"Sensus Divinitatis"

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: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Ghosts, Demons, Apocalypse, Major character death, blood, gore, violence

Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5x6

Summary: It begins with a prophecy and ends with Judgement Day. What happens in between will determine the fate of the human race. The murders of the Gundam Pilots was only the catalyst. The beginning of the end.

" Sensus Divinitatis"

Chapter 8:June 23rd, AC 206, 9:56am

Une watched with a critical eye as the maintenance personnel hooked the solar generators into the building's central power system. In a few minutes, electricity would be restored and Une could connect with the orbiting satellites and get back online. She checked her phone again. A signal, weak, but enough. She dialed Sally. It rang four times and then went to voicemail. Goddamnit.

The generators hummed to life and Une pocketed her phone. Nodding to the mechanics, she turned on her heel and headed back to the main office. Billings was hunched over in a chair by the door, weeping. The rest of the attended Preventers were milling around doing much the same. Desk phones were ringing off the hook and Une stood in the center of the room. Her posture was one of zero bullshit. This was not the time for theatrics.

"Alright, people. Pull yourselves together. We have work to do. Get these phones answered. Yates, Miller, and Takashi, I want you to contact the ESUN Departments of Heath and Humanitarian Affairs, the OSO, and Meteorological Agency. Get any and all information you can on what is going on and I want debriefings no later than thirty minutes from right now. Let's organize a search and rescue operation to find any survivors. Billings, walk it off. I need you to contact the ESMO to coordinate a press conference, and I don't want you blubbering over the phone. I don't want anything slipping to the media until we have our shit together."

"What about Sanq, Sir?"

"Contact Parliament. If you get nothing, try again, and if you still get nothing, try again. Keep trying. I don't care what the reports say right now. There could be survivors. I want search and rescue teams out there, pronto. I want everyone in my office for an update in thirty. That's 10:27, and you better have something for me. Now, move! Billings, in my office."

Billings stood with some difficulty and followed Une into her office, while the rest of the staff scurried to their desks.

Une walked behind her desk and sat down. She gestured for Billings to sit across from her and then folded her hands over her blotter. Billings shakily lowered her ample bottom into the chair, looking imploringly at Une. Her face was blotchy and her eyes bloodshot from crying. Une leaned forward.

"You don't tell those vultures over at ESMO anything, you understand? You tell them they can wait until the press conference later this morning. I want nothing getting out until we have full control over this mess. Got it?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now go clean yourself up, powder your nose, whatever you gotta do. I don't care. I want you calm and collected when you talk to these people. They will latch onto the smallest hitch in your breath and exploit the shit out of it. We are in control, understood?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Fine. Go. I want you back here in thirty minutes." Une waved her hand in a shooing motion and Billings nodded, sniffling, and walked out of the room.

Une watched her go, sighing. She reached up and scratched at an itch on her head, right next to her hair bun. She pulled her vid phone in front of her and clicked it on. The power surge had knocked out the circuit breakers. She waited impatiently for it to boot up, then she logged in, and pulled up her contacts. She clicked on the listing that said Cambridge and waited for the head of ESUN to pick up.

After about ten seconds, the screen flashed on and she was greeted by a white haired man with a handlebar mustache. He looked wrung out and stressed. Une imagined she looked much the same.

"General Une. I assume your people are well?"

"Yes, quite well, Prime Minister, thank you. And you?"

"As well as can be expected. What do you have for me?"

"Nothing much. Yet. We just restored the power and our systems are just now coming back online. We're in touch with your departments at the moment. A search and rescue team is being organized. We also need to schedule a press conference. Do you have anything for me?"

Cambridge shook his head. "This is looking more like a recovery effort and there doesn't appear to be much to recover either."

"Is it that bad?"

Cambridge sighed, the sound whistling past his lips. "Yes. Sanq is gone, I'm afraid. I'd be hard-pressed to think any member of Parliament survived. What the quake didn't destroy, the tsunami took care of. Preliminary colony reports say their satellite probes recorded a wave as high as twelve meters."

"Jesus!"

"Do you have anything regarding the Gundam Pilots' case?"

"No. Dr. Po was there overseeing the autopsies. I haven't been able to get in touch with her. I'd be willing to bet the hospital survived, but I don't know."

"Oh, it did. ESUNH is the strongest building in the world. It's fine, so I'm sure Dr. Po is also."

"You're probably right. She may be busy helping the injured, or could be having signal problems herself."

"Phone towers are down all over the place, so signals will probably be coming and going for a while. At least until we can uplink the wireless servers to the telecommunications satellites. Let's get the press conference scheduled. How soon can you be here?"

"Give me an hour."

Cambridge nodded tiredly. "We might as well release the information about the murders while we're at it. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. We'll keep it short and simple. They were murdered, suspects on the loose, manhunt underway. How's that going, by the way?"

Une tutted. "Not good. I got some strange findings when I looked over the global surveillance footage."

"Such as?"

"I'm...not sure. There were glitches, or something. Possible tampering, but it made no sense and it didn't reveal anything useful."

"Send me the footage."

"Will do. Send me what you have on the quake. I'll call you back after I meet with my staff, and before I leave."

"Sounds good, General. We'll have a meeting prior to the conference. Get this whole thing sorted. Oh, in all this chaos, I almost forgot. We now have six murders on our hands."

"Six? Who?"

"Mariemaia Khushrenada. They found her early this morning. Decomposition indicates that the time of death was between seven and nine on the night of June twenty first."

Une's eyes widened. No way was this a coincidence. "How?"

"Ice pick. Weapon was laid out beside the body, in plain sight. Same MO."

Une sat back in her chair, stunned. What the hell is going on?

"I'll expect your call in about forty minutes?"

"Yes. Talk to you then. Thanks, Prime Minister."

"See you soon, General."

Billings came bustling in at approximately 10:15 in a mild panic.

"Sir! They know who the Gundam Pilots were - are, and they know what happened!"

"Who knows?"

Billings panted, out of breath. "The - the press! I spoke to the director of Media Affairs. Sillian said someone anonymously leaked the information!"

"Son of a...what else did she say?" Une demanded, hands on her hips.

"She said they're going to release the information to the public. They're going to expose their identities."

"They can't! We have gag orders in place!"

"Sillian said they don't care about that. That this is way too big not to be released and that if they don't do it, someone else will. She said we can take legal action if we have to, but the release is going out in the next circulation."

Une picked up a paper weight from her desk and threw it against the wall, leaving a nice dent behind. "Get that bitch on the phone!"

The heavyset woman scrambled around the desk and pulled up Andrea Sillian's contact information on Une's vid phone. It rang twice before Sillian's face appeared on the screen.

"Top of the morning to you, General!" The ESMO director had a prominent Irish accent. She peered at Une's angry face through the phone screen. "I gather your assistant broke the news to you?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"My job, General."

"Where did you get this information?"

"Our source is anonymous. It came from an encrypted channel. We've been unable to decode the signal."

"Send it to me. And do not, I repeat, do not, publish your findings."

"With all due respect, General -"

"Did I stutter? I said no. We have a press conference scheduled this morning and we will inform the public of what we know then, and only then. And you will write only what we tell you to write in your press release. Remember, Sillian, you answer to Prime Minister Cambridge, and so help me, if you defy these gag orders, you will not only lose your illustrious career in journalism, but you will find yourself in prison. For a long time."

"General, I would just like to -"

"I'm not in the habit of repeating myself, Madame, and I'm certainly not going to start with the likes of you."

Sillian glared at Une, the resentment palpable. It was no secret that these two women despised each other.

"You will report what we tell you to report. No if's, and's, or but's. Your job is not to expose top secret information. Your job is to be the mouth piece of the Earth Sphere Unified Nations and I will hold you accountable if you deviate even one step off that path. Are we clear?"

"Yes, General."

"Good. I'll expect to see you at ESUN's headquarters no later than eleven hundred hours. Send me those files, asap."

"Yes, General. Sending them now."

Une reached over and disconnected the call. She sat down behind her desk and booted up her computer. After a few moments, there was a beep signalling the files had arrived. She opened them and scanned the codes. They were so scrambled, they were virtually unreadable. The only thing decipherable was the message itself, which was cut and dry. It simply named the Gundam Pilots and there was a brief synopsis of each of their murders. An attachment was pinned to each name with one photo per pilot. There was a sixth file with a similar description of the death of Mariemaia Khushrenada.

The real mind fuck was the fact that the files were dated June 19th. Two days before the murders. Une stared at her screen, stunned.

"Son of a bitch!"