Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Justitia ❯ Chapter 3

Justitia 3: We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.
--Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

It's not a silent place. There is a ringing to it, a distant howl that is ever present and a whisper that is never quite heard that gets inside your head and is trapped, never to leave again. It's some kind of bug, but it can't be seen, nor really heard. It just is, there, for every second after you set foot on cold, stone-hard ground. It's a sensation accompanied by volatile forces of nature entirely out of your control, terrain you know you cannot pass across twice that nonetheless coaxes a one-way trip out of your dreams and into reality only to be bitten down upon, hard, by a cold your body cannot even process. A cold that is not felt; that merely affects. Infects.

Wufei knew he was cold, but he could not longer feel it. The wind in his head was churning up thoughts he had kept under control for months and he was having trouble concentrating. The wind in the air around him threatened to send him flying over the plateau at any moment and his only consolation was that Sally was faring worse than he was. Of course, that also meant he was practically dragging her along.

"I'm going to shatter. Just you wait. I'll trip and I'll splatter into a thousand itsy bitsy pieces all over your shoes."

Wufei just shrugged underneath the many layers of clothing he had somehow managed to get on and trudged after their guide, who was having far less trouble than they were, which was, of course, why Wufei refused to complain.

"It's not like my shoes can get any dirtier," he sneered softly and was rewarded with a short bark of laughter as Sally grabbed his shoulder and made him pull her along for the next few miles.

It was a long trek and one Wufei would rather forget. He had no idea how they were going to get out of Antarctica by themselves when they were through with the mission and decided it was not worth thinking about. Yet. Besides, at the rate they were going the chances of them living long enough to get out were somewhat…slim.

Morson base had expanded since its original days as a part of the Australiasian front. Under China's rule it had turned into a sprawling mini-city, chock full of illegal weaponry and criminal recruits that made his own wartime exploits look trivial. It was not the kind of place he would have liked to take his wife for a honeymoon, but this was Sally he was with so he supposed it wasn't such a bad choice.

It took three days. By the time they were standing inside the heated foyer, having the company's visitor policy explained to them Wufei wasn't sure he was still alive. There was no pain, no sensory input whatsoever. He could see the man's lips moving but no sound reached his ears but that of the wailing wind trapped in his head. It was everything he could do just to get to their rooms.

Sally peeled off her coat instantly as the blast from the heater hit them full in the face. They were left alone but thy still checked for bugs. Wufei sighed as he felt his limbs slowly coming back to their senses as he ran the usual check only allowing himself to relax when he found nothing of concern.

His jacket was heavy and filled with ice so he dumped it in the bathroom. The next layer of clothing was drier but seemed molded to him but he managed to peel them off, leaving him in jeans and thermals, almost comfortable. But it was still strangely warm. He pressed a finger to his face but his skin was like ice, so he moved to stand near the heater, just staring at the little heat waves that distorted everything for that first close meter in front before the cooler air dispersed the small mirage. It was pretty, in an odd way.

"Wufei?" Sally came close, offering him a cup of hot chocolate but he shook his head, not interested. Just the thought of drinking made him shudder, and he idly wondered why. He had the sneaking suspicion he had felt like this before but could not quite recall when, so he shrugged it off.

A hand reached out toward his forehead, hesitated and then dropped away. Wufei was glad. He didn't want her concern. He just wanted to finish the mission and leave; to go wherever they wanted to send him so long as it wasn't a cold, god-forsaken wasteland. It was bringing up the memories again. The ones he didn't like, that made him think of the things he was trying to ignore.

He had to force himself to move away from the heater in the end, grabbing his bags from the pile at the front door and tossing them by the table. He pulled out the mission folder and sat down, beginning the process of matching information to facts, resigning himself to a long, boring night. Or he would have, had Sally not sat down at his side and grabbed the papers off him.

"Go. We'll compare notes when you get back."

Wufei didn't even bother trying to argue, since he didn't really want to. Instead, he grabbed a plain grey jumper with a wide front pocket, already half full from his last mission, and a small digital camera from his bag and headed out to do his surveillance.

Morson Station was eerily quiet. Wufei realized very early on that they were being housed in the more isolated sections of the place, far away from the large warehouses and laboratories marked on the satellite surveillance photos in the mission outline. It was three hours before he finally admitted there was no way in without killing something, so he trudged back through the areas he was allowed to roam in freely, taking mundane pictures, including asking the guard on one of the doors if he could have a photo with him to throw off the guy's suspicions; a tactic that work stupidly well.

He found three massive heating lines running through the complex, but figured they would either burn to death inside them or freeze everything in the complex by turning them off, so using them was not an option. There was an entire network of corridors that appeared to run horizontal to the public ones. He wouldn't have known about them except for someone dropped something and Wufei had heard the collision through the wall. Foolish mistake. He found three possible entrances to the secret corridors, only two of which he considered viable options, one of which was undergoing cosmetic surgery, a wet paint sign nearby.

He saw one man from the files. He smiled politely at the man, asked a series of useless mundane questions that the fool answered like a typical know it all and then they parted ways, Wufei vowing to make sure the man had a very quick death, not wanted to suffer through another lecture on the importance of the work they were using for a cover at Morson.

He was ready to head back to his room when he found himself at the front desk. The very unmanned front desk, the small figure of a man outside in the ice-ridden night having a cigarette a clear explanation of why. Wufei moved immediately, ripping a small disk from the pocket of his jumper and leapt the desk, slamming it into the computer with practiced ease and hitting run.

The program uploaded itself to the computer in less than five seconds, and then disappeared from the desktop and Wufei ejected the desk, spinning around quickly as movement caught his eye, and leaning heavily against the corner. He waved kindly to the poor guard as the door self-sealed and while the guy looked at him a little suspiciously nothing was out of place and that odd look in his eyes quickly faded.

"Something I can help you with?"

"Well," Wufei managed to sound more than a little embarrassed. "My wife was wondering if it would be possible to get a hot water bottle from somewhere. I told her it was a stupid request but she kept nagging. You know how it is."

The guy laughed as he reached under the counter and pulled out a hot water bottle, startling Wufei who really had thought it was a stupid request but it had been the first dumb thing his brain came up with.

"I only wish I knew buddy," the guy replied, shaking his head. "Last woman I saw was the Penguin Doc who stayed last summer, and she was fifty-three years old."

Wufei laughed outwardly, inwardly wondering how many things he was going to learn that he would rather just not know as he picked up the hot water bottle, thanked the man profusely, and headed back to his room.

Sally was at the table, but the reports had been discarded in favor of his katana, which she was rolling through her palms, studying the unsheathed blade with keen interest.

"It's sharp."

"I honed it the morning we left," Wufei grumbled, still feeling the blisters. It had taken hours to get the grime off from that last mission and even longer to hone any kind of edge back into it, but he had managed it.

"It's not the one you used to carry."

"It was getting too much use. I needed a more practical weapon; one I didn't mind losing if I had to."

Sally narrowed her eyes at that, caressing the plain black grip wound tight about the handle. No insignia, no names, no sign at all of the owner. It was a killer's weapon; an assassins. But Wufei liked that sword. He had it handcrafted to suit his weight and size and over a year of hard use had molded it to his particular tastes.

"It's your weapon of choice now."

Wufei reached over her shoulder to take the weapon from her, re-sheathing it and putting it on his bed as reached into his bags and pulled out his spare laptop; the cheap one that Preventers supplied agents with for field missions. Only this one was a little more…modified, connected to Wufei's personal network.

Sally looked at the small computer, only mildly interested until he logged in and hacked a connection through to the laptop's sister, which was, he recalled, on his desk at work. There was an answering flicker of a green light at the bottom of the screen and Wufei was in.

It was simple to open the program the uploaded to the security system downstairs. Even simpler to download it onto his own server and then onto the laptop. He set the computers in his office onto permanent monitoring and surveillance recording then turned the laptop to the side so Sally could get a better look as the Morson station security camera's appeared like some colourful moving chessboard on the monitor.

"Wufei…how?" Her eyes were wide, disbelieving. Wufei just smiled smugly as he sat back and grabbed the scant few maps they had.

"There are five warehouses. These two are isolated and I believe contain mechanical warfare weaponry. But these other three are all interconnected and have several large laboratories attached. The personnel in these areas differs greatly from those around the other warehouses too."

"Biological warfare?" Sally asked, still watching the security footage.

"Most likely, yes," Wufei replied coldly, drawing in his assumptions on the map. "There are three main heating lines, but they are not a viable option if we want to get out of here alive. Rather, there are a series of corridors we could use, but access is limited. I have found two possible options but I need to do a little more reconnaissance before I determine which is out best option."

Sally back in her chair and sighed heavily, taking in all the information. Wufei pointed to the two surveillance screens where he thought they might gain access to the secret corridors and explained the difficulties of accessing each. Neither of them could decide which might be the better option; Wufei was right, it required more study from a much closer perspective.

"Shit Wufei, this thing is huge. You're the one still in the loop. What do you want to do?"

Wufei folded his arms over his chest, rubbing at the tight scars that were pulling there now that he was warm enough to feel it. There were several things he wanted to do, including run back to headquarters and not come back, but he could not and would not do that. So he let his mind mull over everything. He knew he could complete the mission. The problem was getting out again. He could have done it had he been alone, but not for the first time he reminded himself he was not and he forced himself to factor Sally's presence back into his equations. There was only workable option and he very much doubted Sally would consider it viable. So he decided to leave out the details he didn't feel she needed to know.

"We go in tonight."

"What!?"

"They will not expect it. Any spy would be expected to take a few days to scope everything out, to gather their resources. No on in their right mind would go in on the first night."

"Except for you," Sally grumbled loudly, grabbing the map he had drawn all over and looking it over. Wufei merely nodded. The more he thought about it the more likely he felt his plan just might succeed.

"There are several ski-mobiles by the front. I want you to run surveillance for me up to a certain point, and then I need you out of here. I want you to take the vehicle for a joyride."

"You want me to run away," Sally noted coldly, leaning back to match the glare he sent her way. "No way. This is not a solo mission, Chang Wufei."

"I want you to leave the moment you hear the first explosion, and I want you to go to McMurdo."

"The American Base?" Wufei just nodded at her quiet query. They would provide protection, and McMurdo was on solid ground rather than ice. If the explosion got too carried away…McMurdo was definitely where Wufei wanted Sally to be.

"Give me a damned good reason, Wufei."

"It's the only way. Get there and get someone to come and pick me up. I'll be here," he pointed to a point a small distance away from both bases.

"The Dry Valleys?" Sally studied the area and slowly started nodding, seeing how it could work. "No ice…nice choice." Wufei inclined his head slightly.

They spent a few hours talking through the plan and setting Sally up, then Wufei moved to the bathroom to change into plain grey clothes; thermal underwear, faded black jeans and a grey skivvy. He grabbed his mission backpack, which was still half full of explosives, and shoved a transmitter inside that was connected to the laptop. The fuses he put in a pocket before she shoved his pistol into his belt, the katana in a shoulder sheath that hung down his back, covering both with the insulated jacket he pulled on over the top. He left the rifle for Sally and shoved a knife in his boot.

He then proceeded to pull out a roll of thick binding tape and rolled up his sleeve. It was a well practiced set of actions, flattening the skin around the bones in a particular way and then taping it all in place so the bones and nerves could not shift. He had learnt months that a muscle spasm through his wrist was the last thing he needed when he was about to make a kill. But he didn't like the way Sally was watching him and he wished he had thought of it while he was dressing in the bathroom, but he was no longer accustomed to the presence of a partner and this was simply the stage within his own routine when the binding was done.

"What happened?" Sally was looking at the arm as if it were about to kill her.

Wufei idly traced the long jagged white and purple scar with a lazy finger, mind glazing slightly with old memories before he pulled his sleeve down and turned toward the door.

"Russia." He fingered the hilt of hi katana over his shoulder. "I was stupid and let the enemy get hold of my weapon. It will not happen again."

Sally gaped at him, spinning him back around from the door and pushing his sleeve back up, cold fingers trailing over the wrecked flesh, sending shivers to every inch of Wufei's body. He hated that scar most of all. It was not the worst, but he hated it most. It was a sign of his weaknesses.

"I've never seen this. Why did I never see this?" The scar was on both sides of the arm; the katana had been sharp, sliding straight through, between the bones…Wufei whimpered internally, begging the memory to go back in its box. It didn't matter. It was in the past. He finished the mission. He was not weak.

"It was at the start of the mission. I treated it in the field. By the time I got back it was healing well enough." Wufei shrugged, pulling the limb from her icy grasp and pulling the sleeve back down as he pulled his gloves on. He shoved the small ear piece in his ear and let his hair out of its ponytail, satisfied it covered all sign of the device. Then he grabbed the door handle.

"Wufei," Sally grabbed his arm, turning him around to look at her one more time. "Don't you dare do anything stupid." And she let him go. Wufei staggered backward out the door before he got his footing, inwardly and outwardly, and then he straightened himself up and headed quickly into the labyrinthine corridors.

He moved to the first of the two likely entries to the corridors only to find it mobbed with a security detail so he headed off to the still quiet second door.

There were three guards. He decided on the knife, simply because it was cleaner and he wanted to keep himself in the clear for as long as possible. The first guy was too easy, which was why the second guy almost got a shout out before Wufei cut his throat, copping a well placed fist to the side of the head. He shook it off quickly and dragged the bodies to the cupboard, picking them up as best he could and shoving them inside. There was blood everywhere, so he just grabbed the spray can of wall paint from the desk counter and painted over it, putting out a `wet paint' sign. It would not stand up to close inspection, but it was the best he could do.

The corridor was not easy to get into. There was a lock on the wall that required fingerprints. In the end Wufei went to the cupboard, cut off one of the guy's hands and headed back to the door. It was a bloody process and he didn't like it, but the door opened.

It was darker than he had expected, but that worked to his advantage as he quickly made his way into the main complex. There were more doors, more guards…he kept the pistol holstered and stuck to silent methods. His hands were useful, the walls made for good impact material and there was the knife. He kept the katana sheathed, hidden. He was drenched in blood. He would not be able to wear those clothes again and it annoyed him slightly as he had actually quite liked that jumper…

Forcing himself to focus harder on the task at hand, Wufei moved toward the weapons factory first, just to get an idea of exactly what they had. It was guarded by familiar Chinese uniforms; militia men and women who he took out easily enough. Just like old times. It wasn't until he reached the warehouse of Leo's that he was forced to pull out the katana and really take things serious, but by then it didn't really matter because Sally was updating their information as he moved and was shouting directions in his ear.

It was easy to plant the bombs, easy to set the timer, and too easy to get out. He was just thankful there had not, as he had feared, been any atomic weaponry. Nuclear he could deal with. Atomic, no way.

He moved on to the laboratories then, his passage creating a clearer map for Sally to follow with every step.

`Go right.' He turned quickly, katana rising instantly to cut down the man at the door, not quite quick enough to dodge the bullet of his partner that shot across the edge of his thigh as he dropped the katana, rolling as he whipped his own pistol out and shot back, one clean shot to the head.

He re-sheathed the katana as the alarms went off, keeping the pistol in his hand as he hauled up the dead body and stuck its hand against the lock pad. The door slid open to reveal a large, dimly lit laboratory. There was no one there, the place abandoned for the night and Wufei was glad. He was already tired of the killing. He wanted the mission over.

He slipped the backpack off his shoulder and tossed it on a table as he booted up one of the computers, plugging in his small transmitter and connecting to the laptop, transferring the Moron database to his office through Sally.

`You okay?' Sally's face appeared on the small communication screen of the transmitter.

"Fine," Wufei mumbled, quietly wrapping a torn off piece of his skivvy around the scratch on his thigh.

"You're covered in blood you know. You look like something out of a bad horror film."

"Thank you Sally. Just what I wanted to know. They don't have any mirrors in here, after all, and the reflections in the beakers are useless." Wufei rolled his eyes as Sally chuckled.

`Any sign of the targets?'

"No." And that worried Wufei. He could not leave until they were taken care of. Still, he had a fair idea of where they would be. They would have their three seconds with him soon enough.

`What have you seen?'

"Leo's, tanks, an armoury the size of Preventers office…nothing out of the ordinary, just larger in scale." Which was odd. Why was the mission of such huge priority. He had seen no evidence that the Chinese had been planning anything. Certainly, everything he had seen was illegal, but it was not an urgent priority.

`What about the labs. What's around you now?'

Wufei scanned the room and moved to one of the glass cabinets on the wall, frowning, not sure what he was seeing. He opened one of the cabinets and poked at some of the bottles, but the labels were gibberish.

"I don't know what all this is. Some kind of chemical agent I think…but there are thousands of bottles and they all look like they hold something different."

`Destroy it all.'

Wufei just nodded his agreement as the computer indicated it was fifty percent done.

"Time to go Sal."

`Roger that. See you on the other side.'

Wufei waited several minutes until the transfer had reached seventy-five percent and then he laid his bombs, setting the timer to match those in the weapons hangers and heading on for the next lab. And the one after that. And the warehouse after that until he stood on the other side of the complex facing a sleek black door he found far too familiar.

Swearing softly under his breath, Wufei searched around for a key but found nothing handy, so he sliced open the box and did it the slow way; rewiring the whole system until the door slid away into the wall.

All his worst fears were confirmed and he wanted to scream in defiance, but he didn't. This was not a solo mission. It wasn't even a team mission. This should have been handled by the government and an army up to the task.

Because he was standing in a launch silo with a single, black coned atomic warhead in its heart. Shaking off the shock, very much aware he had just set enough explosives to trigger the damn thing and blow up all of Antarctica, Wufei scaled the launch equipment and headed straight for the controls at the same time the alarms finally went off. He still thought Sally had had enough time to get away and with any luck she had been the one to set off the alarms and he would have a few minutes more unhassled.

The bomb was too familiar, the set up too strong in his memory, but his fingers knew what to do as they began dismantling the head of the weapon, disarming its sections before heading higher up and stealing its nuclear components, tucking them away in his backpack.

By the time he was done there was nothing but an ordinary bomb in the massive launch carriage while his backpack packed enough rage to take out a large city. He climbed more carefully, heading for the door, but there were guards swarming the place, so headed in the opposite direction. Besides, his mission was not finished yet.

He took the back door, shooting the guards waiting on the other side of the missile silo. His hands were too slippery to hold onto the cool metal of the gun so he put it away and drew the katana, the grip on the hilt absorbing the blood and remaining firm.

He found three of the targets in the private rooms attached to the side of the complex. He cut them open in their sleep and they died quickly with less pain than they probably deserved. The fourth target was harder to find, because he was awake, but it wasn't hard to cut him down while he took a pee in the bathroom.

It was the fifth that proved the problem. The one problem Wufei had seen when he finally took a good look at the mission. There just wasn't a way out once you got in that deep, and having no way out was the last thing you wanted when you had all the components of an atomic bomb strapped to your back. Not to mention a mad scientist holding a gun to your head.

"You're either very brave, or very stupid…or both."

Wufei just glared at his hands wrapped about the katana hilt wondering if he dared. But of course, he didn't have a choice really. He dared or he risked the mission and the latter was not an option.

So he flicked the katana around and stabbed backward, dropping his weight to the floor through his hips and knees and he felt the bullet graze his cheek as the sword went straight through the target's stomach. Wufei drew it out quickly before the blade could stick inside the body and made to withdraw, but the bastard wasn't quite dead and he fired another shot as Wufei was getting away, grazing Wufei's hip.

"Next time Sally can do the killing and I'll do the running away," he admonished to himself as he ran back the way he had come, too aware of just how badly he was shaking things that should not have been shaken. He wielded the katana one handed, pulling the pistol out again and firing as he ran, not bothering to stop. Stopping would get him killed along with the whole damned continent. He stole a glance at his watch and knew he had less than five minutes to get out of the blast range.

So Chang Wufei did the last thing anyone expected. He headed back to the warehouse.