Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Some Way Back ❯ Almost Perfect ( Chapter 16 )

So sorry this update took so long… I just had way too much writers block. Thank you so much for sticking with me so far. I would like to thank all of my reviewers: Nanashi chick, Heaven, Bulma Jr, Cool, Deb, Fys, and of course my Enna *hugs hon* and then to Lianna and the other ones who sent me emails …it's a lot easier to write when you know that there are other people out there who actually want to read what you're writing. Anyway this chapter is another action kind of one, which I really don't think I write all that well, but hope you enjoy anyway. Thank you all again and have fun reading.

Anyway hope you enjoy, if you wish to archive this story please email me arithkenshin@yahoo.co.uk and reviews are always welcome.

#*# = scene change

~ words in direct thought to oneself

~~**~~ end of chapter

Some Way Back: Almost Perfect

Duo flexed his left arm critically, turning it this way and that making sure that it was fully functional. Although it had healed a long time ago, it still gave him twinges occasionally and the jagged gash mark on his arm would always be a reminder to him of just how much he had failed. The others had left to go and get into suitable night attire. He was a little pissed off; for what was going to be required his perfect match for this mission was the all too stupid Heero. Since that was not a possibility he was going to have to rely on one of the other three to back him up. Duo sighed. He knew he was the best infiltration operative around. He knew he was the one with the ability to fit in, if he was discovered…although he also knew his braid was a dead give away, hence it was tucked down the back of his shirt, and contacts made his eyes black instead of violet. Both of these actually succeeded in giving him a completely different look.

The offices they would be infiltrating, after all that word sounded so much better than breaking into, were those of one of the upper level subsidiaries of GHD. Which meant that the security was about 8 notches up on the first one they had entered. This was going to take a lot of coordination with precise timing and monitoring of the situation. Which was the reason that Duo had decided to ask Zechs to come and monitor them from the shuttle…helping them coordinate from there, through the ear inserts they all had with them this time.

Duo looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was in its own hood…making it simply look like he was wearing a hooded shirt, and his eyes were black lending amazing contrast to his complexion. The shirt was of course black and rather snug fitting, and the pants were skin tight and flexible, in order to allow the movement he would need. Around his waist he sported a holster for his favourite gun, while another fit snugly in a holster on his thigh. To complete the set he had two knives in sheaths on his forearms, for emergencies.

Grinning at his reflection Duo mock saluted himself. "Shinigami at your service!" Leaving his room, still pondering who would best compliment him on this, he made his way to the hangar running the preparations they would need to make through his head. He approached the stealth shuttle to find an argument in full bloom.

"I always pilot Marquise. Duo briefs us and I pilot. It is how we have done every other mission." Wufei had his arms crossed.

"Yes but I am only coordination from the shuttle, so it makes more sense if I am the one with my hands full."

Wufei scoffed at the platinum blond, but Quatre interrupted before he could speak. "You know `fei, he does have a point…" He glanced over and saw Duo watching them all with a smirk on his face. "Oh… here is Duo…" The smaller pilot sounded relieved.

"Don't stop on my account guys, it was getting entertaining." Duo left the doorframe he had been leaning against and made his way over to the rest of his friends. "Fei… probably is a good idea if you don't pilot tonight…" Before Wufei could protest too much, Duo held up a hand to silence him. "I need you with me tonight `Fei… I'll need you to be a little more on your guard than usual… so just let Zechs fly the damn machine.

Wufei hid his surprise well, he hadn't expected to be the one to go with Duo…Duo usually took Trowa, due to his acrobatic abilities. To a certain extent they were all nimble and quick, but Trowa was the best. `Fei nodded. "Ok… Maxwell. We ready then?"

"Almost… just need to requisition a few things first. I mean honestly… if we're going to go to the effort of going there, we can at least dispose of the armaments they have stored there ne?" He grinned that slightly not sane grin and started hunting around the supplies section of the hangar.

After over an hour, Duo seemed fairly pleased with what they had come up with. He had enough small explosives to put out all the cameras in the building if he needed to; a palm held computer to help him access the systems he needed to; communicators for everyone; and enough large explosives and medium explosives so that Trowa and Quatre would have no problems blowing the armaments sky high.

He surveyed their collection and grinned happily. "Get all that noted down Cat?"

The smaller blond laughed and nodded. "Yes sir! Captain Duo Sir!"

Duo laughed. "Well let's leave the darling Une a list and be on our way shall we?"

#*#

Wufei sat behind Zechs watching his piloting skills critically, a scowl fixed to his face. Duo had to stop himself from laughing out loud at his friend and the indignation on his face. He sobered up enough to concentrate on the task at hand. The mission plan… the thing was he didn't really have a concrete plan… he was feeling like winging it for the most part, but knew that he couldn't do that with or to his friends. If Heero had been his partner in this, it would have been easier to wing it, they had known each other so well. Duo sighed as he gathered his thoughts. Heero wasn't there anymore and the sooner Duo stopped acting as if he was, the sooner he would be able to be effective.

"Well…um…" For once it seemed that words were going to fail the chestnut haired boy.

Quatre looked quizzically at his taller friend. "So Duo… the main aim of this mission is to attain the disks, am I right?"

Duo smiled gratefully at his friend. "Yeah Cat, that's about right. It's just that it's going to be a little more than that." Rushing ahead before he could stop himself, Duo continued. "You see their security is amazing…I mean with all the subsidiaries we have been cracking down on lately, it has caused them to step up security a fair bit, but here; here the security is top notch."

Wufei grunted. "So Maxwell, what is the plan?"

Duo laughed lightly. "Oh `fei, we're just going to walk in there and let me find what I need to find, and hack what I need to hack."

Even Zechs turned his face to look at the braided boy speculatively.

"That is your plan?" Trowa's usually passive voice was a little incredulous.

Duo just grinned at his friends; they were getting jaded in their old age.

"This is your marvelous plan Maxwell?" One of Wufei's sculpted eyebrows raised. "Care to explain how we do this?"

Falling back into the character that came so easily to him Duo jumped up and grinned. "Now Wu-man, I am so glad you asked that." He threw a soft bag at Wufei and watched him take out the contents, face baffled. "Now you see that badge there? Yes that one with your new name and your face on it Wu…now that is your new id badge. In my bag I also have one… we just need to get dressed appropriately. I hacked the details into the database and they should withstand some scrutiny…giving us rather large amounts of freedom to move and high security clearance if everything goes according to plan…"

Quatre interrupted, thoughts flying to his mind. "Duo…if you can hack into the database from headquarters why don't you just do it from there and furthermore, if you could make these id's why haven't you done it before?"

Duo sighed.

"Cat…you see… well." He sat down. "First things first, hacking into the database does not allow me to access the files that are on those disks. Just having those from that one pc that seems to have been neglected is not enough, it doesn't give us enough. It is old, too old to be of any good to us at all. In order to get at that information I need to get into an office and gain hold of a hard copy of a disk. Now once I do this I need to make a copy and then we are going to take care of this subsidiary just as we have taken care of every other one." He stopped for a little, thinking how best to phrase the rest of what he had to say. He shared one trait with Heero; he did not like admitting that something may be better than him. "Secondly…why haven't I just made us Id's and said to the hell with it and let us infiltrate and bring them down? Well its not that easy. For a few reasons. To infiltrate this group you need to either be noticed by someone or need to be known by someone. So therefore I need to set things into motion, in order to infiltrate the group if that is indeed what we need to do. Our faces are somewhat known, not brilliantly so, but enough that without alterations people seem to give us that "Have I seen you somewhere before" look." Duo noticed the agreeance that greeted him, not noticing that he was twisting the rings on his fingers again.

"Now… the chance I have taken for tonight is only going to work, if no one important is rostered on. The id's we have will sustain any general inquiries, but I didn't have time or the ability to go further into anything. We should out rank anyone who is there, however if we do not, then that person will be sure to delve further and that is where the id's will encounter trouble. Because anyone who is actually higher in the organization that we are supposed to be should, by the way the company is built, know us. That answers your question Q?"

Quatre nodded and was pretty sure that the others in the shuttle were thinking exactly what he was thinking. They had always known that Duo wasn't stupid, he couldn't be and pilot a gundam, but at the same time they had always written him off as somewhat of an air head, which the violet eyed boy was most definitely not. Quatre felt a little bad for having had such thoughts, but was starting to realize that those were thoughts that the chestnut haired boy actually seemed to encourage; he seemed to want to encourage that perception about him.

"Well I guess then I need to explain my reasoning for making poor Wu-man put up with me on this leg of the mission." A violet eye winked at the black eyed boy. "I need your hand to hand capabilities if anything should go wrong Wufei, so I hope you wont mind going along with me this once."

Touched by the fact that Duo had used Wufei's proper name, probably for the 5th time since they had met, Wufei actually smiled. "Sure, Duo."

It was a touching moment and there was no way that Duo was going to let it stay that. So he jumped up and grabbed Wufei in a bear hug, spinning him around and planting a kiss on his cheek. " Thanks `fei… I mean it."

Wufei pretended to grumble as Duo lowered him back to the floor and the mood was broken, but he couldn't help feeling a little happy at the thought that Duo had picked him. The way the former Gundam pilot was going, he was fairly sure that the man could do anything at all, all by himself.

Trowa broke the silence. "Duo, if Zechs is monitoring and keeping communications open, what are Cat and I doing?"

"Ahh yes and you earn brownie points for that one Trowa; would you like the prize behind door one or two. I'll give ya a hint…how many lovers do ya have." Duo let out a gleeful cackle, momentarily trying to remember if he had taken his medication or not and relaxing when he realized he did; that he was just hyperactive at the moment. He looked at Trowa's very confused face and decided to take pity on the guy with the challenged hairstyle.

"You and Cat need to do exactly what he usually does. Those bags over there, "and he motioned to another couple of bags on the other side of the shuttle. "They have maintenance uniforms in them, in about your sizes, and badges…you don't need the clearance that we do, so yours were easy to make." Looking all serious like again, Duo continued. "The virus that I will upload is going to wipe all of our information out of their systems as well…the information was hooked up to be accessible from this subsidiary anyway, so it wont be a big job, but it will be thorough. We don't want them catching on now do we?" He snickered a little and leant down to go through the building plans with his accomplices.

#*#

The shuttle touched down, and even Wufei had to admit Zechs hadn't done anything wrong. They gathered in the middle of the shuttle putting the finishing touches on their disguises.

"Fuck!" Quatre cringed at Duo's exclamation. Duo however was jumping up and down holding a hand over one of his eyes.

"Fuck these things, no one was meant to put their fingers on their eyeballs. If I ever decide this is a good idea again, I will take the fucking injection to change the bloody colour."

"Duo why are you bothering?" Quatre cringed at how loudly Duo was speaking.

"Um Q-man, violet eyes...hello!" He looked at Quatre who looked fairly adorable in his overalls, but couldn't see comprehension dawning on the shorter man's face. "How many people have violet eyes…yep exactly, not many at all. Brown eyes are non descript…and as my cheeks have hollowed I wont look much like Duo Maxwell at all." Duo shook his head vigorously. "Cat you don't need to put the hair in that tightly… I would prefer not to have a headache ya know?"

"Sorry Duo…" Quatre hid his smile and left the chestnut hair alone, standing back to look at the handi-work. It was quite amazing… basically Duo's hair was all uneven and he had only braided the underneath of it very tightly so more of it hung over the braid effectively hiding it. It was of course only a short-term disguise but it was an effective one for a short while. Of course the violet-eyed boy also had to wear a baggy jacket, unless the bulge of his braid would be seen, but he was lucky that the uniform required just that.

Duo turned and looked at Wufei critically, sighing.

"'Fei, just follow my lead, stay a little behind me and be the usual distant prick you could be during the war ok?" Duo smiled to take the sting off his words as he could see the Chinese man very close to retorting something nasty. "I can't help it if I can't come up with a proper disguise for you. But its ok I will take all of the focus onto myself… you know I can." He turned to look in the shuttle mirror and grimaced. He thought he looked better than usual, it was amazing the difference that shorter hair and darker eyes gave him. He hoped no one was a Gundam pilot fan, but would deal with that if he had to, though he didn't think he would have to because he had lost that much weight his face had hollowed out.

They synchronized watches and inserted the communication chips into their lips and ears. Duo winced a little as he attached the one to the inside of his lip, but knew they needed to have those. The material they were made out of was undetectable, at least by anything that the preventers had come across before. Psyching himself a bit Duo jumped up and down a few times, trying to get rid of the hyperactive bubble that had just seemed to emerge in him. He needed to make sure that he stayed in character, or this was never going to work. Idly he wondered if infiltration of the organization was going to be necessary or possible…and he grinned to himself.

"Ok guys, we ready?" Brown eyes rose to look at everyone else, and they all nodded in return. "Ok as discussed we have till approximately 2am to complete the tasks…recon back here and make sure that anyone who discovers us is…subdued ne?" Set the timers for 2am, if I am not out by then I don't deserve to call myself an infiltration expert."

Zechs watched the four men run off into the dusk, and turned to his monitoring equipment not able to resist being a little biased and paying more attention to Duo than to the others.

#*#

Looking at Wufei, brown eyes asked an unspoken question to which the Chinese man nodded in the affirmative. Taking a deep breath Duo let his face slip into a mild smirk, his brows furrow and his walk become an arrogant saunter that would be befitting someone of the rank that he had given himself and Wufei. Trowa and Quatre had already left to undertake their part of the mission.

Character firmly set in place he approached the building, pushed the doors open and walked up to the security desk in the middle of the large foyer; each sway of his hips dictating authority. Slapping a palm onto the marble counter he let his brown gaze fix firmly in a no nonsense glare on the two men guarding the entrance. He knew that there were another 8 patrolling the perimeter of the property, that there were 8 guards per floor as well as camera and surveillance systems. Sometimes the best disguise was in plain sight, and Duo intended to use that to the best of his advantage. Two faces looked up at him with slight irritation, slowly taking in the way he was dressed until the rank of his uniform registered on them. Then they became flustered and Duo tsked in exasperation, leaning forward slightly to read one of their name badges he frowned.

"Davies! Not particularly the best way to attend security detail, I could have been anyone." Duo's voice was guttural and low, nothing like his usually melodically husky voice. Davies looked almost ashamed.

"S…sorry sir…"

Duo raised an eyebrow in impatience, tapping a foot; then he threw up his hands and leant forward on the counter. "The keys please Davies…" Anger contorted his hollow face, as Davies looked a little lost and confused. "You have to be kidding me… you weren't told we were coming?"

Davies shook his head, hurriedly leafing through the paperwork that had been neatly placed on the side of the desk. "S…s…sorry sir…it's just…I don't supposed you have your id badges on you?" The light haired man looked up hopefully at Duo.

"Of course we do, what a stupid question to ask." Duo tossed his in front of Davies, managing to look extremely pissed off at the inconvenience, and Wufei successfully mimicked his actions.

Davies fumbled a little, his partner seemed to be extremely engrossed in his computer screen, and tipped in the id numbers quickly, nodding before clearing the screen.

"Max-million Howard," Davies looked at Duo, who nodded with disinterest. "Winfred Bartholomew?" Wufei managed an almost perfect impersonation of Heero's Hn.

Duo clicked his tongue yet again. "Max will do for me, I feel like a horse if you use my full name, cadet…" He managed another smirk before frowning again. "Well Davies…the keys would be a good idea, I cant stand around chatting all night, regardless of how good I am at my job."

Davies blushed and got out the master key. The visitors had been listed as visiting all of the subsidiaries in order to assess and improve the security systems, which was logical to do after business hours so they did not interrupt the normal day-to-day procedures. He must have been in a daze when he was informed of it; he had a tendency to do that sometimes. "How long sir, to know if I am on watch when the key comes back."

"Before 2am, I would like to get some sleep before the sun comes up."

Nodding curtly Duo turned and headed down the halls, building plans imprinted in his mind. Wufei just grunted again as he passed the desk.

As they traversed the halls to find the relevant rooms Wufei felt safe enough to make quiet observations. "Intimidation worked well … nice … Max."

Duo tried not to smile, they had to be careful what they were saying because everything was under surveillance in the building as well. "Gee, thanks Bart." Snickering a little, Duo had to grasp to get back into character as they passed another set of guards. The guards nodded at the two high ranking officers that walked passed them. Duo smirked again barely acknowledging them while Wufei stuck to the grunt that had been so successful so far.

Duo could hear Zechs chuckling in his ear… "Not funny…" His voice was low and still in character and it only made Zechs laugh harder.

Ignoring the hysterical laughter in his ear, Duo led the way into the first room they needed to access and sat himself down at the terminal. Wufei stood to attention at the door contemplating the plan while keeping an eye on things. It was really quite brilliant. They would enter the relevant rooms that could hold the appropriate disk, only one was delivered to each subsidiary, and search for it as well as accessing the system and beginning downloads to be bounced back to their own mainframe at Preventer headquarters. They would continue on till they found the disk and then enter the main computing lab in order to affect the virus. Once the virus was set free there would be a 2-hour delay, so they should be well away from the scene of the crime by the time the systems crashed.

An exasperated sound came from Duo. "Nothing here, next terminal." His words needed to be neutral, communicating to Zechs and to Wufei, but giving nothing away to anyone else who could be listening. Setting the terminal up to do exactly what he needed it to be doing and sending, Duo rose, switching off the screen, and left the room with Wufei, who discreetly planted his explosives on the way through the building.

The same process was repeated for the next five rooms, and each process took a while. It was well into the night before Duo and Wufei came across the seventh room and the disk. Duo was ecstatic. Entering the disk he was luckily not that far gone in his happiness that he forgot to scan it. Scanning the disk he discovered an encryption that would set off an Internet alarm if it was emailed or transferred, or even copied onto a disk. Happily Duo just pocketed his prize and set up the computer he was now working on to transfer files via the 5000 loops that Duo had engineered to keep the Preventer accounts safe.

Walking to their last destination room, Duo spoke softly. "Security measures attained; last sequence to be implemented." Again the comment could be interpreted however anyone wanted to interpret the comment. Quietly Duo sat at the mainframe for the entire buildings computer systems and entered his virus, it was one that he was inordinately proud of. Glancing at his watch he smirked, realizing it was shortly before midnight and that by the time they had gotten out of the building it would be after 12. He was ahead of schedule, and happy with the way things had been going. Virus entered he stood again and motioned to Wufei to follow.

"Well that's that taken care of, now onto the next one."

Wufei smirked a little, but refused to laugh.

Zechs's voice sounded over the earpieces.

"Duo, we have a problem." His voice sounded slightly strained and for a moment Duo worried that perhaps their shuttle had been discovered, but he dismissed that thought almost as soon as it entered his head.

Zechs continued. "Flashy black official car just pulled up." He was silent a moment. "Fuck I think its Trandish… not good…"

"Handheld." Was all that Duo said, as he flipped out his handheld computer and flipped it open to reveal an image being fed to it from Zechs. "Shit…not good…not good at all." ~Damn, it was almost perfect.~

He tried to gather his thoughts, breathing heavily. It wasn't going to go as smoothly as he had hoped…blood was going to be spilt and there was nothing he could do to stop it, this was too important for that.

"Cat, Trow, finish up and get out of there. `Fei finish planting the explosives in here; let me draw attention. Get out through the vents."

Wufei looked ready to argue. "No Chang…just do it…you need to set them, and you aren't as good a shot as me… set them and get out. Leave the rest to me." The use of Wufei's name told the others Duo was in mission mode.

"Duo are you…" Quatre's voice was full of worry over the earpieces.

"I am fine Quatre… get it done…I can handle this… The god of death is back." He grinned his usual grin and only Wufei was there to witness it, what a waste.

As Wufei moved back and blended into the shadows, Duo set out, clinging to the shadows, to give cover to his partner, and he hoped, get out with as few fatalities as he could manage, including his own… he had a mission to finish.

Shinigami kicked in, and Duo receded. His clinical violent side was going to be needed, and he didn't have time to pay attention to anything that his usual self was going to come up with.

~~**~~

Well…what did you think…please tell me, I love feedback

~Arith