Here's the first part of a GunSmith Cats fanfic I'm working on. C&C
appreciated, even at this early stage.

-DR

************

(Untitled): an Info-Hounds adventure
 a Gunsmith Cats fanfic
 by Damien Roc

Disclaimer: Gunsmith Cats is copyright, trademark, etc. of Kenichi Sonoda,
and probably a few corporate entities as well. If, by some strange
non-capitalist reasoning, you feel the urge to pay money for this fanfic, pay
it to him (them), not me or anyone else.

The Info-Hounds are creations (copyright, I guess) of Damien Roc (me) and are
not to be bought or sold. If you wish to use any of the Info-Hounds
characters in any way (other than their regular appearances in GRIT or CAPOW)
then please email me at damienroc@aol.com first with your request.

All that aside, on with the sur... er story.

------------

Hong Kong

-My arm aches- As soon as the thought entered her mind, Andrea Kwan chided
herself. -Haven't been working out enough recently-

Slowly, silently, she relaxed her legs, allowing her body to assume a more
verticle position. She pushed back with her arms and came to a crouch.
Finally stable enough, Andrea began to rub her right bicep with as little
movement as possible.  She cursed mentally. If things blew up now...

She heard the sound of a door closing, and froze, opening her hearing to
override the sound of blood pumping in her ears. Far to her left, and
slightly down, there was the open conversation and laughter of her intended
targets. But to the right, where she heard the sound, nothing. 

Light suddenly spilled into the far right of the eaves, it became blocked off
slightly as someone climbed through the ventilation panel. He said something
to one of his companions. It sounded like English, but Andrea was too far
away to catch the comment. Then the light was cut off briefly, it flickered
as someone stepped through into the eaves. A few more words, then the panel
was replaced and darkness again.

For a few moments, Andrea strained her ears. Apparently, her new companion
was doing likewise, because she heard nothing.

-Maybe... nobody came in, or he left immediately.- She struck down the
thought as ludicrous. There _was_ someone in the eaves with her, and he had
only one direction to go...

... And she could hear his footsteps approaching. She felt her heart begin to
race, and the head-rush of an adrenaline surge. Gritting her teeth, she
fought it down and forced herself to think.

The eaves weren't wide, slightly over a meter and a half, and they didn't
have any flooring to speak of. Andrea had been spider-walking across the
joists, but apparently the newcomer was just using them as foot supports.
Definitely faster, but also much louder.

-I can't afford the noise- She hunched down and sidled over to the far side,
a whole meter away, pressing herself up agaist the edge of the roof. A flick
of her thumb, and her pistol was free to be drawn, but she waited.

The quiet "tunk. tunk. tunk." of the man's footsteps got steadily closer.
Andrea could vaguely see the silhouette of his approaching form.

Then he was past, and she quickly, silently, stepped out behind him and began
to shadow him. She matched her footsteps to his.

Abruptly, he paused and started to turn. Her gun was out in a flash and
pressed up against the back of his neck. The man froze.

"DeLante must have wised up," she hissed. "Sucks to be you. Raise your arms."

For a moment, the man didn't do anything, then, hesitantly, he spoke in
English. "Um... I don't speak Cantonese."

Inside, Andrea slapped herself. "Get your hands up," she repeated in English.

"Your gun doesn't waver," he said, slowly obliging.

"Shut up." She reached down to her waist to grab her handcuffs, but stopped
herself. -How can I subdue him without making any noise?- Mentally she
figured her timeframe and swore as she realized she was almost a minute late.
If she didn't hurry, she wouldn't be silent, and the entire job would be
botched.

"Move," she commanded, "Keep quiet."

"tunk. tunk. tunk." Every step (she matched his pace perfectly) sounded like
a death toll to her. -Somebody will hear.-

Screw-ups like this weren't supposed to happen. DeLante couldn't have known
about this operation, even if he had an insider in the police. Johnny Lee had
hatched barely over an hour before, something he had planned and researched
on his own.

Besides Andrea and Johnny, the other three cops were ones she trusted
impeccably. No, DeLante couldn't have known.

But he _had_, otherwise the man Andrea held her gun to wouldn't have been in
the eaves. DeLante never wasted money, men, or effort.

Something didn't seem right, however. She couldn't pin down what was
bothering her, but Andrea knew she was missing something.

"tunk. tunk. tunk." She pressed the man onwards. Beyond their footsteps, she
could hear the voices of DeLante's meeting getting louder. At the very least,
she could throw in an added surprise. DeLante and his cohorts would probably
shit their pants when their goon came crashing, quite dead, through the
ceiling. Those French bast...

Andrea abruptly halted. The man took two steps before realizing that she
wasn't directly behind him.

French. All of DeLante's men were French and (unless the police info was
completely wrong) fluent in Cantonese. Yet this man hadn't understood
Cantonese, and had spoken in English.

For a moment, Andrea wondered if some of the people in on the deal were
British, but like most Frenchies, Delante hated the British. He wouldn't deal
with them. Besides, the man had sounded American. A deal there was possible,
but unlikely.

"Alright, who the hell are you?" Andrea took two steps forward and hissed in
the man's ear.

He started to turn around, then all hell broke loose.

There was a crash as something broke through a door, the laughing banter
changed to shock and outrage immediately. A pair of small arms shots rang
out, followed by a shotgun blast that ripped a hole into the eaves right
behind the man.

Light spilled forward as the man completed his turn. His legs started to
buckle, and she saw surprise register on his face as he started to fall
through the hole. He reached forward and grabbed Andrea around the hips. She
raised her gun to shoot him, but he abruptly let go.

Then there was a thump as he hit the ground, and for a couple of seconds
everything stopped and went quiet.

A crash of a window shattered the peace, and the gunfire resumed. A scream
echoed out in a voice Andrea recognized.

"Johnny!" She shouted, and dove feet first through the hole.

She landed, rolled, came to her feet already spinning and covering the scene.

Another shotgun blast rang out, and the man she'd found in the eaves hunched
lower as the table he was using as cover became even smaller. The man held a
matte black pistol which Andrea realized was her own. He'd grabbed it as he
fell through the hole.

Opposite the man, the source of the shot was revealed as Michel DeLante, who
likewise was behind the cover of a table. The difference being he had three
other people with him, two looked like his goons.

Near the shattered doorway, a third goon lay in a slowly expanding pool of
blood, both his and the person who'd apparently come barging through the
door.

Just inside the window and to Andrea's right was Johnny Lee, gasping for
breaths that wouldn't come. His chest was a pulpy mess, oozing crimson and
white.

In the center of the room was the evidence that Johnny had planned for. Two
open suicases, filled with plastic packs of some white powder. A few of those
packs had apparently taken a hit, because there was a large area covered by
the powder, some of it mixing with blood.

DeLante cocked his shotgun and began to turn towards Andrea. She dove over
Johnny and rolled again, this time coming to her feet firing.

The wall beside her exploded as shotgun pellets ripped into the thin plaster.
Her shots also missed, punching a pair of divots into the wall behind
DeLante.

He cocked again, so Andrea continued with her momentum and dove out the door.

Outside the room, three other bodies lay in the hallway: a pair of cops and
one of DeLante's men. Andrea quickly checked the pulses of the police
officers; both dead.

"You can't beat me," DeLante called out in Cantonese. "So why not be smart
and let me go." He paused. "I'll even let you two coppers live."

Andrea leaned against the wall outside the door, mentally mapping out the
room inside. If she could just take out DeLante, the other goons would give
up...

... Except not all of them were goons. Johnny's intel had said that two
customers were in the deal, but Andrea had only seen one (quivering behind
DeLante) in the room.

"You going to translate what that bastard just said?" The man inside asked.

"You speak no Cantonese?" DeLante said in English. He began to laugh, deep
and hearty. "Oh, so there's only one police officer here. Someone sold out on
me." Someone screamed in terror, then there was another shotgun blast. The
scream was cut short.

Andrea whipped around the doorframe into the room, swinging her gun towards
DeLante. She didn't even get her eyes on him before one of his men barrelled
into her. The man was easily twice her mass, and she flew back, slamming into
the opposite wall of the hallway. Her head cracked against the hard surface,
and she saw stars.

"I've changed my mind," she heard DeLante say. Her vision was blurry and she
couldn't see him; just a pair of dark masses in front of her. "I'm going to
kill you." He cocked the shotgun.

Two shots rang out, and one of the blurry masses grunted in pain and went
down.

"Don't turn your back on a threat," the man from the eaves said.

DeLante cursed and fired the shotgun. The second dark mass dissappeared from
Andrea's vision and she heard running footsteps. "Maybe another time, my dear
police friends!"

Andrea tried to get to her feet, tried to follow him.

"Stay still," the command was accompanied by hands forcing her down.

"Can't," she grunted, "Have to stop DeLante."

"Just wait a moment before you kill yourself trying. Damien's on the roof, so
we've got a couple of seconds at least."

She waited what seemed like an eternity, but couldn't have been more than
fifteen seconds, and sure enough, her vision began to clear. "I can see.
Let's go."

She vaulted to her feet and began running, the man right behind her.

Ninety seconds and two stairwells later, the pair of them burst onto the
roof. More bodies lay upon the tar and gravel mix, mostly goons but also the
final cop. At the far end of the roof, a helicopter was beginning to take
off.

Andrea sprinted towards it raising her gun to fire.

Someone burst out from behind the cover of a chimmeny and jumped forward,
grabbing onto the landing strut of the helicopter.

"Damien! NO!" the man behind her shouted. The helicopter wobbled slightly
under the added weight but continued to rise.

Someone stepped forward to look down at the hanger-on. DeLante, and he held
his shotgun poised to blow the newcomer away. Then he paused and reached back
for something. It was a slightly strange looking weapon.

DeLante fired it, and a grapple-hook imbedded itself into the hanger's
shoulder. Andrea heard him scream and let go. The wire (and DeLante) held
fast, and he dangled, writhing in pain. 

The helicopter turned and flew off into the night.

For a moment, Andrea stared after it, then realization of the mission's
failure hit her, and she slumped to her knees, tears coming to her eyes.

"Dammit, Damien. I told you no hero stuff." The man stopped beside her. "Hey!
You okay? Didn't get hit did you?"

Andrea shook her head. "No," she sobbed. "It's just..."

He squatted down and she felt an arm on her shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay.
Geez. You're pretty new at this, aren't you."

"It's not okay!" she shouted, "Everyone's dead... and it's all because of
me!"

The man whistled. "You? I think you're taking a bit too much credit."

"I'll never get DeLante, now."

"Maybe, but..."

"He's heading for Chicago." The new voice interrupted whatever the man had
been about to say. Andrea turned towards it.

"What?"

The speaker stood at the roof stairwell, and she recognized him as the
non-cop, non-goon body down in the room. His shirt was in tatters, but he
seemed okay.

"DeLante's heading for Chicago." The man held forward a piece of paper. "Had
it written down."

In a flash, Andrea thought over what her very near future would be like. With
four cops and a number of potential criminals dead, but no bust, it was going
to be bureaucratic hell.

"I'm coming with you," she stated firmly.

The two men exchanged glances. The man with the paper started to say
something, but the one beside her got his opinion out first. "Persona, we do
owe her."

The man at the stairwell shook his head. "We don't do charity, Stackpole.
We've got a job."

"And she can help." Neither said anything after that, they just stared at
eachother.

"Fine!" the one with the paper eventually said. He shook his head in disgust.
"But she's YOUR responsability."

The man beside her nodded with satisfaction. "I'm Stackpole," he said,
turning towards her. "This is Persona, and Damien was the guy playing hangman
with the helicopter."

"I'm... Andrea."

"Nice to meet you, Andrea."

"Fine, we're introduced," Persona said. "We've got to get to Chicago."