Athrun's Trial – Chapter 9: The War is On
Athrun Zala's House – Midnight
Cagali made it official, herself, Kira and Athrun would be moving into the Zala mansion as of midnight. They were 100% sick of the boring lives they were being forced to lead in the consulate, not to mention the limitations being imposed on them during the day by security staff. Their other reason was secret, well from most personnel anyway. Kisaka and a few other trusted advisors knew. Inside this mansion were all the bad memories shared by Athrun and Kira locked away in several filing cabinets, not to mention those she her self suffered.
"Ok," Athrun mumbled checking his watch, "It is now midnight military time. As of now, we are in control of my father's estate."
"What do we do now?" Kira asked curiously, "Are we going in or what?"
"Not straight away," Athrun spoke icily, "My father was a paranoid man. He was paranoid about attacks from everyone, us included. There are more booby traps in that front yard than you can imagine. I want to send a robot in to investigate. Kira, I need to borrow Birdy…..we can use his eyes to give us an infrared vision of the ground and decide where all the outdoor traps are."
"Of course," Kira said motioning for Birdy to jump to Athrun, it did so.
Athrun spent the next 15 minutes programming Birdy with an infrared night vision program, which would help them identify the safest path to the house. Athrun knew the only real concerns would be what his father had hidden in the front yard. It was more like a military arsenal, and that would mean that Patrick Zala would have believed it to be unnecessary to booby trap the inside of his house considering how well laid out his exterior defences were.
After being reprogrammed, Birdy was let out of the sporty convertible Athrun had rented days ago and he flew over the entire ground of the Zala mansion, it proved Athrun's theory of paranoia when Kira and Cagali saw all the heat signatures that appeared as Birdy flew overhead. There were enough land mines in the front yard to make the Earth Alliance's attempted invasion of Orb in the last war look small.
Athrun while the twins gawked at his fathers invasion grade arsenal of defence was attempting to hack into the house's security system to deactivate the landmines, he wasn't doing too well. He'd also mapped them all out, just in case it was required they walked through without being able to disable them. Kira had a look at the codes rolling down the laptop screen and sighed, Athrun aced the advanced programming courses at Copernicus, but he'd never taken the expert ones Kira did on Heliopolis. "Here, let me do that." Kira stated calmly, "I took expert programming, you went to the military, big difference in the style and method." Athrun wordlessly surrendered his position in front of the keyboard and watched as Kira made short work of the house's security system and shut the whole thing down.
"That'll never cease to amaze me," Cagali muttered, "The speed with which he burrows through high security networks."
"It doesn't amaze me," Athrun spoke quietly, "Genetics are a terribly useful thing. Its to tempting at times to use them and try to do more, its just sad when you realise you are incapable of it."
"Oh?" Cagali asked.
"Nothing," Athrun and Kira mumbled together.
"What do you two mean nothing?" Cagali hit them both over the head with what appeared to be a shrunken version of a baseball bat, "You were just reminiscing about something and I want to know what, now!"
"No!" Athrun and Kira shouted together.
"Cagali," Athrun started, "There are something's in this world which are better not being thought of or known. That includes what we just said."
"Anyway," Kira changed the subject, "The path of landmines is shut down. Why don't we go in?"
"Brilliant idea," Cagali sarcastically replied ,"Just ignore my question completely."
"Without hesitation," Athrun and Kira grinned together.
Some time later...
"Right," Athrun mumbled, "That's the security system disabled."
Cagali and Kira watched as Athrun led them down the hall to the kitchen, it was the first place they needed to go after all, how do you turn a previously unoccupied house into a now occupied one without securing provisions Athrun nearly choked at the smell when he opened the fridge, the twins didn't far follow as the most revolting smell crossed the area before Athrun slammed the door. "Food" He grunted, "Power must have been off for months."
Cagali stared wide eyed for a moment before dashing for the nearest door outside.
"I don't care what you say," Cagali announced from outside, "I'm paying someone to come and remove that fridge and put in a new one. That is utterly disgusting."
"Theres no need for you to…." Athrun was cut off.
"I want to, not need to." Cagali hissed, "Therefore I will do it."
Kira and Cagali followed Athrun as he moved away from the kitchen and proceeded towards his own bedroom, a sanctuary which neither Kira nor Cagali ever imagined could exist in a house which had belonged to a madman. The walls were painted a serene aqua like colour and the large bed in the centre of the room amazed both of them, it was unmade, as it had most likely last been left, that or someone had been here before them. Athrun glared at it before suddenly veering left and removing a picture frame from the wall revealing a series of surveillance camera screens.
"I left a little security behind, this was my room afterall. I never expected to see this again." Athrun mumbled while tapping passwords into the security system. Kira and Cagali stood awestruck looking around the room to see all the different robotic creations that were located on the shelves. There were prototypes for Birdy, Haro's everywhere and among all else, then security vision appeared on the screen from a day prior. Men were seen search around the room, but Athrun felt a sigh of relief when he realised that they'd failed to find the document room which was hidden beneath his own.
"They didn't find any of the more vital documents," Athrun announced, "Go push the bed out of the way and you'll find a different piece of carpet under where it was, lift that up."
"What's there?" Cagali asked, while following the boys over to the bed and together, with an almighty shove. The bed was dislodged from its floor mounting and slid across the room until it hit a wall. Kira and Athrun removed the rather heavy carpet with a firm pull and located below was a stairwell. "You'd never know this was here unless you had the time and patience to dislodge that bed, which no goon would ever do." Cagali observed.
"Exactly the point," Kira nodded, "It's contents were never meant to be found, even by us. I'd brace yourself for what you'll see down here Cagali."
As the trio wondered down into the considerably large document room obviously used by Patrick Zala and Ulen Hibiki to keep track of their illegal experiments, more and more was revealed. Stacks of filing cabinets, computers, video's and discs littered the shelves, the room looked as if it had been abandoned years prior.
"How many documents are in here pertaining to the experiment?" Cagali wanted to know.
"The whole room is the information about the experiment." Athrun stated bluntly as he walked forward, "But the ones I want specifically are over here." Athrun indicated a rather small looking filing cabinet.
"How do you plan on getting into that?" Kira grumbled, "Fingerprint locks can't exactly be hacked you know."
"I never said you had to hack it to bypass the finger print," Athrun growled, "Just add a new finger print to it so that we can open it with the 9 digit code."
Kira spent some hours fiddling with a computer and the safe cabinet Athrun left him in front of, meanwhile Athrun and Cagali were in the basement, examining the prestige cars that were kept there. "Wow," Cagali was awestruck at the amount of cars the Zala's had acquired over the years. There were even some classics from Earth, particularly from ZAFT controlled Area's such as Carpentaria. Cagali noted the Ford Falcon that was sitting gracefully in its spot. Athrun meanwhile was focussing on a specific car, his father's favourite. The Bentley Continental GT. If there was any car that would still have the senior's diary of contacts in it, this would be it. Athrun opened the drivers door, slid into the seat and turned the key, much to his surprise, the car turned over immediately and the engine fired. This made him more suspicious, if anything, it should have failed to start. Cagali gawked as Athrun floored it out of the basement in the Bentley and jumped out of it as he got above ground, letting it race towards the gates before a loud "boom" was heard. The car exploded.
Kira and Cagali found their way outside and stared at the wreckage of what was formerly a very expensive car. "What the hell?" Kira mumbled.
"Ignition sensitive time bomb," Athrun groaned, nursing his now very sore right arm and shoulder. "Someone knew I'd look in that car. Someone was here before us. Cagali, send in the Orb security team. We need a full sweep of the house done now."
Cagali picked up her phone and dialled her security team, they were delighted to be finally allowed to do their job. Kira and Athrun nodded, before turning on the spot, grabbing Cagali and stalking back to the sporty convertible that Athrun had rented. The engine roared to life as Athrun pulled away from the kerb and headed towards Zala Corp. in an incredibly foul mood. Kira and Cagali braced themselves as the sleek sporty car glided around a corner and the tail kept going, Athrun just spun the wheel in the opposite direction, correcting the cars path before accelerating faster as he joined the freeway traffic. "You're going to kill us," Cagali moaned feeling motion sick.
"No I'm not." Athrun shouted back, "I'm saving us." With that he accelerated further, Kira bent over to look at the speedometer and flew back into his seat. 280 km/h they were flying through traffic well over the 130 km/h speed limit.
"Athrun," Cagali cried, "We're being followed."
"I know," Athrun muttered before veering left and straight down an off ramp. He hauled at the wheel and maneuverer the car towards the next on ramp. The Ferrari that was following them was no slouch either, taking more and more distance from them. "Athrun," Kira warned.
"I know, I know." Athrun grumbled. He flipped three switches on the dash before pressing the big red button. The car rocketed forward and soon had a lane of its own on the freeway, exceeding speeds of 380km/h thanks to its additional propulsion. "Zala Corp turn off approaching." The GPS announced. Athrun's erratic driving just got worse as he hauled at the wheel yet again to make an abrupt departure from the free way. The pursuing Ferrari stood no chance as Athrun maneuvered his car fast into the Zala Corp basement with what could only be described as years of experience.
Athrun, Kira and Cagali marched up to the lawyers office. Athrun had his dagger out, and appeared to be incredibly pissed, especially when he kicked the door off its hinges upon entering the office. "Everyone but George, out now!" he bellowed. The entire office staff fled their young superiors countenance which was quite bad all things considered. George sat nervously in his chair waiting to hear of why Athrun was so upset.
"That bastard Joyce and Canaver tried to kill me!" Athrun rumbled before throwing photos onto the desk, "I want you to lodge documents for a citizens arrest against Councillor Joyce. cite these photos as evidence."
"How did they attempt to kill you sir?" George whined.
"They wired a timed bomb to the ignition of my father's favourite car, they also burned his book of contacts which I needed." Athrun hissed.
"Oh, uh, can't you see Greg about suing for damages?" George was sweating.
"No! Now that I have the most considerable resources available to me, I am going to lop the head off the Government George!" Athrun growled, "I want Canaver's head, preferably on a platter. Throw some money around George, find out where the hell former-Councellor Klaud has moved to and get him back here in support of the trial dammit!"
Everyone heard a click and before they had blinked, Athrun's dagger had embedded itself in the wall at the far end of the office… To Be Continued Next Chapter!
A/N: Well, I know its been forever, over 8 months :\ I'm truly sorry, but I don't want forgiveness. I have so many people to apologise to its not funny, I planned to have this chapter out weeks ago. Its too short for my liking but I can only do what I managed to fit, I guess it doesn't quite fit my normal length but I'll try and get it up to 3 or 4k next time. No guarantee on an update, maybe a week, maybe a fortnight maybe 3 weeks, we'll have to see, but seriously, hound me to do it. I don't care how you do, but just do it!
Now that the serious side of the A/N is over, please review, alert, favourite, whatever it is that floats your boat. I look forward to hearing any and all criticism response to the story and note, let me hear you all.