The sparsely lit room was clouded with thick cigar smoke. The baccarat table was covered with cards and chips; one side of the table held a considerably larger amount than the other. An elderly, gray-haired man with sideburns and dressed in a pompous militaristic uniform, blew out another heavy smoke cloud of his Cohiba. He put the cigar on the ashtray next to him and reclined in his chair, sliding over the smooth, dark red velvet covering.
"Well, Lowe, are you going to cough up, or what?" He smiled falsely, showing his yellow, decaying teeth.
His young opponent with tousled, chocolate colored hair and blue eyes, dressed in an impeccable smoking jacket, didn't hesitate. A few cards flung over the table. The elder man blinked with his eyes, as the movement was almost too fast to notice.
"Duke Dermail," the young man drawled, using the spatula to slide under the cards, "all in due time. And I severely doubt I'm the one coughing up."
He flipped the cards over and the expression on Dermail's face changed accordingly. When noting the distressed look, the two younger servants who'd spend the whole evening standing immobile at the windows and were also dressed in militaristic uniforms, moved forwards, hands sneaking to their backs.
Dermail put up his hand, a silent sign to back off.
"You have nerves of steel, young man."
"That's necessary in my line of business. Now, have you considered my proposition yet, or not?"
"Straight to the point. That's what I like about you, Lowe."
"If I recall correctly, you were about to have my head if you didn't order those goons to stop. Make up your mind, Dermail."
The man narrowed his eyes. He insisted being addressed as a Duke, while he certainly didn't hold the official title. The cards flipped over again.
"Bank," he murmured, eying his hand set. "Tricky, Mister Lowe."
Back to 'mister', I see. The young man put his hands on the top deck. "I want answers, Dermail. I don't want my goods to go sour."
"I doubt it. Why the hurry? There won't be many other bidders."
"You're not the only one interested. Just tell me if you want the conductors or not."
Dermail put his cards down on the table, placing them on the green cloth. The young man's real purpose eluded him- Odin Lowe had approached him rather out of the blue with an offer he practically couldn't refuse, but the elder mans natural suspicion kept him from wrapping the transfer up. He knew there was something more behind this 'too good to be true' offer; he was too long in the business to fall for it.
"I bet that I'll have perfect baccarat in my next round. When I do, you will tell me everything about the load of microchips you have been hiding in your goods."
"I'm a perfectly innocent trader in luxury textiles, Mister Lowe," Dermail answered, but he didn't deny the accusation. "What if you don't reach baccarat?"
"Then I'll tell you who I really am."
"Very well. Your conditions are accepted."
"Perfect." He drew a card and flipped it over on the table. Ace of spades.
"Baccarat."
"Impossible!" Duke Dermail rose from his chair, and the two younger servants immediately jumped at the young man, drawing guns. He moved like the wind, taking out the faster left one with a swift blow to the chin. The second proved to be a bit tougher, though he didn't put up much of a fight. He leant on the table for support to put extra strength in his kick. He had to move fast, before Dermail would leave the room. He disposed of the second servant, picked up the gun he dropped and with a few steps backed up on the elder man, who was trying to open the door.
"Don't move, Dermail!"
"You're not who you supposed to be," Dermail said, looking frantically around. His servants were out and from the looks of it, not likely to wake up for a time to come. His mind worked at top speed.
"Don't try to sweet talk your way out of this, I'm immune, I assure you. Cough up the information, Duke. The microchips?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I deal in so much bulk goods, I can't keep track with all of it! Talk to my administrators, they can tell you."
He didn't sway with the gun. "You can't tell me that you weren't aware of gundanium microchips hidden in your latest textile shipment from Earth. Bad excuse, Dermail. Now, cough it up!"
The man started to sweat. He was paralyzed by the fierce glare of the young man, holding him into place, nailing him to the ground. "I... I wasn't aware."
"Why are you smuggling those chips? I don't have to remind you that trade in gundanium chips is prohibited, now do I? You face twenty years for one chip alone- and you had two thousand of them!"
"I...I don't know!"
"You became greedy, didn't you, Duke? Your lifestyle, your expenses couldn't be covered with the profits of your business. The nice fantasy world you've built started to crumble without proper funding, so you decided to smuggle gundanium chips. Very profitable, but also very dangerous. Why only one, when you can smuggle two thousand at the same time? Tell me, Dermail, what made you do it?"
He pressed the gun to the man's neck, almost disgusted by the large beads of sweat rolling down the skin there.
"You don't know what you're doing. If they find out, they'll kill us!"
"I haven't heard that one before," the young man snorted, obviously not impressed. "You know we can offer protection, even though I don't know why we should even bother. Nobody wants a repeat of the Eve Wars and people like you are clearly steering towards another conflict with your stupid chips! Who's your contractor, your boss?"
"Please! You can't make me tell it! I admit I did it for the money. I wanted the money; yes, I was greedy. Satisfied? You could never protect me. Not from them!"
"Tell me first who 'them' is, then we'll talk," the young man continued. "You're not in the position for negotiations, Dermail. I would tell before something happens."
"They'll find out. Chang will find out. You don't want to mess with Chang, or you'll die in an instant."
"Who's this Chang? Why do you work-" His sentence was cut off when a bullet went through the glass, hitting Dermail straight between the eyes. The man slumped to the ground, but the younger one had already jumped away and rolled over the floor, weapon aimed at the window. There was no one in sight. He stood up and carefully tiptoed over to the window, looking outside. He immediately spotted two, three places where the sniper could've fired from. He went back to the table and quickly checked it. The transmitter was in the handle of the spatula and he cursed. It was out of his control; he hadn't been able to sweep the room for bugs before he accepted Dermails invitation for the game of baccarat.
His only source of information was killed in front of his eyes and he quickly put the gun away, sight averted from the body close to the door. The two servants would wake up sometime and he didn't want to be around when they found their boss with a bullet between the eyes.
Saturday morning found Heero Yuy crooning over his Bentley 2500 GTR 1967. A perfect car in perfect condition. He adored old cars, preferably from Before Colony time- he restored them himself, finding relaxation in tinkering with the mechanics. He could use some time off after his debacle with Duke Dermail. "Odin Lowe" retreated back into the paper, made-up world he came from and Heero Yuy could finally relax to get everything straight. He waxed the authentic wooden dashboard and put on the radio. He lowered the volume he already knew the news: the usual revolt in L2, strikes and violence in L3, undignified and disdainful comments from L4 and some more reprimands from L1, the only space colony walking in line.
Heero shook his head. He was glad to be a 'simple' secret agent- and not Queen of the World, Relena Peacecraft. A strong, powerful woman who assumed office after the death of her appraised father, a victim of a terrorist attack. Relena wasn't the one to bow for terrorists and threats. Heero had declined her request to become her bodyguard: first of all, he didn't like the exposure and even though he loved Relena dearly, he didn't think that 24/7 in her presence would do their friendship very good. He often snickered at the thought that the blonde girl with her childhood infatuation with him from high school would turn out to be such a strong, generous and righteous woman with a soft spot for him still in her heart.
She maintained the fragile relations between Earth and the colonies, a position no one in particular was jealous of. Ever since the construction of the space colonies, once seen as the solution for the overpopulation on Earth, there were quarrels, fights and revolts, mostly due to discordance between the local government and the population. The colonists had faced very severe and tough circumstances before they could benefit from life in outer space- and not soon after, the quarrels on Earth passed on to the colonies.
"All we did was create a second Earth in space," Heero mused. There was work enough for him as a secret agent as new factions and dangerous alliances were discovered everyday. Two engrossing wars had been fought between Earth and the colonies, resulting in the development and use of mobile suits; huge robotic weapons of mass destructions, symbolized by five Gundams: one for each and every colony cluster. Finally, after the second war -the infamous Eve War - , the people of Earth and the colonies came to a fragile, preliminary accordance; the Gundams were destroyed; armament and military equipment and armies brought back to a minimum, and Relena Peacecraft installed a government with a strict and sovereign rule.
Still, people were confused, disappointed, or just plain malevolent. Duke Dermail wasn't the first or only person to smuggle gundanium chips. Those chips could be used for a lot of things- bad things. Nowadays the use of mobile suits was accepted in a severely restricted, only government approved way- there was no way a group of rebels could get a hold on mobile suits. However, with two thousand gundanium chips they would be well on their way. They could construct a guidance system with it, and figure out from blueprints - original Gundam blueprints were kept in a fortified vault - or any other mechanical design how to manufacture the suits themselves. Heero frowned. Even though he was supposed to relax and get some rest, his mind was automatically drawn towards the case- he didn't mind much, though; his work was his life.
Chang...Dermail had mentioned the name Chang. That certainly didn't narrow down his investigation, even though his boss, Lady Une, hadn't decided yet that he would follow up on this case. His initial mission, to toggle information out of Dermail, ended with the death of the man, and he hadn't given much out before he died. Heero didn't know which secret agent would be investigating the Chang guy. Maybe they were in luck and there wouldn't be that many Changs known in those circles. What would an organization do with two thousand gundanium chips? Hold onto them for further distribution? No matter what, the organization had to be well financed- as one chip was worth half a million Earth credit on the black market.
The last outbreak of violence was on the L5 colony, who suffered ultimately with the highest price of all- self detonation, indirectly setting off the Eve War. Heero still couldn't fathom the mind of the people to blow up their colony rather than facing an Earth governmental structure. His conscience told him that there was something else behind it- there had to be, to make such a grave decision.
He finished polishing the dashboard and went inside his luxurious apartment. He had sparse free time and not that much money to spend, but he had inherited some wealth from his adopted father and mentor, Odin Lowe, which enabled him at least to pursue his hobby of the old cars. Heero used the name of his adoptive father only in cover operations and he was careful with it. No one was to find out that Odin Lowe truly was 001, Yuy, Heero Yuy.
The risks he daily took in his missions, endangering himself for the benefit of mankind, didn't faze him that much. He sometimes regretted that his life was so empty, but he didn't value friends that much; he only expected to be stabbed in the back. His shell was merely imposed on him by his father, and Heero knew that but refused to see it; the man was his hero and he didn't want to hear anything about it. He went into his study, acknowledging the pile of books he still had to read when he freed up the time to do so; books on the Japanese samurai fighting styles, cooking and culture, exposing his own Japanese roots. He only knew some basic words of the language; he was one of the many war orphans with hardly any background information, let alone traceable information. He had been lucky to be adopted and picked up by Lowe; there were so many more orphans in dire need.
Heero sat in front of his computer and turned on the monitor. He checked his email and browsed some sites, when he heard the doorbell. Cautiously, he proceeded towards the door, gun tucked in his waistband, out of sight, but not out of reach. He saw pretty soon that it was a royal messenger. News from Headquarters.
He opened the door and accepted the flat envelope, signed for it and closed the door again. In the small hallway, he opened the envelope and took out another envelope, very heavy even though it contained only one sheet. The mauve sheet read "Report immediately."
Heero didn't hesitate for a second and went to his bedroom, to dress himself in a new suit, impeccable as always.
He really hated the elevator music and cursed for the umpteenth time the fact that his boss' quarters were on the highest floor. The doors opened and Heero stepped out in the marbled hallway with the two ferns. He made his way to the office of Lady Une's secretary, Lucrezia Noin. He heard voices, one female and one tenor male as he went around the corner.
"Nice to see you again, 006. Everything all right after that nasty fall?"
"001, mister Picture Perfect. So nice of you to think of the lesser man."
Heero smirked. He really didn't want to get on the man's bad side, but sometimes it was too easy not to pass on the occasion to taunt the lesser secret agents. Une's secretary, Lucrezia Noin, was glaring daggers at him. He wasn't really impressed with her glare. It was widely known that she was madly infatuated with agent 006, Zechs Marquise, who had a good record, but not that good.
Heero couldn't count the rumors about Marquise getting fired any second now; the cases he worked on were always closed with a minimum of success and Marquise always seemed to benefit from his missions somehow, using his contact persons and merchants for his own good. Heero respected the man, but didn't like him necessarily and he certainly didn't like the way Noin was slobbering all over him. She was dressed in a blue deux-piece and looking stern and all secretarial like, but couldn't hide her flushed cheeks. He decided not to pick on her and said: "I got the message to report to Lady Une, as soon as possible." He threw a little smug smirk in Zechs' direction.
Of course he didn't mind that he had to interrupt his vacation. Time off was a waste of time. He prided himself in not needing time to relax or to get things off his mind; Heero was the kind of agent that used old cases and their solutions to pass his time and to improve himself, seeing and deducing if he could've solved the case in question any other way. He was the most successful secret agent in Her Majesty's, Relena Peacecraft, Service and he knew it.
Lucrezia dialed Lady Une's office, listened shortly, and nodded her head before looking up.
"You can go right in," she said.
"Thank you, Lucrezia," he answered and went through the double doors. The red light over his head went on immediately. When he closed the door behind him, he was very surprised to find the Queen of the World, Relena Peacecraft herself, sitting at the desk with Lady Une, as if they were two best friends chatting on trivial things.
He went to her, took her hand and gave her a polite kiss.
"Relena, what a... pleasant surprise! How have you been?"
"Too busy, too much, too everything," she sighed, but smiled nonetheless. "You're looking great, Heero."
He was glad to see her smile. Her childhood infatuation with him had returned full force when they were graduating and their ways were about to separate; and then took a turn for the worse when he had to tell her that he didn't feel for her that way. Relena was mature enough to not let it ruin their friendship; she valued the friendship more than a frivolous infatuation. Still, it had taken her precious time to overcome the personal crisis- her pretty protective childhood and her deep rooted belief and conviction that she and Heero would end up married being shattered making it difficult for her to deal with it.
"It's great to see you again."
Lady Une was a whole different matter. Strictly business, stiff in a suit, sitting up straight in her chair, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose and chestnut brown hair tied up in a bun.
"Take a seat, 001." Quit the small talk.
Heero took a seat, anxiously looking from one at the other. Relena wasn't dressed in official attire; she wore a lavender colored skirt and a white mauve vest, giving her a young, girlish look, reminding him that they were both young, but looked so much older because of their obligations.
"May I ask you why you're here, Relena?"
She smiled again. "We'll talk after the briefing." Big business. Heero shifted in his chair, anxiety rising. These were the kind of cases he was living for, as even Relena came out of her office to assist Une. He saw the familiar black files with the red stars on Une's desk- top secret. His ears started to tingle.
"Heero," Une addressed him, quite familiar. Heero leaned forward so as not to miss a single word. Something big was coming up, he felt it. She crossed her fingers and looked at him over the rim of her glasses. "We think we've got a lead in the Dermail - gundanium microchips case and we want you to pursue it."
Yes! He carefully schooled his expression in a neutral manner. Une untangled her fingers and touched the files, breaking the seal and opening it. She folded it open, turned it around and shoved it over the desk towards Heero.
"The Chang Dermail mentioned, could possibly be this Chang," she said and her words urged him to look at the file.
"Who found this information?"
"Through the years, we managed to establish a nice network in different colonies concerning the microchip trade," Une said and leaned back in her chair. "It turns out that some of our agents also picked up on the smuggling trail, concentrating on L2."
"Figures. L2 has always denounced the rule and government of the Earth Sphere United Nations."
Relena spoke up. "L2 has always been the underdog in the wars, always the center of retaliation and rebuttal. L2 has always proved to be the most stubborn colony of all the colony clusters, and no matter how much we tried, it was always in vain."
Heero picked up the tone of pain in her voice. It was on L2 that her father was killed- killed by a group of extremists protesting against the collaboration of the L2 government with the ESUN government.
"I don't know why they oppose so badly to any government rules and regulations," he said, picking up the photographs and leafing through them. "They have to realize that they can't govern themselves."
Relena looked pained. "L2 just doesn't want any kind of government. Not too strange, since the current government isn't capable of finding a needle in a haystack. It's because of their lack of a backbone the people still are hungry and in need of basic life support. No wonder they are revolting. We need to install a strong, strict government there- the colonists now think that things will be all right when they take matters into own hand. They refuse to listen to anything or anyone on the upper hand."
"The colonists blame it on the two wars, claiming that nothing has benefited them and things only took a turn for the worse." Une shook her head. "They don't want to follow L1's example, or listen to L4. Thank God they don't have the armament of L3, or we would have two very explosive situations."
"L2 is on its way to establish its own firepower, Heero. They want to wage a war, no matter what, and they want to bring back mobile suits to fight with. This most be stopped."
Relena had brought back the path of total pacifism in the world, but had to yield to the pressure of her ministry and government to at least allow some weapons and military installments for defense. Relena knew that her ideal of total pacifism was a utopia, but it didn't take her absolute horror of weapons away. First witness to the death of her father, growing up in two wars and dealing with the heritage of those wars, made her an avid anti-weapon lobbyist. Relena was often in danger thereof, but she refused to give in to the threat of weapons. She only relented in allowing a few mobile suits to remain on Earth, if only to remind people of the horror they caused. She was horrified of the Gundams and oversaw personally their destruction; sealed in a rock and slung into orbit, towards the hot, melting sun.
She clenched her fist. Une cleared her throat.
"We believe that someone is trying to manufacture the Gundams again. Those chips are more than likely to be used for their resurrection. Here, take a look at this."
Heero took the papers she gave him and scanned them. "Why wasn't I informed of this?"
"We had trouble piecing the puzzle together," Une addressed him sharply. "We didn't figure out the connection until we were thoroughly aware of the magnitude of Dermail's gundanium chip smuggling operation."
"Who would steal the blueprints of the original Gundams? Who would be able to steal those anyway?"
"It's up to you to find out who's responsible and who has paid for it, and more importantly - who holds those blueprints now. The last thing we need is another war, with new mobile suits and more bloodshed."
She tapped on the table top. Heero used the fallen silence to study the photograph.
It was a pretty sharp picture of two people. The Chinese young man on the left - Chang, no doubt- looked terse, rigid, and was clad in traditional white garb. His tank top was dark blue, and Heero could make out the rich embroidered dragon. He recognized the pattern.
"The Chang clan? I thought they were extinct, with the L5 colony blown up and all?"
"He's the last one," Une said, fingers rubbing together. "The last and sole survivor of the self destruction. He was sent off before they blew the colony up."
"And certainly one to hold a grudge against the Earth government," Relena said, albeit softly, as if she didn't want to be overheard.
"And who's this?" Heero tapped on the picture, on the other young man on the right. He first thought it was a woman, seeing the picture that was taken from an angle that obscured the greatest part of his face. From his posture and stance, Heero was almost certain it was a man. He was clad in black, with white sleeves and a white collar, like a priest garb. He wore a black cap that hid most of his eyes, but Heero could see the chestnut bangs peeking under it and the long brown braid. He had a wrench in his hand, as if he was a mechanic of some kind.
"No one. Unidentified bystander. I can have Identification look into it, but he doesn't seem important. Keep your attention focused on Chang."
Heero studied the background. It looked like a garage, so the man on the right could well be the mechanic repairing Chang's car. He snorted.
"When was this picture taken?"
"Three days ago, on L2, but he has long since left," Une said. "Chang came there with false papers. He was recognized by Ventei who risked a great deal taking the picture."
020, Heero's mind supplied. Ventei might be a stuck-up elder agent but he knew at least how to do some work, unlike Zechs. That man waved with every wind, as long as it pleased him.
"False papers?"
"Ventei managed to get that close to have a look at them. He was in good luck that day- and he didn't need a magnifying glass to see the exclusivity of those fake papers. They were extremely good."
"That's all we need," Heero muttered. "Well-funded terrorists."
Relena nodded. "It was to be expected, if they could buy two thousand chips of the market without batting an eye."
"Only Winner could pull that kind of stunt off," Heero said. Une, who just lifted up her cup of tea to take a sip, could barely refrain from spitting it out and Relena paled.
"Heero!"
"Yuy!"
He looked up from the photograph. "I wasn't insinuating that Winner has something to do with this," he said, almost bored. "I was only mentioning that he's as good as the only one who could cough up so much money to pay for two thousand chips in an instant."
"You're right, purely theoretically," Une confirmed. Relena winced.
"Heero, the reason I'm here is that I want to ask you for complete discretion," she said. "Dermails granddaughter, Dorothy Catalonia, is a close friend of mine and though she might be stubborn and obnoxious, she still holds a precious position. She wasn't aware of her grandfather's...extracurricular activities, though I never know with her..."
"It's a touchy subject," Heero supplied her. She sighed.
"And if Winner really is behind the financing of the rebels..."
"Quatre Raberba Winner lost his father in a rebel revolt, blowing up a resource satellite and almost hurling the colony past the LaGrange point into orbit. May I remind you that his eldest sister also died in that accident and that he barely survived? His spaceship suffered from the blow of the satellite and it's a miracle that he is still alive. Take my word, Heero, that Quatre Winner would be the last person on Earth and in space to finance the rebels!"
"He has associated himself with the Barton Foundation lately," Heero remarked, recalling this from the latest news reports.
"Trowa Barton is unaffiliated with this Foundation, spending his time searching for his sister, from who he was dramatically separated after his parents were killed in a car accident, also caused by rebels. I don't think that he would have to do anything with the rebels, either."
"The activities of the Barton Foundation are shady at minimum and they don't even deny their involvements in the Eve War. You know very well, Lady Une, Relena, that they have several deep ties in the war machinery. All we know from Barton is that he has a mercenary past- and Winner could well be traumatized by the events at young age. I'm sorry, but until I see steadfast proof, I'm inclined to believe what I think for myself. Human behavior doesn't surprise me, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see the people I don't expect it from, turn around and do the total opposite."
"Still the analyzer, aren't you, Heero?" There was a sad tone in Relena's voice, but he chose to ignore her.
"I was just theorizing," he said. "For all we know, Winner is a very successful business man with his multimillion resource satellites and mining operations, and Barton...well, let's say he's a business man as well."
"Enough," Une intervened, "you're well trained enough to know not to speculate without satisfactory proofed facts in hand. I don't think that either Winner or Barton have anything to do with it, but if they do, then we need to be cautious. We don't need another outbreak on political level as well."
"The damage Winner could cause would be enormous," Heero continued. "If he decides to close down his mining operations, millions of people will be out of work."
"That's why we keep a close eye on him, Yuy. You know that we don't want monopoly forming on the colonies or on Earth. As far as we know, Winner doesn't show any political involvement in either group."
"I've met him a few times, he seems to me a very compassionate person, not one to associate himself with rebel factions," Relena admonished.
"As I've said before Relena, I don't see why people can't change or why they can't pose themselves as someone they really aren't."
"It must be hard living with all that mistrust," she said and flung herself out of the chair, brusquely stalking out of the office.
"You have the great luck of being a personal friend of the Queen herself," Une snapped, waving with the black files, "to get away with half the things you've said here. Take these. Operation 'Zero System', and make sure you bring it to a good end. God help us all when there are so many parties involved. Now get out of here."
Heero picked up the files and bowed politely to Une, but she'd already dismissed him and looked at another stack of files on her desk.