Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Mission Complete ❯ Say WHAT? ( Chapter 39 )

Say WHAT?

"How far away are they?" you snap, glancing at Heero quickly.

He scans the terminal before answering, "They'll be here in about five minutes.  What'll it be?"

"Five minutes?" You consider that for a moment before nodding quickly. "Plenty of time.  I want to finish reading this, and then we can get out of here any way we can.  I might need some time to think about this before coming back here."

"Then hurry up and read!" Duo half-yells at you.  You roll your eyes and poke him in the stomach before turning back to the screen, scanning the words written there.

"I wonder why they never showed this to me…" you ponder as you read. "It is kind of suspicious.  You'd think they'd tell me about this to avoid any confusion…"

"Unless they kept you in the dark on purpose," Duo points out. "But why would they do that?"

"No idea…" you grumble, then start reading the rest of it aloud. " 'Use force if necessary.  Prevent OZ from returning, no matter what the cost.  Keep this organization top-secret, as weapons are not allowed in this age…' " you roll your eyes. "Obviously, but they still use them.  But then again, I'm not really one to talk…"

Wufei picks up where you left off. " 'Under no circumstances is anyone from the government, Preventers, or anyone who would oppose us to find out about this, for fear of being found out.  This also applies to the Gundam pilots, if you should by chance find out who they are.' "

You grin sheepishly. "Hehe… I guess it's a little too late for that.  Not like I would've listened anyway."

Duo quirks an eyebrow. "Wait a minute… you know about us?"

"Yeah… I can't think of five others who'd be on OZ's Most-Wanted list off the top of my head.  Is there anything else?"

Wufei shakes his head. "No, that's it.  There's really nothing too suspicious here, somehow."

You blink. "Really?  That's strange… I felt sure that there was something…"

"Three minutes," Heero announces. "If we're done, we should leave now."

"Well, maybe you were just looking in the wrong place," a voice murmurs in your ear, and you jump slightly before realizing that it's Duo.  His breath tickles your neck as he says, "We'd need more time to look at this to find anything really interesting." He turns to look you in the eye. "What do you think?"

"I - I don't know," you stammer, caught off-guard by how close he is to you.  Your right hand moves forward unconsciously and accidentally hits the mouse.  It clicks on the word "OZ" in the third to last sentence, and the screen blanks out suddenly.  The six of you turn to look at the terminal as another section of the database comes into view. "Huh?"

"Oh… it's probably loading the files that we have on OZ," you shrug. "That happens.  But it's weird, because I didn't see a link on 'OZ'… maybe Y forgot to put one on?"

"Or maybe he didn't want certain people to find it," Heero says in a cool tone.  You blink at him, confused, and he nods towards the screen. "Take a look."

"What?  It's just a directory of the information we have on OZ…" your voice fades away as you take a closer look at the screen and realize that it isn't what you were expecting. "For the love of all things cute and fuzzy…"

No one bothers to comment on your strange saying, as they're all too busy staring at the terminal and reading the words printed there.  It takes a few seconds before anyone can speak, and when they finally get their voices back, it's Trowa that repeats what the screen says. " 'In actuality, the purpose of this organization is to start another war, for the peace of mind of all those that feel that they cannot live in an era without weapons.  In this, we will fight OZ, not only as an opponent and a reason to fight, but also for anyone who still has plans of revenge.  For now, we will use the attacks on their bases to bring attention to their plans and to speed up the course of war.' " He stops reading, and you let out a long string of words that I won't repeat here, for fear of making the rating of the fic rise.

Your head drops so that it's resting in your hands and you groan. "Great, just what I need.  Turns out I've been working for the bad guys all along!  Peachy!  I might as well just walk into an OZ base and tell them I'd like to be recruited, thank you very much!"

Duo shakes his head at your antics, but the look on his face is grim. "The first part may be true, but the whole reason they probably didn't tell you this is because they know you'd object, and you're too valuable to them to just leave when you find out about this.  It's not your fault because you didn't know, and you wouldn't join OZ if given the chance, would you?"

"I'd be more likely to blow all their heads off!"

"Exactly." Duo takes a quick glance at Heero's terminal. "Two minutes.  Do you have a genius plan to get us out of here in one piece?"

At Duo's words, you realize the situation and begin closing all the programs and logging off, leaving the terminals as they were before your visit. "Well, we can't just walk out of here the way we came in.  I was thinking that we could use the back exit, but to get there we'd have to get past Y."

"Then how are we going to get there?" Wufei asks, too worried to add the word "onna" in.

You smirk. "That's the one part of the plan I have figured out." You point upwards, to a corner of the ceiling, and the pilots turn to look.

"The ventilation system?" Duo asks, and you nod.  He sighs. "Typical."

You shrug. "Hey, it works, doesn't it?" Before they get the chance to answer, you're up on a desk under the shaft and undoing the screws that hold the cover in place.  It takes you about ten seconds to get it open, and everyone quickly climbs in after you, Heero closing it as he comes in.  Just in time, too; as soon as the last bolt is once again in place, Y enters with a few others.  You stifle the urge to growl, knowing that it will echo and you will definitely be caught.

The six of you hold your breath as Y studies the computers, particularly the one you and Duo were at. "Someone's been in here," he announces as he brings up the page you had found, checking the data. "It was accessed two to three minutes ago.  They can't have gotten very far." You forcefully stop yourself from smacking your forehead against the side of the vent.  Why didn't you think to check if there was an access history on the page?

"So someone now knows our plans," one of the others mumbles, and you recognize him as a fellow MS pilot.  You wonder idly if you have the time to shoot all three of them down before you realize they're here, but Duo grabs your hand as soon as he sees you reaching for your gun.  He shakes his head, and you roll your eyes and turn back to the scene below. "Who do you think it is?"

Doctor Y is silent for a moment. "Whoever it is was able to get in without setting off the alarms and knew that we were coming.  The only ones I know of with that much expertise are the Gundam pilots, Zechs Marquise, and one other."

"The girl," the third person speaks softly, the one who hasn't said anything before now.  Y nods and says your name, and the man continues, "Do you think it was her?"

"That would explain why they could get in without a fuss, and how the database was hacked into so fast.  She knows this system better than anyone else, even me." You almost smirk at the compliment, but remember that it was that evil, traitorous, lying… well, it was Y speaking.  Instead, you listen to what else they have to say.

"If it was her, she now knows she was being used," Doctor Y says. "And she wouldn't sneak in unless she was accompanied by someone who wasn't supposed to be here - someone she must've met on her last mission.  She hates OZ too much to betray us to them, so it must be someone else."

"Maybe with Preventers?" the second man suggests. "Or maybe…"

"If that's the case, we can't let them get away," Y declares sternly. "Secure the area.  We'll have to gas the ventilation system, too, since she would try to take that escape route if none other is possible."

You stifle a gasp and realize that you can't afford to stay there any longer.  Poking Duo on the shoulder, the six of you move away as silently as possible, none of you saying a word for a few minutes.  Finally, you break the silence.

"Y should be giving the orders right about now," you tell them quietly. "I know of a way out that could possibly work, but you'll have to trust me."

"We've been crawling around in the ventilation system of an unknown base for the past few minutes after finding out that the organization that you work for is not what it seems and having to listen to you curse them in just about every way known to man," Wufei says dryly. "I think we trust you enough now." He doesn't even add "onna" to the end, which you take as a good sign.

You nod decisively. "Okay then.  We probably have two, three minutes tops before the orders go out.  Let's go." You crawl through the shafts quickly, heading for a certain room that is almost always empty.  It's not your room, of course, since they'll be expecting it.  You spend as long as you dare in the ventilation system before you reach the room, a small locker-room type thing on one side of the building.  You undo the cover quickly, wincing as it clatters to the floor loudly, before jumping out.  The pilots follow, and you replace it before turning to them.

You bite your lip, thinking. "Here's the hard part.  We can either walk down the halls as casually as we can and hope the orders haven't gone out yet, knocking out anyone who questions us, or run as fast as humanly possible towards the exit and risk drawing attention to ourselves.  What'll it be?"

It's at that moment that the base's alarm goes off, and you and Duo swear under your breath. "Run like hell!" he half-yells, and you nod quickly in agreement before you take off, the Gundam pilots behind you.

Your mad dash through the halls of the base does attract attention, but it doesn't take too much to either knock out or outrun the people that follow you.  Their cries alert others to your position, so that by the time you're out the back exit of the base, there are at least twenty people on your tail.  Running so that you're about fifty feet away and ignoring the gunshots that ring out around you, you turn around quickly and pull a grenade out of your pocket that you nabbed while in the locker room.  A slight feeling of guilt runs through you as you pull out the pin, but you remind yourself of the conversation you overheard and remember that they knew all along, and none of them ever told you.  With that said, you throw the grenade and watch as it destroys the doorway and kills at least ten people, most of whom you recognize.  Before anything else can happen, you whirl back around quickly and follow the pilots, not turning back.  No tears fall and no one says a word, but the lump in your throat speaks of your emotions more than anything else ever could.

You escape unharmed from your former base and join the Gundam pilots at one of their nearby safehouses.  They tread carefully around you, as you're in a bit of a stupor… You can't believe it at all.  What are you supposed to do now? - go to page seventy-three