gave him a very level look, running a hand through his hair irritably as he went back to grumping and telling them about how everyone had been watching him all day.

Raul wondered if he actively realized he hadn’t put his hair up during the day.

“Don’t just stand there,” Wufei snapped at Trowa, who hadn’t moved.

“Close your eyes,” Trowa suggested, grinning slightly.

“What?” Wufei demanded, though his hands were full of bags.

“Close your eyes,” Trowa repeated, tilting his head. “You know how this will end,” he reminded the guy. “I’ll keep saying the same thing without moving until you concede, and you’ll work yourself up to a tizzy and then be super irritated when I’ve done it.”

Wufei drew himself up, then glared at the guy and squeezed his eyes closed tight.

Trowa grinned…and gathered Wufei’s hair up in his hands.

Wufei’s response was immediate, but so was Trowa’s. Raul stared as Trowa laughed absolutely delightedly as he avoided the other. Wufei was trying to hurt him, but Trowa wasn’t encumbered with shopping bags and hadn’t actually had a bad day.

Wufei, of course, had reverted to cursing in Chinese, or something similar, still watching for his chance to hurt the guy but not so rabidly attempting it.

“Calm down!” Trowa laughed, moving away from the guy again to show what he was holding. “Calm down!”

Wufei finally realized that and stopped to stare at the hair-tie in disbelief.

“Geeze, give me a break already, freak…”

Wufei huffed up at him, then turned to give Raul a demanding sort of look.

“Uh…you okay?” Raul asked him.

Wufei looked from him to Trowa’s grinning face, then turned and stormed into the house.

Trowa laughed more, wrapping the hair-tie around his wrist before going around Raul to grab a couple of bags from the trunk. “Come on…and don’t give him a hard time.”

“Did he not get it?” Raul asked curiously, following the other into the house…as Wufei slammed the door to his bedroom.

“I have no idea if he realized he forgot to pull his hair back or not. I didn’t think he was going to freak out on me, though.”

Raul grinned at him, then turned to get more bags from the car.

“Come on, Fei,” Trowa called, grinning slightly as he started putting the groceries away. “I’ll put us a nice lunch on and you can tell us all about how you got annoyed by hot chicks checking you out.”

“It wasn’t only chicks!” Wufei snapped, storming from his room. He had his hair pony-tailed. “Everyone was watching me, and it started with him!” he pointed accusingly at Raul as Raul moved back in.

“What did I do?” Raul protested, setting the bags on the counter.

Wufei gave him dirty look, glaring at him intently.

“What?” Raul protested, backing away and looking to Trowa.

Trowa made the gesture to move, grinning even more since Wufei wasn’t watching him.

Raul gave Wufei another bothered sort of look, then turned and headed back for the trunk.

For some reason, Wufei’s agitation was highly amusing to him…he wasn’t letting the Chinese man know that, though…and there were still a few more bags in the trunk.

- -

March 22, A.C. 205. Arica, Chile. 11 pm

Jordan hopped into Mrs. Turrell’s backyard with the silence and ease born of misspent training. He moved silently up to the building and clicked open the telephone-box where he had his little mechanism hooked up. It took him about three seconds for him to close the box back up and dart back across the backyard.

Chance looked up from the laptop as Jordan joined him, and plugged the end into the machine as it was offered to him. They both waited impatiently as the information downloaded, then Chance nodded slightly at Jordan.

“I’ll be back,” Jor muttered quietly as Chance carefully saved the file. They had a half an hour before they had to get on their flight, they were already checked in, everything aside from their carry-ons were ready to go.

Chance packed his laptop away again, setting aside the bag and starting the engine as Jordan melted into the front seat…and they left.

“I don’t want to leave without knowing,” Jordan noted, reaching back and grabbing the bag. “You mind?”

“It has a fingerprint scanner,” Chance noted almost curiously, wondering how his friend would get around the safety.

“Hm, since we aren’t all hackers,” Jordan dismissed the comment as he opened it, then stopped as they hit a stop-sign. “You seriously won’t just run your finger for me?”

“When was the last time you did it?” Chance retorted, giving him a look. “You have to stay in practice.”

“I hacked your porn collection last week,” Jor returned to his dismissive behavior as he hit the power button.

“Wrong laptop,” Chance noted with a smirk. “That’s Shin’s.”

“What?” Jordan asked blankly, meeting his eyes in confusion.

Chance laughed as they started picking up speed.

“My god, you’re serious,” Jordan studied his friend’s face in disbelief before shaking his head and moving his arm as Chance reached over and ran his print. “I should get Chai one, huh?”

“Maybe take your own when you go somewhere, too,” Chance agreed in amusement.

“Why don’t I have it, again?” his tone was curious as he met eyes with the Japanese man.

“Uh…” Chance cast his mind out quickly. “Your wife was looking up porn when you left.”

Jordan snickered slightly as he clicked the file open.

“Or maybe Cat was,” Chance added thoughtfully. “You share well with him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jordan muttered, not bothering to rise to the offense as he scanned down the number listings. He hadn’t had to be sneaky about the matter. He could have gone outright to the telephone company and gotten them to give him her listing, but then he wouldn’t have had the confirmation that the woman was in fact the good colonel’s mother.

He knew he could have uncomplicated the situation by giving about four orders, but he was out and about and didn’t feel any particular need to waste funding on things that didn’t stress him in the slightest.

“Oi, genius,” Chance muttered pointedly.

Jor looked up, startled to realize the motor was off.

“Let’s go,” Chance muttered, taking his laptop from his friend and clicking through the menus to turn it off.

“Hey!” Jordan protested, then sighed and slid from the machine.

“I still think we should steal a shuttle,” Chance noted as he tucked the laptop into his bag.

“So you said, but I still can’t quite take you seriously.”

“If I do it, will you follow?”

Jordan considered that as they started for the airport building again. “I would if we hadn’t already checked into our flight.”

“Me’n you flying would be easier than that shit.”

“If you really want to fly,” Jordan said very levelly to him, “either get an appointment with Trowa or buy your own damn plane.”

“I want a gundam,” Chance said pointedly.

Jordan gave him a level look, then rolled his eyes…and headed for the building.

- -

March 23, A.C. 205. Zenica, Tanzania. 9 am

Xane inhaled slowly as he stared out at the steadily moving streets around them. He didn’t like the mood that had fallen over him since is week had started. He’d been right about Mario freaking out on him for smoking, and he’d used that as the corner stone to keep himself from having a second, and Tuesday had passed busily so the damn strong-smelling things hadn’t distracted him.

Unfortunately, Mario was a heavy sleeper, and not nearly close enough in the emotional sense for the taboo to carry.

“You are not!”

Xane jumped, turning to look at the man as he stormed from inside the building to smack him upside the head.

“Hey, Mario, leave him alone,” someone inside protested.

“Don’t fucking hit me,” Xane snapped at the guy, glaring up at him.

“You’re stupid for smoking!” Mario retorted irritably. “You’re…it’s so bad for your lungs!”

“Since I don’t know that,” Xane grumbled, inhaling again as he glared at the guy.

“That’s it, I’m telling Yuy,” Mario noted, pulling his phone out.

Xane felt his irritation increase…and exhaled in the man’s face. When Mario started coughing and choking, he took the phone from the man’s hand and flipped it the rest of the way open…and paged through the menu to find Yuy himself.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mario protested, trying to get at it…but Xane kept the cigarette between them as he called the other lieutenant general.

“Mario?” Yuy sounded confused.

“It will be in a second,” Xane noted. “For some reason your second felt like tattling that I’m smoking…so I decided to make it easier for him.”

“You’re smoking again?” Chance demanded levelly. “And pissing my second off? Is there something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” Xane returned easily, noting that Mario had settled down with crossed arms. “There are just some moments when I don’t give a shit.”

“Let me talk to him…and stop smoking.”

“Sure things, Sir,” Xane noted, inhaling again as he passed the phone over.

“How am I supposed to deal with him?” Mario demanded.

Xane rolled his eyes and walked a ways away so the wind wasn’t blowing the smoke at the guy anymore. Mario’s tone had lowered to a private conversation, and Xane sighed as he squished the thing out. The problem with clove cigarettes was that if you weren’t used to smoking them, they upset your stomach. There’d been a time when he could have his one a day with no issues, but that time had passed, and a half a one at a time was more than enough.

Of course, he couldn’t remember if he’d turned on his scrambler.

He moved back into the building to the little machine, noting that it was fully hooked up before turning and heading to wash his hands. The other guys of the group, who were awake, were watching him almost warily.

“Fine, fine,” Mario muttered with a sigh, then stopped to look at Xane as he closed his phone.

“I’m sorry,” Xane muttered with a sigh, drying his hands off. “I’m really not in a good mood.”

Mario flashed him the best and most impressive ‘asshole’ smile he’d ever seen. “Shoulda thought about that before my superior told me to call Maxwell.”

“What?” Xane protested, drawing himself up. He’d really been feeling contrite.

Mario plugged the numbers into his phone.

“Oh, come on…” Xane started to protest moving forward…but Mario raised his hand, palm-out, and turned away.

“Talk to me,” Xane heard Jordan mutter tiredly.

“Maxwell?” Mario asked curiously. “This is Allul.”

“Featihl has the scrambler on?” Jordan demanded sharply.

Mario looked taken aback.

“I do,” Xane said loud enough to be heard.

“Okay…what’s up?”

“Your second seems to have picked up smoking again,” Mario explained, starting to pace away.

Xane stared after him in irritated disbelief.

He hadn’t thought the issue would go beyond Chance, who would have kept Xane’s peace to save him Jordan’s ranting with the promise of him not buying another pack…calling Jor was just mean.

Xane turned irritably, and resolved to find out who lived in the house he’d seen on Monday.

He needed some sort of information to keep Jordan from frothing at the mouth.

- -

March 23, A.C. 205. Negamono, Mozambique. 10 am

“It has to be hard,” Judas agreed with the man he’d been speaking with. “I like the concept of an ‘easy button’,” he made air quotes.

The guy gave him an interested look. “Easy button? It sounds appealing.”

Judas grinned. “Way back before the colonies, when television was still young, they had this store that ran these ads,” he pointed up at a large ad on the side of a building they could see from the window. “Go to their store and get what you need easy, that sort of thing…and they had this run of this ‘easy button’. I had to look into it at my high school for this stupid marketing class I took.”

The man shook his head with a grin. “That’s…interesting.”

“Some of the commercials were funny, but with some of the running schedules listed, they had to get annoying after like…the first two times.”

The man grinned more at that.

“So…I can’t give you one of those buttons,” he added, fiddling with his pen as he thought. “And I can’t give you the world…but what I might be able to set your family up with the clinic for basic health-care…I’m pretty sure you meet the requirements. That aside, we have some food boxes. Bring your kids and your wife by tomorrow and we can get them some new shoes.”

That got a bright smile as something like relief lighted the man’s face.

“We’ll get you some shoes now,” Judas added happily, writing down in his notes what he’d promised. “And you’ll probably want to come in early tomorrow. We get busier as the day goes on, all right?”

“That’s…great,” the man muttered, obviously relieved and grateful. “I…that’s more than I’d hoped for…I mean…”

Judas smiled at that and pushed away from the desk. “Come with me, then.” They moved into the hall as some of the tired looking people looked up to them with the sort of unhappy look the people in Lower Angels often had. “Stace?”

“Yeah, Raj?” she returned, turning her head to look at him.

“Can you get me a family healthcare packet?”

“All right,” she agreed, smiling brightly at the man following him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting him some shoes,” Judas returned happily, heading into the back. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

“Only shoes?” she seemed startled.

“For now,” Judas returned, grinning at her. “He’s bringing his family in tomorrow morning.”

“Ah,” she nodded her approval.

Judas turned and headed for the rooms again, pulling the door open to the shoes and socks room. “So, I’m gonna have to size your feet, because I can’t figure out the local sizing chart.”

The man grinned at that slightly, looking around.

“Have a seat,” Judas added, indicating one of the two benches in the place as he grabbed up the foot-thing. “A shoe off, please.”

The man slid a boot off…and didn’t seem to have any socks.

So…okay…. Judas leaned over and plucked out a package of socks, tossing them to the man before setting the thing against the guy’s foot.

“Thanks…” the man was startled.

“I hate wearing boots without socks myself,” he noted, shaking his own boot at the guy…and realizing they were his damn combat boots. Why was he wearing his combat boots? He had normal damn shoes in the building…

“Socks aren’t necessary when the kids need supper,” the guy noted, shrugging slightly. “You learn to live with it.”

“Mm, I can respect that,” Judas reassured him, then rose to his feet to pull a few different styles of shoes from the shelves. “As much as I’d love to give you the lot, you can only pick one.”