Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Wild Wings ❯ Chapter 22

Chapter 22

 

It was blushing dawn when Duo finally spotted the den off the side of the road. His most recent acquisition, the more-broken-than-fixed dinosaur of a pickup he'd switched to after hopping through three other cars, was about to quit on him only yards from a safe harbor.

 

Duo grumbled at the dashboard and urged the truck the last few feet across gravel and parked with a sigh. He couldn't see any lights on, but it was a ridiculous hour of the morning. The OZ truck they'd hijacked yesterday was in the drive, Duo wasn't worried both Trowa and Heero had made it back in one piece.

 

He was concerned what Heero's presence meant between an Alpha and his subordinate. Duo drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Trowa risked a lot trying to extract pilot oh-one. Duo doubted Heero would have done the same. The Perfect Soldier didn't think about rescues, he thought about silencing. Permanently.

 

Trowa seemed more intent on keeping them all alive which, while an admirable trait, was somewhat ridiculous when one was considered a Gundam Pilot and terrorist against the state.

 

Duo let the car come to a stop and drummed his fingers quietly on the wheel. He had left the EMP, just like Alpha asked… well, demanded was more like, but he wasn't happy about it. The wolf basked in having done the right thing but Duo questioned it. Leaving such a valuable weapon… it just wasn't in him to let it go, not if there was a chance they could get it back.

 

He slipped out of the truck and considered the dark windows of the den for a long, silent moment. In his chest the wolf stopped napping to sit up and take notice. Why weren't they going inside? What was the delay? Alpha was there!

 

Duo huffed air and turned on his heel toward the OZ truck. Trowa was not the dictator of his life. The wolf railed against the cadge of his chest abruptly. Duo swallowed a gasp of pain, grit his teeth, and swung up into the newer vehicle. That was it, he was going back. He wasn't sticking around on the say-so of the supernatural and if Trowa didn't like it, Trowa could suck it. That EMP was worth it, even if Alpha didn't think so.

 

The wolf howled blashphemy. Duo clamped the sensation into a small box and welded it shut.

 

--//--

 

If there was one good thing about returning to a spot he'd already hit, it was that he knew the layout. Duo ghosted across a hallway into an empty office. And if there was one good thing about mostly secluded government buildings, it was that they were hesitant to bring in more people, even after they had been hit. He shimmied into a vent barely wider than his shoulders and pulled himself over three more offices and a break room. He glanced through the dusty slats of a vent. Small-time soldiers scurried past like ants—

 

"This is not what I want to hear, Private."

 

"I'm sorry, Sir, but we're doing what we can. The damage is extensive—"

 

Duo let his breathing blend with the sound of the fan system and strained see who was speaking.

 

"Don't we have defenses set up against this kind of attack?"

 

"Yes, Sir, in the event of an EMP detonating outside of our server room we're completely protected, but they got inside, Sir. We don't know how."

 

Boot-steps clicking loudly around a corner stopped abruptly. The flow of petty soldiers adjusted around the man talking. Duo shifted in the vent.

 

"You're telling me two terrorists infiltrated this building, rescued a child, destroyed our server farm, and you don't know how?"

 

"Ah… yes, Sir."

 

"Who's in command of your unit?"

 

"Sergeant Powell, Sir."

 

"Find him, I want to see him in my office in less than five—"

 

"Her…"

 

"What?"

 

"Sergeant Powell is female…Sir."

 

There was a pause where the rustling murmur of passing soldiers seemed rather loud. Finally a pair of boots scuffled.

 

"Yes, Lieutenant. I'm going, Sir."

 

The Private jogged away. Duo heard the click of polished boots start up again, approaching his hiding place.

 

Zechs Marquise breezed past like an angel strolling through hell. His silver mask caught Duo's eye first. A glint from the overhead lights trailed up the bridge of the nose and across the broad forehead. The Lieutenant's white-blonde hair cloaked down his square shoulders. His long legs gave the military stride an effortless flow. He was beautiful.

 

Duo huffed dust from his nose and crawled through the ventilation. Which way to the good Lieutenant's office, then…?

 

"I'm telling you, no one could have snuck in here- there were people up and down this hall all day and night!"

 

"Well, there's a prisoner missing, Shean. How do you explain that?"

 

Nope, not Zech's office.

 

Duo peered into several empty rooms along the way. He paused at one briefly, it was a bit ornate than the others. The desk a little bigger. But there was no one inside. He moved on.

 

He heard the door open as he passed. "Lieutenant Marquise, you asked to see me, Sir?"

 

Duo rolled his eyes and backed up in the vent. He peered through the slats just before Zechs stepped out of a stray shadow of his office. Duo's eyes narrowed. How could someone so brightly dressed fade into the room like that?

 

"Close the door Sergeant."

 

Duo shifted to see her. She was turned away to shut the door with a soft snick. Her hair was cut around her ears, a light caramel brown color. Her skin was either very tan, or very dark.

 

"Tell me what you know about the EMP and how it got there."

 

Powell straightened, "There's not much to tell, Sir. Someone breached security and killed the four men in our camera room. Then he broke into the server room and set off a small, short range EMP. The pulse traveled through our wiring and hit the backup underground. He left the hard drives in the server room they were affected severely. We've been unable to locate one hard drive." She paused, "Basically, Sir, we've got nothing."

 

 

Zechs leaned forward and placed his fingertips on the smooth wood of his desk. Duo eyed a slight wrinkle in the fabric at the wrist. The good Lieutenant was packing steel.

 

"Nothing is not good Powell. What's left of those hard drives?"

 

"An EMP is the equivalent of wiping a magnet next to your phone, Sir. We have scratches of static and a few stray lines of BIOS code. We would have more to work with if we sold their parts as scrap metal."

 

"Damnit."

 

"Sir? I do know that whoever broke into the server room did so after all the alarms were already ringing."

 

"How do you know?"

 

"The glass window was broken. If they'd done that first we would have heard different alarms. The break in at the prisoner block came first, then the server room. There had to be at least three men, maybe closer to five."

 

"I've had reports of two, one from the prisoner block and one driving the truck. They extracted one prisoner so that makes three. The driver must have hit the server farm."

 

Powell shifted slightly, "Only two, Lieutenant?"

 

Zechs straightened. "That's how I would do it, Sergeant."

 

"Sir."

 

"Do you have any good news for me at all?"

 

"Yes, Sir. The Sydney base received our full broadcast when we broke quarantine last week. They've picked up more or less where we left off."

 

"Define more or less, Powell."

 

"Sorry, sir. Some of the materials for the mobile dolls are hard to come by and all shipments have been priority listed for this base. Sydney had no stockpile. They're working on electronics and communications mostly. Once their shipments start arriving they'll put together a prototype and test ground mobility. My unit is listed to transport any of our supplies to the Sydney base in two days."

 

“I'm going to send Lieutenant Samuel with you, he's a personal aid of mine. I want to keep a personal eye on our progress and we can't afford another snafu like this.”

 

“Sir!” Powell was alarmed, “Do you really think that's necessary?”

 

“Yes, Lieutenant. I do think. Unlike some other people supposedly in charge of this base. I'll send Samuel to you. Dismissed.”

 

This was worth it. Duo decided. This conversation alone was worth the risk of coming back and the anger he'd throw Alpha into once he returned to the den. The wolf pressed against his skin with an odd sensation of fur. It was undecided, they had disobeyed Alpha—Duo severed that line of thought. They had an in at the Sydney base with a ranking officer. It was perfect.

 

Powell snapped a smart salute and left the office. Zechs jabbed the intercom on his desk, “Sharon. Find Samuel and tell him to report to me here tomorrow at twenty-one hundred.”

 

“Yes, Lieutenant” a female voice crackled over the speaker.

 

Duo wiggled his toes. Pins and needles spiked all the way up his thighs. He stretched himself forward, lay completely on his stomach, and tried to stifle a groan. Both legs were asleep but it was worth it. Completely worth it. He would be here in the ducts at twenty-one hundred to hear what Zechs had to say to his little informer, then poor Samuel was going to meet Shinigami.

 

His legs finally stopped tingling and he tested their mobility. Duo crawled silently through the ducts over hallways, beside the Mess, next to offices with and without people in them. The conversations were no longer interesting to him- he needed to find that EMP.

 

After setting it off in the server room odds were good it was taken, along with any hard drives they thought they could savage, to an IT department, or at least a computer center. He crawled his way in the direction of the server room anyway, maybe there would be some clues.

 

It was impossibly bright inside the server room. Every florescent available was on, illuminating the now-dark towers of computer cable and hard drives. One man sat on the floor of the room carefully aligning hard drives like dominos. He held a stack of them against his chest, the others wiggled in a long line down one row then another of the server farm. Duo smirked. The EMP had really done its job, then. Too bad it wasn't here anymore. Unfortunately, neither were the clues he was looking for. He continued through the ventilation system and left the soldier to his domino drives.

 

As he turned away the drives clack-clack-clack-clacked in a rapid snaky line. The soldier groaned. “Damn.” Under his breath.

 

Another male voice in the room laughed, “Keep it up until Powell get's back. Maybe she'll help you.”

 

“Stuff it, Lars. She knows these things are useless. Got any better ideas to spend your time?”

 

Duo paused in the vents. Could he talk to Powell? She knew where the EMP was, when was she due back? He didn't have any fatigues… but maybe he didn't need any.

 

“Hey, Lars? Mind helping me pick these up again before she gets here?”

 

“Hah, fuck you.”

 

“No, I'll just tell her you did it.”

 

The voice called Lars shifted, apparently standing, “You're such an ass.”

 

“Only to you.”

 

Duo didn't waste any more time. He beelined for an empty office down the hall and popped the vent grate off. It landed on carpet. He slid through and took a moment to re-fit the grate. Then he waited. Duo had a good view of the end of the hall past the server room if he hugged the wall to see out the glass pane in the office door. If Powell came down either side, he'd catch her first.

 

It didn't take long. Duo wondered if the soldiers inside were still picking up their domonio hard drives. Powell breezed past his office looking intent. Duo slid out and let her get a decent three meters ahead before he called out.

 

“Lieutenant! Excuse me, Lieutenant Powell?”

 

The woman spun on her heel. “Yes….?” She seemed willing to put `sir' on the end of her response until she actually saw Duo. A man in civvy clothes with no obvious rank didn't even deserve a nod.

 

“I've been instructed to take a look at that EMP. Can you tell me where it walked off to?”

 

She looked down at the brazen L2-urchin as if she knew his origin. “Why aren't you in uniform?”

 

“When Marquise says jump you don't ask how high, Ma'am. The EMP?”

 

As he knew it would, mentioning Zechs' name made her wary. She straightened. “It's in my office. I'll give you a key.”

 

“I would appreciate that.”

 

Powell pulled a keyfob from her belt and typed. She thrust the small pad in Duo's direction. “Thumbprint, please.”

 

Duo lay his finger on the screen. A little blue graphic scanned in four directions. The machine beeped. The graphic turned green.

 

“You've been keyed for an hour, no more.”

 

“Thank you, Ma'am. Have a nice day.”

 

“Hm.” Powell turned away. She entered the server room.

 

Duo had a little under an hour to locate Lieutenant Powell's office.