First of all, I'm sorry about how short this chapter is and how its only about Shani's conversation with Jule and Gilbert. You'll have to forgive me but school started and I have 5 AP classes (two of which are self-study) not to mention Spanish Physics AND Japanese. And lest I forget I'm also doing college app work so… I've been a wee bit busy. You'll have to forgive me if I take a while to get the next chapter up but hopefully I'll be able to get all the characters in the next one.
"Take a seat" the platinum haired woman said with a polite tone. There was only one seat to choose from, directly facing her and the black haired man, so he took it sitting down with caution and distrust. Shani didn't place much faith in them, this was to abrupt, and being on the heels of the news broadcast on Rodnia Laboratory only further laced him with apprehension. He was naturally distrustful and scornful towards authority, either resulting from or causing his life of smuggling and thievery, which he couldn't tell. Pleasant meetings with those of authority were not a mark of Shani's life up to this point and he doubted that this inquisition would change anything. Even in the woman's tone he could tell that this wasn't going to be some lackadaisical check up on how his unit was doing or something trivial like that. No, there was too much hidden in her voice to let this be just a normal little conference, the vague sentiments of time-tested distrust, need-driving curiosity, and a deep well of caution, the kind of caution more comely linked with a man who defuses bombs. Her eyes were like scalpels carefully cutting away at his flesh like some pithed dog, pulling back the layers of carefully attached skin to see how the organs beat within. Her eyes were a vicious malignant purple like his own eye. The other person at the table looked through him with weighing eyes, burnish-god and serpentine just like-like- he pushed down the thought, he needed his focus in the present.
The room they had chosen to interview him in was forebodingly dark and it grated against Shani. He saw so very little and his ignorance of each dark recess caused his hackles to rise as though hidden foes lay crouched in two inch shadows and deep shallow pockets of shade. Panging acutely in his head was the knowledge that he was out of his element, far from the field of battle, bullets, blood, and blaring brains, hear he was in the silent world of severed sentences and creeping tongues. It set him on edge. The wretchedness of his situation was only compounded by the knowledge that they weren't bothered and that they knew, the knew for a fact, that he was out of his specialty, they knew even though he hid it under a watery veil of apathy which flowed oceanic across his face seeming to have been there since the beginning of time.
Shani stood silent in front of them, not wanting to stretch himself out just yet, if he was going to go out on a limb in this he would have to wait for when the time was right. Suddenly, in Shani's eye a chessboard appeared on the dead steel table between them. He was black, dark light drinking monoliths standing chill in their rows, and they were white, dynamic paragon's stretching out their tendrils towards him carefully and with deliberate intelligence. They had already made the first move, said the first words, it was quick rush with a pawn in front of the left rook. Were they hoping to sacrifice the pawn in a gambit to give the rook better movement to move, he had to be careful. He impelled his right knight into motion, keeping him along the board edge and hoping to later gnaw at their flanks, "You wanted to see me?"
"Why yes, we did. But first, how have things been for your unit are you and you friends amalgamating well with the new surroundings and the students here at the academy?" The pawn in front of the rook on other side of the board moved forward, mirroring its brother. They might be trying to get both rooks out early and pincer his main group of pieces but it could be a feint. For now at least the rooks were limited and couldn't be brought to bear without him knowing ahead of time.
"Sufficiently", his pawn in front of the queen glided forward freeing up his bishop a little and preventing the rook on the right from going anywhere. His eyes glazed the ephemeral board over searching for the set up… it would be there. They had a ploy going, their eyes, their tongues, betrayed it.
"I see. How does it compare with your experience in the EAF?" said the white-haired woman and as her words left her lips Shani could see the left most knight moved from behind its shield of pawns. That sentence had the curtains of a trap in its presentation. They wanted to know about his time in the EAF, and they were going to first find out by comparing it to his current situation. That and they could use this as a bridge into further conversation on the EAF and they would be waiting for any mention of Rodnia Laboratory, which was their ultimate goal. This entire interview was just a set up to find out information about Rodnia. Not that it surprised him.
"Fine…" He said being ambiguous as possible. His queen moved up directly behind the pawn covering both rooks completely and giving him a dangerous, if exposed center. He would have to be careful that his queen didn't come under direct attack. He just couldn't think of the words at the moment that would bring the pawns into a body shield around her.
"Any specific problems with your situation so far or any places of particular improvement?" She said and the pawn in front of the white queen moved forward one space so that the bishop adjacent to her had an open view down the line. She was still fishing but he wasn't completely certain that that was all she was plotting, he felt there was a trap coming and that he was bumbling his way into it.
"No," he said cool and was pleased to watch his pawn move up beside the queen protecting her flank while not curtailing to attack the important parts of the board. Still he could shake the feeling that he was being played off. That he wasn't actually getting anywhere with anything. The too-small light that skittishly illuminate the roomed swayed nervously in a synthetic breeze caused by the air-conditioning turning on even though it wasn't at all warm. The dulled glisten from the cadaver steel table was flashing, with stabbing thrusts, into his eye, blinding him every few moments, disrupting the chittering thoughts that snickered like crickets around his brain.
"I see, " she said but did not pause even an instant as she moved deftly forward with her inquiries, "Where were you stationed during your time in the EAF." Suddenly the chessboard vanished, but he could still feel its presence. A stark realization that perhaps there were more subtle traps afoot in her words. He began to try to forge an answer but he knew he would be acting on a hunch more that an rational decision.
"At first I was stationed at an EAF Mobile Armor base in Eastern Europe before the war started and was dealing with some rebellions in the Latvia region and at one point I was part of a convoy moving supplies to Czechoslovakia. After the war started I was moved around for a while but was eventually found a permanent station on the Dominion." He carefully edited out his long stay in Rodnia, he was worried that she wouldn't buy it. However, she settled into a brief period and didn't seem to latch on to it. Maybe it had slipped through, or maybe she was leaving the weapon on the ground to be picked up later.
"Interesting, the Dominion, that was the craft based on the Archangel's design, correct?", she asked seemingly in an attempt to make casual conversation. He gave a guarded nod not believing her manufactured candor. "I see… were you originally slotted to be put on the Archangel until it went AWOL, as our reports state that it did during the war?"
Tch…should he be honest and say, he had been slotted to be on the Archangel –obvious keep the fact that it was because he was one of the top three Extendeds- or should he lie about it. If he was caught in the lie it would increase his consequences. Staring deep into the woman's and then glancing over at the golden-eyed man who hadn't said anything yet, had just been observing him with eyes of a predatory snake. Shani realized if he was going to get through this he would have to go for broke, "No, I wasn't supposed to join the Archangel, I was still just a nameless foot soldier at the time." Sure sweet and ambiguous.
"Where were you stationed when the Archangel went AWOL?"
"Near Gibraltar, in the skirmishes near there" he said his voice frosty and bored.
"Interesting." The woman said with genuine fascinationed, though he felt like it was because she knew something that she wasn't telling him and his response was illuminating the picture she had already begun to form in her head. "How did they decide to put you on the Dominion?"
"They didn't tell me anything specific." The topic change there was too swift, too sudden, too planned. They had gotten some of the information they needed and were now moving on. He felt like he had just gotten defeated and he didn't even know how. They were looming over him even though only the black haired man was actually taller than him, and he was hunched so far forward, staring into him as he leaned on his hands, that he would look shorter to the casual observer. His hand brushed his bang down over his left eye. However, there confidence and knowledge dwarfed his and it made him feel childlike and feckless. There when they spoke, he noticed, their tone had gotten more clipped, the space between their words short and he was being forced to pay attention to distinguish each were from the heap of sounds. They were forcing him off balance, he resettled himself and prepared for their next move, he leaned back casually without care, his arms slanted back behind the chair and his eye looking lazily toward a corner. After they spoke next he would ask what they said, he wouldn't let them get him too far off balance and instead he would try to tug at their impatience, maybe they would make a mistake but he doubted it would be that simple. Being arrogant and apathetic would have to only be the beginning if he were to topple them from their throne.
"Do you have any idea as to the reason?" The woman asked dissectingly.
"Hmmm?" he grunted looking over as though having been distracted looking at cracks in the wall or at some fascinating cluster of dust.
"Why do you think they transferred you to the Dominion" she asked not loosing any composure.
Sighing, he looked thoughtful for a moment "Maybe they just thought I was a good enough soldier" He knew that was no reason. Nobody paid attention to the individual talents of soldiers, no single soldier ever was moved separately of his unit, it was merely a myth propagated by marketers selling books or movies. However, it would be a reasonable thing to say if he pretended to be ignorant.
"Did you perform any special functions within the EAF military? Were you any different from the other soldiers that fought in the army?"
Again. Another too quick shift in topic. This was getting worrisome, suddenly it dawned on him, they were catching him in lies. They knew something about him and we pushing him only until they felt he outright lied to him. They were going to try to gut him opened when they exposed all his lies at once or they were testing whether anything he said was trustworthy. But what did they know? His hand brushed his bang down over his left eye. As far as he had been told all data about him had been…
Shit.
The chessboard suddenly reappeared but he didn't need it to tell him how bad off he was. He had lost the majority of his pieces and they had lost only a couple pawns. They currently had his king in check. He was caught and he knew it. That was their ploy, they knew that something was up with him because they didn't have any data on him. All the things he had said were normal and that was exactly the problem, he was not normal. There was nothing in his story that would explain why his data had been deleted, he need to give a reason for that or he would be in huge trouble. He would have to scramble for an excuse and he had just the opportunity to slip it in without seeming to be covering for himself, however, he didn't have time. If he delayed they would realize he was searching for a shield. "For a brief time I was drafted into a spy organization, they deleted my data and sent me into Gibraltar. I was later pulled due to belief that my talents were being misused."
The man with black hair sighed and Shani's purple eye was on him like a bullet, "You were never in a spy organization, they don't delete records they tamper them. If someone vanished it would attract attention. The group that did this didn't care if they were caught, or maybe they thought that if another group saw the data deletion they would think spy. And that group also knew if someone though spy, they would be completely wrong. Shani Andras, former soldier of the EAF, I understand that it may bring up bad memories but we need you to be honest. You were not a normal soldier, your too intelligent. I saw that flash of realization when you figured out our strategy. A perceptive mind you have on your shoulders, probably thought it was too much for a normal platoon. Perhaps they made you squad leader of a special forces squad in Rodnia?"
Shani almost smirked. It was bait, Special Forces didn't delete records they would just tell him he was lying to them. Were they recording this? Still he needed to a reason or he would be in trouble. His hand brushed his bang down over his left eye. "No." He said his voice dry and cold "You're a fool if you believe that an army of millions can be so responsive to the talents of its soldiers. It was a random sampling of all those with few family contacts. I don't have parents. No one would miss me if I "disappeared". I was placed into an extensive training program. Like a new military squad but in its testing stages. Nothing much occurred. Push ups every day, meals consisting of chemically prepared nutrient sludge, and then afterwards sent out to die. No more" There, that was just enough truth to satisfy but not enough for them to grasp what had actually occurred. The picture his words had given was vague and plausible but unimportant.
The serpent man looked pensive a moment, "Nothing more? And the reason you were give such an advanced Mobile Suit?"
"Simple testing. Give it to the person already to tied to the organization to possibly be a spy."
"You said 'nothing more' correct?" the man asked like lightning from an empty sky, a bullet from an unseen gun, "You're also, from reports and from what I have picked up in this conversation, not a big speaker. You don't add more words than are needed to answer the question. Than why say 'nothing more'?" His purple eye stared into him, he realize he had been caught he had tried to hard to deny something occurring that he had forgotten to keep up the "innocently ignorant" mask. A smirk crossed the onyx-maned serpent's face, "I think something did happen. What parts of what you said are true and what are lies? You're too smart not to realize a complete lie would be unbelievable, so some of what you said must have been true. Probably, some sort of elite group of people but what did they do to you in Rodnia Labs? Why won't you tell us! Do you fear repercussions? No, you don't care about repercussions, you just are afraid of having power." Shani almost winced as he felt like a leap of voltage shoot up from his spine and hover around the base of his brain. "You didn't have any power while you were in that facility did you? Now, you have information that could change the world, could shock a generation and deep down you're afraid of being placed into that chair of initiative. I understand. After being told when to eat, when to sleep, when to piss you lack confidence to act on your own prerogative. Tell me what happened there!"
Shani the man back a defiant glare and dug in his heels, "No."
The committee member sighed, granting Shani a discrete amount of pleasure in knowing he had gotten the man frustrated enough to make an unintentional gesture. "I see your quite adamant about protecting the information you have there. Is there some sort of deal which we could work out? I'm sure there is something that you and your friends want that, my group and I could provide."
This offer could be useful and he was wondering if he shouldn't cut his losses and make some sort of deal. At the very least he might be able to keep him, Oruga and Crot alive. Not that he particularly cared about what happened to the other two but chances were whatever happened to them would happen to him. However, he needed a clear idea of what to ask for, something that at the time he did not possess. He brushed his bang over his left eye. "First of all, Crot, Oruga, and I remain as soldiers in ZAFT forces and if a war erupts we will be just another division of soldiers. Second, our names will not be given, no information of any kind will be given about us. In fact, the person who told you was a former scientist in the facility who you captured during the war and is just now coming out about what occurred in Rodnia Laboratory." He thought for a moment trying to think if there were any more things he would need in order to make this deal. "That is all at the moment, however, I wish it to remain on the books that you still owe us."
"Agreed", the man said all too readily, "now please tell us what happened."
"We were experiments basically. We took several performance enhancing drugs along with steroids and some surgeries to enhance our abilities. I can't tell you the specifics of it since we were not told about any of the details, all I can say for sure is that we didn't have a choice and it was painful." Shani was completely calm and cool as he spoke of the events that happened, unbothered by recounting the trauma that he had been subjected too. He recalled that sometimes they would have to Extendeds fight each other during their training until one of the two was dead. He remembered the sound bones and tendons made when they were snapped. He talked for a long time about the things that happened but he also held back anything that might reflect on him personally. He gave nothing of his background, did not tell them he had been on death row as a traitor for smuggling munitions to the enemy. He spoke in generalities, in "we"s never in I's unless it was something he didn't remember. He also did not give any specific parameters for what the drugs did to him. He said that they enhanced his body and he mentioned the addiction they caused but held back the fact that they caused mental instability. He also didn't mention a certain procedure because he had never pieced together what it actually did. He had never felt different nor acted differently afterwards but it had been a horrendous procedure which had twisted his mind up like a beam of would in a tornado. It had been called "sowing".
The blacked haired man and then motherly but cold woman both looked at him intently. Suddenly the woman spoke up, "What about the people that worked there?"
Shani shrugged, "I never cared. But the feeling was probably mutual. We were experiments and toy soldiers and they were the kids playing with us. We were called 'Biological CPUs' so there thoughts about our humanity were quite low."
"You don't remember anyone in particular."
"Not until I was released and placed on the Dominion with Azrael, where I worked with Crot Buer and Oruga Sabnak."
The woman's white haired swayed like faint churning mist as she nodded her head, "And you were assigned to the Dominion because of your…abilities?"
"Yes, as the three Extended that managed to live through the experimentation, that was or assigned location." He said with an apathetic agreement, not giving them any confidence in his knowledge since, after all, most of what he was saying was ambiguous guess which he based off of foggy bits of conversation he had picked up as people talked like he wasn't there. Oruga or Crot might know more since they hadn't been wearing headphones at the time.
"I see. How was Azrael as a taskmaster?" she said, slanting the question a bit so that he knew the kind of answer she was looking for. Fortunately, the answer he had to give was the same as the answer that she wanted.
"Much like the scientists at Rodnia. We weren't human and were treated as such. If we didn't perform well in battle we were withheld the drugs we needed causing painful withdrawal symptoms. I didn't care... one master is the same as the next, someone you want to kill but lack the power to do so" There was a strange feeling of powerlessness wafting through his body, a sense of regret that he had never been able to escape Azrael until after he was dead. He compensated for the influx of emotion by chilling his voice even more to the point where it would have been a shock to no one to see a heartless mist wave sadly in front of his mouth.
A compassionate face covered the woman's features. The graceful curves of her face turning mournful and a slight empathetic pout appearing nervously from her lower lip. Shani didn't trust the candor of her sympathy anymore than he did the honesty of anything coming from these people, they were here for no other reason than to screw him down to the ground and make sure all his actions were in their best interest and not his.
The man shot a glance at his partner and than shifted his slit-pupiled eyes back to Shani, "What you have described is indeed saddening and we will begin dealing with the EAF who did this to you and try to get Rodnia to shut down. I'm sure with an appeal to the world, people will realize what was done in that laboratory was wrong and unethical and the EAF will be forced to shut it down for good. For too long have ears lain deaf to your suffering. Soon the world shall know your pain and finally you will receive your justice!" The man's voice was filled with power and his hand reached towards Shani before clenching into a fist when he said the word "Justice". Shani rolled his eyes. He wouldn't be shifted by rhetoric. He could see the man's plan now. He would use Rodnia as a way of shoving a dagger into the EAF and maybe, if he used that emotional, hurricane-style speaking on the masses, he could cause the EAF to fragment into a number of individual nations. Than ZAFT would be the solitary superpower, free to do as it wishes.
He didn't want to be a part of such empire building. "Are you finished?" his tone bitingly omniscient.
The man smiled, his grin matching Shani's tone in being confident in his knowledge, "Yes, of couse." Suddenly his hand extended forward again, this time seeking a handshake instead of Shani's self-control. "I'm Gilbert Duliandal. Sorry but I must ask if Shani Andras is your real name."
Shani looked wary a moment than gripped Dulindal's hand, "It is my real name as far as I'm concerned."
The two men shoke hands and their eyes met. Two rivals looked into each others eye. One golden eye looked into a purple one and a unhidden eye looked into one covered by green. Then they separated.
Outside again Shani stood a moment a looked across the city. He heard an noise and looked over at a window behind which was a number of TVs all showing the same video. Two men were grappling for a knife and both were trying to stab the other with it. Ironically, they both ended up being cut by the knife and both end up dying as the credits rolled and a preview for the next show of the series rolled.
"What are we going to do about them?" Committee Member Jule asked as soon as the door closed and Shani's footsteps had faded from the hallway. The darkness around them dissipate as the lights which until now had been turned off were switched on. Her silver hair glistened for a brief moment with the unfeeling glimmer of ice. "The three of them are smart and disloyal. They could become a liability fast."
Dulindal nodded, "They're all dangerous. And not just as pilots. Oruga, the fight he was in not withstanding, is quite popular and appears to have a good deal of charisma. Buer is dominating his computer science class, outstripping many of our teachers. And Shani just makes the whole situation worse."
"I agree. I'm mostly worried about Shani, though. You're correct in your assessment that he saw through our ploys. True it wasn't until it was too late but in all honesty no one could have talked their way out of the hole he started in. The fact that he realized as much as he did as quickly as he did… he could be dangerous." She was being perfectly frank. She didn't like people she couldn't predict or couldn't out think, and to that extent she didn't completely like Dulindal or this Shani boy.
"Yes. And he knows what were going to use the information for and I don't doubt he has an inkling of knowledge that he can be seen as a threat to us. He's logical and that's a problem. However, if he was by himself we could deal with him. He would never get support because he is antisocial and unlikable. He keeps his brilliance in his head so no one knows to follow him until it's too late. He also lacks the resources or the information gathering abilities to make us of what intelligence he has. So alone he isn't a threat."
Jule sighed as she stood and began to walk to the door, "But he's not alone."
"Precisely. However, we can't kill them either. Not yet at least" Dullindal followed Jule to the door.
"They are still useful?" She said skeptically. She didn't think there was… then it hit her. "Of course, we can use them as chips."
"I suppose you could put it like that, yes." Dulindal shrugged slightly opening the door for the woman. "We need to get Orb on our side in the coming times and what better way than to send them to Orb as a token of good faith?"
Suddenly a delicious grin crossed Jule's face, "Not only that but they could be damage control."
Dulindal looked at her quizzically, "How do you mean?"
"Send their mobile suits along with them. They could defend Orb in the event of an EAF attack, coerce Orb in the event of EAF diplomacy, and conquer Orb in the event all else fails. They would insure that Orb would be ours no matter the result."
"Ah, but will Orb let three mobiles suits into their country?" Dulindal said trying to counterpoint her.
"Three suits? What are three suits in the scheme of things? It would be perceived as more of a symbolic gesture of our wish to unite forces than as any sort of threat. Three conventional suits, even with Coordinator pilots could never be a threat to a nation. However, these are not conventional suits and definitely not conventional pilots either. They would be an effective force disguised as a pittance." She said the high aristocratic air in her voice playing gently against the ceiling of the hallway they had stepped into. The lights around them cast four pointed shadows neatly across the floor which walked into and away from each other as they moved through the empty corridor.
Dulindal smiled, "Indeed…" together the two committee members began to hammer out specific plans with all the care of jewelers to their craft. Every so often they would think the plan through, putting it to different pressures and possibilities, gently tapping it with mental hammers, until they were certain of its quality. Then they placed the timeline for its initiation and began to prepare. Though not before spending a small meeting with the committee heads to make certain they would have their support when the implementation began. Many of the old diehard opponents of Jule's tried to stop the idea but were defeated by weight of logic.