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   Poetry in Motion
~ A Moment of Haven ~
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	"You know what?"

	"Hm?"

	"I just noticed something.  You're right.  These desks do have 
those little keyboard trays."

	"What, did you think I was lying?"

	"And we got those bars under the desk, too.  They make a good 
foot rest."

	"That's nice.  Want to get back to work?"

	"Huh?  Oh, yeah.  Right."  He returned his gaze to the huge 
bulletin board that currently adorned one of the walls in their office.  
It was currently empty, except for the collection of push pins that Duo 
had formed into a happy face in the corner.  Other than that, he found 
the rest of the blank space quite daunting.  "Sorry.  You know how I am 
with getting something started.  I swear I'll be more into things once 
we get going."

	Heero glanced up briefly at him and gave him a small smile.  
"Don't worry about it.  I'm not exactly thrilled by this work either."  
He turned his attention back to the stacks of files in front of him on 
the table they had moved into their office especially for this.  Now 
that he'd at least gotten the paperwork straightened up, and his 
computer set up to keep track of their data, they could get going on 
this project.

	He took a breath, ordered his thoughts, and figured they'd 
better dive right in.  "So what we have are all the suspicious deaths 
the Preventers think might be related," he said in recap.  It was always 
good to start with a well-defined problem.

	"And they want us to see if we can't come up with a) a link 
between victims, or b) a link between the killers," Duo finished, 
proving that he had indeed been paying attention during the initial 
briefing.  "Or hell, anything useful.  They've already scoped out 'a' to 
a decent extent, but they don't know too much about 'b'.  So you wanna 
do both at once, or one at a time, or what?"

	"It would be wise if we were to set aside most, if not all, of 
the conclusions that the Preventers have already come up with."

	"Okay, forget everything they just told us.  Check."

	"We've already spent the last few days familiarizing ourselves 
with a portion of the files.  Anything stick out at you?"

	"Yeah, the blue-ringed octopus comes to mind."

	"I meant patterns."

	"Well, a blue ring is a pattern, right?  Yeah, yeah," he said 
even before Heero could shoot him a withering look.  "I know what you 
meant.  Still, I didn't even know there were poisonous octopi.  You know 
what?  We should hit the aquarium again.  The last time we went was, 
what, two years ago?  That was fun.  When did they say the shark exhibit 
would be open again?"

	Heero accessed his memory files.  "Two months ago, I think."

	"Spiffy.  We should go.  After we're done with this case," he 
added, just to make the decision that much easier for Heero.

	"The sooner we finish the case, the sooner we can go to the 
aquarium."

	Duo rolled his eyes in good humor.  "Alright, already.  I can 
take a hint.  So, patterns...  Hmmm.  A high level of precision in some 
of the hits.  Bullets through the head at a distance and the like.  
Those are probably going to be the professionals."

	"Yes," Heero agreed.  "And we can put them into a tentative 
grouping.  But since we're talking about professionals, the same person 
or persons could be responsible for even the death by octopus.  
Actually, that one would definitely be the work of a professional.  But 
not all professionals will do hits like that.  Some prefer to stick to 
their guns."

	"What put the octopus guy on the radar again?  He worked for 
somewhere or another?"

	"I believe he was an accountant for... Atwood Pharmaceuticals?"  
He flipped idly through some of the reports in a token effort to find 
the report and confirm his memory.  The paperwork would be gone over in 
excruciating detail later.  For now, they were just coming up with a few 
thoughts to help guide them in that process.

	"Pharmaceuticals, huh?  Maybe the guy was stealing the goods 
from the company?  Well, he was an accountant, so maybe it's more likely 
that he noticed the numbers weren't adding up, on the money or the 
supplies, so someone had to get rid of him before he reported it."  He 
leaned across the table for a notebook and a pen.

	Heero slid them over to him.  "Do you want to take notes on the 
laptop?"

	"Nah, I'm more likely to doodle down random thoughts and ideas 
on paper.  Maybe I'll doodle something useful."  He scribbled down the 
name of the company they were discussing, then a few of the illegal 
things that could be produced from items taken from the labs.  As he 
wrote, he continued the discussion.  "So where was the guy?  Australia?"

	"Aa.  Vacation by the sea."

	"Hence, the octopus."  He paused in his note-taking for a moment 
to draw a crude shark in the top corner of the page, for no reason other 
than to remind him that they should visit the aquarium when this was all 
over.  Before he'd finished, he felt Heero's eyes on him, and he looked 
up with a bright smile.  "What?"

	Blue eyes flickered down to the drawing and back up again.

	"I'm taking notes," Duo defended himself cheekily.  "On 
everything."

	"Hn."  There was no disapproval in that sound.

	"Can we break down the hits by region, you think?"

	Heero shook his head.  "Assassins will travel.  It's not good to 
keep all of your work localized to a single area.  It's too easy to 
trace.  Well, if you're a real professional.  If you're more of a common 
hitman, you might just do work for a local mob boss or the like.  Those 
are more likely to be the messier deaths.  Drive-bys, blunt trauma."

	"Obvious hits," Duo mused.  "Can we separate those from, say, 
sniper shots?  Probably.  How about ballistics?"

	"Some assassins will have a moderate number of guns.  Not too 
many, unless they have a secure stash somewhere to hide them all.  
Otherwise, just enough so that all of their hits won't match up to the 
same gun.  It's usually pretty safe, though, since local databases 
aren't routinely run against others.  You're unlikely to be traced 
unless you've been extremely careless somewhere.  A ballistics analysis 
is pretty standard in most investigations, so we should have that data 
readily available for correlation."

	"How many guns did you guys normally tote around?"  It was a 
clever question designed for both research and satisfaction of 
curiosity.  He left it up to Heero to decide which purpose he would 
respond to.

	"Odin had some disposable weaponry, the type that's easy to 
acquire," Heero answered readily.  "But you can't find a good, 
high-powered sniping rifle on a street corner."  He paused in 
remembrance before a small chuckle rose to his lips.  "He called his 
Annie.  I'd forgotten that."

	"He named his gun?"  Duo had never met Odin, but so far, he 
couldn't disagree with Heero's assessment that he probably would have 
liked the assassin.

	"Yeah.  Not all of them.  Just the special ones.  He claimed it 
made it easier for us to talk about them in public, but I think he was 
just a sentimental old man."

	Duo laughed.  "So, what?  If he was gonna snipe someone, it was 
'taking Annie out for a walk'?  That actually is a pretty neat code."

	"Please don't."  He could already see the cogs in Duo's head 
turning as he considered giving proper names to everything.

	Duo just blinked innocently back at him before the thought of 
walking gave him another idea.  "Can we get transportation records from 
the regions, well, probably the colonies or the isolated places like 
Australia would be easiest.  Yeah, the guys are probably using aliases, 
and some of them probably chose to lay low before fleeing the scene of 
the crime, but we might be able to find some pattern or something.  I 
dunno.  Like, a bunch of guys whose names rhyme or something."

	"That's somewhat unprofessional," Heero remarked.  "But I 
suppose not everyone has creativity."  He made a note of the idea.

	"Well, if we're not going to assume anything, you better stop 
assuming that everyone lives up to your standards of professionalism.  
Did you guys come up with something different every time?"

	Heero cocked his head to one side as he thought about it.  "Hmm.  
I'm not certain.  I was instructed to call Odin 'dad' or something to 
that effect most of the time.  And he generally referred to me as 
'Junior', so that's one less name he had to make up."

	"Is that professional?" Duo asked dryly, thinking that, for some 
reason, Heero made a very cute 'Junior'.

	Heero shrugged.  "It's better to keep things simple.  Fewer 
mistakes can be made."

	"Did people really buy that you were his son?  I mean, did you 
two look anything alike?"

	"I took after my mother," he answered primly, masking a smile 
behind his eyes.  "So long as I wasn't telling people he'd kidnapped me, 
who were they to care?"

	"Did he?"  The question fell automatically from Duo's lips 
before he gave them any thought.  When he heard them, he winced.  "I 
mean--"

	Heero shook his head in both negation and dismissal of the 
bluntness.  "I don't know."

	His partner studied him silently for a good long moment.  "You 
don't remember?"

	He could read something of the mild disbelief in Duo's 
expression, and he addressed it with a soft, introspective tone.  "I 
know I remember a lot of things other people wouldn't.  I don't know why 
I don't remember this.  There must have been a time when I did.  Maybe I 
was just too young?  Sometimes, I get... flashes, I guess.  Feelings.  
The faintest hint of familiarity.  They're gone before I can identify 
them.  I don't know how Odin came to have me.  But I don't think he 
always did.  And I never asked."  He leaned back in his chair in 
contemplation.  "Sometimes I think that if it had been something 
violent, surely I would remember it.  But then I remember that it's me 
we're talking about.  It may have been violent, and I may have just 
considered it unremarkable."

	Duo's lips quirked up in a rueful smile.  It would be quite a 
Heero thing for it to have happened that way, but it would also be a 
little bit sad if that were true.

	"What about you?"

	Duo blinked.  "Huh?"

	"Do you remember how you got where you were?"  He made sure the 
question didn't demand an answer.

	Duo tried to shrug it off casually, but it didn't quite work 
that way.  "Not really.  I'm sure I must have remembered in the 
beginning, too.  But when you're out there... scraping by... it's not 
just that other things are more important.  Hanging on just hurts when 
you don't have it anymore.  I don't really know how I was when I first 
ended up there, but I remember other kids when they were fresh from 
their families or the whatnot.  They always had the hardest time of it.  
And then, just to get by, you make yourself not think about it, and then 
one day, you find that you can't even if you try.  It's gone, and you 
don't have anything left to remind you of what you've lost."  He let 
himself dwell on it for a quiet moment more, then quite deliberately 
shuffled a few papers around in distraction.

	In the midst of his hasty busywork, a nudge was felt against his 
boot under the table, and he looked up to catch Heero casting him a 
companionably understanding look.  Heero waited until he got a small, 
appreciative smile and a settling down in response before starting their 
work up again.  "The Preventers believe at least some of these hits to 
be related to one of the L3 crime syndicates.  Their interests lie 
mostly in weapons smuggling, although they have been known to 
counterfeit and launder money on occasion, so we should keep an eye out 
for trends related to that.  They also have a host of lesser hobbies of 
the typical sort.  Drugs, gambling, etc.  Their limited involvement in 
such rings makes it unlikely that they would contract a hit for problems 
in those areas, but not impossible."

	"Didn't they make an effort to corner the African diamond market 
during the war?"

	Heero nodded.  "Yes, but their efforts fell through and the 
project was abandoned.  Since the war, the market has stabilized, so I 
don't think they're likely to be making another bid for it."

	"Alright.  So besides L3, we also suspect some sort of new crime 
network springing up from the northeast coastal region of North America, 
right?"

	"Yes.  It's been a generally chaotic place, but lately too many 
of the smaller gangs have been drying up, with nothing seeming to take 
their place.  Crime in that region over the last year has showed a 
decrease in petty crime and a rise in organized crime."

	"But the Preventers have been unable to identify a new 
organization.  We don't have any leads on what direction they might be 
heading, do we?"

	"No," Heero confirmed.

	Duo thought about some of the reports.  "But they seem a little 
too good to be amateurs, don't they?  You should expect to see them 
starting out in one core business and then branching out, or else making 
a bunch of little false starts whenever they overestimate themselves."

	"Hm.  We can take a look at some of the other statistics from 
the region over the last year.  Maybe local law enforcement just missed 
the signs."

	"And that's what we're here for, isn't it?"  Duo started tapping 
out a quiet beat against his notepad with his pen.  "You know, wasn't 
there a schism in one of the crime families from Central America?"

	"You wonder if they could have seceded and migrated north?  It's 
possible.  We'll look into it."

	Duo's mind was already off on its next topic.  "You know, petty 
hitmen, yeah, but real assassins?  Is tracing them really going to help?  
I mean, the classy guys don't usually do work for the same people all 
the time, right?  And they probably know how not to get caught.  And 
even if they were caught, they probably wouldn't tell, right?"

	The twist of Heero's lips was meant to indicate humor.  "This 
time you're assuming everyone is 'classy'."

	"Well, if that's the case, then how about this?  Can we assume 
that if it was a professional hit, then it wasn't a local hit?"

	Heero mulled that over.  "That seems reasonable.  At least to 
begin with.  Make a note to remind us that it's only an assumption, 
though.  If we get stuck later, we might want to unassume it."

	"You got it."

	It wasn't long before they had brainstormed themselves enough 
ideas for them to get started on the actual analysis.  They went over 
the files separately, each taking notes in their own way and sharing 
pertinent details aloud to the other.  Pieces of files eventually 
started making their way up to the bulletin board as they found clues 
they thought they could build a case around.

	Heero stopped what he was doing for a moment to watch Duo 
studying the whiteboard that adorned another of their walls.  Duo had 
commandeered it to post files on with magnets, and he took advantage of 
that by sliding the pieces around, sometimes drawing lines between them, 
sometimes erasing them.

	After a minute of watching his partner fiddle restlessly with 
the files, Heero came up with another idea.  "You know what you'd like?  
One of those magnetic poetry things."

	It took a moment for Duo to realize he had been spoken to.  
"Huh?  The what?"

	"I can make you one later," Heero answered, gesturing to his 
laptop.  "Maybe tonight.  I'm sure I can get some code for it off the 
net and tweak it to our specifications.  I could set it up with 
different tile sets for each trait from our database, and then you could 
just mix and match and move them around as you please.  We can save the 
configurations.  From there, I'm sure I could cross-link the tiles so 
you could check your relationships between different datasets.  And 
sorting wouldn't be a problem at all, so you don't have to work with the 
entire dataset at once."

	Duo blinked at him, then at the whiteboard he was working with, 
and back again.  "That sounds really... neat.  You sure?"

	"All for the sake of the mission," Heero nodded gravely, the 
twinkle in his eye belying the words.

	"Of course," Duo answered in kind, before breaking out in a 
smile, the sort he reserved especially for Heero.  "Have I told you 
lately how terribly thoughtful you can be?"

	"You can tell me again later."

	"I will."

	They got back to work.



_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
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The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com.  This has 
been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 8/17/2003 23:56:42 PST