Something wasn't right, I just knew it. I had found Dearka about half an hour after the explosion. Everybody on campus heard it, and everyone began to freak out. Where did that sound come from? Were the Earth Forces attacking? What's going on? Those were the questions that everyone was asking. When I met up with Dearka, he told me about the bomb on the shooting range, and he told me about Athrun.
"Miguel and I pulled him out," he had explained. "but even once we'd done that, he didn't wake up. He was covered in blood, and with all the smoke and commotion, we couldn't even tell if he was breathing or not." Dearka's voice was quiet and he was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. "So we carried him up to the infirmary, and they took him in. We went back there a few hours later, but they told us that he hadn't woken up yet. And they have no idea when he'll wake up, and what state he'll be in when he does."
That was two days ago. Athrun woke up after about twenty-four hours I think, but the ZAFT infirmary are keeping all details of his condition confidential. No one knows anything about it. They won't let him have any visitors in his condition, but that hasn't stopped people trying. Athrun Zala was more popular than he realised. I heard that Le Creuset even went to visit him, but you can't really trust rumours. Talk of Athrun and his injuries are a hot topic right now, but not even something as interesting as that can top what is making the gossip rounds now: Nicol Amalfi, ZAFT soldier, piano player and PLANTs traitor. I knew he was a spineless, back-stabbing coward.
But still, something doesn't add up. They say that he stole the explosives from the pyro-lab, made the bomb, set it on the shooting range and then, during the ensuing chaos of the explosion, entered the unguarded operations room and then downloaded the classified files. They have computer ID logs to show that it was him who unlocked the doors to the pyro-lab and the operations room. All the evidence is stacked against him. But still, there is something in the back of my mind that's nagging at me...
Well, sitting around and doing nothing isn't going to solve anything, so I decided to go and find Dearka. He was given the rest of the week off because of his injuries, so he's probably just sitting around doing nothing too.
But rounding the corner, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Something just occurred to me. I heard the bomb on the shooting range go off right after the power went out. And before that, I had been listening to Nicol play the piano in the presentation hall. That hall was on the complete opposite side of the campus to the operations room. There is no way Nicol could have possibly been there when the bomb went off. But that makes no sense, because Nicol did it, didn't he? I mean, it's not like someone would frame him...
And then I remembered. God, I'm such an idiot! Orga, in the hallway. When he spoke on the phone, he mentioned Nicol. "Listen, the Amalfi kid? Yeah, he's alone now. No, he's pretty skilled at OS. He could hypothetically pull it off. No, he doesn't really have any friends. Look, it's no problem, alright?" That's what he said, isn't it? How could I be so blind?
Orga could have easily stolen Nicol's ID tag and used it to unlock doors, and he wouldn't have been working alone, either. I was sure that Clotho Buer and Shani Andras would've been in on this too. I took off at a run. Nicol Amalfi was innocent, and I may have been the only one who knew.
But first, I had three traitors to find.