Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

The group of girls were near to the meeting room door when the couple returned. They were not the young geniuses in the vicinity, but as they approached, one of the teenagers called out. "Mello, Ella thinks you\'re really gorgeous."



Mello smirked, squeezing Matt\'s hand. "Thank you, Ella, but I\'m taken." They paused at the door. "Ready?"



Matt nodded. He half wondered if he should make a casual comment to whoever Ella was, but right now his mind was still sorting through the points he wanted to make inside that room. He had his hand on the handle, as a smaller girl, at the back of the group called out. "I think they\'re both gorgeous!"



Despite the fact that she was only about twelve years old, Matt felt himself blushing. He glanced up, but any response froze on his lips as he spotted Roger walking towards them. The man was leaning heavily on his stick and his colour was rather grey. He seemed to have aged greatly since the last time either of them had seen him. The tightening of Mello\'s hand around Matt\'s owed little to reassurance or private acknowledgement now. The addition of another hand, on his shoulder, firmly guiding him back to the door confirmed Mello\'s intentions. But Matt was not going to be pacified now. He called across the heads of the girls. "I\'m bringing you down, Roger. There will be nothing left of anything that you built by the time I\'ve finished."



Roger responded wearily, drawing level with the group, "It Matters..."



"Mail." Matt glared. "My name is Mail Jeevas-Keehl. I want nothing from you, especially not the stripping of my identity."



Tension bristled around them. The corridor itself seemed to have iced, as children stared on. Amongst the younger ones, there was a kind of confused dread, but the older orphans seemed schooled in blankness. Watching with neutral expressions and eyes that appeared emotionally dulled, even as they shone with intelligence. "Guapo." Mello released his hand to pull down the door-handle, effectively trapping Matt between his arms as he did so. "This is beneath you. Go inside. Now."



The refreshments had been delivered and that was the first thing that they viewed inside. Two long tables filled with the usual sandwiches and pastries, but interspersed with plates piled high with chocolate bars and bowls holding boiled eggs. \'Catering for the quirks of the freakish robots\', Matt thought to himself piquishly, as he was forced through the door. Then he turned and was caught in the gaze of several pairs of eyes. People whom he had grown up with, rivals, saviours, all looking at him as if he was something to be dissected. Alongside them were three laptops, the legends \'N\', \'C\' and \'S\' showing in Old English text against a white background. He supposed that he ought to utter a proper greeting, but instead he carried on walking to where his laptop was set up on a small table before the whiteboard. Without looking, he knew that Roger had passed behind Mello and had found his chair beside Ann. It was time.



"Thank you all for coming." Matt mumbled, as he pulled up the first file. It showed a list of names in two columns. "These are all of the people who have spent some time being raised in this House, including the current residents. The eldest of us would have been thirty-four this year. The first column are still with us, the second column are dead. As you can see, a quarter of the entire cohort of Wammy\'s children never made it. It should have been higher. Everyone in this room was in fear for their lives this time last week, while Near, Mello and I were all in mortal danger several times during the Kira case. Had Manetti and Neuron been successful, then we\'d be talking about 50% of us dead by our twenties. Without exception, they have, or would have been, killed by situations caused by the Watari system; the majority murdered by their peers."



"That\'s a bit harsh." Linda interjected. "You make it sound like we\'re nothing but cannon fodder."



Matt looked up for the first time since entering the room. He had expected Mello to be sitting in the chair nearest to himself, but he wasn\'t. The blond was practically at the back of the room, beside between Roger and Deontic. It felt as though he was trying to dissociate himself from the proceedings. "Yes, Linda. You never did have a grasp on the gravity of the danger we were in." He clicked his mouse and the whiteboard displayed a document entitled \'Convention on the Rights of the Child\'.



"That is uncalled for, Matt!" Linda leaned forward in her seat. "May I remind you that I worked bloody hard to save your life last week? And that is not the first time. The only reason you are able to stand there insulting me is because I\'ve twice done my best to keep you alive."



"I apologise if I sound ungrateful. I do appreciate what you all did for me. I really do. Even though you only did it to save your own necks, and I doubt very much if anyone other than Mello would have been working on the case, if the danger had not been universal." He turned back to his laptop, blocking out the outrage that rippled around the room. "The fact remains that despite your education, when strangers turned up here, you kindly gave them drawings of Mello and Near, whilst Roger handed over their names and information about precisely what this institution was set up to be. Security here is shit."



Chrissie\'s voice spoke from one of the laptops. "Matt, we are all here now and no-one has a gun at our heads. You\'re being insecure. Now, I\'m looking at this document from the Office of the High Commission of Human Rights. Say it."



"This is the document, ratified in 1991 by the United Kingdom, wherein we were raised. \'Convention on the Rights of the Child\' or, in short, our inalienable rights. I asked a rhetorical question of Mello and Near. I asked who we could appeal to and, when none of us could answer, I suggested this board. Since then, I have worked out who will hear my case. Chrissie, you are a lawyer, I\'ve just sent you a folder, may I ask you to look at it please?" Matt stood up from his laptop and pointed to the whiteboard. "The majority of a child in this country is eighteen. When Mello was allowed to leave this institution at fourteen, Wammy\'s House was in contravention of article one. Ditto allowing Near and Century to leave before that age. Article 2.1... I don\'t even know where to start. I am Spanish, but the first thing that happened to me here was being forced to converse in the English language. Spanish was on the curriculum, but no effort was ever made for me to have my lessons in my mother tongue. In fact, as quickly and efficiently as possible, my nationality was stripped from me to the extent that Mello didn\'t even know that I am Spanish until last year. Religion! Mello and Fenian are both Catholic, but were refused access to a priest. Roger even said to us that we ought to be grateful that he allowed Mello to keep his faith."



Chrissie interupted. "Matt, I\'m looking at a legal document. You are prosecuting Wammy\'s House in the High Commission of Human Rights in Geneva. I\'ve obviously only skim-read your executive summary, but you seem to have a good case so far."



"Yes." Matt reached into his bag and drew out a folder. He handed it to Lamond. "Please may you pass that up to Roger? He\'ll need his own copy for his defence." As it was passed from hand to hand, until it reached a scowling Mello, Matt added. "It is, of course, in Spanish." He smirked, as he turned again to the board. "Articles 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 all discuss the well-being, interests and safety of the children, including reference to the competency of staff overseeing looked after children."



"We have an in-house infirmary." Linda sighed. "Our legal guardian is a psychiatrist. Our education was the best that money could buy. We are hardly in a state of poverty. I\'m sorry, but this just smacks to me of revenge for whatever slight you think you\'ve received. Personally, I\'m grateful for the opportunities that this institution afforded me. I didn\'t have to try to get into art school, because I had the best tuition here. I was given enough endowment to set up my own gallery. Why am I even here?"



Surprisingly, it was Luigi who responded. "Stockholm Syndrome, alive and well in Winchester." He visibly shrank as everyone turned to look at him. "I\'m just saying. I\'m also wondering why Near and Mello are being so quiet; and why Mello is reading Matt\'s legal files like it\'s the first time that he\'s seen them."



Matt turned to survey Mello across the room. His husband had cast an annoyed glance at Luigi, but remained sitting with each paper held up in one hand, while he read through. Beside him, Roger was staring numbly at a glass of water on the table before him, one finger touching the papers as Mello finished and deposited them in front of him. "This is the first time Mello\'s seen them. Both Near and Mello have agreed to hear me out before commenting, though Near must, by now, be wondering if his responsibility to this house, as L, means that he is also culpable. Mello is possibly already realising that if I\'m successful here, then a whole layer of staff will be in prison, rendering him the natural successor to the title. I\'d like to state categorically that my case has not been prepared with the knowledge nor assistance of either Near or Mello. They are hearing it for the first time now."



Fenian turned his gaze to the ceiling. "Saints perverse and protect us. This is all just another ploy for Mello to be L. I\'m with Linda, what the fuck are we doing here?"



Mello growled. "No, it\'s not. I\'ve renounced that title."



Lamond looked up from her sewing, "So we are all here to find out that Matt is going to destroy our childhood home in legislation. How lovely." She tied off the knot and swopped threads. "But you didn\'t need us here to give us that juicy gossip. You could have e-mailed the forum."



"He\'s not." Luigi frowned. "He\'s not even going to prosecute them. He\'s just prepared that to show us, not only that he could, but that we could too. I\'d be highly surprised if Matt could be bothered to take that all the way to Geneva."



Matt grinned and wandered over to the refreshment table. He picked up a bowl of boiled eggs and slid it in front of Luigi. "Nice deduction, Carl." There was a small gasp behind him as Matt walked away. "But you\'ve all been doing it, haven\'t you? You\'ve got right down to Article 54 and mentally ticked the boxes where your own personal circumstances contravened the Convention." He pressed the enter button on his laptop and they were all looking at a summary of their childhood rights. "Let\'s just go through these, it\'s quicker. The right to life, survival and development. Ok, they got us on the latter. A lot of dead people would say that they failed us on the first two." He reached down and lifted a hem of his shirt. "Oh! Look, bullet-hole scar. Hurrah." He let the fabric drop, ignoring the loaded silence behind him. "The right to have their views respected and their best interests considered at all times. Roger, which bit of \'I do not want to be L\', did you have so much trouble understanding? You take a mind like Century\'s. The best historian I have ever known. I remember sitting with him in the common room, when he about eleven, and he was ripping apart Oppenheimer\'s theories on the origins of the British for fun! I was trying to get him to shut up about it, because I couldn\'t hear my game, and you came walking in and took the books off him until he did his deduction homework." Matt shook his head. "Fuck deduction homework! He was eleven years old and debating Oppenheimer! How was diverting him away from that in his best interests? Absolutely not, unless we\'d prefer him to be a detective."



Deontic shook her head. "Matt, that is the nature of this institution. We are detectives. It\'s what we do. Could you imagine what the crime rate would be like without the threat of L in the world?"



"Excuse me?" Matt frowned. "So your justification for a list of criminal activities is that it will make a better world? Ok, thank you for the clarification. I really should have tried to become L, then I too could have been the God of this new world. Your arguments are Kira\'s, Deontic. We were supposed to stand for justice, not world domination."



She flushed, her fingers gripping the paper in her hand halfway through its transformation into an origami flower. "You are blowing my words out of proportion. Matt, I believe there is a lot of personal vengeance in your case so far with no real point to it as yet. I am stating the case as is."



"So am I." Matt turned back to the whiteboard and pointed to the final statement. "The rights included in the Convention apply to all children and young people, with no exceptions." He turned again. "With no exceptions. I\'m assuming that that includes an experiment in stealing orphaned geniuses from around the world and trying to mould them into becoming detectives."



"Stealing...?" Linda sneered.



"Quick fire round!" Matt raised his hand. "Can anyone tell me when the adoption agreement came into force between Yugoslavia and Gt Britain?"



There was silence, then a sigh from Linda. "That\'s so random, Matt."



It occurred to Matt that he may have just spoken out of turn. Dread flashed through him and he turned to find Mello staring back. His expression communicated disapproval, but his tone was mild, "It may illuminate you to know that I\'m a Slav. However, I don\'t know the answer to that question."



Matt swallowed, his mouth dry and his throat already craving a cigarette. "It never did. There is no agreement. It is a criminal offence to take a child out of the Balkans and bring it to Britain. Mello was therefore kidnapped at four years old."



"No." Fenian tapped his pen against the desk. "Mello is an illegal immigrant and therefore should be deported back to the Balkans at the earliest opportunity."



"No." Matt shook his head.



There were murmurs of agreement with the Irishman. Mello smiled, "That is what you\'ve just argued, Matt. I\'ve got no legal right to be in this country."



Matt bowed his head, suddenly feeling very tired and very much in need of another cigarette. He had always hated doing presentations. He knew that he had the intelligence to produce great content, but the moment the others started ripping his stance to shreds, it just felt wearying. He had never liked being the centre of attention, much preferring to watch from the outskirts, where he could glean the overview. The limelight was Mello territory and that\'s why they had worked as friends before they had ever had their first kiss. He fell silent. There was no-one in that room who seriously believed that Mello could be deported. Matt knew that he was wasting his breath even pointing out that the destruction of their records meant that there was no real evidence that Mello hadn\'t been born in England. Even if a link with the Balkans was established, the full machinations of the Watari Network would come to his aid. He was above the law, because Wammy\'s House was above the law. Which was, of course, the problem.



Salvo spoke from his laptop, "Can we have a running commentary on just how far Matt\'s just crawled up his own arse please? Some of us are only on audio."



Mello sniggered. "Matt\'s not getting embarrassed, he\'s getting annoyed." He stood and sauntered behind the backs of some of his peers, until he reached Fenian. Mello clasped a hand on his shoulder in passing, "Good luck with trying to get me deported." He glanced back, as he rounded the corner of the table, and winked. Fenian smirked. Mello returned his attention to Matt. "Now, unluckily for the rest of them, they don\'t have the privilege of knowing you well enough to be able to decipher what you meant by that. Luckily for me, I do have that privilege." Mello smiled, biting his lower lip. Matt looked up and the gaze that met his was pure sex. "So what you were saying, before you got heckled by the freaking Irish contingent, was that not only are we denied our human rights, but the legislation of individual nations is also denied to us. Being beyond the law, we also lose its protection. Where else were we failed, Mail?"



Matt watched as Mello leaned up against the wall, unwrapping a fresh bar of chocolate and licking the top of its contents. The rest of the minds and eyes in that room faded and, though Matt logically knew that Mello\'s brain was probably the sharpest present, he could relax. It was only Mello. His was a mind that deduced, calculated and concluded with an awesome capacity, but it was also a mind that loved him. "The right to a name and nationality, freedom of expression, and access to information concerning them. I was told over and over again that my name is It Matters and that I have no nationality. I got away with \'Matt\' and I speak with a received English pronunciation, because that was the language and accent foisted upon me. There are records about me in Roger\'s archives, but they are solely those recorded by Mr Wammy and later the records from this house. I believe that there was never any effort made to establish who or where my mother is. It was deduced that the dead man in my vicinity was my father, but, to my knowledge, there was no DNA testing to prove that. I have my memories and Mr Wammy\'s observations presented as fact. I repeatedly stated that I did not want to be called It Matters or Matt or any other pseudonym. That right was denied."



"It was for our own safety." Lamond replied, shaking out her fabric and pulling it taut. Her needle dipped and rose at speed. "It certainly helped you during the Kira case."



Mello nodded. "Yes it did. But there should also be personal considerations taken on board. Mail fought really hard for his name. One of the cruellest things that could have happened to him was forcing him to discard it again. The rest of us were born with the right to a name. Mail earned his and that fact was known by the people challenging that right."



Fenian tapped his pen more loudly onto his notebook. "So, if a compromise could have been reached..." He pondered it. "Or better still, if he could have been provided with the choice. Matt... Mail\'s not stupid. If he had had the pros and cons laid out before him, he could have better understood the dangers, then made the decision himself whether to risk them or to take a pseudonym. Would that have worked?"



"Yes." Matt agreed quietly. "And perhaps then I wouldn\'t have had the issues with self-identity that have hit crisis point more times than I care to remember. It\'s caused grief between me and Mello as well." He raised a hand as his husband paused in his munching of chocolate. "Don\'t deny it, Mell. I can think of at least three rows and a lot more besides. You understand my point of view and you will pacify me, if needful, by calling me anything but Matt; but I know that, ideologically, you are with Watari. You want me to be called Matt, because it adds a layer of protection from the world. You just have to find that balance between the greater danger at any given time - what\'s out there or," Matt touched his own head, "what\'s in here. It\'s that tension that came up with all the other names that you call me."



Mello smiled, "Yes, Mail."



"I have a question." Chrissie spoke from the laptop\'s speakers. "If, as Fenian suggested, that choice had been there, would you have accepted It Matters? Or Matt?"



"No."



There was a short silence, then Chrissie replied, "Then Watari would have been exposing you to danger. We\'ve already covered the issue of the right to survival and life."



Matt nodded, but he felt more settled now. He had the arguments. "That is only the case if we are destined to become detectives. Not only that but at the calibre of L. Out there are millions of people who survive into old age, then die happily in their beds, carrying with them their real name. I never had any intention of becoming a detective, so there was never any reason why I needed to be known as anything other than Mail Jeevas."



"However," Lamond interjected, "if that was the case, then neither did you have any right to the education and opportunities on offer here at Wammy\'s House. You should have stated your case, then taken your name to another orphanage. There to live out a very ordinary life. I\'m sure that Deontic, for one, would have been very pleased to have seen the back of you, because that would have automatically placed her third in line."



"Yes." Matt agreed. "I should have been given that choice. It feeds in very nicely to the next point on this summary. The right to live in a family environment or alternative care, and to have contact with both parents wherever possible. I was a child. I deserved the right to have a father who sent me out to play and bought me games." He glanced at Mello, who gave him a very sharp look back. Matt was under no illusion that Mello now knew which of the issues they had discussed had struck the highest note of resonance in Matt\'s psyche. "I deserved a mother who loved me. The adoption services have never stepped foot in this house. We are not available for adoption, which is in contravention of Article 20.3. We are not eligible for anything but constant studies, interspersed with short breaks for exercise. This was never a family, it was a prison regime for people whose only crime was to be too clever for their own good."



"You would have preferred to have been adopted?"



Matt fixed his gaze onto Linda. "Wouldn\'t you?" Around the room, every expression became pensive and one or two heads were bowed. Even Mello stared at his chocolate bar like he\'d never seen one before. "I think I\'ve said all that needs to be said about that. Health and welfare rights, including rights for disabled children, the right to health and health care, and social security. You could argue that the infirmary and the psychiatrist on hand means that Wammy\'s House gets away with this one. I\'d agree, but I\'d also say that it uses them as a form of control and, moreover, is highly irresponsible with them. Our lack of identity makes it extremely difficult for us to seek outside medical assistance; impossible to seek outside legal assistance. Until recently, I didn\'t even have a bank account. I was halfway across the world, chasing Kira, and the only way I could get my rent paid was by contacting this house and asking for help. Every way we turn, we have to end up coming back here for the most basic civil liberties, or else obtain them illegally, or else do without."



Linda sighed, "And yet, when we come here, we\'ve got the best in the world! Oh God! How many times do we have to keep returning to this point? That infirmary can cover anything. Absolutely anything. You\'d rather be at the mercy of the NHS? I have a friend who\'s had her gallstone operation cancelled and put back four times now. She was prepared for theatre once and they cancelled at the last moment on her. If I had gallstones, they\'d be out the same day."



"Hurrah for your gallstones." Matt turned and reached into his bag. He held aloft the pad. "This is a prescription pad. I stole my first one from Roger\'s desk when I was fifteen. I\'ve been abusing prescription drugs for six years. The first time I went through cold turkey was when I was seventeen. It happened upstairs incidentally, but I had booked a week\'s break at a computer conference, so no-one checked my room. When I showed my face again seven days later, everyone thought I\'d returned from Hereford, but I\'d actually been writhing in agony in my room the whole time. Which did, of course, teach me that no-one checks the rooms, even when we\'re not around, which was a great help when I later started stashing all kinds of shit in it. Incidentally, Roger, the computer conference didn\'t even exist. Two seconds on the internet might have told you that. I didn\'t even make up a convincing venue name. It was a cry for help." He pushed the pad back into his bag, feeling the intensity of Mello\'s gaze on the back of his neck. "Yes, there were also illegal drugs. For the record, I am mostly clean now. Mello has seen to that. The only thing I\'m on now is anti-depressants, for which Roger wrote me an open repeat prescription for as long as I need them. Oh and nicotine, of course. Shall we have a cigarette break?"



"Yes." Fenian leapt up and took his cigarettes out of his pocket. Without waiting for any nods of agreement, Matt joined him and the pair fled through the door.