Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Devil's Due ❯ - 05 - ( Chapter 5 )

— 05 —

October 15, A.C. 204. Lower Angels. 4:45pm

Jordan sighed as he read through a report. He was sitting on the little couch with his legs propped on the far arm...and Xane was under them. For a long while the guy had just been messing with his pant-leg, but Jordan'd distracted him with a request form–so his legs were also being used as a desk, but it was comfortable enough.

The day was going by smoothly, and though he really didn't want to admit it, the summary sheets seemed to cover most of the information necessary...he'd read through two of them on his own when his second had been off running around with Chance.

Anyway, all the reports that needed to be done for the day were done, and he'd put the information into the computer, too. He was reading the report in case someone else showed up that'd need his authorization. That, and the fact that he hadn't even done half as much work as normal was bothering him.

"Were you worried about me?" Xane asked curiously.

Jordan started, looking to his second in confusion since they'd been sitting in silence for at least an hour. "What?"

"When I was out," Xane returned, shoving his legs off the edge of the couch. "Were you worried about me?"

"Not as much as Judas, but your end wasn't as openly dangerous as his."

"But you were?"

Jordan raised an eyebrow slightly. "I suppose so...yeah."

Xane smiled at him, standing and stretching. "You done with that one?"

"Just about," Jordan returned, considering the last page of the document.

"I'm gonna get us drinks," Xane informed him, "then we need to head back." He glanced at his watch.

Jordan looked to his own and blinked, realizing it was already going on five.

"Hey, you about ready?" Chance demanded, shoving into the office unceremoniously and blinking at Xane.

Jordan gave him a flat, unfriendly, stare and then looked back to the report.

Xane gave Chance an annoyed sort of look and shoved his superior from the room in front of him. "He's gonna finish that one and I'm gonna pull him out of here," the green-eyed male explained. "If we both keep on him about getting home on time he'll feel like he's being scolded. I'm here, I've got it."

"I just was making sure, I forgot you were here," Chance shrugged. "Aren't you tired?"

"About exhausted," the guy shrugged. "I'm gonna go home and sleep until dawn, then figure out some way to hurt myself bad enough they'll give me Remalene so I can get rid of this mop," he tugged at his blond hair.

Chance considered that and nodded, moving around the guy toward the office.

"Don't pester," Xane protested.

"Go about your business, Featihl," the Japanese male reprimanded.

Xane gave him a look, then darted down the hall with a salute.

Chance moved back into the office, smiling at his friend.

"I know I need to finish," Jor retorted to the words he assumed were coming.

"Actually, it was about the Remalene," Chance retorted, moving to lean against the corner of the desk. "If you go talk to Morris and keep it quiet, he can give it to Mouthy. It'd be a low dosage, but...the thing would be the intensive."

"You think so?"

"It'd be a valid reason...changes of appearances for spies...seems to be in the job description, and even the most self-sufficient guy can't get his hair to grow six inches in three days."

Jordan grinned at that, thinking. "I'll...I'll see, do you mind? My second is bound and determined to get me out of here on the stroke of five, so I want to finish this," he moved the papers.

"Oh, fine," Chance retorted. "I'm going to pick up Shin...like now...so if you're not on base by the time I get there..."

"You'll what?" Jor retorted, meeting his eyes. "We haven't went head to head in a while, you sure you want to threaten me?"

Chance flashed him a wicked grin as he stopped in the door. "We aren't trying to work together. You're in charge of this part, I organize donations...we don't have to be muzzled when we both have our own bowls...be home."

Jor gave him a look, but he pretended it hadn't happened and walked off...which made Jor grin.

He really liked Chance...he could be so refreshingly annoying sometimes...

- -

October 16, A.C. 204. Berlin, Germany. 2am

Judas moved tiredly into his crap room in his crap apartment in a broken and worn down part of Berlin. It was two in the morning, and he still had to stay up another hour and a half so he could check in with Jor. He wasn't so tired that he had to crash immediately, but he was just about done for the day...it was one of the only problems about the group he ran around with anymore. They stayed up until one or two nightly before going home.

The man dropped on his bed, since it was a studio apartment, and studied his vid. Jordan was serious about calling via vid at least once a month. Other than that he'd leave it to his cell. Judas still had about two weeks for the visual, but he wanted to see his superior. He missed his family unit and his friends at the base. It made it harder to mesh in seamlessly with the damned drug-lords...plus Jordan had been about freaking out when he'd been late on his last call in.

Considering that he hadn't thought he was very tired, he was glad he'd set his cell to beep at three-thirty. He blinked as he woke back up, turning the alarm off before standing and looking around the room.

"Hey, you're on time for once," Mouthy teased.

"What are you doing back?" Judas retorted, blinking at him.

"You look like shit, what time is it there? Three-thirty? You goin' soft on me?"

Judas gave him a look.

"Xane," Jordan protested, shoving the guy away and studying his man over. "You do look bad."

"We stay up until two most of the time," Judas shrugged. "I have to get up again at eight."

"Six hours is nothing," Xane noted half-excitedly.

"Just because you haven't gotten six hours in thirty three," Jor noted pointedly. He focused back on the screen. "And?"

"I met up with Brantley tonight," Judas returned promptly. "He seemed to like me well enough. He told Vigor and Orson to bring me back tomorrow."

"Are you all right?" Jordan returned, studying him seriously.

"I'm fine," Judas reassured him. "I'll crash when we're done...I fell asleep, but had my alarm set."

"Under what title?"

"Bed time," Judas shrugged slightly.

"All right," Jordan returned. "Any trouble and call me immediately. The resources are available."

"Sir," Judas nodded respectfully.

"So how are you?" Jordan added as Xane moved into his arms tiredly. "What's going on?"

"Same shit," Judas shrugged slightly, "different bird."

- -

October 16, A.C. 204. Base. 9am

"Oi, Chang," Paris moved quickly to check up with Wufei and Morgan. "You want me to do this, too?" he offered them a notebook.

"If you want," Wufei returned, grinning at him. "Good morning."

"Morning," Paris muttered, opening the thing to read down the information sheet Morgan had made up. "You might want to get about twenty more of these," he added, glancing at them.

"What? Why?" Morgan gave him a confused look.

"You didn't overly impress anyone with your speech," Paris grinned at them, "but Calvin noted you were sincerely trying to help, and that they didn't have to go in for testing...just about everyone in the building decided to go for it."

Morgan and Wufei exchanged a look–they were happy, sure, but it also meant that they had to read that many notebooks.

"What?" Paris teased, flashing them a wicked grin. "Did you honestly think your trying to help would come to not?"

"I didn't think everyone would want one," Morgan admitted nervously. "I thought there'd be a pile there for a long while."

"They're gone," Paris shrugged. "I only got one because Gina grabbed it for me. It took until about eight last night for people to start asking how to get ahold of you."

Wufei looked to Morgan again, and Morgan gave him a nervous look.

"Ooh, what did you do?" Paris asked happily...before passing the information sheet to Wufei with another wicked grin.

Wufei's home-line was the one listed for a contact.

He stopped.

Paris laughed happily. "We're a considerate lot, us empaths," he noted. "They won't have started calling until...an hour ago," he glanced at his watch. "If you hurry, you might only have nine or ten messages."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Wufei accused. "Why didn't you call me?"

Paris laughed again and shrugged. "I honestly didn't think about it until about...two seconds before I saw you."

"Oh, geeze," Morgan ran a hand down his face, then shrugged. "Not my house."

"You're the genius with the notebooks," Wufei retorted. "You're reading more of them than I am."

"Such an early time in the relationship to start bickering," Paris posed dramatically with his hands over his heart, then started laughing happily. "Chai's for supper, right?"

"Yeah," Wufei agreed sullenly. "See you then."

"Chai's gonna go shopping," Paris noted, stopping before he actually moved. "I'm gonna see if I can go along–if she minds, you know? Maybe you guys can come?"

"I'll call her after a while," Wufei noted, then sighed and looked back to his second.

"Yeah, I'll get food," Morgan sighed as well, then waved at Paris and headed for the canteen–he and Wufei had been going there anyway.

"I'll be sure she knows you're interested," Paris noted to Wufei. "Sorry I didn't think to call you before the messages started."

"It's fine, you didn't mean wrong," Wufei dismissed his guilt, then sighed and turned back toward his car.

Paris watched him a moment, then smiled and headed into the canteen himself.

- -

October 16, A.C. 204. Berlin, Germany. 4pm

Raul moved onto his plane, looking the airport over behind himself, then shook his head. Of all things to be stricter than hell, airport security was one of them. They were vigorous in keeping the inconvenient away from the plains. One delay in the middle of a German airport would have ripples across at least Europe, if not the whole world.

Raul didn't want to leave Judas alone in the gutter, but Xane had dyed his hair, meaning he had to grow it out, and someone had to be in Thailand.

That aside, his aim in Berlin wasn't even striking near to home for the dealers. Jordan's resources in the city were fine and capable, but they didn't like some guy waltzing in out of nowhere without forewarning. They'd assigned a few people to work with Raul, but he more or less had to figure the information out himself, because their superior, whoever they worked for, hadn't said to render aid. Jordan could have circumvented that by getting their leader onto his side, but he'd noted it wasn't necessary since Jude was on the inside. The resources just had to be ready to save Judas if it came to the wire.

It was something of a relief to be heading on...hopefully the Thai resources were more helpful.

The spy sighed heavily and sat in the window seat of his isle and tucked the bag he'd carried on under the seat in front of him as more people filed into the machine talking with each other in quiet German. He knew German fluently, just like Judas, they'd taken it in high school. He didn't know Thai though...and that would have to be the next thing he worked on.

At least the flight would be good for something, but he wasn't going to get into his book until they were in the air, that way no one who didn't need to see his destination would figure it out.

- -

October 16, A.C. 204. Base. 10am

"All right," Jordan muttered, leaning over and kissing Chai. "I have to go to that meeting now."

"I still think it's poor they scheduled it on a Saturday," Chai noted glumly. "You're supposed to be free on weekends."

"The Mozambique ambassador asked us to come. We can't not go," he shrugged. "I don't know what he wants."

"I know," she reassured him with another sigh and another kiss. "You look good in uniform," she noted, straightening his lapels.

"You look good in anything," he returned the compliment as Quatre moved from his room. "Or in nothing at all," he added in a whisper.

Chai laughed and smacked him, shoving him away.

Jordan smiled at her, then turned to see the end of a roll of the eyes. "What?"

"I didn't say anything," Quatre retorted, making a throwaway gesture at him. "Let's go."

"Yes sir, captain, sir."

Quatre gave him a look.

Jordan grinned, and moved from the house.

- -

October 16, A.C. 204. Base. 11:45am

"If we raised this force," Chance muttered, studying the map of Mozambique, "don't you think it'd be seen as us siding with you?"

The man stared at him.

"Let me try again," Chance suggested, considering briefly. "I understand how stressful it must be to have rebels across your country stirring up trouble on your border. But don't you think if we showed up in force in your country alone people might get nervous? What I mean is, if we enter Mozambique in force, they'll either think we're taking over, or that you're getting us to attack."

"But we don't have the resources to deal with this," the man protested. "We have to have help."

"I can understand that fully," Chance reassured him. "And I do want to help...but we can't be seen as taking sides. If we go into Mozambique, we'll have to go into Tanzania, too."

"Then do it," the man persisted, staring at him in dismay.

"It's not that simple," Wufei said quickly. "We have to get permission from the Tanzanian government before we can take any steps at all. You've said they aren't even admitting there might be a problem...so until open fighting starts ups, we can't really move. They might let us in on good faith, but that's up to chance."

The man frowned, looking down at the table a moment before looking to Chance.

"Besides which," Chance noted, sitting forward again, "the five of us can't do it," he gestured toward his companions.

The man sighed and sat heavily in his chair. "You're supposed to be the Earthsphere Council," he protested, giving Chance a sad sort of look.

"We are," Chance noted, studying him seriously. "But even so, we can't just go show up in one country when they're having problems with another country. There's a balance of fairness we have to uphold. I'll get people talking to the Tanzanian ambassador. We'll do what we can, because open rebellion is bad when the government isn't corrupt. We may be able to get people down there on that note alone...I'll see what I can do, but you can't fully rely on us for this."

"That's as it should be," the man admitted, looking slightly relieved as he offered is hand. They shook, and he made his way around the table, thanking them all personally for coming and apologizing that it had to be set up on a day they weren't on technical duty.

"Have a good day," Chance added as he followed Jordan from the room. Trowa and Wufei had led the way out. Quatre had hesitated a moment until he realized Jordan was behind him, then they all moved into the hall.

They were all giving Quatre curious looks.

"He's stressed," Quatre admitted. "I think the high ambassador pushed this off onto him. I'll give you the full rundown when we get back to the house."

"We were going back to the house?" Wufei asked sweetly.

Quatre gave him a look.

"Next question is, which house?" Wufei added, bouncing slightly. "Trowa and I seem to have one, Heero has one..."

"Don't call me that," Chance reprimanded.

Wufei ignored that. "And then you have one with Jordan."

"Considering that I said it, it should be assumed I meant my house," Quatre retorted.

"You have a house?" Jordan teased as they moved into the hall. "Then why are you still living with us?"

Quatre smacked him.

Jordan snickered slightly, then looked to the group main. "Let's just go to my place and get my woman to get us some lunch. We've been neglecting her, and I prefer not to do that when I can help it."