"Ready?" Wu Fei's harsh whisper was clearly audible in the narrow space between the cargo bay door and the outer airlock hatch. Duo answered with a grim nod, hands busy checking his weapons again. Ruger on his hip, the 9mm Beretta in the left-hand jacket pocket for emergencies, spare clips in his pants pockets along with a couple of knives.
There'd only been three Kevlar vests in the stores Une had had loaded, and it had gone without saying among the rest of them that one of those was Sally's. Wu Fei had tried to palm another off on Hilde, but she'd given him one of her looks, and Duo'd had to stifle a snort. He could have told Chang she wouldn't take chivalry; probably the only reason Sally had given in without a fight was her pregnancy. At that, she would be following behind the rest of them, setting up a secure post once they made it into the compound.
The other two vests had ended up going to Heero and Trowa, who were in theory taking point; the plan the Changs had worked out involved splitting into pairs and attempting to cover as much of the main building as possible. Hilde would stay with Sally as a free agent in case any of them needed backup.
Duo checked his pockets once more. Guns, knives, clips, flash-bangs. The little stun-grenades had a concussive radius of only three metres, but they were forceful enough to knock an elephant on its ass. Not quite his favourite design, but useful. "As I'll ever be," he muttered to himself, nodding sharply as Wu Fei's gaze passed over him. Heero, a solid presence just ahead of him, finished zipping up his Preventer jacket over the bulky vest and shrugged his shoulders, settling the rig into place. Duo squashed an inappropriate grin; the get-up made him look like some muscle-bound poser or something. Trowa, wider through the shoulders, looked even worse.
"Ready back here," came Sally's quiet voice through the com earpiece that was still making him itch. Duo frowned, repressing the urge to fiddle with the thing until it sat better. The little devices weren't ideal; he'd had to tape his in place, and it still felt precarious.
"Good to go," Hilde murmured behind him, her almost-silent words broadcast across the link the six of them shared.
"Roger." Wu Fei shifted his feet, settling one hand on the butt of the gun clearly visible at his waist, and touched Trowa's shoulder lightly with the other. "On my signal�"
They had brought the Inferno down inside the colony itself, making full and efficient use of the private Governmental port facility that backed onto the admin sector. Duo hadn't taken any chances with his baby, keeping the active cloak and hyper jammers fully enabled despite the lack of human presence in the area. It wasn't a residential district, and in the current situation most law-abiding employees would be huddling in their homes, scared to even move.
"Three, two, one, go." Wu Fei gave the signal and Trowa hit the outer airlock controls, flattening his body against the wall and peering out as the hatch irised open. He was through the lock as soon as it was open enough to admit him, grasping the rim and vaulting to the ground with an ease that Duo momentarily envied. After last night� Then it was his turn, and he didn't even bother to look, scrambling out and immediately setting off to the left, towards the edge of the vacant lot that bordered the port, Heero's slightly heavier steps in counterpoint behind him.
Here we go� Duo set his jaw and concentrated on making the best time possible to the nearest piece of cover, trusting that the others would be right behind him. Sprinting across the narrow access road, he made for the mouth of a narrow alley between two factory-type buildings, which if the map could be believed should come out near the main back entrance to the compound. Ducking behind an unpleasantly-ripe collection of dustbins, he checked out the area before waving Heero and the women forward. Trowa and Wu Fei had already split, looking for their own entrance point.
"All set?" Duo whispered as they gathered around him, stifling a snort as Hilde wrinkled up her face in disgust at the stench of the rubbish. Heero seemed unaffected, while Sally had a hand over her mouth.
"Let's go for it already," she muttered, and Duo repressed a wry grin, rising to his feet and picking his way further into the alleyway over mud and litter. The narrow passage took an abrupt twist to the right about twenty metres in, and he checked the corner carefully before moving out, finding nothing more than a couple of heaps of blankets and cardboard that were probably sleeping street people. The riots would have sent all the homeless scurrying for cover, he realised with an unpleasant jolt of memory. Neither of the indigents stirred as they passed, probably still hoping to avoid notice � either that or sleeping off some looted vodka.
Duo passed them on soundless feet, making another turn into a slightly wider passage that gave out onto the edge of the industrial district. Motioning the others to wait with one hand, he slid his fingers around the comfortably familiar grip of the Ruger P90, sliding carefully up to the end of the wall. There was a distinct smell of burned metal and plastic, which turned out to be coming from an upside-down car that was still smouldering a few hundred metres down the street, and he could hear voices in the distance and see smoke rising from several places behind the administration centre, but no one was in evidence. He eyed the chain-link fence that bordered the compound consideringly; it was a good ten feet high, but topped with a thick metal bar rather than barbed wire.
Should be easy. Making his decision, Duo gestured at the others to follow, then broke into another sprint, crossing the litter-strewn roadway at top speed and jumping to plant a boot as high as possible on the fence, propelling himself up far enough to catch the bar in one hand. From there he was able to swing himself around and sling a leg over the fence, probing with his toes until he could widen a link enough to wedge his foot into it; his other leg was pressed tight to the bar, supporting him against the top.
Heero, the first to follow him, didn't need the assistance; he made the jump with ease, grabbing the top and flipping himself over in an easy vault that drew Duo's eyes for a moment. Hilde, though� he bent forwards, reaching a hand down so that she, and then Sally, could catch it and haul themselves over.
Swinging himself lightly to the ground beside them, Duo took the lead again, heading out across the parking lot to the back entrance of the largest building in the complex, a faux-stone monstrosity that had been designed by someone with more ideas than talent. Most Colony buildings were no-nonsense prefabs, but here someone had obviously wanted to make an impression. Even so, it was ageing, the cement chipped, the plaster-blocks crumbling, and had itself been colonised; a profusion of single-storey office buildings jutted from its rear like oversized limpets on a rock.
"That's our entry point." Heero motioned to a glass double-door between two branching wings. The broken panes made it obvious that someone had been this way before them; Duo got a good grip on the Beretta in his pocket and broke into another run, making for the dubious shelter of the buildings. When in doubt, get a wall to your back�
The broken safety-glass of the doors grated and crunched underfoot as they made their way through the hole that had been left in the frame. Duo exchanged a raised eyebrow with Hilde; only repeated application of a blunt instrument, most likely a metal bar, could shatter plyglass like this. It had been a game back when he was a kid � taking turns to hurl half-bricks at phone boxes and see who could get the glass to break first.
Inside, someone had obviously cut the power. Once they passed the first intersection, the only illumination came from safety-lights at each junction, probably tripped when the circuit box had gone out. It made Duo feel� jumpy. This part of the building seemed to be all offices � obviously nothing particularly interesting, and equally obviously abandoned, although there were signs that looters had come through � trailing wires where appliances had been ripped out of the walls, a few pieces of discarded computer equipment. Duo felt a mirthless grin trying to steal its way into his face. They can't be local � even a kid could've told 'em L2 government'd never shell out for system upgrades, let alone hardware. Probably fully half the computers in the complex were reclaimed from salvage or cobbled together from spare parts rather than bought new.
A hand on his shoulder brought him up short. Duo froze, eyes trained on the shadowy hallways ahead, but could see and hear nothing out of the ordinary; he tilted his head silently in question.
"Sounds ahead and to the left," Heero murmured in his ear, close enough for his breath to stir Duo's hair. Duo firmly suppressed a shudder, clamping down on his body's reactions with iron self-control, and gave a short nod. He trusted Heero's senses almost as much as he trusted his own instincts � and those were telling him to go carefully.
Motioning with one hand for Hilde and Sally to stay where they were, he flattened himself against the corridor wall and began a slow slide forward, trusting Heero to know where to be. Three doors up the hallway, Duo heard it too. An almost-silent murmur of voices, coming from one of the doors on the left. Narrowing his eyes, Duo slid one hand around the hilt of a knife and ghosted up to the next intersection, booted feet silent on the cheap institution carpet-tiles. Easing up to the corner, he checked first one way and then the other. No one, although the right-hand corridor ended abruptly in another turn a few metres on.
Retracing his steps, Duo gave Heero the nod, pulling the Ruger almost as an afterthought, and making sure that the Agency symbol on his jacket was in plain view. He took up position to the right of the door in question, facing his partner as the Japanese Agent drew and sighted, taking up a familiar stance.
"On three," Duo murmured, one ear cocked to listen to the soft murmur of voices inside what was presumably an office. The little plate on the door said 'Mrs. H. Bhakta' and 'Payroll,' so the room probably wasn't all that big. "One, two, go!"
Heero lifted his booted foot and planted a solid kick just above the lock, splintering the wood and popping the door open like a cork out of a bottle. Duo was down and twisting to evaluate the threat before he even had his balance back.
"Preventers, freeze!" Heero barked, levelling his weapon dead forward while Duo covered the left-hand side of the room.
Twin female shrieks sounded from behind the heavy desk that took up what space wasn't occupied by filing cabinets, but no-one moved. After a long moment, Duo pushed himself to his feet, arching a wry eyebrow at Heero, who sighed and lowered his gun, stepping back to let Duo go first. The American agent gave him an exasperated look, holstering his own weapon before walking forward casually, keeping one hand close to the jacket pocket with the spare piece just in case.
"Um, excuse me?" He rounded the corner of the desk and felt his eyebrows rising almost to his hairline. Two dark-skinned middle-aged women were huddled on the floor, looking as though they'd tried to crawl under the desk but hadn't quite fit. Duo had to bite his lip to keep from cracking up; probably the rather abrupt entrance hadn't been entirely necessary.
"Hi." He squatted down beside them, trying not to wince as they flinched away, and dug his badge out of his back pocket, holding it up for them to examine. "I'm Agent Shadow, with the Preventers. We've got a team in, and we're setting up a safe-room for civilians while we clear the building." He heard Heero snort from the door, and grinned as the ladies examined his badge and uniform nervously.
"The Preventers are here," one of the women sighed, heaving herself to her feet and hauling her companion up with her. Their neat charcoal-grey business suits were crumpled and dirt-stained, their hair mussed. Duo felt a pang of sympathy for them, then had to repress another grin as the woman on the left got a look at Heero and squeaked in surprise, taking a step back.
"Relax, that's my partner, Agent Wing." Duo grinned, taking both their arms and leading them over to the door. "In fact, I should probably introduce you to our medic�" He kept talking in an even, calming voice, handing them over to Sally and Hilde. His housemate gave him a very narrow look that promised retribution later � sometime when she didn't have a little Asian woman clutching at her like a lifeline.
"OK?" Heero was giving him a strange look � as though he wanted to reach out and touch Duo, but knew he had to stay alert and on duty right now. Duo understood the feelings perfectly; he shared them. Restricting himself to a reassuring nod rather than the full-body embrace he would have liked to indulge in � God damn it, how the hell are we ever going to be able to work together again if just looking at him affects me like this? � he slipped ahead, taking up his point position again.
Consulting his memorised map of the ground-floor layout, Duo paused for a moment to think. They had agreed before even entering the colony that the grand ballroom in the centre-west wing of the building would be the most effective and defensible safe-room, allowing for Sally and Hilde to set up a com centre as well as a makeshift medical facility. Shuffling through routes in his head, Duo took a quick glance around the corner to the right. Still nothing, so he broke into a jog, keeping as close to the walls as possible as he made the turn. A narrow flight of stairs that twisted left � and now he could hear the restless tramp of feet getting louder�
Taking up a stance at the foot of the staircase, Duo flashed a quick danger-signal to Heero and drew the Ruger again, drawing a bead on the plaster moulding where the wall joined the ceiling at the corner. The angle of the stairs meant it would be difficult to see just where he was aiming. Within microseconds Heero was at his side, pressing slightly in front of him in a blatant attempt to get Duo behind the safety of the Kevlar vest he was wearing. Duo just snorted, shouldering the other man far enough aside that he could still aim.
The thud of feet on the stairs got louder, and then the first of what looked to be � and sounded like � a small group of men rounded the turn.
"Preventers!" Duo yelled in unexpected chorus with his partner, punctuating it with a shot that shattered the ceiling moulding and brought plaster dust down onto the head of the first guy. Taking in the way his eyes widened in panic � not to mention the two-foot length of metal pipe he was carrying � Duo realised that these were probably nothing more than looters, an impression backed up when the pipe clattered noisily onto the steps and the guy turned tail, pushing and shoving at his friends in an effort to get as far away as possible. He squeezed off another warning shot, this time drilling a nice hole in a particularly ugly watercolour print that hung on the wall, and the chaotic knot of shoving, tripping young men suddenly managed to get their feet under them.
Exchanging an amused glance with Heero, Duo waited until the sound of panicked feet had faded into the distance before taking the steps two at a time, sighting carefully up the rest of the empty stairwell.
"Clear," he reported, holstering the gun again before tossing a glance back over his shoulder and heading out again. If the maps they'd had were accurate, there should be only one more cross-corridor to go before their first objective. Duo could hear the soft tread of Heero's feet behind him, surer than his own hesitant footsteps but still working to the same pattern. A distant echo back in the stairwell was probably Sally and Hilde helping the other women up the stairs. He ignored it � they'd call for help if Duo or Heero were needed � and continued on down the dimly-lit hallway, ghosting light-footed around a scatter of disks and papers that some panicked worker had abandoned.
Past the intersection of two wide hallways, and a large pair of ornate double-doors loomed ahead. Satisfied, Duo took a quick look around then motioned for Heero to join him. Flashing a quick hand signal, he left Heero on point and all but tiptoed up to the doors, leaning over to position his ear just a fraction from the embossed surface.
Nothing. Blank silence, not even the sound of breathing, though he slowed his own to compensate. Shrugging, Duo straightened up and turned, locking eyes with Heero. Nada, he mouthed silently, raising an eyebrow. Want to risk it?
Heero's lips quirked almost infinitesimally, and he gave a tiny nod that didn't do much more than shake his hair into his eyes. Ready when you are, he mouthed back, moving to flank Duo. Duo grinned, pulling a gun with one hand as the other reached out without thought to clap Heero on the shoulder � a gesture as old as their partnership, good luck with no words needed.
Heero nodded the count, and the doors yielded to a stout blow from Duo's boot, flying open to crash against faux-wooden walls. Heero took the low angle this time, sliding into the room on his knees while Duo aimed over his head. They needn't have bothered, of course; the room was empty and silent as the grave, a dark and echoing space extending into the distance.
"Huh." Duo straightened up, holstering the Ruger again and reaching down to yank Heero to his feet before wandering over to search the wall for a light switch. With luck, the formal part of the complex would have its own main�
"Here." Heero reached over his shoulder to flip open a panel, so close that Duo could feel the heat of him all along his side. Something clicked, and the chandeliers depending from the high ceiling flickered alight in a rush. Duo blinked away the sudden bright spots in his vision, cursing himself for not anticipating that, and then again for the quick, brief flash of disappointment as Heero moved away.
He covered it by turning, scoping out the room and unable to suppress a whistle. For all this was a two-bit L2 station, the bigwigs obviously knew how to throw a party. The walls were panelled all the way to the ceiling in high-quality faux-wood, chandeliers well into the other side of tasteless dripping crystal from the high, vaulted roof. A gallery ran along one side, supported by a colonnade of what looked like real marble pillars.
Then again, Duo thought grimly to himself, there were reasons L2 was the way it was, and money-grubbing politicians were certainly on the list. No fucking surprise at all there. The current crop probably used 'civic pride' as an excuse to keep this ostentatious display of wealth, too. Wars, revolutions, and governments could come and go as they pleased, but some things would never change.
Duo turned away from grim contemplation of human nature to hear Heero talking softly to Sally, out of earshot of Hilde who was still ushering the civilian women into the room, securing the doors behind them. He drifted closer, flicking his com on almost absent-mindedly.
"Set up on the balcony," Heero was muttering, pointing over to the ironwork spiral staircase in the corner of the colonnade. "That way you can cover the area without being surprised."
Sally looked up from fiddling with the radio set at her belt, regarding him with a sort of tolerant amusement that made Duo grin briefly. "I'm sure we'll manage, Wing. Com test, please."
Duo obligingly lifted his collar-mike, whistling sharply into the thing. Lights flickered on Sally's equipment, and she winced, holding one hand to her ear. "Yow. A little less shrill, please, Wing�"
Heero shrugged, tossing a wry glance Duo's way, and flipped his own communicator on, tapping the mike. "Testing � X G zero-one-W-zero�"
"OK, fine." Sally hit another switch, and paused, listening to something for a moment before nodding. "Switching to wide-band on channel two. Send any civilians you find back here; we'll see you two later."
It was as clear a dismissal as he'd ever heard; Duo fell in beside Heero, jogging back to the doors. A quick check made certain that the corridor was clear, and then they were heading off towards the front of the building again.
"Wing Zero's logon code?" Duo asked incredulously as Heero passed him, taking up the point position. The taller man shrugged uncomfortably in the restrictive vest.
"First thing I thought of. Besides, wasn't it you who said last year that the whole 'one, two' thing was stupid?"
"Well, yeah, I suppose." Duo shook his head at the memory. "But still�"
Heero snorted, backing against a wall and lowering his voice as they approached a corner. "Don't tell me you couldn't reel off 'Scythe's just like that, either."
"Touch�," Duo muttered, putting his own back to the opposite wall and sliding slowly up to the intersection. Still, it made him uncomfortable, somehow; as though however far they'd come, they still weren't past the war years in their heads. "Clear," he reported, but they were going to have to take it slowly; they were in the main part of the building now, and the corridors were wide and well-lit, branching off all over the place like angular trees.
Heero moved out carefully, keeping to the main corridor but checking the side hallways before they crossed into view. Duo followed, marking off doors and passageways against his mental map of the place while keeping a careful ear out behind them; he wasn't really feeling in the mood for surprises.
For all the obvious signs of looting � tumbled furniture, trailing wires, blank spaces on walls where paintings had once hung � the building seemed strangely deserted. It was making Duo jittery; more than once he found himself freezing in place, straining to listen to half-imagined sounds, making Heero halt until he could reassure himself that no one was following them. It might have been the wide, concrete-walled corridors echoing their own footsteps back at them, but Duo felt peculiarly as though they were the interlopers here. Shivering in the sudden draught as they crossed another intersection heading for the east wing, Duo moved unconsciously closer to Heero, almost colliding with his partner as Heero stopped suddenly, body poised.
Freezing mid-step-back, Duo felt bones and tendons creak as he strained to catch whatever had Heero's attention. For a moment he thought he might have heard something, but a long silence followed. Duo relaxed minutely, lowering his foot to the ground and opening his mouth to whisper something, but then it came again; the muffled sound of a voice exclaiming something up ahead.
Duo narrowed his eyes, waiting, but Heero didn't move a muscle. After a moment, the sound of footsteps became audible, echoing so badly in the bare hallways that it was difficult to tell any more than that they came from one of the narrow corridors leading off the junction ahead. Heero tilted his head for a moment, then nodded sharply, right hand flipping off a couple of signals that were so ingrained in Duo's mind he could have recognised them in the dark. Follow. Ambush.
Settling one hand on his holster, Duo flipped his partner a quick grin and nod. It was probably only another few looters, and the element of surprise should be enough to startle them into turning tail.
The footsteps became more audible as they ghosted their way up to the corner; plainly no one up ahead was making any effort to conceal their presence. Duo gave Heero a nod, sliding up against the wall on one side while Heero took the opposite wall, at an angle to avoid being seen. They could hear the footsteps getting louder, and Duo bit his lip, waiting for Heero to nod the count. It seemed like forever before his partner finally moved, their gazes locking as the tread of heavy boots became distinct in his ears. One, Heero mouthed, flicking his eyes out and down. Two �
On the unvoiced count of three, Duo flung himself out and around, drawing and sighting in the same breath, vaguely conscious of Heero taking a stance at his back. Duo had his mouth open, ready to shout a warning, but choked on it as he realised that the corridor ahead was still empty and dimly lit, bare walls carrying sound much further than was usual. He blinked, lowering his weapon out of reflex just at the instant that a group of men in ragtag military surplus came through a wide, broken-glass-littered doorway into the corridor.
Duo had only seconds to react, from the sight of the men to Heero's bellow of "Preventers!" to the realisation that at least one of the arrivals was armed. His vision narrowed down to the jerk of the gun in the man's hand, the hand that was suddenly pointing at him, and he was down and rolling before he even heard the shot.
"Freeze!" Duo came to his knees, ignoring the glass shards catching in his uniform jacket, and sighted carefully over the heads of the party, firing a single warning shot that could barely be heard over the panicked babble. The men in front were attempting to turn and run, while the guys at the back tried to use the doorway as cover to fire at the two Agents.
"Preventers!" Heero yelled again over his shoulder, the sharp crack and whistle of bullets passing over Duo's head as the man who'd fired before appeared to make up his mind, shoving through his accomplices and heading off down the corridor at a run. Duo cast a quick eye over the confusion by the doorway, and made the split-second decision that they couldn't afford to let the enemy get entrenched.
"Ready!" He flung a quick hand signal over his shoulder to Heero, exchanging his gun for a handful of the little flash-bang stun grenades. Barely more than a thin shell of explosive around a highly pressurised container, they only had five-second fuses. Duo brought the cluster to his mouth, yanking out the pins with his teeth, and counted off three slow seconds as Heero continued firing over his head, bullets splintering the faux-wood of the doorframe. Minimal charge or not, they'd still take fingers off if you miscounted.
Rising to one knee in a lunge, Duo flung his handful out in an arc that swept and tumbled across the floor towards the group by the door, a collection of three or four small grey cylinders that should have looked totally innocuous. Duo couldn't spare the time to wonder why the men ahead went pale and dived for what little cover was available to them; he was too busy kicking off his raised leg and throwing himself backwards, knocking breathlessly into Heero's legs and taking him down too.
They landed in a tangled heap of jeans and jackets and boots just as a series of deafening pops sounded from down the corridor, the concussion waves trembling the floor beneath them and the air above them. Duo laughed breathlessly, scrambling to his feet and high-tailing it down the hallway with a gun in each hand to see what he'd netted.
Two of them were stirring fitfully by the time he arrived, but the other three looked to have been flung into the walls by the force of the combined explosions, and were out for the count, twisted limp and drooling on the carpet. Duo prodded one with the toe of his boot, but got no reaction.
"Here." Heero stepped past him towards the prisoners, a bunch of the lightweight plas-ties that passed for cuffs on-mission in his hands. Shrugging, Duo took up position on the corner and covered his partner as Heero efficiently bound the hands of their prisoners then began patting them for weapons, coming up with a pair of guns and a more liberal sprinkling of knives.
"What are we gonna do with this little lot?" Duo motioned with his left-hand Beretta, indicating the sprawling mass of humanity blocking the corridor. One of the sleepers was beginning to come around; the other two were grim and glaring, propped up against the walls.
"I'll radio for backup." Heero leant back against the wall, shrugging his shoulders to settle the vest and yanking a gun from its holster. "You go on ahead after the runner; I'll catch you up after the locals have this lot."
Duo glanced down the dark, narrow corridor in the direction the escaped man had fled, then down at the motley collection on the floor. They were mostly young, mid-twenties and wearing the unmistakable signs of hard living apart from one older man, his sandy hair thickly salted with grey. That one bore the signs of some sort of authority; his scruffy fatigues were a shade newer and cleaner than the rest, his boots shinier.
"You sure?" Something made him ask the question, although he wouldn't normally have second-guessed his partner. The terrain was right for an ambush up ahead, after all, and slipping through nets had always been Duo's speciality. Heero's firm nod was illogically reassuring, and Duo sighed, shoving the Beretta back into his pocket. "Call the girls, then. And keep a damn close eye on this shower." He prodded one moaning heap of idiot with a toe, turning away before he could let himself look too long at the expression on Heero's face.
Heero's voice echoed behind him as he moved off slowly into the shadowed part of the hallway, relaying instructions over the com to Sally and Hilde. Duo couldn't pick out the words, but the fading familiar murmur was strangely comforting.
This corridor was straighter than the others in the main part of the building had been, with fewer side halls. It was right on the edge of the territory marked out by his mental map; Duo went carefully, keeping one eye out behind him. After a couple of sets of double doors, the passageway came out into a wider hall that seemed to run off at about sixty degrees to the main building; presumably the central thoroughfare of the east wing. It was lighter here, with backup power now running, although the ceiling panels flickered occasionally, limning the plain institutional paint and carpet in odd sharp shadows.
The walls here were thickly forested with doors, and Duo was hampered in his progress by having to check each one. Most appeared to be locked, and those that weren't opened into offices; he gave them a quick check-over and continued on his way. The inhabitants of this part of the building appeared to have exited in a more orderly fashion than those in the main complex. Or maybe the looters had just got there first, and chased them out � come to that, it wasn't at all unlikely that a good few employees had taken part in the impromptu free-for-all themselves.
Ah, L2. Duo grinned to himself, trying the handle of a glass-panelled door. It gave easily, opening onto a narrow, enclosed staircase leading up. He eyed the steps for a moment, considering � it was much more likely that his quarry had headed straight for the nearest way out, after all, even with the rioters and local police out there; out here on the edges of the place the shouts and chants of the mob were faintly audible even through the walls.
"Oh well," Duo muttered to himself, making up his mind. Tightening his fingers on the grip of his gun, he stepped into the stairwell, letting the door fall closed behind him. He couldn't risk being ambushed from behind, and there was always the possibility that there were civilians up there.
Half an hour later he was descending the stairs again, an expression of disgust firmly fixed on his face. Civilians, hell. That had been a complete waste of time; he kicked the door shut behind himself and continued up the corridor � identical in every particular to the upper storey. This place is built like a stack of bricks, Duo thought to himself as he jogged down the hallway, heading towards the noise from outside. That likely meant an exit, and that way he could at least tell Heero honestly that he'd lost their quarry.
He was just turning a corner into a large room that looked like some kind of open-plan office arrangement when the sound of running footsteps behind him caught his ears. Duo tensed; even pressed against the wall he was still clearly visible, and a clear target. He was turning and sighting along the barrel of the Ruger before he could even think.
"Shadow!" Sally waved an arm, panting to a halt a few steps down the corridor. "Thank God you're OK � why aren't you answering your com?"
Duo blinked at her for several moments before re-holstering his gun and putting one hand to his earpiece, flicking the switch back and forth. "Testing � Hello? X G zero-one-D-two?" Nothing came back but the hiss of static filling his ears; Duo shrugged and yanked the thing free, examining it. "Must be busted, I suppose."
"Never mind that." Sally grabbed his arm and tugged, trying to pull him back down the corridor. Duo resisted for moment on instinct, then gave up and followed, breaking into a jog to keep up with her strides and damning the fact that everyone in the world seemed to have longer legs than him.
"Where's the fire?" he demanded, once she'd finished radioing back; someone must have run into problems if they'd had to send her after him, and he still hadn't had an explanation�
"Wing and Hellfire found explosives residue on the prisoners," Sally told him in a crisp voice that made Duo's stomach sink down to somewhere around the level of his knees. "They need us to help move them out � the other team have extracted the civilians already."
Shit. Duo's mind was racing almost as fast as his feet, trying to recall whether he'd scented HE in passing anywhere. Nothing had jumped out at him, but then he still had a pocketful of explosive charges himself; he'd have been subconsciously expecting it. "Any detonators?"
"Not on them," Sally panted, matching his speed as he broke into a full-out run. Duo spared a moment to curse her for insisting on coming along in her condition � but that was Chang's problem, not his.
"So it's a timer, or the one who got away had the dets. Shit!" Duo growled to himself, sprinting up to the first corner leading back into the main building. If he'd been faster� but that was no use, the guy was well away by now, and all he could do was get back to Heero as fast as he could. Heero, who was waiting with Hilde in a roomful of probably panicked prisoners, not knowing whether the world was about to explode at any moment�
Duo put on another burst of speed, skidding around the corner a few lengths ahead of Sally, all his attention focused on getting back to his partner. He barely had time to realise that it was already too late as the walls exploded with a roar and the ceiling collapsed in a shower of masonry and shrapnel, tossing him to the floor like a rag doll, half-buried in choking dust and debris. A sharp-edged flower of pain bloomed on the back of his head, and Duo passed out.