Presenting, chapter number 37, staring none other than Pat and Don.
No Katherine in this chapter, though, I thought they needed an entire one dedicated to themselves. This is sort of a bonus chapter. It didn't absolutely need to be included, but it was fun to write.
But why give a bonus chapter? One reason:
Because I can. :)
Plus, two in one day is always nice, isn't it?
Replies:
Madeline Cullen: Thanks :)
Gerashaltnotkill: lol, thank you. But you have to be legally dead somewhere first :/
Marisol Akyri: Yep. That way, if I accidently mistype it as LCD, everyone gets a good laugh at my terrible typing skills when I'm tired, haha
Kairi the Strong: Actually, over fifty percent of those answers were quite accurate. And thanks :)
nekosoulreaper: Oh, they shall get in on the Imagay joke. Everyone probably would if it weren't for Yagami-san. And there's at least a 99.9 percent chance at there being tequila at some point XD
Jillian Jiggs: Perhaps L will be slipped a little more alcohol. Could be fun. A tequila incident will definitely occur, though, that's about guarenteed. I've just got to figure out where to put it.
erina destiny: Thank you :) I mostly wanted to put them in more because I enjoy writing for them, so I'm glad everyone else was cool with the idea.
Anywhozles...
Disclaimer: I don't own anything Death Note like or any of the famous people Don mentions durring the interrogation.
Warnings: Excessive Misa worship, swearing, picking on Axl Rose (who I also don't own nor do I want to, to add to my disclaimer), and insults.
Quick-sum: Added to list of Pat's top five break-ins: The Kira investigation headquarters. Added to list of people that L probably will not get along with at all: Pat.
They had followed the directions exactly that they had printed out from the wonderfully useful maps addition of Google. Even so, they thought that Google may have betrayed them at first. The building had to be at least twenty stories tall, probably more. What exactly was going on there? Pat was the first to realize that the building he and Don were standing in front of was the investigation headquarters. It was twice as big as either of them had expected – what was the elusive L doing in such an utterly noticeable place? The idea was almost unfathomable.
"It's bloody huge," said Don, gazing up at the building. "Reckon you could really get in without being noticed?"
"Please!" Pat scoffed. "If I could break into the White House after a bottle of Jack, I think I could probably make it in here sober."
"Remember who you're dealing with," said Don warningly as Pat took off for the built in parking lot. He went in to find Pat balancing on the edges of a few bricks in the wall and messing with some of the wires mounted to it that led to the entrance of the parking garage, tracing along them as though looking for something. That car sized door would only open with a code otherwise, judging by the box sitting in front of the door.
"When that door opens," said Pat, pointing to the currently locked door, "start the timer on your watch."
"What for?"
"I'm going for a record."
Don rolled his eyes, but prepared himself to press down the timer button. If there was one thing he had learned in his years living with the hacker/con artist/lock expert, it was that arguing with him was completely pointless. So, when the parking garage door slid open and Pat gave a triumphant whoop, he pressed down the button and followed him into the next room. Here was the parking garage, where at the other end was a door. As Don started towards it, a hand grabbed his shirt's collar from behind.
"Cameras!" said Pat in an impatient whisper. "Keep to the shadows until I figured out where the box is for the ones in here."
"Right…" said Don, choosing to stand by a rather expensive looking restored '51 Mercedes.
Next, he saw a pair of converses step on the hood of the car as their owners traced more wires along the wall.
"Watch it!"
"What?" he said, looking down. "Oh. Nice car. Heavy duty steel, feels like. Won't dent."
He continued walking along the rest of the cars (some of which probably would dent) until he found what he was looking for – a metal box on the wall. He pulled a screw driver out of his pocket, successfully making Don wonder what else he could possibly have in there, and went to work at prying the box open. He caught it before it could fall more than a couple centimeters off of the wall, and pulled it out carefully enough to see inside. He laughed.
"Nice trick," he said, more to himself, as he looked in the box. "The wire attached to the inside of the front would set off an alarm system if pulled, meaning it would have been set off it I'd dropped the box…" He put the screwdriver back in his pocket and got out a pocket knife, which he flipped open. "First need to disable the alarms…" He examined it for a moment, then cut two wires, one after the other. "Good. Now for the cameras." He went to work cutting all but the wire attaching the box back to the wall. He then put the box back up to the indentation it had been slightly concealed in and used the handle of his pocket knife to hammer around the edges a little bit until it fit back as properly as it could into its indentation.
He just barely managed to land on two feet when he jumped off of that car, and he swore quite loudly. "Bloody fuckin' box!"
"What?" asked Don, now heading for the door.
"Caught me damn hair…" he said, rubbing the side of his head and wincing as he glared up at the box. Even so, he got to the door first and began examining the locks.
"Then cut it," said Don, "you're not in the 80s anymore. You probably barely even remember them, you were only eight when they ended."
"Bugger off, I cut my bloody hair when I damn well feel like it."
"All right, Axl."
He gave Don a glare that easily would have made Satan himself shrink away in fear. "I don't wear braided bloody wigs, I don't bleach my hair, and I definitely do not resemble that queer weirdo."
"All right, then we'll stick to Patrick Star."
He pointed his screwdriver threateningly at Don. "I'm warning you –" he started slowly.
"You're wasting time," said Don, looking at the face of his watch. Pat almost instantly went back to examining the unlocking units for the door, which were on stands on either side of it.
"Right. This one analyzes fingerprints, this one does a retina scan," he said. He immediately took to prying off the front of the one on the left and ripping a few more wires.
"I really hope you don't piss off this L bloke with ruining all his security."
"What're you talking about?" said Pat, going to the next machine. "He's obviously a millionaire with all the shit 'e's got in this place. He's also got someone good hooking it all up, the wiring is bloody insane, but –" He ripped one wire and the door opened in front of them, "I'm not exactly mentally stable myself, so it all works out, dunnit?"
"Well, I know you're not mentally stable, at least," said Don.
"Bite me!" Pat called back from inside the next room.
Don waited through a number more of locks and wire disconnections that he wouldn't have understood if his life depended on it. He had to give Pat credit for patience with electronics like that, as he was never good at putting up with even his own laptop when it started running slow. Pat, on the other hand, had souped up his laptop when it started running slow, and had done so on a very low budget with little more than spare parts from old desktop computers to work with. Don was better at working with people. Pat, with as scatterbrained as he was around other humans, was much better off with electronics. Don had never actually broken in to anywhere before either, not in this sense, accompanied or otherwise. He generally just talked his way into places and got what he needed with persuasion. He couldn't say, however, who's method was truly better.
Though he would have argued to death that his own method was thousands of times better.
They finally made it to a stairwell in around a half an hour, which Don looked up. The stairs spiraled upward in a square formation, stopping at each and every floor along the way. Pat and Don looked at each other.
"What floor did she say again?" asked Pat.
"The top."
They both looked up at this. "I'll be working off my last twenty meals if I have to climb all the way up there…" Pat said miserably.
"Then start climbing," said Don, doing so himself. "Your weight's slipping anyway. What do you weigh now, sixty pounds?"
"More than that! I'm damn near twice as tall as you, for starters."
"And yet you look like you're made of nothing but skin and bones. I don't understand that, either, you eat five times what a normal person does in a day in one meal half the time."
"Do not. And you're one to talk, you stunted your growth when you started smoking at the age of twelve."
"You obviously contributed to yours with something. You look like you've been snorting Miracle-Gro plant food since you were a small child."
"God, you do something once and you never bloody live it down…" Pat mumbled.
"What?"
"Huh?"
For around twenty or so floors, the conversation remained basically similar. They probably wouldn't have gotten along as well as they did if it wasn't for the constant streams of insults exchanged between them when they weren't working on the Kira case in almost complete silence. That required silence, anyway. Lately, Pat had been focused on hacking into Yotsuba's main frame. After managing that, he went on to hack into their security cameras, which he then sent to another computer in their old apartment that transferred the images onto television screens (all of which they would need to move soon). Don had been in charge mostly with research on times of deaths, who the people were, and if there were any connections between them, so he had discovered Yotsuba in the first place. It had been boring work, but it had yielded results rather quickly, just not quick enough to match up with the speed of the investigation team.
They finally reached a locked door at the top of the tower of stairs at what felt like hours later. Without thinking, Pat started to turn the door knob – which turned out to be locked. He rolled his eyes and swore under his breath as he kneeled down in front of the key card box and used his screwdriver to again pry open the device. He pulled on a wire, which caused something in the door to click, and he stood back up quickly to open it.
Then he took immediately to gaping silently in awe at the investigation room, with all of its computers and security cameras and coffee machines and – coffee machines? Even so, it was amazing. Despite the fact that there were seven people in the room, it seemed almost completely silence, which made everyone in the room (including Pat, incidentally, who had just spotted Misa on the monitors) jump in surprise at the small beep! when Don pressed the timer button on his watch.
"Definitely not your best," he said to Pat.
"Excluding the stairs, though," said Pat disappointedly.
"Excluding the stairs, probably top five."
After a few minutes of getting over the surprise of the intruders (who had indeed gone unnoticed to even L, contrary to when Aiber and Wedy had broken in), introductions were made (proving instantly that all Pat knew in Japanese were the words "konichiwa," "gomennasai," "moshi moshi," and "sumimasen"), and an unofficial interrogation was started by the time the two were almost settled in. Luckily, as the police force had been required to have learned English in case of any issues with tourists, Aiber and L's first languages were English, and Light knew twice as much English as anyone in Toudai (and may have well spoke it more properly than both Pat and Don), the interrogation was easily done in a language that everyone could understand.
Pat, however, was too busy watching Misa on the cameras to answer anything, anyway.
"Ouch!" he said at being elbowed by Don, rubbing his ribs. "What?"
"You were just asked a question," Don said quietly. "Again."
"Why?" Pat inquired, looking back up at Misa. "There are more important matters at hand, I have to make sure the second Kira suspect doesn't kill anyone!"
"Just answer the damn question!" Don said.
"What question?"
"What reason do we have to believe that neither of you could be Kira?" Yagami repeated.
Pat looked away from the cameras. "Because I'm not. There," he added to Don, "hope you're bloody happy…" He again turned his attention back to the monitors.
Then they went black. Pat's eyes widened in something like terror before looking around to see what could have possibly caused such a horrible thing to happen – then he saw L with a remote. And he glared.
"I apologize, but we will be requiring full cooperation on both of your parts," said L.
"He'll cooperate even less now," said Don, looking at Pat. The rest of the team looked at him at this, and all could see that he was now staring at the remote as though he was intent on using the Force to summon it to him. L rolled his eyes, picked up the remote, and handed it to Mogi at this. Mogi looked at it for a moment before shrugging it off and handing it back to Matsuda, who looked behind him, saw that there was no one else to hand the contraption to, and decided to take it to the other side of the room and put it inside a cabinet. He then hurried back over.
"Fine, I'll bloody listen…" said Pat resignedly. "Even though it's not particularly good for my health. I have ADD, you know, this could permanently damage my psyche."
"Your psyche's already damaged beyond repair," said Don.
"Quiet, we're being interrogated, remember?"
"All right," said Don, "then I'm giving myself permission to elbow you at any moment you won't shut up."
"Fine." Pat looked at the investigation team and said, in a sarcastically sincere manner, "I would be utterly delighted it we could continue the interrogation. Any more questions?"
"Why do we need you on the team?" asked Light.
"To catch Kira. Duh. Ouch," Pat added at being elbowed.
"You obviously need a qualified manager for Misa Amane," said Don, "and I have been the manager of many famous and not so famous actresses, actors, and models in the past – Angelina Jolie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Gwyneth Paltrow to name a few – mostly only for the sake of getting money, but now it serves a higher purpose."
"And him?" said Light, indicating Pat.
"'Him' has a name," said Pat.
"Him?" said Don, nodding sideways at Pat. "Entertainment, what else?"
"Hey!"
"All right," said Don, "really. He hacked into Yotsuba's main frame in a matter of minutes. He also managed to hack into their security system from there. As soon as we move our equipment in, he has a computer that serves the sole purpose of imposing the images from Yotsuba's security cameras onto a number of television sets."
"And it's really interesting," said Pat. "If there's nothing on cable, there's always something interesting to watch going on at Yotsuba. I've also got an entire infiltration plan for the main office building that I devised from the images on the security cameras."
"Do you have any idea who Kira could be among the employees at Yotsuba?" asked L.
"One of eight," said Pat. "Ooi, Kida, Shimura, Takahashi, Namikawa, Hatori, Higuchi, or Midou. Now, I personally think it's Namikawa."
"Why is that?"
"Because the bloke just looks evil, you know?"
L looked between the two of them as Don rolled his eyes at his friend again. There was no doubt they were both intelligent and would prove to be assets in the case, but Pat would definitely end up getting on at least Yagami's last nerve before they caught Kira, and possibly L's. There was a difference between intelligence like book smarts and technical knowledge, and common sense and knowing when to act maturely. Pat had the technical intelligence, but he had the personality of a ten-year-old. That would make him as difficult to work with, if not more difficult to work with than, even Matsuda, particularly with his strange fixation with Misa.
"I'm betting on Higuchi," said Don. "He seems to value money and promotions over everything if you look into his history at Yotsuba. He's exactly the type of guy that would slip poison into his adversary's coffee just to get them out of his way, so if he got his hands on Kira's power, there's no doubt in what he would use it for."
"I still think it's Namikawa," said Pat.
"You can't base these things on how vampiric a person looks," Don said impatiently. "At any rate, I could be wrong, it could just as easily be any of the others, but the least likely contenders are probably Namikawa –" And Pat snorted at this, "Midou, and Shimura. Their histories are basically honest from the research I've done, but they could just be better at covering their tracks than the other five are."
"Then you have been doing research on the case. It seems you have arrived at around the same point in your investigation as we have," said L. "For out first action, Aiber will be acting as Erald Coil."
"What if the real Erald Coil finds out?" said Pat. "He's supposed to be at least second best in the world."
"The detectives Danuve and Erald Coil are also me," said L.
"… Oh."
"Kida, one of the eight you mentioned, requested an investigation of the detective L with Erald Coil. So, Aiber will feed them information. In the meantime, we will be deciding what information to feed Yotsuba to keep them happy enough not to question Aiber's identity as Coil, while formulating a plan to catch Kira at the same time, or make him admit. We haven't yet all agreed on one solid plan."
"You're still in the planning stages of the plan," said Pat conclusively.
"Yes."
"Then are we accepted onto the team?" asked Don. "Because if I've done my homework properly," he said, checking his watch, "Misa Amane is due to be on set in downtown Tokyo in an hour, which means this can't last much longer at all, as it could take a while to get there with the way traffic's looking."
"Is she going to come in here first?" asked Pat hopefully.
"For her sake, I'm hoping she won't," said Don, looking at Pat reproachfully. "You could really be a stalker if you set your mind to it."
"I wouldn't have to leave home more than once, either. Just find out where they live, set up the cameras and the bugs, trace them back to my house."
"You're bloody crazy," said Don exasperatedly, then to L, "I honestly won't mind if you kick him off the team, the idea of him being within walking distance of Amane at all times is a bit disturbing."
L looked between the two again, just as Pat figured out there was a button on the keyboard next to him that turned the monitors back on. It was going to be a horribly long investigation with Pat there all the time, particularly him and Katherine at the same time. He wasn't sure why, but the thought of them teaming up on… well, anything, seemed a bit frightening.
Now, of course, the inevitable list of questions.
Will L learn to accept Pat or simply continue to hate his immature ways?
Will Pat ever get to see Misa in person again?
Will Misa get along with her new manager?
Will Don need some bloody Jose Cuervo NOW by the time he's done with his first trip to the movie set with Misa?
Will Katherine discover that the interrogation went on without anyone bothering to call her down from hers and Misa's flat for it?
And, when will Matsuda join LDC, if ever (the Legally Dead Club, in case you didn't read the last chapter for some reason)?
All this and more to come at some random point in time in The King's Note.
