He was in a white washed room whose ceiling must have been at least two decks high. Duo wondered if there was an escape option above him. There seemed to be an indent above him, maybe another room. It was a faint hope, but Duo couldn’t come up with anything else at the moment. Except maybe swimming out of the broken hatches, but the water was flooding from them so strongly that there wasn’t a chance of getting out. Duo grinned; Mishii had done a good job. He really didn’t know whether he’d make it out alive or not. But that wasn’t a new feeling either, and every challenge held some sort of solution. Duo looked above again and put a silent bet on the indent, it had to be some sort of room. He relaxed a little bit and decided to wait.

After all, he hadn’t grown up in any desert. Duo knew how to swim very well.

***

Trowa Barton wondered why the floor felt so wet all of the sudden. He slowly walked over to a stairwell and stared down it. From a deck below water flooded out the doors and was quickly submerging the stairs. Trowa suddenly remembered an ancient movie he’d seen a while ago. It was called Titanic, and was really rather pointless except for the fact that it was about a cruise boat sinking. Looking down the stairs reminded Trowa of that movie, which actually ended quite dismally. The main hero of the story died but his girlfriend survived. Trowa didn’t have a girlfriend, for a moment his mind idly rested on the thought of whether that excluded him from the same fate or not.

Trowa was on deck G looking for clues, or more explicitly a file cabinet. A file cabinet containing top secret documents on an organization that was really starting to get on Trowa’s nerves. What kind of people flooded their own yacht just to keep some lousy files away from intruders? Having secret files at all was an invite to someone who wanted to find them. And Trowa was very good at finding files, although judging from the fact that the deck below him was flooding, the files were down there and most certainly already destroyed. He wondered what had happened to Duo. The great ship lurched suddenly and Trowa was almost thrown into the now completely submerged stairwell. The tall boy decided that moving to a higher deck was a wise decision. Trowa thought about going to look for Duo, eventually deciding against it. Duo could take care of himself, and Trowa was half sure that the braided teen would take offense at being rescued.

Now the trick was to find another staircase. Trowa set off in a run but was very surprised to find the floor under his feet tilting towards the back of the ship. How fast was this going to sink? Trowa came upon another staircase and started up it, being more careful than quick. He met Heero Yuy half way up.

"Did you feel that?" Heero asked him. "What happened?"

"The boat’s sinking. I think MIND found out about our little search and are trying to destroy our files. Seems kind of pointless though, a real waste."

"Wufei was right," Heero muttered to himself. He stared at the stairs for a second. "Where’s Duo and Quatre?"

"Quatre’s above us, but Duo’s probably still below. He can take care of himself."

"Let’s call him."

"What?" Trowa blinked.

Heero was holding his laptop. He opened it, sat down on the now badly angled staircase, and started typing. "I having tracking signal on him. We’ll be able to find exactly what room he’s in, if there’s a phone I can call him."

Trowa folded his arms, trying to mask a sharp exhale of breath. "I’m so glad you care, do you have these little tracking devices for all of us?"

"Possibly."

"That’s a yes, isn’t it?"

Heero shrugged. "Well…I’m paranoid…it’s for your safety, and mine, if you ever decide to become mentally unstable or something."

"I’ll keep that in mind," Trowa nodded. "Why didn’t you just track Quatre and I down at the MIND base then?"

"For some reason while you were there it didn’t work."

"MIND has hackers then."

Heero shrugged. "I suppose."

Trowa watched shallow waves of water wash into the stairwell they were sitting in. "Heero? We will drown you know…"

Heero rolled his eyes. "I found him. Good, he’s in a room with a phone too…and look at this. The blueprint says that the room has a filing cabinet in it."

"Really?"

Heero hit a switch and all of the sudden a ringing sound was emitted from the tiny computer. "Let’s find out."

***

Duo Maxwell was now standing in water up to his waist, and it had only been about fifteen minutes. He really might die after all this time. Somehow after all the adventures and close calls he’d had, this seemed like a rather pathetic way to go. There was no blaze of glory to be found in the bottom of a sinking ship. The water was starting to swirl slightly as the level it was rising past the level of the hatches. Duo was getting pretty cold; he’d have to find some sort of new plan soon…

Somewhere above him a phone started ringing. Duo blinked in sheer confusion, where in all of sanity would a phone be? Slowly his eyes traveled up to the indent above the locked door. The sound was definitely coming from up there. But Duo had long since come to the conclusion that there was no way to get up there until the water flooded that high. Which was going to happen very soon anyway, Duo wouldn’t be waiting.

The phone kept ringing, seven, eight, and even nine times. Eventually the icy water was up to Duo’s elbows, and it was starting to get very hard to move. He was feeling a little light headed, probably his brain starting to react to the cold water. Duo tried jumping up towards the indent. His cold fingers grasped the edge of the floor for a second but then slipped off, falling completely numb as they did. After a few more minutes of flooding, which was now silent because of the fact that the water level exceeded the hatches, Duo jumped again. His numb fingers curled around the edge and he managed to pull himself up.

Duo ran into the room and picked up the phone. It was the only thing inside besides for a large oversized filing cabinet. He nodded to himself; at least he’d be able to explore some files before he left. "Hello, Duo here!"

"Duo. Still alive?"

"Well of course, buddy, what did you expect?"

"Did you find the files?"

"Again, what do you think Heero? Of course I found the files."

"What do they say?"

Duo laughed shallowly until he could almost feel Heero frowning on the other side of the line. "I haven’t gotten to that yet. Gotta open the cabinet and read them first, this room is flooding really fast."

"Do you have a way out?"

"Um…I’ll think of something. I’ll meet you topside with the files. Bye."

Duo hung up that phone and turned his attention to the filing cabinet. All of the drawers were unlocked. He opened the top one to find countless files with names on them. Duo was staring at the Z’s. He opened a file marked "ZENELLO". It was a description of a student of MIND, their history, their abilities, and any details Duo could possibly want on them. Duo realized with a sinking feeling how important these files were to the organization. He could steal them and essentially wipe all of the students out. Duo shivered, all of the sudden he was in this whole thing very deep.

Familiar icy wetness filled Duo’s shoes as he read through the drawer. The many names of the students were meaningless until Duo came across a file labeled "WUFEI". He blinked. It obviously had something to do with the gundam pilot but Wufei’s last name was Chang, in China a last name was the first part of a name given. So Wufei’s full name was Chang Wufei, and a file with his first name on it was very odd indeed. Duo pulled it out of the drawer and opened it. Three pieces of paper fell out and the braided teen had to leap to catch them from being destroyed in the water. The three pieces of paper belonged to three different people. One was Wufei himself; all of his vital information was printed in black ink, his name, date of birth, height, weight, reaction time, occupation, everything right down to every mobile suit the boy had ever piloted. Duo stared holes through the other two pieces.

According to files held top secret by the organization of MIND, Wufei wasn’t an only child. He had at least two sisters, and they both looked just like him to prove the relation. One Duo didn’t recognize, but the other was all too familiar. The file for a Cassandra Wufei gave Duo another involuntary shiver. No wonder she had such a bad attitude, she was related to the origin of bad attitudes.

***

Heero and Trowa made it back up to D deck just in time to meet pure chaos. Apparently the Inquisitive Integrity really did have a vibe with the Titanic, no one seemed to know what to do when either ship decided to sink. The two boys just stood there for a moment while people ran back and forth through a seething crowd, some were trying to be productive by readying the lifeboats, and some were just panicking. Quatre ran into Heero, having come up through the stairwell just a few seconds after the other two. "We have to get out of here, the boat’s sinking!"

"Really?" Chang Wufei appeared out through the crowd. "I would have never guessed."

"Wufei," Heero growled, trying to not let his anger show. "You knew that this was going to happen."

"Well of course, Mishii wouldn’t let anyone near her files. Better just to sink the boat, that way no one finds them."

"You’ve got to stop playing this game and tell us what’s really going on here," Heero locked eyes with the Chinese boy. "You know what this is all about, you owe us enough to tell us. So do it now or omae o-"

"Mr. Heero! Mr. Trowa!" a lone girl came running through the crowds at brake-neck speed. She darted in between people effortlessly and was looking quite scared. "What’s going on?" Cassandra asked, her voice tinged with an edge.

Wufei looked at the tiny girl and his face froze. He went abnormally pale and didn’t even hear Heero talking to him.

"Wufei, I mean it," Heero reached into his jacket pocket, his hand gripping the handle of a gun. "You have to tell us, no matter who you’re going to dishonor-"

"Wufei!" Cassandra giggled suddenly, staring back at the stricken boy. She went up to him and gave him a hug, wrapping her arms around him very innocently. "Brother…I’m scared…"

There was never a moment that was so silent while mass chaos was erupting just outside the circle of pilots. Quatre coughed loudly, frantically searching for something to say. "Uh…wow, that’s a surprise…I mean…ummm…imagine that Wufei would have a…uh…oh forget it. Let’s just find a lifeboat and get out of here."

Heero nodded, leading the way towards the starboard side of the deck. A ship hand was readying a large banana yellow lifeboat. It looked like it could hold well over a hundred people, and more just like it were now suddenly appearing to line the deck. The Integrity wasn’t like the Titanic; everyone would definitely be getting off this boat.

***

Duo snatched the phone up onto the filing cabinet where he was sitting to escape the water. He then bumped his head on what was suddenly a very welcomed solution. There was a door above him; it must have led to the upper decks. Duo tried the huge crank to get it open but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the other side. Duo rolled his eyes tiredly. Just when he thought he was going to execute the perfect daring escape, he had to go find a loophole that even the great Shinigami couldn’t squeeze through.

The phone rang again, jouncing Duo out of his private disappointment. "Hi there Heero!"

"Maxwell!"

Duo pulled the phone away from his ear. "Oh…hi Wufei."

"Whatever. Did you find the files?"

"Yup, got them right here," Duo pulled his feet up out of the water; it had completely covered the first drawer. Shinigami suddenly realized with a bit of a swallow that there was a lot less room to flood now that the water had passed the ceiling below the indent. "Guess what? You have two sisters."

"Two? Wait a minute, that isn’t right-"

This wasn’t the answer Duo had expected. "Yup, two. We’ve got a Cassandra Wufei here and a Liana Wufei."

There was silence before Wufei started talking again. "Well, first of all it would be Chang Cassandra and Chang Liana, but that isn’t right. I have a sister named Liana but I have no idea where-…wait…" Duo could hear the phone being put down. "How old are you?" Wufei was talking to somebody else. "Oh…"

"Um…what’s going on there?" Duo glanced down to see a wave wash over the handle of the second drawer.

"Fine. I guess I have two sisters now then, don’t I? So what’s your point?"

"Apparently you’re all telekinetically capable."

"Well we would be, now wouldn’t we? Did you check your own file?"

"My own what?"

Wufei laughed. "Your own file, MIND has files on all of us."

"What?! Really? Damn, the rest of the cabinet is flooded-"

"Maxwell, you idiot, when I…" Wufei’s voice faded as the phone was handed off to someone. From far above Heero snatched the computer out of Wufei’s hands.

"Duo? I can hear the water rising, are you going to drown or what?"

Duo hopped off the cabinet and yelled out when he found the water level brushing his shoulders. "Whoa…I mean, no problem, I can handle this-"

"Duo…" Heero sighed. "I hate to do this to you. There’s a door above you, right?"

Duo didn’t bother to hide the disappointment. "I guess so."

"I’ll be there in two minutes."

"Right. Bye."

Duo splashed some water in his face, feeling genuinely annoyed that Heero was going to have to come and bail him out. Even more annoying though was the prospect of facing Wufei afterwards. How could Cassie be related to that-…Duo decided to forget about it.

Fifteen minutes later five pilots and one sister of a pilot escaped off of the dead Inquisitive Integrity. Everyone got off and no one went down with the ship, not even the captain. The only important thing that was lost was a file cabinet worth of information that could have solved a mystery. In Duo’s soggy pocket three pieces of paper had been salvaged, although these clues were useless to be deciphered without even a vague notion of what they could mean.