Chapter 4 (1/2)
第二章「追憶～リーアにて～」2
CHAPTER.02 – LOOKING BACK: AT RIAH (2)
Entering the cafe, Danton surveyed the room and quickly found the two men he was looking for sitting at the back.
As he sat down across from them, the owner came over to take his order.
“Just give him another of what we had.”
The young man who had just introduced himself as Mehmet raised his coffee cup to the owner, but as he was about to speak again, Danton cut him off.
“I’ll have the usual.”
The owner gave a slight bow and headed into the back. A few minutes later, he came back out with a cream soda and slid a straw into it. Danton cleared his throat and took a swig. The others looked at him oddly, and he responded casually.
“It’s my favorite drink.”
“I see…”
Mehmet gave a vague smile, as he pulled a business card from his jacket and slid it across the table. Danton picked it up and looked over it, straw still hanging from his mouth.
“The Ministry’s Department Six…?”
He furrowed his brow at the unfamiliar name.
“We’re an intelligence bureau that works directly under the Federation.”
“Intelligence… I run a rundown cleaning service. What do you want from me?”
“Well…”
Mehmet paused and gave a sidelong glance toward the owner standing at the back.
“Don’t worry. That man’s not the type to stick his head where it doesn’t belong, and there’s no one else in the store right now.”
“I’ll take your word for it…”
Danton set his eyes on him as if inviting a challenge. Mehmet met his gaze and slowly began speaking again.
“I’ll be frank. I’d like to ask you to be our guide… through Axis.”
“I’m sorry…?”
“Axis. I’m sure you know of the place.”
How could he forget? Danton and Arlette used to live there, under the direct supervision of Char Aznable, the commander of Neo Zeon. Danton was the test pilot for Char’s own mobile suits, and Arlette worked in development. He still remembered it all like it was yesterday.
“I don’t understand. Why would you ask me?”
“Naturally, we know all about your history there.”
So that’s why you’re here…
“How much do you know?”
Mehmet smirked as he replied.
“I know enough. I know that you were a member of the AEUG before joining Neo Zeon. And before that, you worked alongside Char Aznable, since the One Year War.
“Excuse me?!”
“It’s common knowledge that Char joined AEUG during the Gryps campaign under the name Quattro Bajeena. There’s still a fairly large amount of data on that period in the Federation archives.”
“I see…”
Danton sighed as he took in the situation.
“It wasn’t all that difficult to find the two of you after looking at Quattro Bajeena’s records. We just profiled your behavior and thought patterns from some personal data and searched all the places you were likely to be, until we came here.”
“Sounds like you went through a lot of trouble. Does the Ministry’s Department Six have that much free time on their hands?”
Danton replied sarcastically, as he evaluated the men in front of him. What are they after?
“You went through all that work to get us to guide you through Axis? There’s been nothing but ruins there since it was split in two during the war. I doubt there’s anything to see.”
“We’re going because there is something to see.”
“What?”
“To be precise, there might be.”
“What exactly are you…”
“The psycho frame.”
“Huh!?”
Mehmet’s sudden answer left Danton speechless.
“It began about six months ago.”
Mehmet brought his hands together as he began his story.
“What do you know about the Laplace incident?”
“Only what I’ve heard in the news…”
“The details have been covered up, but during that incident, a certain mobile suit equipped with a psycho frame demonstrated some remarkable combat abilities. I’m sorry – those words don’t do it justice. Put simply, that mobile suit exhibited abilities that could completely undermine preexisting mobile suit weapons systems.”
The psycho frame… a technology once developed at Axis which builds computer chips directly into mobile suit frames at the metallic particle level. Char brought that technology to Neo Zeon as well as the entire Federation, contributing tremendously to the expansion of mobile suit capabilities. However…
“That’s quite a strong statement.”
“It’s not an exaggeration. That mobile suit succeeded in neutralizing a Colony Laser, and it even displayed self-regenerating abilities.”
“Are you serious?”
Danton had previously witnessed a battle between two mobile suits equipped with psycho frames, the MSN-04 Sazabi and the RX-93 Nu Gundam. Sure, those two were extremely strong, but they didn’t have that kind of power… Wait a minute.