Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation ❯ IV - H - Closed Casket ( Chapter 34 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation

How these 4 `s' words are intertwined

By Masamune Reforged

WhenShootingStarsFall.com

Warnings: Yaoi (tons of pairings, but mostly 1x2, 3x4 and implied former 13x6. Lemons amuck.), cursing, drug use, violence, angst, insanity, cameos, AU, lunacy, racism. All the bad shit you'd expect in real life.

POV Note: Like the excerpts in the beginning, this page climaxes with POVs from the characters, rather than the narration as done earlier. I imagine you'll figure out who's speaking.

Page IV: A Crow Left of the Murder

Part H of Page IV

“Closed Casket”

Various 1st Person POVs

“You can come inside if you want to, Heero.”

It took an extra moment to register. I was scanning the room: no security, no cameras, several bright red couches, four glittering footstools, a clean bar (the only place a possible hostile could be hiding), two lamps in the brightest purple lampshades I'd ever seen, two lounge chairs, one occupied.

I frowned at this, checking the room again. No sign of traps. I crossed the threshold into Room 18; not because she had said so, but so I could check the corners for enemies or cameras. There were none.

White female, five foot two, dyed blue hair showing signs of grey, thin black eyebrows, also dyed, dark green eyes, wearing a grey and blue dress, pulled out another cigarette. Hands not shaking, no perspiration under the arms. There was an open book sitting next to the ashtray.

Doctor Monica Arno had been expecting me.

“How do you know my name?” I asked. My voice was raspy. I was thirsty again.

She pulled out a black Zippo lighter. She looked at me for several seconds. I looked into her eyes.

The target-no-Doctor Monica Arno was ready to die. It was something that I'd seen only on a few faces of the many people I'd killed, but it was unmistakable every time you saw it. Oh, many had tried to brave it, had tried to appear as though they'd come to terms with it, but they couldn't fool me. There was simply no way denying it. That took a great amount of the excitement out of the job. Killing someone was no fun if they were ready to die. In fact, I downright hated it.

But with this woman it was even more than that. It was as if she were strangely happy, relieved, content. I don't know why I felt that I could tell what she was thinking or how she was feeling. It was something that had started happening before Duo Maxwell started dancing with me. An almost alien feeling, as if I understood and cared for perfect strangers.

“I knew they would send you. You're that person's favorite,” Doctor Arno answered cryptically.

I lowered my gun. There was something important, more important than the mission, and I was tripping on some party drug smack in the middle of it. Behind me, Duo fidgeted. I could almost feel his restlessness. He was going to pay for messing with me when this was over.

“You can come in too,” Dr. Monica Arno addressed Duo. “Are you Heero's friend? Will you be a dear and shut the door? I don't want anyone interrupting us.”

“Whatever tickles your pickle, lady,” Duo said, probably smiling like a clown.

Duo shut the door. Dr. Monica Arno lit her cigarette and let out a slow breath. She looked at me in a way I couldn't interpret. No hostility, no, almost the opposite...

“You boys care for a drink?” She waved casually towards the bar. I still hadn't checked behind it...

I raised my gun again, walking towards the bar, keeping an eye on the target, on Monica Arno as I did so.

“Could you get me some water while you're back there?” Duo asked. “I'm as dry as a nun's pussy.”

“Get the goddamn water yourself,” I barked, checking behind the bar. Nobody. Was she really all alone?

Duo strolled over to the bar and pulled out two glasses.

Dr. Monica Arno let out a small 'heh' in a puff of smoke, drawing my attention back to her.

“You didn't answer my question,” I said, staring her down as hard as I could. “How do you know my name? Don't make me force it out of you.” This woman had a face like stone, the kind that in agony would hardly grimace.

“Oh, Heero, don't threaten me, please.” This woman was not afraid. “I was hoping you'd get here earlier. There's... there's a lot I wanted to talk to you about.” The stone face washed away into a sad frown, looking down at the floor.

“But...” Then she took a new puff of the cigarette, quickly hiding her face in a cloud of smoke. “But I expect they want me dead in no less than... maybe half an hour?”

My watch beeped twice. Thirty minutes left. This woman...

I lowered my gun. There was something important, something way over my head.

“You know my employer?” I asked. “Did one of his men tip you off? I want to know who.”

Duo turned on the faucet. Tap water, when all the expensive bottled brands in the world were just two feet away...

“Yes, I know the people who want to kill me,” Monica Arno replied. “You know that old saying, 'friends close, but your enemies closer'? Well, it doesn't work so well when they're one and the same.”

The man who'd given me the job had always been infallible. Never any problems, nothing unaccounted for. The missions were difficult, but he'd never made such a glaring error before as to leak my identity.

“If you tell me who the leak is, I will make your death quick and painless.” That was about the only thing I could promise. “Who leaked my name to you? Who told you I'd be coming?”

“Haha, oh dear, you really...” Monica Arno had broken out into a chuckle, but somewhere along the way an interference had sullied her humor. She bit her lip and looked at me soberly.

“Nobody told me,” she said softly, sadly. “I knew it wouldn't be anyone else. It was just a matter of when and where and how. I can't run from then. I could turn myself in, tell them what I know, and die in a police holding cell, but nobody would really believe me... So, I chose this place so it would give me a chance to talk to you, so I could die on my terms... not on theirs.”

“That doesn't explain how you know my name,” I pressed. Duo walked over to me with a glass of water in his hand. I waved him away. He shrugged and took a drink from mine.

I wasn't used to feeling in over my head in a situation I had no idea about, and I wasn't enjoying it in any way. A part of me wished I'd just gone in shooting, never giving her a chance to draw me in like this. Part of me wanted to just pull the trigger and get this over with so I could beat Duo Maxwell to within an inch of his life... and then maybe have my way with him...

“You're right, I don't have time to hear all the things you know about me, so just the name will do.”

“Oh, honey, even if I didn't know all the things I do, I would have recognized you the second you opened that door,” Monica Arno replied.

“That so?” I didn't understand. “Then-”

“It's because you look so much like your mother, Heero.”

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

“You know my father has almost 10 bil in Axis?”

“Axis? I've never heard of them. Is that like the cologne?”

“It's a company, baby, a big, fucking international one.”

The arrogant shithead who'd called me a Jap was chatting up some stupid girl at the bar. For lack of anything better to do while 'Z man' got the goods, I was listening in on as much of their conversation as I could pick up over the mindless techno music. And before you give me that dirty look, I wasn't eavesdropping, I was simply killing the boredom as best I could.

It made me sick how some people used money as their shield, as a lure, as an ego. It was the erroneous belief that the more dead presidents they had in their checkbook, the bigger they thought their dicks were. This guy in the flashy white suit probably thought his was as long as an elephant's...

“Another two shots of Grey Goose over here!”

“Oh, JP, I don't know if I can drink much more...”

“Come on, baby, you only live once. Yo! Can I get some fucking service here or what?!”

The guy was your typical, young, urban sleaze ball. No honor, ego instead of pride, cowardly hiding behind his wealth.

“What'd you say, girl?”

“I said I'm cold!”

That's because you're wearing a strapless, super short skirt. I wanted to smack the dumb woman.

“Here, you can have my coat.” I supposed that such actions were what people who knew nothing about the word called 'chivalry'... The cowardly sleaze was probably so proud of his gentlemanly action, flourishing his suit jacket like a flag. “But don't you spill anything on it.”

... But at least that man, as pathetic as he was, had the freedom to pick his partners. Unlike...

“Yo.” Someone tapped me on the shoulder. Blue hair and a furtive, defensive face.

It was 'the Z man.'

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

“My mother? My... What the fuck kind of joke is this?” Heero snarled as he raised his gun. He was so sexy when he was angry and about to murder someone.

I took a deep drink from his glass. I was going to have to take a wicked big piss later, but better that than dehydrate and shrivel up like an old man's. I'd seen fuckers on X who looked like they'd been out in the desert for months cuz they were too goddamn stupid to drink water.

“I knew your mother,” the woman in blue, whose murder I was about to be an accomplice to, said.

My parole officer was going to have my ass if I turned up in the pen again... But I pushed the thought out of my head easily, focusing on the colorful auras in the room. Well, colorful except for Heero's. The hunky, psycho dreamboat was like a big nasty blotch on a pornstar's cock.

Heero lowered his gun again. His face looked like he'd just seen his puppy squashed by an eighteen wheeler. This chick had hit him right where it hurt, digging into the nutsack. I really hadn't thought anything could surprise Heero Yuy. Guess that just went to show... I took another drink.

“What the- what the hell are you talking about?” Heero's mood had changed instantly at the woman's words. I'd heard that X could make people crazy moody, but this guy? Well, sure as Satan is big and red, Heero was moody. He wasn't half as sexy like this, all confused and flustered. It wasn't the 'OMFG what did you just do with your tongue?' kind of flustered.

“Your mother, Himiko, and I were friends,” the woman said. Heero shook his head. “We met in college. Himiko was my roommate for three years.”

Heero's face twitched every time the word 'Himiko' was said. I really liked Japanese names, all exotic and hard to pronounce. But Heero, well it was like the driver in the eighteen wheeler kept backing up over his puppy's roadkill every time he heard that name.

“My mother?” he said weakly.

At least he had a mother.

The blue haired woman- nice dye job, but one weird color to pick- said, “When you were a kid you had a large stuffed animal, a tiger. At the baby shower I gave it to Himik-”

“THAT'S ENOUGH!” Heero roared suddenly, raising his gun again. “You say you know my mother? You... And what if you do? It makes no difference!”

I finished the last of the water. The sexpot hitman was sweating now, and I was still thirsty, so I went to the faucet to get some more. That guy just needed to relax, blow the bitch's head off, and enjoy the X.

The bitch whose murder I was helping to commit sounded unfazed. “No, it doesn't make a difference. You're still here to kill me, no matter who I know.” She had balls of friggin steel. I had to give her that. Then again, she was being one fucking huge cock-block... “But does it make a difference to you? I think it does.”

“It makes no difference to me,” Heero lied. I could tell he was lying.

“If you say so.” The woman shrugged, stubbing out another cigarette. “I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable; you were still so young when she died.”

I turned on the faucet. The clear water glided into the glass.

“Shut up,” Heero growled. So that's what had happened? Life's a real bitch.

“Himiko was a great woman, and I have no doubt she was a loving mother.”

“Shut. Up.” Heero growled and shook with each word. He was furious, seething. Right now he wasn't the pro hitman. He was just another angry, sad and confused kid.

My glass was almost full. I started to fill Heero's.

“The past can't be changed,” the dead woman said. In my eyes she was already good as worm food, and she'd be swiss cheese worm food if she kept pissing Heero off like this. So the dead woman went on, calmly looking past the barrel of Heero's gun and into his face, “And, for losing her when you were so young, I am sorry.”

“I told you to shut up.”

“I felt that you couldn't handle it when you were younger. But you're a man now. I think you need to know why she was murdered.”

“Shut- What?”

A chilling, cold sensation shocked my hand. The water from the tap was overflowing out of Heero's glass. I turned off the faucet.

He looked like the truck had just hit him too. I sighed and took a sip off the top of his too-full cup. I was fucking spinning from the X. But this night was turning out to be a serious bummer. I wanted to go back out and dance or get a drink or get laid or do something! This shit was just too damn depressing.

“Your mother, Heero, she was murdered.”

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

... Um, well, I really didn't have many memories from that night, at least not past 11:30 or somewhere in that area. I remember being in a bathroom. I remember puking and getting some on my Armani, not to mention the pair of Crockett and Jones's that I'd bought only last month got absolutely demolished too. You'd think shoes worth 500 would be better than that... but no...

I do remember complaining about my shoes...

“Aww, fuck! Ma shooz!” I tried to brush them off, getting blood and vomit on my hand and sleeve. “Fuhin groths...” I held up my hand and pouted at it.

“We're out of TP,” Trowa informed me.

“Uh?”

“Toilet paper,” he said again, “we used it all. I'll get some from the next stall.”

“No!” I grabbed onto his shirt, suddenly deeply aware of what was going on. I could hear voices outside. Girls' voices? “No! Two guyz comin' otta da thame tshall? Da'll ink 'm queer 'r sumthin'...”

Remind you, this is after I kissed him. Yes, that was one of the first things that came rushing into my mind the day afterwards.

“Joo dun haf a handkasheef?”

Trowa shook his head. I started to dry heave again.

“It's alright. Just use my shirt,” he said quietly.

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

“My mother died in a car accident.” I tried not to remember.

“And that was why it was a closed casket at the funeral?” Doctor Monica Arno asked.

Clutching orchids in my hand, trying to crush them. The smell of incense and the neutral colored carpet below my feet the only things I wanted to focus on.

“I'm sure that's what your father told you, trying to protect you...”

My father's hand on my back. A small raised step in front of me. Looking up, a dark cylinder of mahogany wood reflecting the glimmer of candles and chandelier lights. The sound of crying, but not me... not then.

Because I had to, I saw the long stretch of mahogany with golden handle bars for hoisting and a name plate, also in gold.

-Himiko Yuy-

“They were horrible, Heero. They made her suffer.”

Doctor Monica Arno was not really a doctor, at least not in the sense that she had passed all of the required legal trials to become one. She had several years of medical training with the Army, but was kicked out and never received a license to practice outside of the military. In fact, she narrowly avoided jail time over whatever she got in trouble for in the military. Afterwards she became a back-alley doctor, working in hotel bathrooms, patching up the criminals and gangsters who weren't about to go to a legitimate hospital.

This woman knew more about me than anyone I'd met. I didn't know whether to believe her or not. Could she be stalling for time? No. It certainly didn't seem like that was the situation at all. Could I trust her?

I had little choice...

And in twenty five minutes I would have to kill her.

I lowered my gun again. “I want you to tell me everything you know.”

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

“You want my number or what?” the Z man asked.

“Sure.” I waited, smiling as I felt the folded cigarette plastic wrap in my pocket.

Inside were two tabs of 3-4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, MDMA or Ecstasy in the common lexicon, that I couldn't wait to get back home and analyze, one under a microscope, one by taking. Not today obviously; I was running late and Meiran had been in a foul mood when I'd left the house. Yes, more so than usual. Even though she liked to get to sleep early, she'd probably be waiting up just to berate me again...

“Here ya go.” Z man passed me a piece of napkin with what might have been numbers scrawled on it. “Nice doing business with ya. Later.”

“Wait a second.” I stopped, squinting in the poor light. “I can't read this.”

The drug dealer turned back quickly, irritated. “Go get me a napkin. Hurry it up.”

I went up to the bar, just a few stools away from where the piece of shit yuppie was feeding the girl wearing his suit jacket another shot of liquor. Her hair was tucked under the suit, and from the back they looked almost the same because they had the same hair color.

There weren't any napkins on the bar. I tried to get the bartender's attention.

“You're just saying that!” the girl was cooing drunkenly.

“I'm dead serious, girl,” the fuck-head who was wearing a tacky red shirt boasted.

The bartender was busy, not even looking over my way once. She was pouring several kinds of liquor into six different shot glasses.

“Stop that!” The girl half-heartedly pushed the guy away. That was one of the reasons I didn't like women, half the time they didn't really mean what they were saying...

“Hang on a sec, will ya babe?” the guy asked his girl.

He walked over towards and then right past me, stopping at a young blonde girl sitting two seats to my right. The blonde was a beautiful looking slut.

I still couldn't flag the bartender down.

“What's taking so long?” The Z man had come up behind me now, looking cross.

“Hey, do I know you?” the sleaze asked the girl on my side.

“I can't get the bartender to come over here,” I explained.

“Well we'll have to do something about that, won't we?” The sleaze tried to be suave.

“I don't have time to waste here,” Z man fumed.

“Hang on a sec.” I tried to stall. “Hey! Hey barten-”

BANG!

I turned around. The woman wearing the yuppie's suit suddenly had her head blown into pieces, slumped onto the bar. People started screaming. The bass of the techno thudded mechanically. Four silver objects glinted in the strobe light, one smoking.

Next to me the yuppie went, “Oh my god.”

One of four men in suits said something to the others. The guns pointed toward me.

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

“This will sound very strange,” the blue haired chick whose murder I was helping to commit but was taking forever to finish said, “but what I am about to tell you is the truth.”

I sat down in one of the lounge chairs, just content to watch for a moment. I shivered as my naked lower back made contact with the cool material of the chair.

“There is a group called the Kindred Order of Atlas, a group that has been around for thousands of years, if not more. They aren't quite what you would call a political group, but they hold a lot of sway in upper circles around the world, and own several of the world's largest companies. They are very secretive; it is almost impossible to find out information on their members or activities.”

“Some people say they have their roots in the Roman Empire. They were joined by old aristocratic and royal families, the Hapsburgs, Ottomans, emperors, the most influential from all around the world. Others have connected them with radical conservative movements in the last few centuries; Hitler, slavery, apartheid, Bosnia, Rwanda.”

God, I hated history lessons. Some guy wrote some thing on some date and everybody's jacking off his decaying dick for centuries to come because of it. Some bitch poisoned some supposed genius causing the downfall of some empire. What this is supposed to mean for me I can't ever figure out.

“The Order used to run just about everything in the old world. But starting in the Information Age, things began to move too fast; their methods grew outdated, they started to lose power. There was violent infighting, a radical re-shuffle and the Order fell to never before lows.”

“So this super secret 'order' guys are the ones that offed Heero's ma?” I asked, way too casually than was probably smart. Heero growled and looked like he was going to put one through my eyes. The dead woman shook her head disapprovingly.

Despite being unable to stop tonguing the inside of my cheek, I felt calm and at ease with everything. Whatever super-secret conspiracy there was behind this wasn't any big deal anyhow. There was no group of arch-villians running the streets, no wicked plots to take over the earth. Okay, this woman seemed to believe what she was saying, and Heero too, but it wasn't a big deal, no real problem. It wasn't like you could do anything about it anyway.

“Shut the fuck up or I will kill you too, I swear,” Heero threatened me, not idly.

All the problems that people can never solve but still sweat, day in and day out, I always told myself, would feel like so much less of a problem if they just had someone to jump their bones at the end of the day. Someone to fuck them harder and faster and deeper until all the bad things were just not important anymore, not problems anymore. People just needed to blow their load and move on to the next warm bed, the next trick. Take solace in the here and the now. Yes, I tell everyone; yes, it is that easy.

“But recently the Order has gotten stronger again. They have enemies besides each other.”

But instead they jack off their problems and suck the dicks of their boogie monsters until they're one hundred feet tall and the poor piece of shit that made them that way can't even enjoy his hamburger, let alone a good lay... They roll over and stay in the bed, covered in hot sweat until it gets cold, and then they're freezing. And they look at the person next to them and try to have that person be their savior. Are you catching these metaphors? Cuz I'm high as a kite right now and think you'd need to be just as fucked up.

“I don't care about all of this,” Heero said. “I just want to know who killed my mother.”

Fuck me, save me. Suck my dick, take me to heaven. Tell me you love me, make my fears go away.

“Is it really that simple to you?”

If God isn't answering your prayers, what the hell makes you think some guy you met at a bar, or in high school or during a convenience store robbery will?

“Yes, it is.” Heero. “I don't care about any of that other stuff. It doesn't affect me.”

Save yourself.

“The Order is fighting a war right now.” I was wondering why this blue-haired chick was still alive and Heero and I weren't doing the haystack nasty on top of a bar. “And it affects everyone, you more than you'd ever imagine. Himi- your mother wouldn't just ignore it, even though she could. She wasn't going to let those bastards have their way with people's lives. She died because she fought for what she believed in. She thought that we... that they were the alternative. But once she realized what ZEAL was becoming-”

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

I jumped off of the couch, the ringing of a siren like a fucking banshee singing an opera in my face. Several red lights blinked all over the goddamn place. Heero and the woman looked around, confused and shocked. This was not the kind of shit you want to deal with when you're rolling on E.

“Bitch, did you set us up?!” I yelled over the siren.

“No... no I didn't do anything.” The woman who didn't even have enough time left in her life to watch an episode of Seinfeld seemed for real. She went up to Heero, her blue and gray dress reflecting the sirens and making her look like some tiny space shuttle about to launch into heaven. She put her hands on his shoulders, looked him in the face, and said:

“You have to get out of here. And you'll have to kill me before you leave.”

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

It was harder to tell what was louder, the gunfire, the people screaming, or the crappy techno music. The last two only pissed me off, but the first had me almost pissing my pants. In addition were the heavy strikes, like rain pounding on a window pane, of bullets smacking into the thick surface of the bar, and the soft tinkle of glass shattering and raining down from above. At first I didn't have time to take a whiff, but it reeked horribly from the smell of all the liquor gushing to the floor out of their exploding glass bottles. That and the dead bodies involuntarily shitting their pants... Yeah, thankfully I couldn't smell that.

Next to me the Z man was screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?”

Next to him was the yuppie whose suit jacket was on the other side of the bar, getting saturated by the blood gushing from the massive hole in the girl's head who he'd been hitting on just a minute ago.

To my right, a bartender with dyed blond hair was convulsing, his hand as red as the yuppie's shirt.

The gunfire stopped for a second, but the screaming did not. I heard the yuppie say, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, they're going to kill me.”

A roll of paper towels in front of me was soaking up the alcohol.

“Kill you!?” the Z man shouted. “They're going to kill all of us!”

Somewhere behind the bar a voice said, “Think we got him?”

The music stopped. The screaming began to fade away into the background. I swore I heard voices talking calmly, but my ears were still ringing. The paper towels in front of me were almost saturated with...

“Here he is; it's Losman alright,” a voice above me said suddenly. It was a huge man in a black suit. He was leaning over the bar and looking down at the yuppie.

“NO-” A large hand grabbed the yuppie, Losman, by his neck, hauling him over the bar. “Please no.”

“There's two others back here too.”

“Let's finish the job first. We can deal with them afterwards.”

“I can pay you! Whatever you're getting I can double it!” the yuppie begged.

Across from me, the paper towels were absolutely soaked through with alcohol. In front of me lay an intact bottle of spirits. I picked it up, reading the label.

“You two,” the mobster waved his gun at the Z man and I, “sit tight for awhile.”

I could still hear the yuppie screaming for his life. “Oh my god, please don't kill me.”

The man in the suit walked away. Behind the bar the Z man was biting his fingernails furiously.

Waiting until I knew the mobster would be out of earshot, I motioned towards him. “I need a lighter!” I whispered to the Z man. “Give me a lighter!”

“What-?”

BANG! Then the dull sound of something heavy hitting the floor.

I grabbed at the nearly soaked roll of paper towels, holding it in the same hand as the bottle.

“A lighter! Do you have one or don't you!?” I whispered as loudly as I could.

“What about those two back there?” one of the men asked.

The Z man began to pat at his pants, searching.

“Kill them.”

I felt true fear.

Footsteps approached the bar, slowly, heavy, louder as they got closer. Z man dug furiously in his pockets.

There was only one hope that I could see.

The Z man threw me a lighter, a Zippo. Perfect. Suddenly, somehow, I was very calm.

The clunk of a gun on the wooden counter top of the bar was right above me.

I spun the wheel on the Zippo. It sparked and the fuel fed it. Even without holding anything down, the flame rose and stayed perfectly. I thanked god for Zippos.

“Boo!” directly above me, a mobster laughed.

I put the flame to the roll of paper towels. The alcohol soaked paper began to catch and as the flames lapped my fingers I tossed it on top of the bar.

“What the-?”

I jumped up to see part of the bar just catching fire and three men in dark suits, all armed, staring at it with a puzzled look on their faces. I took the bottle of Everclear up and smashed it right onto the fiery bar.

Everclear is almost 100% alcohol. As the bottle shattered there was a bright flash of light, glass shards catching on fire and jumping everywhere, and a small fireball right in front of where I stood. The stunned gangster in front of me fell back, completely surprised. 'Boo!' to you too!

I ducked again, crawling on my hands and knees towards the sides of the bar. Glass stuck into my hand, the smell of alcohol choked my nostrils. Gunfire began to scream in my ears, raining against the bar. With a whoosh, the store of liquor caught.

The fire alarm went off.

^*-^*-^*-^*-^*-^*

It was like a symphony of ill-tuned instruments were screeching in my ears. The red alarm lights flashed methodically. Another set of wailing alarms, the ones signaling for smoke or fire, began starting up, a raucous harmony with the other alarm. Somewhere, police and fire fighters were tearing up the pavement, heading straight for the Old Fairgrounds District. The time limit on the mission had just been changed.

Instinctively I raised my gun up at Monica Arno. Seeing that, she turned and her eyes met mine. She gave a weak smile and let out a deep sigh. She dropped her hands from my shoulders and backed just one step away from me, ignoring the weapon flickering in the lights, never breaking her gaze.

“Heero, we better make like a dog in Chinatown and get the hell out of here before we're cooked.”

I ignored Duo. I only wished it was easier to always ignore him... He caused too many problems, was too big of a distraction, kept my mind away from where it had to be.

“Heero,” Monica Arno said, face still practically touching the metal of my pistol.

I took a breath, lowered the gun and said, “You said you know who killed my mother. You said they made her suffer. I believe you're telling me the truth, that you're ready to accept death even for this.” I didn't show it, but I was surprised at how normally I spoke those words. “I need you to tell me how to get to these people, who they are.”

“...” Monica Arno paused. I didn't like it one bit. It wasn't that she was stalling for time; more likely that she was weighing whether or not to tell me something.

“I need all of the information you can give me, and I need it fast,” I pressed.

“Your mother despised the Order and fought them until her last breath. But the ones who killed her were our allies, a counter-force that now calls itself ZEAL.”

“Where are they?” I asked, focused for once on a mission all my own.

“Everywhere. They're all over Metro, and even Capital City. They're a loose group with only the top cells connecting. A woman named Artesia Deikun will help you. You have to find her.”

“Names!” The primary objectives had already been established. I just needed faces to fill in the blanks after Kill ___.

“I've been out of the organization for a long time, before they killed Himiko... Artesia knows more than I do.” She was hesitating to tell me something.

“You have names. If what you said before is true, then you wouldn't be doing this unless you had solid leads.” There'd be no reason to kill her if she didn't pose some kind of threat to them.

“Rau la Cruz, CEO of Zodiac Pharmaceuticals. Things changed in ZEAL when Rau la Cruz came in. He stood for everything Himiko hated... He and Patrick Zala began to change the agenda. They-”

“Patrick Zala is the governor.” I knew this without even watching the news. “Are you saying this group my mother was in is part of the state?”

“Yes, somewhat, yes. But it's more complex than that. Anyone trying to challenge the Order had to have power of every kind. We needed political, that was part of the reason we were so open to taking in la Cruz and Zala. ZEAL is bigger than just those two, but if you can get to them you'll find out more.”

Monica Arno stared at me, and I swear by all the hairs on my head that she was not lying to me. It wasn't just that she claimed to know my mother. Nor was it her non-resistance to her own death.

“Now, Heero darling,” she said, taking out another cigarette and lighting it amidst the screams of fire alarms, “you really have to hurry up and finish this. It won't do to spare me here.”

Rau la Cruz.

Patrick Zala.

ZEAL

If Monica Arno was telling me the truth, these men's lives were forfeit.

But there was one other problem. I needed to know how Monica Arno knew I'd be the one coming to kill her tonight.

“What about my employer?” I asked.

Monica Arno looked at me sadly and shook her head. Instead of answering me, she said, “You need to find Artesia Deikun. Artesia Deikun can help you find out more. Now, you have to hurry-”

“Do you know the man who sent me to kill you?” I asked again. In all honesty, I felt that this woman must know more about him than even I did. Professional lack of disclosure was proving to be my foe for the first time ever.

“I know him,” Monica Arno said softly, almost so that I could not hear it. I leaned closer to hear her mumble. “But he's different...” she trailed off.

“So my employer isn't connected to my mom's death?” Something didn't add up. I was 'that person's favorite'? She'd already known that I was coming... Monica Arno was about to be killed and all she wanted to talk about was why someone had killed my mother. How could my employer not be involved?

My watch began to beep incessantly. Ten minutes until the deadline.

“Well?” I pressed. She was holding out on me.

“Heero, we need to go now!” Duo shouted at me. I bit my lip, drawing blood it was so dry.

Idiot, I never asked you to stay...

“Answer me!” I screamed now at Monica Arno, clenching the gun and shoving the grooved end to her temple.

“I can't. I'm sorry, that's all I know! Now hurry! You have to-”

“Goddamnit, woman, I am going to kill you! Tell me! Who killed my mom?!”

“ZEAL! It was ZEAL.”

“Heero, we are running out of time!”

“ZEAL? You have to be more specific!”

ZEAL. Rau la Cruz. Patrick Zala.

“Artesia! Artesia Deikun will help you,” Monica Arno repeated. “But now you need to hurry and kill me-”

“No!” I shouted, trying to shut out the sirens, trying to make sense of what was going on. “What are you hiding from me?”

“I'm sorry, Heero... I'm sorry I had to put this on you.”

“Answer me!”

“I'm sorry... There's no time, Heero.”

“Heero, we need to get the fuck out of here right now!”

My mother was a beautiful woman with dark hair and soft, loving eyes. She smelled like warm, freshly baked dough. On Fridays she would cook fish, even though neither me nor dad liked it. Eating fish would help me grow up to be a strong, healthy boy, she always said. She was always willing to read me a bed time story or let me stay five more minutes at the park, carnival or playground. She kissed my cuts instead of pouring alcohol on them. She would smile and watch when I called her name, and she always wanted to see whatever was cupped in my dirty hands that I 'really really really' wanted to show her. At night she would make me say my prayers and kiss me on the forehead. She made me feel like everything was always going to be alright, as long as we were together.

“Artesia Deikun?” I asked one more time.

“Yes.” For her sake, I won't tell you what Monica Arno's face held in that last moment.

“Heero, we need to get the fuck out of here right fucking now!!!” Duo Maxwell yelled.

“Thank you,” I said.

I pulled the trigger.

-end “Closed Casket” Part H of Page IV in

Sex, Substances, Sin, Salvation

MasamuneEHS@hotmail.com

Next: “Before the Blood Dries” (final part of Page IV)

ID Notes:

Dr. Monica Arno - A character from Gundam F91, the planned series after Char's Counterattack that was cut down from a 50 episode series to a single movie by staff bickering, one of Gundam's biggest “might have been”s. Here she plays the role of a woman Heero is sent to kill by an unknown employer.

Himiko Yuy - Heero never has a mother in the series or the manga. But in this AU fic he does and her name is Himiko Yuy. I chose the name because of an e-mail I received years ago, when I was seriously considering quitting writing forever, from a Gundam Wing fan, who called herself “Himiko Yuy”

Rau la Cruz - Mentioned previously, in Page II-B and Page III-F. Claimed to be a member of ZEAL, the organization that killed Heero's mother, by Monica Arno.

Patrick Zala - Mentioned previously, Page III-G. Governor. Claimed to be a member of ZEAL by Monica Arno.

Artesia Deikun - Mobile Suit Gundam. She is the person Monica Arno sends Heero to find.

ZEAL is an acronym, the full meaning of which will be revealed later.

You should remember the Order of Atlas from the previous Page.

Notes: I apologize for the length of this chapter. It is vitally important to the overall story, and I needed to close out all of the co-mingling storylines from this Page in roughly the same time period. I couldn't find a good spot to separate this part into smaller bits. Still, I hope you enjoyed it. It was very difficult for me to write.

The person who hired Heero to kill Monica Arno clearly isn't behind the effort to kill Losman. They both happen to be at the same place on the same night, but doing two murders like that would screw up the odds of getting both targets, as you might imagine.

While the previous Page focused on setting up the larger, overall story line, this one's goal was making it relevant for the main characters. Like most things, it's not clear where everything connects... but all in good time...