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"Incendiary"Written By: The Plotting Housewife Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sotsu
and associated Parties. This work is written for pleasure not profit. Rating: NC 17 Warnings: Yaoi, wrongful imprisonment, Newtypes,
internment camps, eventual rape/noncon Pairings: 3x4, 1x2, 5xS Summary: A group of wealthy college kids are murdered.
There are no witnesses, but there is a suspect. From within the simmering
sludge of irrational fear and prejudice, conspiracy theories are born
and innocent people pay the price. "Incendiary" Une shucked her uniform in the locker room and wrapped a towel around her body, nodding to a few of the prisoners who were dressing for their night shift. She stepped into the communal shower and hung the towel up, turning on the taps. She stared at the crumbling tile wall as she soaped herself up. The generic bar was drying and left a nasty film on her skin. God, but she missed her moisturizing body wash. Her stomach growled, still hungry after her meager supper that consisted of a small scoop of horrifically bland and mushy Stroganoff and an even smaller scoop of wilted green beans. The water in this place was terrible. It tasted strongly of the rust that resided in the pipes and was visibly cloudy. She'd been at Burgess Prison for a week now and she was amazed at how quickly she'd adapted to the 'lifestyle' of a prisoner. She worked, menial jobs, but they were enough to keep her busy at least. She unfortunately hadn't heard any more from Noin, but she was confident that if she and Zechs weren't in the country yet, they would be soon. Their silence might have been indicative that they could already be here, but were laying low, perhaps already in contact with the underground movement. In the meantime, she took the little comforts she could get. At least there was hot water for the showers, she mused. She glanced to her right as Nancy Piper stepped into the stall next to hers and turned on the faucet. Nancy was a secretary to one of the more prominent members of Parliament. Une remembered the speech she gave in Manchester on behalf of herself and Councilwoman Harrison. It was an emphatically passionate speech about equal rights and the humane treatment of Newtypes which garnered a lot of controversy. She'd stressed how important it was to see them for what they really were: Human beings. Human beings with jobs and families and lives and rights just like everyone else. She'd recounted a story of a young Newtype mother who was attacked in Manchester the week before. She'd been gang raped and beaten to death by a pack of thugs after she was fired from her job upon discovery of her Newtype abilities. Her story made national headlines after she'd lost her job. The news outlets were ravenous for her story. Une had been furious when the original story aired because she knew they really weren't interested in the woman's plight other than the fact that she'd make a perfect sob story to rake in ratings. It was what had ultimately exposed her to the dangers of a largely ignorant public and she, and her family, suffered the consequences of that exposure. She had three small children, under the age of six who were now without a mother. Her story made national headlines again after her murder. It was Councilwoman Harrison's district and she was absolutely enraged at not only the woman's termination from her job, but the media feeding frenzy over it, and the subsequent attack once her identity had been exposed. She and Nancy Piper furiously scolded the media for their callous exposé and law enforcement for not doing a better job protecting the woman. They stressed that Newtypes were not commodities, nor were they second class citizens and had every right to live out their lives with the same opportunities and protections as everyone else. That speech was the catalyst that had gotten the Councilwoman and her aide in trouble as Newtype sympathizers. Une learned from the guard she'd been speaking to that the Councilwoman was being imprisoned in a facility somewhere in Yorkshire, though she was unsure of the exact location. Nancy glanced at her and offered her a small, tired smile. Une nodded and squirted some shampoo into her hand. Nancy leaned over as Une handed her the shampoo bottle. "You on kitchen cleanup tonight?" "Yes." "Good. We need to talk." Une regarded her as she massaged shampoo into her hair. "About?" "I've learned a few things. Heresay, of course, but...word is, there's a sewer drain in one of the utility closets. Big enough for people to fit. Apparently, it leads to an old underground tunnel system that goes outside the city." "Who told you this?" "Moore." The guard. Une nodded. "Do you trust her?" "As much as I can trust anyone nowadays." "Point taken." "The funny thing is, we should have known this was going on much longer." "What do you mean?" "Didn't Moore tell you?" Une shook her head and tipped it beneath the spray. Nancy leaned over the tile partition between them and lowered her voice to a whisper. "This whole thing...these plans to usurp the government and imprison Newtypes has been going on for at least two years. Probably more like five, or so." Une coughed as she inhaled some water. She wiped her eyes and stared at Nancy. "What?" Nancy nodded, her face grave. "It was obviously hush hush which is why only Zander's most trusted people knew about it." "Did Harrison know?" "No. Not to my knowledge. She never mentioned it and I think I know her well enough to know if she knew, she would have told me." It made sense considering how organized this had been. Une had her suspicions, but without prior knowledge, she couldn't be sure. "Only the elite members of Parliament knew apparently. There's also talk of a secret government organization that only a tiny handful of Parliament are aware of." Une huffed angrily. She was supposed to be privy to classified information, but apparently this went far above that. How far exactly, she didn't know, but she was determined to find out. "Has Moore disclosed her informant?" Nancy snorted. "Are you kidding?" "Who all in here is she talking to?" "You, me, Debra Tibbons, and I think Casey Wright." Debra Tibbons and Casey Wright were well-known political advocates and lobbyists. There was a rumor that Casey was also a Newtype. "No one else?" "I don't think so. She's being very careful not to tell anyone who she isn't sure she can trust. My guess is the informant has advised her who to talk to." Une nodded. "Probably." Whoever the informant was, they were aware of things very few people were allowed to know about. Someone immensely important. "So, tell me more about this sewer." "It's in the utility closet that offsets the kitchen. I don't really know the condition of the tunnels, or if they're even passable." "Moore doesn't know?" Nancy shook her head. "No, she hasn't been down there." Une turned off her tap and wrung her hair out, shaking excess water from her hands. "I have to get in contact with my friends. They're on their way here. They may already be here." "From what I hear, travel in and out of the country is banned. How would they even get in?" Une smirked. "You don't know my friends." She quickly dried herself off and wrapped herself in the towel. "Somehow Moore was able to get a note from one of them to me." "How?" "The informant is someone very powerful. Of that I'm sure. They were able to notify my friends of my location and was able to get their message to me. Moore would not have that kind of access I don't believe. And whoever they are, they're keeping a very low profile." Nancy wrapped a towel around her head and tucked the end into the back. "Listen, there's one more thing you should know." Une nodded. "I'm listening." "Moore told me about some secret government weapons program that involves using Newtypes." Une turned to her, interest piqued. "What kind of program?" "I don't have all the details yet, but it was launched during the first war from what I hear. This isn't something they're planning on containing only in Britain. There's a bigger picture here and it involves seizing control of not only Britain, but all of Europe. Probably the entire globe. Word is, it's been reopened under Zander's order." Une cursed, her jaw clenching. This was the wars all over again. Treize and his goddamn aspirations of world domination. When was humanity going to learn? "And they're going to use Newtypes to do this?" "That's what Moore said. Apparently there were secret experiments that went on during the wars. They were conducted on specially equipped ships that were built for that purpose and taken out past the reaches of Mars' orbit. From there, they could do whatever they wanted and the interference from the asteroid belt would scramble any stray signals that might pick up what they were doing." "Was Zander involved back then?" "Zander was the director of the program, but he was appointed by Treize Khushrenada and the project was funded by Romefeller and the Barton Foundation as well as a few others." "How does Moore know all this?" "Like you said, this informant must be in a powerful position. Whoever they are, they know things. Things most government officials aren't even aware of. And in a strange, perverse way, this whole endeavor makes sense if you think like a dictator. I mean, Newtypes are the next step in evolution. A more advanced version of us." "And Newtypes are only born in space." "They, the scientists who have been studying them, think it has something to do with the decreased gravity, or the smaller percentage of oxygen, that allows their brains to take on more function." Yes, Une had heard that theory before, but they really didn't know for sure why Newtypes could do what they did. Though, considering that they didn't exist pre-Colony was an interesting factor. She went back to the locker room, slamming her towel down on a bench. She was shaking with fury, livid as she slipped on a clean uniform and headed to the kitchen for cleanup duty. She tied a disposable apron around her waist and picked up a cleaning brush, scraping the food remnants off the supper trays and slamming them into a stack to be washed. Goddamn Treize. Of all the things he'd entrusted her with, he never disclosed that information. This project was likely his brainchild. She wouldn't put it past him. He was beyond genius, almost inhumanly brilliant. But he'd never told her about this. Logically, she knew why, but the revelation still pissed her off. He knew she would have drawn the line at cruel experiments on innocents. War was ugly and some things were an unfortunate necessity in order to achieve one's goals. The whole point of war was to win and sometimes it was by any means necessary. But there were lines that weren't to be crossed. Treize knew her well enough to know she wouldn't have approved. She realized that this wasn't just an open and shut case of Newtype hate and bigotry. Zander oversaw these experiments. Of course, he wasn't going to inform the public of his true intentions. Was he planning on using the imprisoned Newtypes to reopen the project? And if that was the case, then this whole movement was far more nefarious than she'd initially believed. This was an attempt to conquer the Earth Sphere using Newtype abilities in order to gain the upper hand. Zander was planning on filling Treize's shoes. Nancy stepped up beside her and grabbed a tray off the top of the stack, dipping it into the hot soapy water that filled the sink. She scrubbed at it with a rough sponge and glanced over at Une. "You're pissed." Une shot her an incredulous look. "Of course I am!" She tutted and dried the tray with a clean towel. "I worked alongside that bastard through most of the first war. He trusted me with everything, or so I thought." "You would have been opposed to that project." She sighed and nodded. "He knew me too well. He knew there were some things I would do for him, but he knew what my limits were, too. I can't blame him for that, but yes. It pisses me off. I trusted that fucker to be open and honest with me." "You loved him," Nancy said, her voice indicating she already knew that. There was no point in denying it. "I did." She glanced at Nancy, looking for any sign of judgment on her face. She saw none. "I don't know how well you knew him, but he had a way of ensnaring you. He knew how to make you feel special, important. He knew how to make you fall in love with him." Nancy nodded. "Textbook Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I was married to someone like that for fifteen years. Men like that are almost impossible to get away from." Une snorted. "Don't I know it." Treize made her believe she was nothing without him. That she needed him to survive. After growing up with a mother who couldn't have cared less if she lived, or died, she craved the sort of love and attention she'd never gotten growing up. Treize gave her that and so much more. Even after she realized she was being used, she couldn't find it in herself to break away. By then, it was too late. She'd already been deeply in love with and dependent on him. Of course, she found out later that she wasn't the only woman whose life he'd sleazed his way into. He'd had a whole horde of women and at least a dozen illegitimate children all over the world, the most notable being Mariemaia. "I was a fool for far too long." Nancy gently nudged her with an elbow. "Don't beat yourself up. You aren't the first woman to fall victim to a man like that and you won't be the last." "How did you get away from your husband?" "My son finally convinced me. Said he couldn't stand what Tom was doing to me and that he wouldn't speak to me again until I came to my senses and left him." "Harsh." Nancy shrugged. "Maybe. But it was what ultimately saved me. I have a great relationship with my son now." She laughed bitterly. "Of course, I found out later that my ex also fathered an additional nine children with seven different women while he was married to me." Une nodded. "Sounds like Treize." Of course, Une never confronted him about it. While he had bedded her, they were never really 'official' no matter how much Une wanted them to be. She'd been so damn stupid. "So are you planning on checking out that drain?" "I want to know more about it first. There's gotta be some old documents, schematics, or a map of the old system somewhere. I don't want to crawl my ass down there and then find out it's caved in, or something. I need Moore, or someone to figure out exactly what I'd be dealing with." She glanced at Nancy. "You going to join me if I do?" Nancy nodded. "Absolutely. We're in this together." Une smiled. "You're my kind of lady, Nancy. It's my pleasure to know you." Nancy shot her a wry grin. "Pleasure's all mine."
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