by windsor blue
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing and its characters are owned by Sunrise, Bandai, et. al. This is a work of fan fiction and is not intended to make any profit nor hold any monetary value. This story was inspired by far too many years of exposure to police and detective dramas, documentaries about serial killers, and true crime books. I don't own any of those, either. Any story elements from said works have been filtered through my head for so long that I no longer have the faintest notion from whence they came, so if I stole a plot point from your script for Law and Order or something, I apologize, and would beg you to take it in the complimentary manner in which it is intended.
Warnings - This chapter PG13, overall R/NC-17 for violence and psychological situations. If you are creeped out by serial killers, stalkers, or general psychos, you may want to avoid this story. Also included within are kidnappings, historical references to a Chernobyl-like nuclear accident, a lot of dead bodies lying around, and some wild assumptions about the near geopolitical future, which will undoubtedly prove to be utterly inaccurate. In other words, it's a bit dark.
Soundtrack – All good action stories need a soundtrack, ne? These are songs that were in my head while I was writing, and may or may not appear in the fic.
This chapter –
Trans-Euro Express by Kraftwerk
Polly by Nirvana
Early Summer, AC 201
Vienna, Austria
The downtown streets were full of people, as they usually were in the morning. There were times in this city when a person could hardly walk.
A small crowd gathered outside a vid store, cooing over the arrival of one of the Earth Sphere’s former most eligible bachelors at the airport. A text crawl at the bottom of the screen enumerated the dry details of the economic summit he was attending.
“Ooh, there’s my boyfriend,” exclaimed one girl to another. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”
“He is gorgeous, but unfortunately for you he’s my boyfriend.”
“Hmph. We’ll share him. Anything that yummy has to be shared, right?” A wicked grin crossed the girl’s face and quickly migrated to her friend.
“Okay, you can have the top half and I’ll take the bottom.”
“Oh, no, I was thinking more along the lines of alternating days. He can have Sundays off to catch up on his sleep.”
“Right, we wouldn’t want to kill him or anything.”
“Exactly!” She swooned dramatically at the screens in the display window, all of which showed identical footage of the smiling face of the object of her affection. The camera clearly loved him, and he seemed pleasantly comfortable around it. Waving one last time, he left the scores of photographers behind and climbed into a somber black car. “Bye-bye, darling, I’ll miss you!” the girl called to the screens, causing her friend to giggle.
“God, you’re such a freak. He is gay, you know.”
“So what? He’s still beautiful, and I would throw him down and screw him into next week without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Have you seen pictures of his man? He’s not half bad, either…”
As they laughed their way out of the crowd, they brushed shoulders with a solitary man in a dark trench coat – a figure so anonymous that neither of them thought to apologize for bumping him. No one in the dissipating crowd noticed the cold smile that played on his lips, nor did anyone hear his muffled whisper.
“Welcome to Vienna, Mr. Winner.”
Ten Hours Later
Quatre Winner sank into the nearest chair, grateful to be back in his suite at the hotel.
This conference is going to go on forever. Can the speakers get any duller? He laughed to himself ruefully. Well, I guess I’ll find out tomorrow, won’t I? He sighed softly, fingering the gold band on his left ring finger. I should call Trowa soon. He’ll be so glad he went to Catherine’s after he hears about today.
He reached over to the end table for the room service menu, then pulled the phone receiver to his ear and placed an order. After being told that it would be about half an hour until his dinner was brought up, he rose from the chair and headed for the shower, loosening his tie as he went, pausing only long enough to strip off his clothes and throw them in the direction of the bed. Almost twenty minutes later he emerged from the steam, feeling cleaner, a little less tired, and somewhat more alive than when he had entered. He pulled on some navy blue silk pajama pants and a thick gray sweatshirt, wanting to hold on to what little of the shower’s warmth still clung to his skin. As he stooped to pick up his clothes from the floor, a knock rattled the door.
“Room service,” said the voice on the other side.
Quatre gave a relieved sigh and glided to the door, opening it with a smile.
“Thank you for being so prompt,” he said, holding the door open for the bellhop to bring the cart in.
“No problem, Mr. Winner, sir. Now if you’ll just sign here?”
“Of course,” Quatre took the proffered check tray from the outstretched hand before him, and as he laid hands on it he got a sudden chill, as if the Devil himself had just whispered in his ear. He stopped for just a second, frozen in time as his heart raced. What the –
The pause was just long enough for the bellhop to grab his arm, yank it forward and jab it violently with a long syringe. Quatre cried out as the barrel of it was emptied into his veins and then sagged forward into the arms of his captor.
The last thing he noticed before blacking out was the feral gleam in a pair of otherwise perfectly ordinary eyes.
Eighteen Hours Later
New York, New York
Chang Wufei had had an utterly miserable day.
Not that he didn’t enjoy his job with the Preventers, mind you; it had just become so…routine of late. There were very few real threats to the known universe anymore. More and more, he found himself chasing down the warped fantasies of random crackpots. Today’s had been a doozy – a man who claimed, in all seriousness, to be the abandoned love child of Relena Darlian and Trowa Barton. Never mind that said man was nearly twenty years their senior. And oh, wasn’t he persistent – standing in front of Preventers’ headquarters every day for the last two months, waving around a carefully lettered cardboard sign and shouting well-chosen obscenities at the passersby.
So today, finally, Une had decided she was sick to death of the whole thing and had ordered he and Sally to arrest the man and take him to a mental health facility.
Naturally, he’d been shit-faced drunk. Wufei gingerly touched the darkening spot on his forehead from where the guy had managed to hit him with his empty bottle. And, naturally, when they had finally subdued him, he had thrown up all over Wufei’s shoes.
Stupid woman, Wufei thought bitterly. Why couldn’t you just ignore him this morning, like you do every day?
Pulling open his tie and unbuttoning his collar, he dragged himself through the door of his apartment building, pausing as his fingers grazed the silver chain around his neck. The weight of the necklace had become a part of his body, so much so that he barely noticed its presence anymore. He pulled the chain loose from his shirt to feel the cool stone pendant – a flawless piece of amethyst-tinted jade, carved into the shape of a dragon - in the flat of his palm. Shaking his head, he let the dragon drop back down to his collarbone and stood in the lobby a moment, fumbling in his pocket for the key to his mailbox. I don’t know why I’m bothering, it will all be advertisements anyway. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten an actual letter.
On second thought, he could. It had been from Duo – a rambling affair that had probably been written and sent in the midst of a terrific bender. It went on for pages and vacillated between brilliantly witty observations to heartbreaking emotional revelations and everything in-between. He’d received it about three weeks after he’d left the small house he’d been sharing with Duo and Heero. After opening it he’d read it over and over, imagining the words being spoken in Duo’s smoky molasses voice. That night he’d put the letter under his pillow, which is where it remained to this day.
You should go back, his conscience chided. You were happy there.
No, he thought. It was wrong…
It was wrong to be happy?
He sighed. Finally finding the key for the mailbox in his pocket, he told his conscience to shut the hell up.
He stalked toward the row of brass compartments and noticed a nondescript man stuffing a thin envelope into the one designated for the girl across the hall from him.
No, he realized, that’s my mailbox.
“Hey,” he growled, “What do you think you’re doing?”
The man looked up with a start, a slight panic darting around his eyes.
“Uh, nothing mister. I was just…leaving a note, that’s all.”
“And why are you leaving me a note?”
“You?” The man looked surprised.
Wufei gestured brusquely. “That’s my mailbox.”
“Oh, shit…” He raised a hand to his forehead and lowered his eyes. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! I meant to leave it for the girl in #29-C. Damn it!” He looked at Wufei hopefully. “Hey, you’re picking up your mail anyway, right? So you can just give it back to me, and I can put it in the right box! I mean, you don’t want my love letter anyway, right?”
Wufei grimaced. “No, I certainly don’t.” You’re really not my type, anyway. I prefer my men much more striking than you. He frowned at his own thoughts as much as he did at the hapless would-be Romeo crowding him as if he were his last hope at a happy life. He shoved past Romeo to put his key in the lock and as he turned it, the clod slapped him on the back – hard - like a drunken former classmate at a high school reunion.
“Thanks, man, you’re a helluva nice guy.”
“Don’t mention it,” Wufei grumbled, pulling the unmarked envelope out of his stack of credit card applications and pizza coupons. As he turned to face Romeo, he began to feel lightheaded and instinctively put out his arm to regain his balance.
Too late, he saw Romeo’s smile turn ugly and saw the flash of a hypodermic needle entering his arm.
“Wha—” His words hung, unfinished, on the recycled air of the building’s lobby as he felt his limbs stop obeying his commands. Romeo’s arm went around his waist and somehow they were being propelled forward, junk mail falling from his hand to the floor in their wake, and then everything went black.
Twenty-Four Hours Later
L2 Colony Cluster
“Hey, Duo, a package came for you!”
Duo Maxwell looked up from the engine he was working on and moved a grease-stained palm over his coveralls. “For me? What is it?”
Howard laughed. “Beats the hell out of me. I’m sure as shit not opening your mail, though…God only knows what kind of dangerous crap someone could be sending you.” He held the slim package out for the young man to take, which he did, gingerly.
“Aw, this is way too small to be all that dangerous, Howard. I think you’re getting soft in your old age!” Wiry fingers tore open the tape and reached inside the padded envelope, pulling out an unlabeled disc. He held up the now empty envelope, pushing on either side of it to open it like a fish’s mouth. “Hm. No note?” He turned the envelope over in his hand. “No address? Howard, where’d this come from?”
The older man shrugged. “Dunno, I didn’t think to ask the delivery guy. Pop it into my computer and see what’s on it.” He gestured to the shop’s small office and the worn-out desk sitting inside.
“Yeah, sure.” A feeling of dread overwhelmed him. Something isn’t right here… He turned back to Howard. “You coming?”
A wry smile met his question. “Hell, no. Could be blackmail pictures of you and your boyfriends, or some other shit I don’t want to know about!”
Duo screwed on a saucy grin. “Your loss, old man. I’d think someone as dateless as you might like a few pointers, though.”
Howard laughed and waved him away. Duo entered the office, closing the door behind him. He put the disc in the drive, curious and apprehensive all at once. A single icon popped up in the window, labeled “Buried Treasure”. Duo clicked it and settled back into Howard’s chair, watching as a movie-viewing program started up with the file.
The screen was blank for a moment. A wave of static righted itself into a picture of a plain white wall. Without preamble, a slight, blonde-haired figure was thrown into the frame, where he landed with a sickening thud. His arms were bound behind his back and bruises and cuts littered his noble face.
Duo felt his blood turn to ice and his hands begin to shake.
A hand reached out to slap his friend in the face. “Open your eyes, Mr. Winner,” a voice bit out harshly. He tried to do as he was told, but even opened his eyes remained unfocused and cloudy, awash in a sedative-induced haze. He blinked slowly before drifting off again, his head slumping forward.
From off-screen a pitcher of ice water was thrown in Quatre’s face. He spluttered and gasped, his eyes coming fully open and, finally, taking everything in. Panting, he struggled against his bonds, eyes focusing on his captor.
“You needn’t bother,” said the voice again.
“What do you want from me?” Quatre demanded in the best “Mr. Winner” voice he could muster.
Duo could almost hear the man smile. “Nothing you can give me, Mr. Winner, only that which I can take.”
“I don’t understand,” Duo saw his friend reply.
“You will, Mr. Winner, you will.” With that a hypodermic needle was plunged into his arm. He hissed once before his eyes rolled back and his head lolled again in unconsciousness.
Static rode through the frame again. Duo was shivering now, fighting the urge to lose his lunch when the wall came back into focus and another figure fell into the camera’s cold eye. His black hair was falling out of its tie and into his face, and he was bound at both the arms and the legs. His face was even more bruised than Quatre’s, and he propped himself up on his elbows to glare at his attacker.
“Coward!” Wufei hissed at the man off screen.
“Temper, temper, Mr. Chang. It’s your own fault you’re here, you know.”
“What do you want?”
“Well, it’s like I told Mr. Winner, Mr. Chang. I want nothing you can give me, only that which I can take.”
“Mr. Winner? Quatre!? Where is he?”
“You’re in no position to make demands, Mr. Chang. Now look into the camera.”
“Fuck you.”
The arm reached out to slap him, then gripped him by the jaw to hold his face still. “Look into the camera, Mr. Chang, so the entire world can know it’s really you.”
Wufei glared at the lens for a second before wrenching his face away from the attacker’s grip. “Fuck you,” he repeated.
The needle entered his arm with brutal force. “You’ve got a potty mouth, Mr. Chang,” the voice mocked.
Duo’s blood was no longer ice, he realized. It was now at a full rolling boil. “You picked the wrong people to fuck with, pal,” he muttered. “Shinigami protects his own.”
The voice he had grown to loathe over the last few moments came on again over a shot of his friends, their battered, unconscious forms slumped together in what looked like a tiger cage. “I have both of their lives in my hands, but I would gladly trade them for yours, Mr. Maxwell. Or should I call you Shinigami? No, I suppose you don’t use that silly old nickname much anymore, do you? You know, I think it would be fun to make a little game of this, don’t you? Be at these coordinates on Earth within thirty-six hours of the receipt of this package. When you arrive, go to the fifteenth tower, across from the Castle of Smoke. There you will find my instructions as to what to do next. Tell no one you are coming. If I see any hint of the authorities, I’ll kill them both without a moment’s thought. Is that clear?” The voice paused, as if waiting for an answer. “See you soon, Mr. Maxwell,” it concluded. The coordinates flashed on the screen for a moment and then vanished, and the video finally, mercifully, stopped.
Duo ejected the disc with a growl, stuffing it into his pocket as he pulled on his coat. Grabbing his backpack from its customary place on the floor, he nearly tore the door off its hinges as he left Howard’s office. His mentor turned, glaring and ready to scold him, but was stopped dead in his tracks by the set of his jaw.
“Duo…?”
“When did this arrive?” Duo demanded, the disc removed from his pocket and gripped tightly in his fingers.
“Just a few minutes ago, why?” Howard’s tone was soft and serious.
“I need your fastest shuttle, Howard, and I need it now.”
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