Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Mello\'s voice came through the Watari Network. He sounded angry. "What are all these letters, Roger? The cure for all our ills?" There was the rustling of paper, the sound of envelopes being ripped open. Hal sighed. This was not the first time he had mentioned the letters; they appeared to irritate the man more than any other aspect of this. She wasn\'t even sure if she was supposed to still be listening, but Near had not asked her to close it down, even after he had left in the helicopter. She waited with a cringing spirit for the arrival of her boss at Wammy\'s House. Mello didn\'t know he was coming and the result could only be bad.



The whole farce had been going on for nearly two hours now. Hal doubted very much that Mello had forgotten that the whole conversation was being transmitted, but she failed to see what he hoped to achieve by it. She recognised that she barely knew the man, but all that she did know implied that Mello usually erupted, then calmed down a few minutes later. If the initial onslaught could be survived, then the worst was over. It didn\'t feel like that tonight. She had never known him so consistently furious for such a long period of time. She had already taken a message for Near, from Deontic, suggesting that \'someone\' ought to get Matt over there to calm Mello down before someone got hurt. Hal had only briefly met the fabled Matt, and that was in the charged atmosphere of the Yellow Box during the defeat of Kira, but from all she had heard of him, if he felt it necessary to join Mello, he would have been there by now.



Another monitor flashed into life. It held an Old English \'N\' against a white screen. Hal opened the link. "Are you nearly there, Near?"



His synthetic voice returned. "Nearly." Then pressed quickly on. "One of my Wammy\'s House people is coming to you. Full security clearance, access all areas."



Hal blinked, but she was used to blunt, cryptic messages from her boss. "Understood."



"This is one of the few I trust. Any orders may be followed without approval from me." He cut the link and Hal stared at the monitor, all of her inner alarm bells ringing. Near had never mentioned the word \'trust\' in relation to anyone before. It felt slightly jarring. She considered calling him back to double-check, but nerves stalled her. Near had never yet been wrong about anything, even when his pronunciations appeared extremely unlikely. If such things could be measured, her idiosyncratic, young boss was possibly the most intelligent individual alive on the planet.



Hal decided to play it by ear. Her fears were alleviated completely a few minutes later, when the visitor appeared on the security camera. It was Matt, which did explain why he wasn\'t in Winchester attempting to control his combustible boyfriend. Hal recalled the hotel in Camden, the only time she had seen the human being behind the genius in Near, when he had told her how Matt saved his life. Privately Hal doubted it. She hadn\'t been convinced that Mello had ever intended to pull the trigger. He enjoyed the challenge of Near too much. As she unlocked the gate, she also remembered the Yellow Box, how Matt had been the one to crouch before her boss. He hadn\'t known that she spoke French. She had learned a lot about Near overhearing their conversation. It had been Mello who handed Near the prize of L, but it had been Matt who had reached out in kindness.



She was waiting for him as the redhead arrived in the lift. "Matt, it is a pleasure to finally meet you properly."



He flashed a charming smile, eyes blinking at her from behind orange goggles. "Hello Hal." He nodded towards the inner room, with its sea of monitors and computer stations. "Has Near called you?"



"Yes. You have security clearance and access all hours."



"Thank you very much." The redhead listened to Mello starting on yet another tirade about responsibility. "Yeah, sorry about him. He\'ll calm down eventually."



"I rather expected he would have calmed down by now."



Matt shrugged. "No. Too many buttons pressed." He sauntered over to the nearest computer and opened a new transmition screen, entering a code before speaking into the link. "Mell, you know I\'m only saying this because I\'m miles away, but please shut the fuck up." He closed the link, but everyone listening in heard Mello\'s expletive in response. Matt wasn\'t smiling, as Hal had expected from his tone. He spoke into the microphone again. "Can you not just burn the letters or shove them in our archives or something? Then come home?"



Hal frowned, but dared not speak while the redhead\'s finger was on the button. As soon as it was released, she moved to be able to see Matt\'s face. "Why are you making it sound to him like you are calling from your home?"



Mello was yelling over the speakers, "Matt, I\'m not having a fucking domestic with you on a channel that\'s being broadcast over half the bloody world."



Matt seemed pensive, but it was difficult to tell from the tiny portion of his face that Hal could see. She did get the sense that she had joined them mid-argument though Mello\'s half of it hadn\'t been apparent from the feed from Roger\'s office. Matt pressed the button. "So come home then."



Hal waited until he had released it. "Are you here for your own safety?"



He turned his face to her, but she could only really see the tip of his nose. His hair covered the goggles nearly down to the top of his jacket collar. His mouth was submerged under it. "No." He snapped, tersely. "I apologise, but I\'m awfully tired and I could really do with a cup of tea. Is there someone who could sort one out please? Or point me in the right direction to make my own?"



"I\'ll arrange that for you." She paused, used to Wammy\'s House alumni now. "Can I get you anything else?"



"Yeah. An ashtray." Matt sat down properly at a computer and, within seconds, code was streaming across the monitors. It was faintly hypnotic and impossible to read. Only two screens were excluded, both of them linked to the orphanage and thus Mello\'s still furious monologue. It was difficult to ascertain that Roger was still there. The redhead seemed to know what he was doing though. He moved from one computer to another, halting a stream here, redirecting another there. Then he paused by the button. "Mell, there\'s still an off-chance that the kids are asleep. Please?"



Hal returned from the intercom to discover that Matt already had a cigarette lit. "I\'m afraid I\'m going to have to ask you to extinguish your cigarette. We legally cannot allow smoking in this workplace." Matt ignored her. "I\'m afraid that I do mean it." Matt continued to ignore her. She wondered if he was actually deaf, but he could patently hear Mello and he hadn\'t been looking at her to lip-read when she had enquired after his safety. "Matt. You need to extinguish your cigarette."



"Hal. I\'m here under Near\'s all area clearance and therefore his blessing. He knows I\'d smoke. I\'m also the love of Mello\'s life and he\'s a raving, fucking psychopath. Not a threat, of course." He continued to smoke.



"Nevertheless, I am going to have to ask you to extinguish your cigarette."



Matt pressed the button. "Roger, are you still actually alive?"



The elderly man sounded very worn. "Yes, Matt."



"Are you planning on doing anything stupid?"



Mello yelled before Roger could respond. "No, he\'s not! I\'m staying here until Ann gets back and we are discussing it!"



"No, Mell." Matt broadcast across the network. "You\'re ranting and he\'s trying to work out if you\'re going to shoot him. Did you get any halloumi cheese?"



Mello didn\'t even deign to answer him. Hal glared at the redhead, waiting for the moment when he released the button so that she could speak freely. Matt was not what she had expected in a partner for Mello. She had considered that it might have gone one of two ways, either Matt should be loud and fiery enough to tame the blond, or else he would be extremely submissive and quiet. The reality did not fit easily in either of those categories. Matt had moved from console to console with a knowing confidence and, though his comments were challenging, he was very softly spoken. His attire had already surprised her, as Hal had imagined Mello\'s lover to be dressed in the same kind of stylish black leather; Matt, for all his colour and patterns, seemed too ordinary, more overtly teenage than Mello. She found it difficult to place them together as a couple at all.



Matt crushed his cigarette underfoot and released the button, in that order. Hal found that she actually didn\'t like Mello\'s boyfriend. She hissed through gritted teeth, "Thank you for extinguishing your cigarette."



"Hal, did Near say anything about you being quiet and letting me concentrate on my work?" Matt tapped on a keyboard and one of the monitors displayed more code. He appeared to pause it randomly to add some of his own, then let it scroll automatically again. "Only I find it awfully hard to imagine him putting up with the constant chatter while he\'s working."



Hal felt the words as a slap. "My apologies, Sir." She stepped back and tried to make sense of what the monitors were telling her. He was working very fast, but Hal couldn\'t even discipher the general context, let alone the process. She found all of the Wammy\'s House children unsettling, but usually there was Near or Mello to translate them. It was fairly humbling to be in the presense of one without that safety net, knowing that, by their very nature, their brains could probably out-manoeuvre her own in seconds.



Matt brushed past her, jogging towards the B section corridor, then stopped several feet away. He raised a hand, as if something had just occurred to him, then turned with an apologetic smile. It was disconcerting not to be able to see his eyes or chin. His mouth loomed like a Cheshire Cat\'s. "It\'s not going to work, I need to be by the laptop. Hal?" He bit his lip now and she began to glimpse the human being inside. "I don\'t suppose I could ask you a big favour please?"



"Like what?



He pointed down the corridor. "One of us has to try each of the intercom units, while the other one tests the code over there." He indicated the work stations. "I, erm, it might be easier if you do the intercoms."



"Matt, why are you here and not in Winchester?" It burst out of Hal before she could stop it.



She imagined that he must be staring at her, because his face was turned in her direction. She didn\'t think he was going to reply, but then he sighed. "It\'s a long story involving this being one of the few times I could actually shake Mello off long enough to help Near as I promised." He waved in the direction of the speakers. "Mello would not be happy to know I was here."



Hal nodded. She walked past him towards the corridor. "What do you need me to do?"



"Just go to the intercom, first one, and when I call try to speak to me through it." Matt flashed a small smile again and jogged back to the work stations. "Thank you for doing this."



Hal wandered down to the small, metal unit, which was positioned a few yards into the passageway. She waited with her finger over the button, her mind racing through the facts here. Her instinct was ringing out an alarm and she couldn\'t quite place it. It occurred to her that it wasn\'t so much the situation as the person. She forced herself to admit that, yes, if Mello had been straight and he had asked, she might just have said yes. It annoyed her to conclude that this was jealousy. Matt was probably a very nice person once you got past the hair, goggles and fake fur, but he had Mello and she didn\'t.



Hal sighed, wondering why the call hadn\'t come. She turned and was surprised to see that the door had closed. It was reinforced, bulletproof glass, designed to move silently, but she couldn\'t see Matt on the other side trying to gain her attention. Hal pressed the intercom button, but there was no response. She glanced the other way and realized that every door in that corridor had also closed. Sighing, she strode back to that which separated her from the hub and pressed the release. The door didn\'t open. She tried several times, before acknowledging the fact that it was locked. She pulled out her mobile \'phone, but, unusually for this building, there was no signal. Finally realising that she was trapped without resource to raise anybody, she hammered on the glass. When Matt didn\'t appear, Hal knew that he had done this.