The Insider Part 1 (Eventual 3x12 & others)

[El Su]

A Noin-centric chapter


The Insider

By El Su/Ashy

Act I Chapter I



AC 218

The surface of the mirror was coated in dust. Its observer smeared a
palm over the glass, before shifting awkwardly, seeking an angle that
might balance the shadows and favour the sallow complexion, the
angular features, those tired eyes. Her dark hair was still short,
and offered her nothing to hide behind, no muted tones. She was forty-
three today. The years had piled upon each other, an unrelenting sum
of months and minutes, like layers of sediment, memories becoming
distorted and buried beneath new alignments and priorities. Perhaps
she was suffering burnout.

No, she said to herself. It would not do to be negative. She knew her
husband had already left for an earlier shift, and as usual, had
neatened the bedclothes on his side of the mattress and plumped up
the pillows so the imprint of his head was lost. Yet his distant
presence lingered in the shower; long blonde hairs clung to the
grating in the plug hole. He wouldn't go grey, she thought, only
white. She cleaned herself briefly- cursing the cold water provided
on this Martian Outpost- applied a light coat of makeup to mask her
aging, fixed her own hair and donned her uniform, all with military
efficiency. The clock on the wall said 6:30am. As she went
downstairs, she rapped politely on the door of the study. The live-in
nanny and governess was always up frightfully early.

"Goodbye, Marion. I'll be back at eight pm. Let him sleep in an hour
if he wants."

Marion, a divorced woman Noin's age, who used to be an Alliance
colonel's secretary in another life, appeared at the door, a bleary-
eyed Marcus-Louis at her heel.

"He's already up, Ma'am Lucrezia. Quite the early bird."

Noin bent down to kiss her pyjama-clad son on the cheek. "You be a
good boy, now. Make some nice music on the piano."

Marcus wiped at the wet mark with a sleeve. "Why must you go in so
early, Mama?"

"Because Mama has some very important things to do, today. Preventer
things."

She kissed him again, hugged him close. "I love you Marcus."

"You say that every day, Mama."

"I know I do."

"Papa says you'll make me a sissy."

"Does he now?"

She glanced at her wristwatch. She was late already. The `things' on
the agenda that morning were suspected money launderers apprehended
by the Preventer Blue Team in St. Petersburg, Earth, on a course set
to arrive on the outpost today, a month after their capture.

It was 8:30 am when the small shuttlecraft she had boarded along with
other agents from the resident sector, arrived at the other side of
the base. It was a large imposing dome-like structure- a greenhouse
full of gases, chemicals and materials needed to keep the living
alive. This biosphere orbiting Mars was twinned with one on the
planet's surface, but the latter hadn't been as easy to erect as the
Lunar Base, not that Lucrezia had been there when that was built. No
significant progress had been made for the rest of Mars. Numerous
problems had cropped up; political squabbles- the `Mars Matters'
groups- as they were dubbed- versus the those fuming that money was
being spent on taming a barren planet at the detriment to making life
better on Earth.

Then there were the practical obstacles; no greenhouse effect, the
need to extract water, to neutralise harmful elements, and the
erratic weather systems and temperatures of the planet had proven
difficult to deal with. Production had begun exuberantly and naively,
and in AC 210 there had been a public outcry, when the engineers
inside the surface biosphere had become trapped inside for three
months due to an all-consuming dust cloud engulfing the base. It had
lingered long enough for a good many of the engineers to dehydrate
and starve, due to shuttles being unable to brave the storm and
supply them with aid.

Since then, the development had stumbled forward- receiving machinery
and equipment from an engineering firm based on the Earth's moon but
funding was at an all-time low, seeing as most of the cabinet aligned
themselves with the "Mars Doesn't Matter" lot. The Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Relena Darlian, was still in favour of the project,
despite the pressure, though Winner.Co had pulled out after the Dust
Storm Tragedy. Apparently, Rashid Kurama, a good friend of Winner's,
had two sons perish in the disaster.

Now the Martian Outpost was a sad reminder of what had once been such
an exciting new innovation. But as with most new innovations, Noin
reflected, there was a cost involved; the Gundams, the Mobile Dolls,
and the Space Colonies themselves.

As she made her way down the metal panelled corridors, junior agents
glanced her way with an all too familiar reverence on their faces,
before either nodding in her direction or avoiding her eyes. On her
mission to grab a Styrofoam cup of morning coffee and slice of toast
from the cafeteria, she came across Agent Raven, better known as
Chang Wufei.

"You didn't get breakfast either?" she said, smiling genially in his
direction.

He stopped as though she had blocked his path. "I did."

She realised with a flush of embarrassment that he was probably
heading for the men's-room on that corridor, not the cafeteria.

"Oh?right. Well." She shifted on her feet. "Listen; I wanted to say I
am very impressed with what you are doing with this case- Blue Team
have been very successful under your supervision, and I value your
input..."

He looked unmoved by her compliments.

"And," she ploughed on regardless, "seeing as it's my birthday today,
I wondered if you wanted to join my Zechs and I for dinner at our
home. Have a glass of wine, or something."

"I?"

He would view it as charity. She knew he would.

"I don't wish to intrude," he said, confirming her suspicions.

"No, no, you wouldn't be. It's nothing big, just some lasagne. Do you
like that?"

"I never had it."

"Please." She almost touched his shoulder for emphasis, but did
not. "See it as my thank you for all your hard work. It's not?
charity, Wufei. You know that. We're friends."

"Uh?all right. Thank you." He met her eyes. "Noin."

"Good." She smeared her fringe back from her brow, laughed
uneasily. "Great, in fact. I'll see you when we sign off later."

"Okay."

"I'd?uh?better go get that coffee."

"Yes."

She wasn't sure how to end the conversation, so was glad when he
terminated it himself, brushed past her and went away down the
corridor, completely bypassing the men's-room on his left. Noin
resisted the compelling urge to shake her head. So proud he was that
he didn't even want her to know he needed to relieve himself
sometimes. He was still so odd, she reflected, so solitary. And she
had to admit that a small part of her offer was out of charity, but
then, he was probably smart enough to know that anyway.

She only hoped he and Zechs would find something to discuss around
the dining table. Zechs could hardly be described as a social animal
either, but Lucrezia was determined to inject some normality into her
otherwise unorthodox life. Converting a planet, gangs and potential
terrorists?it made her crave the ordinariness of a simple meal.

After buying her breakfast, she ate it quickly on the move, hardly
tasting the limp toast. The coffee did not quite have the kick she
was hoping for either. Her husband- Agent Wind- was already in the
senior command room when she entered.

"Noin," was all he said, before turning his attention back to the
flickering co-ordinates projected before them.

No `happy birthday'. Had she expected one? She wasn't one for fuss,
but even so, an acknowledgement might have been nice. Well, she
consoled herself, they *did* have more important matters to consider
right now.

"How far away is it?" she asked, squinting.

"They're docking soon," interrupted the agent in front of the
screen. "They've got a ten minute window."

"I'll get down to them, then," said Zechs. "Send a message to the
wardens to do the same."

"Roger."

Noin paced out of the control room, following her husband's
footsteps. "I'll come with you."

He nodded as they proceeded down the maze of corridors to the docking
bay. "Yes. The woman caught- I thought you might interrogate her."

As they walked- Noin marching briskly after her long-limbed spouse-
Zechs radioed Agent Raven, asking him to meet them at their
destination. Rounding a corner, they entered the elevator to take
them downwards to the level where the shuttle would penetrate the
walls of the biosphere, working its way along the metal passageway to
dock. When Zechs had finished with Chang, he folded his arms, chin
up, in silence as they descended. Noin had never denied it was
difficult being married to a colleague. Her husband had- and always
had- a wonderful capacity for leaving personal matters out of his
dealings with her when they were at work. It was a virtue, but also a
perpetual source of private frustration. Sometimes his covert
displays of affection involved a brief pat on the hand or a faint
touch of the shoulder, but no late night office trysts or
surreptitious love-notes. His professionalism was rigid and
unyielding.

She remembered how during the war, he had been the same; flirting
with the idea of destroying her Taurus suit if she tried to stand in
the way of his mission, his folly. No matter how she liked to believe
they had once had an easy romance, it was not the case. It had been
an effort from the start. An effort to know him, to impress him, to
tally the days of his absence, to nurture their companionship and
ignore the seeming imbalance of it. Right from their first teenage
meeting at the Lake Victoria Academy, she had become starry-eyed over
him almost at once, while his eyes had remained chips of ice, melting
occasionally for her benefit, but never thawing completely. Not even
so long after the war.

A ping sounded and an automated voice announced they had reached
Level Six, the docking bay. Just before the doors opened, Zechs
leaned over and kissed her briefly on the cheek. "Happy birthday,
Lu." He allowed himself a restrained smile and squeezed her hand a
fraction. "Still looking good."

She sighed, fighting the urge to slump her shoulders. "You don't have
to say that, Zechs. Come on; let's see what we're dealing with out
here."

****

It had taken four weeks to get the prisoners from Russia to Mars.
Their first stop-off had been on the L-3 base, to switch shuttles
from the high energy vessel used for Earth-to-Space travel for one
that guzzled less fuel.

The first to emerge- Jack Fitzpatrick- was a camp, arrogant-looking
man, Noin observed. She watched as he was frogmarched from the
shuttle's gangplank, into the waiting transport vehicle which would
ferry them to the cells on Level Nine of the base. The Financial
Intelligence Preventer unit in Siberia - assisted by an anonymous
informant- had uncovered a suspicious transaction report linked to
Fitzpatrick- revealing him to be more than the average fraudster. It
was proving difficult for the Blue Team investigators from the St.
Petersburg base to pinpoint whether his funds were intended to back a
shady someone?A corrupt government official? A new party candidate? A
terrorist leader? There had been plenty of minor uprisings over the
years, making the truth difficult to unravel.

She looked down at the statement in her hands, the one Blue Team had
first provided Agent Raven, describing Fitzpatrick's
crime: "Suspected terrorist links exposed by suspicious transaction
report, regarding an application for two business-related loans."

The other man arrested was a stout, barrel-chested individual named
Peter Alphonse- about the same age as herself. The woman was in her
late thirties: Anna Cheznick. The three were to be held here, while
the Preventers nearer to Earth attempted to sweep up any more of
their associates and uncover some answers. It would prove a thankless
task and funds were already severely stretched.

Noin found her eyes returning to the woman. She was petite with very
fair hair, long and matted with an accumulation of dirt and grease.
One thick strand fell over her drawn, tired face, but her hands were
cuffed behind her back, preventing her from shifting it. She kept her
eyes on the ground as the female warden assigned to her chivvied her
along the walkway. The woman looked every inch the dejected prisoner,
like she needed a good meal and a good wash to boot.

Adjusting her gaze, over near the railings, Noin could see Agents
Wind and Raven nodding to each other as they poured over the report
details. They worked well together but they weren't friends. Even as
they fast approached middle-age, neither could find a word to say to
each other in a social context. It wasn't as though there was even
any animosity between them, rather, a mutual agreement that they had
no common ground and could not abide by small talk. This in turn,
amused her, because they were more similar than they realised.

****

It was 1pm when Lucrezia began her interrogation of Ms Cheznick. The
newest additions to Cell Block 01 had been permitted a shower and a
small serving of food, and Anna was still picking at her canned
ravioli when Noin entered the cell, armed with a holstered pistol,
which she tried not to draw attention to.

"Hello, I am Agent Fire and I'm here to ask you some questions, if I
might."

"I see." Cheznick spooned some of the tomato pasta into her mouth in
a defiant gesture, certainly in no mood for chitchat with a
Preventer.

Lucrezia made use of the only chair in the room, seeing as the
prisoner was perched upon the bed and she had no desire to sit next
to her. She organised her papers on her lap and clicked on the small
recording device she had brought with her.

"I've begun recording now, okay?" she announced. It was a bizarre
tactic- such forced politeness, as though the criminal was the one
calling the shots, not her captor.

A snort. "Well this is an interrogation, so I gathered you'd be
bringing an intrusive gadget of some sort."

Anna Cheznick's accent sounded vaguely Russian, but a certain
Frenchness pervaded it. Her peroxide blonde hair now hung in wavy
strands around her pale face, curling at the ends like frayed rope-
all the better for a brisk shampooing. She was still attractive for
her age, or at least she probably could scrub up well with a dash of
makeup and a comb. The baggy Preventer issue tunic and pants did her
no favours though, swamping her small frame in stiff, itchy brown
cotton.

"You're wasting your time," Anna said. "I'm not going to tell you
what I don't know."

One of her eyes was blue, the other green, Noin noticed with some
hazy wonderment. It wasn't directly obvious in some lights, but in
the raw florescent glow of the overhead beams, the anomaly became
clear.

"Well how about I tell you what we know?" said Lucrezia, her voice
firm and even. "We suspect you're involved in criminal activity, for
one thing."

Anna offered no answer. She set her plate of half-eaten ravioli
beside her on the bed, then picked up her plastic cup of water and
took a swig. "This tastes odd," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Are
there chemicals in this? Are you trying to poison me?"

"No. Of course not. All the water here has been bottled and shipped
from Earth. It's quite safe."

Cheznick placed the cup back down on the floor all the same.

"Can we return to the matter at hand?" Noin said, feeling she must
adopt a certain schoolmarm tone. "How long have you been involved in
the taxi firm owned by Fitzpatrick?"

"I told you; five years."

"And what position do you hold there?"

"I'm on the desk." She frowned. "Surely you must know this
information already. Don't you people pass on reports and such?"

"Yes. But I want to hear it from you." Noin shifted her papers around
needlessly. "And as far as you know, this company operates
legitimately?"

"I don't know anything. I take phone calls. I don't deal with
accounts."

"I see. Have you anything to say, Ms Cheznick, about your
relationship to Jack Fitzpatrick and his associate, Peter Alphonse?"

"I am his partner. The other man?he is our lodger."

"We have reason to believe your partner and employer has applied
fraudulently to a domestic bank in Siberia for two loans of several
million ES Dollars."

Anna did not even attempt to look discomfited by this information.
She picked some ravioli from her teeth.

"We believe," Noin went on, "That this cash was intended to be sent
to an unknown source, for purposes we cannot determine as of yet. Do
you know anything about your partner's financial dealings?"

"We don't have a close relationship."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Anna heaved a dismissive sigh. "I've been through this with that lot
from the St. Petersburg base. Listen; I have a daughter back at home-
I can't stay here repeating to you that I cannot answer your
questions. It seems to me you've already decided I'm guilty." She
rotated her shoulders in a forward motion. "You know; Preventer is
violating my human rights hauling me all the way out here for
nothing. With no lawyer. I should complain. I will, in fact."

"Well. Once we are finished with you, you are at liberty to do so."
Agent Fire took this moment to present her with a small, clear
rectangular packet, containing passport with a mottled maroon
cover. "Do you know anything about this?"

Anna glanced at it objectively.

"It's the passport of a French woman named Belle Bonnet."

"Oh."

After a thorough search of the prisoners' home- an apartment they
rented between them- three passports had been uncovered; one for a
Jacques Moffet, one for a Pierre Galois and on for Ms Belle Bonnet. A
check on the Preventer central database had revealed that these
individuals had been fined at various times in the past for
misdemeanours such as small-scale tax evasion. Clearly they had
continued their lives of crime elsewhere under false identities.
Tomorrow, a retina scan would be conducted on the prisoners and
matched to those on the system, to make fully certain.

It was clear that Anna was not about to elaborate, so Noin
continued, "This passport was found in your apartment in St.
Petersburg, Ms Cheznick."

"Right."

"Can you tell me why this was in your home?"

Anna's lips twisted. "It could be anyone's. You could be setting me
up."

The prisoner dropped her shoulders and turned her face away,
deliberately cool. Lucrezia stood to her feet, realising she wasn't
going to make much progress today. Perhaps Cheznick needed a good nap
to slough off some of her attitude.

"This interview is finished for now," she said. "I shall be speaking
to you again tomorrow about Fitzpatrick- or Moffet, as you might know
him- in particular." Anna raised her eyes a fraction. Noin flicked
off the recording device and turned as the cell door opened at her
instruction with a mechanical whoosh. "And I hope you will prove more
helpful," she added before stepping into the corridor.

The blonde did not answer. Instead, she busied herself arranging her
bed sheets, then climbed between them, keeping her back to the agent.
Noin wondered how the other interrogations were getting along. Todays
hadn't been intended as a formal questioning of the prisoner, just a
short conversation to gage her reaction to the accusations. Ms
Cheznick had acted less guilty than she had disinterested.

Noin felt a twinge of shame when she realised she, too, was less
interested in this whole affair than she should be. She was itching
to go home to Marcus-Louis, ached to cuddle him, to read him stories.
At age five he was beginning his tutelage on the Classics, at Zechs'
insistence, and had recently taken up the piano and violin. At least
he was enjoying his young life orbiting the Red Planet, though it was
a lonely place for a child.

She had given birth to him late- at thirty-eight- and had wondered by
then if she was doomed never to have children. His advent into the
world had changed her, in ways it hadn't changed her husband. All of
a sudden, she had found her thoughts occupied by the little boy; her
mind would wander to him constantly, fret about him, wonder about his
daily actions. Zechs had once commented that she didn't seem as
committed to her work as he remembered her to be, and had even
offered her the chance to retire, so she might devote all her time to
their son. She had acted indignant in the face of his suggestion,
unwilling to be viewed as a mere housewife, but in truth, the idea
was treacherously tempting. She had only persisted in Oz for Zechs,
travelled to Mars for Zechs, and was reluctant to acknowledge she was
only playing Preventers for him, too. The only irony lay in the fact
Noin was successful in most roles she adopted, and was widely
recognised as a valuable agent due to her skills and experience. Her
resignation would be taken as a grave loss. That was why she- Agent
Fire- would remain.

But at her very core, she knew Marcus-Louis's round violet eyes and
dark foppish hair held her captive in a love much deeper than she had
for Zechs Marquise or for Mars, and every day Noin the Preventer
wrestled with Noin the Mother. It was a battle she faced alone.


TBC?