Written By: bikkothewriter
Pairings: Main 1x2, others may show up
Warnings: Yaoi, Language, blood, gore, lemon, lime, angst
Disclaimer: I own nothing! Splicing idea borrowed from Batman Beyond.
Rating: NC 17

Preventors' Case #84309: Splicers + Chapter Nine

Heero arrived at the Bonham residence in less than ten minutes, but was forced to park down the street as both Preventor and police cars littered the area making it impossible to get a spot close to the small house. He popped the hood of the trunk before getting out of the car to walk around and find an extra Preventors' jacket. Pulling it over the white button down he'd worn to Zech's house, he made his way up the street to the front of the house where Weber met him.

"There's no forced entry, just his bedroom window left open. Denvers is in there interrogating the foster parents and fingerprinting everything."

"Why is she here?"

"They called the police first when they found him missing, then us. And you know how she is," Weber said shaking his head as they moved pass several uniformed officers waiting just inside the house.

"Have we started searching for him?"

"Yeah, Barton's at HQ making sure he doesn't go there. Price and Hayers are roaming the streets to make sure he isn't trying to find his dad and Gemmell's on her way here."

Heero didn't want to imagine the three year old wandering the streets of L1 in a misguided attempt to find his father. He'd already been kidnapped once in the last few days and it was sheer luck that he'd been found only a little worse for wear.

"When did they notice him missing?"

"At around ten this morning, when they went to get him up for breakfast."

They made their away around several more uniformed officers as Weber led Heero to the bedroom. Along the way, he noticed that the house was very neat and open, with many pictures hanging on the walls. Several CSI's were moving around the different rooms collecting evidence, dusting for fingerprints and generally making a mess of the small home.

"Did they check on him anytime in the night?"

"The last time was around eleven. Mrs. Bonham says he was asleep when she came in and the window was closed. This is the room," Weber said gesturing to the open door.

The small bedroom was painted a medium blue with a matching dresser and bed set. Denvers stood at the small window in question, dressed smartly in a black pantsuit with heels hovering over a CSI as he dusted the frame. A blond haired woman sat in the edge of the bed, her eyes red and puffy from crying, wringing a handkerchief in her hands.

"Mrs. Bonham, this is Commander Yuy. Commander this Helen Bonham," Weber said in way of introduction.

"Mrs. Bonham," Heero said nodding.

"Commander, my men and I are handling this case. We don't need you here," Denver said glaring at Heero, her hands on her hips.

"The boy is apart of an ongoing Preventors investigation. He was placed into Mrs. Bonham's care when we were forced to take his Nana into custody," Heero said trying to convey to the woman the importance of the missing boy.

"How is it that every case on L1 is your case?"

"Lieutenant Denvers, this boy has already been kidnapped once this week and almost sold at an Auction. All I care about is finding him. If you want to lead, fine, but let's concentrate on finding him," he said willing to let the woman take all the credit she could as long as she helped find the boy.

She looked at him for a moment, before nodding. "I have several men canvassing the neighborhood looking for him. So far we haven't found anything that suggests kidnapping."

"He was so sad when the officers brought him to the house yesterday," Mrs. Bonham said, "I didn't think anything of it. Most of the kids who come to stay are miserable for the first few days until they get used to being here."

"Did he say anything particular? That he missed his Nana or his father?"

"No, he just asked how anyone would find him, if he was here and he moped but that's normal." She shook her head, twisting her hands around the cloth, "I should have checked on him sooner. I should have watched him better."

"Don't beat yourself up. You couldn't have known that he'd run off," Weber said.

While Heero didn't want to blame the woman for the boy's disappearance he couldn't help but want to place the blame somewhere. If Bonham had watched him more carefully, if he had fought the judge's decision more, if Rains hadn't been a part of the case, Kitten wouldn't be missing now. Just when more and more pieces of his case were falling into place, the key component had gone missing.

"We need to broaden our search. It's possible that he's been missing for over eleven hours now. He could be anywhere. How many people can the department spare to help us look?" Heero asked Denver.

"If we can get a recent photo I can get it out to all the patrol cars on L1."

"The hospital took photographs of all the children, we can get a copy of theirs," Weber added. "Should we put out an Amber Alert?"

"Yes, we need to find him before he falls into the wrong hands," Heero answered even as Weber pulled out his mobile phone to call the hospital. He moved aside as the man stepped out of the room to carry-on his conversation with the staff.

"The wrong hands?" Denvers questioned.

"His splicing may be in connection to Dr. M. I want to find him before Dr. M has a chance to."

"Damn, you don't so anything by halves, do you, Yuy?"

"Obviously not," he deadpanned. "Is there anything else you can tell us, Mrs. Bonham? Even the smallest detail will could go a long way to finding him."

The foster mother shook her head, wringing her hands, "He didn't say much at all. I don't know what I can tell you. I've never had a child runaway before."

Heero started as his phone rang, interrupting him before he had a chance to answer the woman and reassure that this was not her fault, that Kitten was certainly a very special case. Looking at the caller ID and reading Trowa's name and number there, he hoped that his second was calling him with some good news.

"Yuy, here."

"There's been another death."

+

"Francis King, nineteen years old, admitted to Plainsboro four days ago. TOD was at eleven 'o' seven a.m. from internal organ failure." Trowa read from a notebook he usually kept stored in his coat pocket. The two stood alone in the hospital morgue save for the body of Francis that lay on a metal slab. The deceased man's skin glowed under the fluorescent lighting, pale and white. Long yellow-tipped, white feathers graced the top of his head, replacing what had started life as blond hair.

"Why didn't anyone at the hospital call us when he first came in?" Heero asked his voice echoing in the cold, sterile room. Three of the four walls were lined in green tile while the fourth housed the metal coolers containing the hospital's dead. Several tables used specifically for autopsies sat in the center of the room, thankfully empty of bodies.

"The nurse who admitted him says she didn't know it was mandatory to call us in on splicing cases like this."

"She's lying. The system should prompt them when the information is keyed in," he said assured in the knowledge that the software he and the computer techs had worked up and uploaded to all of the hospital's mainframes across L1 would have given the nurse all the information she needed to get in contact with the Preventors.

"The splicing's not on file."

"Then I want the entire hospital brought up on charges for obstruction of justice and negligence. Have the nurse and the primary doctor brought down to headquarters."

"They're already in custody. I've sent Gemmell to search his apartment, who do want to partner with her?"

"Send Weber. I want Price and Hayers to keep looking for Kitten."

"Do you want me to talk to Janet Hughes again?"

"I'll take care of it."

"Heero," Trowa murmured.

He looked up at the taller man seeing the hurt still in his eyes over the incident yesterday. While logically, he knew Trowa was right to suggest Duo as a possible suspect, in his chest it felt wrong as if somehow he would be betraying Duo to think such a thing of him. After the many times Duo had risked his life for both Heero and Trowa, along with the rest of the world he couldn't believe that acts so unethical could have been perpetrated by him.

He sighed, "I don't want to fight with you, or be mad at you. You were right to suggest Duo as a suspect."

"But you don't believe it."

"No, but I will put it on the table."

"I don't want him to be involved anymore than you do, Heero, but we'd be remiss if we didn't consider it."

"I know," he said drawing that line of conversation to a close. "Let's head back to headquarters. I'm hoping that Hughes can give us an idea of what direction Kitten might be headed in."

+

Janet Hughes had had nothing to say. She'd sat silent, handcuffed, while Heero had questioned her, while Joyanne had assured her that Kitten really was missing, and while Rains had pleaded with her to help the investigation, that the boy was in danger. All the while, she remained resolutely silent.

Susan Dennison on the other hand had no problem talking about anything and everything. The Plainsboro nurse had wanted desperately to find a way out of the situation that she'd found herself in while her lawyer was trying to do everything in his power to shut her up.

"Dr. Kenny said that it was alright to leave the splicing off the file. He said he would take care of everything."

"Ms. Dennison, please," her lawyer pleaded.

"You should be asking him what's going on, not me. I was just following the doctor's orders."

"What were his orders exactly?"

"He said that he would handle it, that we didn't need to enter the splicing because that wasn't what was causing the organ failure."

"Then why not list it? Anyone who has splicing done has to be reported to the authorities. All the hospitals on L1 are under a government issued mandate to turn over that information."

"He said it would be okay. That we'd give him the antidote and he'd go home and not have to go to jail for wanting to be different," she explained and her lawyer sighed rubbing his face with his hand.

"So you knowingly went against procedure on the orders of Dr. Kenny?"

"Yes. No! I mean, I was doing what I was told by the doctor. I didn't think any harm would come from it. And Kristen, Julia, and Deana knew about it too. Why weren't they arrested? I mean they broke the law too."

"I'll be sure to have them arrested as well."

"No, that's not what I meant!"

+

Dr. Jon Kenny was not as overindulgent as Dennison or as closed-lipped as Hughes was, but nonetheless the man was ready to talk. He sat in the interrogation room his hands sitting his lap, handcuffed. He still wore his lab coat and looked every bit pristine, but his eyes betrayed the sadness and grief he felt.

"Francis is, was, my nephew. When he came into the hospital, I asked the other nurses to leave the splicing off his file because I didn't want him to go to jail. Don't punish the others for following my orders. "

"The other women have already incriminated themselves in this by admitting to their involvement."

"They were only doing what I asked. I didn't want my nephew to go to jail. I didn't know the splicing was what was causing his illness. I didn't think he'd be so stupid."

Heero remained quiet letting the man talk.

"A cockatoo. He spliced himself with a cockatoo. The stupidest thing I've ever heard of, tampering with your DNA and for what? To bleed out in a hospital bed for a few feathers on your head," he said somberly.

"Did he tell you anything about the splicing," Heero asked quietly.

"I don't know very much," he answered.

"Dr. Kenny, I know that this is hard on you but I need to know whatever he might have told you. There are other people in the same position who we could help if we can find the doctor who did his splicing."

"I know he had it done a few weeks ago but where and by who, I don't know. He was barely breathing when he came into the hospital. He kept making these strange clucking noises whenever he tried to speak."

"Clucking noises, Dr. Kenny?"

"It's the best way I know how to describe it. His head would jerk forward and he would cluck. I thought he was choking at first."

"Were there any another strange behaviors? Anything else animal like?" Heero asked worried that Dr. M might actually be getting closer to whatever goal he was searching for, which would make it harder to find him once his formula was perfected.

"No," Kenny answered shaking his had. "That was it. Would he still be alive if I had turned him over to you? Could your doctors have saved him?"

Heero looked the man in the eye saw that he was hurting and looking for that final push into damnation and couldn't lie to him. "No."

+

"Have we found anything on Kitten?" Heero asked coming into the conference room where Trowa, Hayers and Price waited. It was close to midnight and the day was yet to be over as they were still trying to follow up on Kitten's whereabouts and still searching for the ever-elusive Dr. M.

Both Lanie the snow leopard and Emmett the hedgehog were both on constant watch by both doctors and nurses but with no improvement. Lanie was already connected to life support and her condition continued to deteriorate as Emmett was quickly following behind her, his organs beginning to shut down one at a time. They didn't have much longer left to live.

Heero noticed the new addition to the conference room a large bulletin board with a map of L1 attached with several blue pins tacked into different spots congregated together making a rather haphazard line.

"We got a couple of calls from different people who claim to have seen him at some time since he disappeared sometime last night," Trowa said.

"So far from what we've gathered Kitten was first spotted sometime around two a.m. by a woman named Enna. She says she saw him outside of her home on Hampton Street. Here." Hayers said pointing to one of the blue pins. Hampton Street was only to blocks over from the Bonham residence, which gave them the time at which the boy had snuck out of the house.

"Then a call from Gloria saying that she saw him making his way down Shichan Street," Price added pointing to the next pen.

"Then Aleera spotted him on Towners at around four in the morning."

"Did none of these people attempt to stop him?" Heero asked, interrupting the list.

"Actually a few of them did but the moment they turned their back on him he was gone," Hayers answered. "We talked to some them in person even and they couldn't explain how they'd lost him so quickly."

"Who was the last to see him?"

"We're not sure. It's between Shannon and Vel who both saw him heading towards the shuttle port at around the same time. We don't have anything for him after five this morning."

"Why would he be going towards a shuttle port? Have we contacted the shuttle port officials to see if he made it that far?"

"So far the port hasn't found any evidence of him there, but they're still working through the tapes from last night and today to see if he was in or around the port," Trowa said.

"He said his father is on L1 right?" Hayers asked.

"Yes but there's no way to know for sure," Price answered.

"Is there a chance he could have stowed away on a shuttle?" Heero asked.

"The port should have tighter security than that," Trowa said.

"He managed to get away from several good Samaritans, who's to say that he couldn't slip pass the port staff."

"He's only three, not a-"

"Commander!" cried Gemmell, shouting as she ran into the conference room out of breath with Weber on her heels.

"What is it?"

"I figured it out! I know who Dr. M is!"

"What?"

"Well you know how I was checking into the vets? Well when we got to Francis' apartment we found his pet cockatoo!"

"And?" Hayers prompted.

"We found out who his vet was. A Dr Gabriel Murai. The last time he took his cockatoo to the vet was four weeks ago, right around the time he was spliced."

"That isn't enough to get us a warrant," Heero said although he was excited to have a more definite lead.

"No, but remember how Pepper was spliced with a dog?"

"A Patterdale terrier, to be exact," Weber added.

"Yeah, well she just so happened to have a Patterdale terrier that died a couple of months ago. And," Gemmell said with emphasis, "She just so happened to have had her dog treated by Dr. Murai before he died."

"Holy shit," Hayers said, "We've got him."

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