The group, now dressed in comfortable clothes, met at the front gate within the given five minutes. Quistis was sitting in the pilot's seat of the Ragnarok, signaling for them to enter from the lowering ramp. By the time they got to the deck, the engine was already warmed up and ready for action, so they set off in the direction of Galbadia's location, somewhere in Centra at that time--no doubt trying to conceal themselves from other people while the documents were being transferred into Martine's hand. The ride was, however, short--only about ten minutes, not that big a deal. They landed as soon as they saw Galbadia on the horizon, careful not to be seen by any officials.
When they reached the premises of Galbadia Garden, they split up into two groups of three. Rinoa, Squall, and Selphie in one group. Lina, Zell, and Irvine in the other. Quistis decided upon remaining at the Ragnarok to keep guard while all the others pulled the job off. Squall's group took the left path at the entrance while Lina's group headed off towards the right side.
Squall's group started off in the classrooms, getting into little conversations with students and lightly hinting at the location of the papers, as if to slowly lull and elicit the information out of them, but it seemed as if the students knew nothing about it. They told the strangers that they were just visiting students from other Gardens hoping to one day transfer to their brilliant school since many people did ask for their identities. When asked for clarification such as visiting passes or something like that, they just ask, "Oh are we supposed to get those?" then hightail it out of there. After Squall's group searched through every classroom as many times as they could without being caught, they went back--with the students being gone--and detailed every little crack and title there was.
Lina's group had a couple flights of stairs to climb up and down. They inspected all of the classrooms, stadiums, auditoriums, and even bathrooms they could find, but there was just absolutely nothing they could pull out as suspicious. The bathrooms where bathrooms--no doubt about it. The stadiums, empty--behind the bleachers, every nook and cranny--absolutely nothing to be found. By the end of half an hour they were completely exhausted from running up and down those pesky stairs.
"NOTHING!" Irvine wailed after running around the three stories at least ten times, searching for something they possibly could have missed--one tiny little hint that might point them out in the right direction of the documents. "I'm so friggen tired!" Irvine complained and whined, lying down on the stairs and ignoring each step as it dug into a spot of tender flesh in his back.
"We have to keep looking though... it's obviously very important to Cid... it's just so ridiculous! I mean we're running around looking for... paper, essentially," Lina sighed. She pulled Irvine up from his comfortable little spot and pushed him back into the hallway. "It has to be here somewhere... Just keep looking!" Irvine forced himself to stand and to walk on, sniffing indignantly as he did so. Zell and Lina followed reluctantly. It wasn't inconspicuous that they were fatigued and hungry.
"Ain't it lunchtime?" Zell asked about five minutes later. Lina nodded wearily. They'd gotten themselves lost again--in some other hallway they didn't recognize. There was nothing following along this hallway except for a dead end, but they just kept going, hunger driving each step.
"I'm beat," Lina sighed and for support, leaned against a panel of the wall. They all shook their heads--it was just useless, but suddenly, the panel Lina was leaning on fell over, revealing to them a secret room. Lina caught her balance with Zell's help and drew herself back. "What the heck?" The room was dusty--the desk rusty; papers were piled from the floor to the ceiling and after turning on the light switch it was so dim with the one light bulb lamp that they could barely see anything. "Well... let's get searching."
They tore the place up, sorting through the documents with tedious detail and hacking away at the foundation of the room--just to find a trace. Lina filed threw mountains of papers, but found nothing. Exasperated and exhausted, she plopped herself down on the chair at the desk. The floor beneath her suddenly opened up and she fell through a trap door that dropped her into somewhere else, then snapped shut from above.
She blinked, but couldn't see anything through the pitch black. Blindly, her fingers stumbled around and pulled up what felt like a piece of word. She cast Fira on it, giving herself just enough light to see where she was. Surprising, she'd landed herself right into another room, but strangely, this room was neat and organized. No dust sat on the table tops and no papers piled anywhere. On the desk was a cup full of pens. She poured the pens out onto the desk, then set her little torch right into the cup. Above, she could hear Irvine and Zell beating at the trap door.
She looked through the desk and filed through some documents within its drawers--nothing, but everything here was fairly up to date. The dates on the documents were within that very month. It must have been there! She walked around the room, searching for anything she could possibly get her hands on. Lina looked down at the desk more thoroughly. A little mat sat on top of the surface of it to protect the smooth wooden frames from getting marred. She traced a finger along its edges reading its label: Home is Secrecy. Without thinking, she flipped the mat over and there, taped to the bottom of it was a manila folder.
Bingo! She snatched up whatever was inside and flipped through it. There, the words "dictatorship" on the first sheet of paper caught her attention. She'd found it. Finally--their search was over and they could go back for some lunch or dinner or whatever it was time for.
Suddenly, Galbadian Soldiers surrounded her--they seemed to pop out of nowhere, but then there they were with their guns pointed at her. Her nervous chuckle gave away her anxiety as she slipped the files behind her back from their view.
"Hey there, fellas...What are you doing down here?" she struggled to keep her tone from shaking.
Immediately, the trapdoor swung open, Zell hand extended. "Come on, Lina!" Lina gladly grabbed his hand and was yanked up above the soldiers. She had made it just in time; those dimwitted soldiers must have all shot themselves, for when she left she heard what sounded like a loud pop and all the screams coming from the room below. In a sense, she almost felt sorry for them, but they were still the enemy and she would attempt to make her escape whichever way was best.
They dashed down the hallway, papers in hand, and back towards the stairs. Nearly gliding down the three flights, they bumped into Squall, Rinoa, and Selphie on their way down.
"Got it?" Squall asked.
"GOT IT!" Lina yelled, but pulled him and the others towards the exit as they ran for it. Quistis was already waiting outside for them with the Ragnarok ready--she'd been earlier informed by Squall that their cover had been blown. Hadn't it happened so randomly when Selphie decided to play students for their cards? They hurriedly jumped the closing ramp and towards the bridge while the Ragnarok took off and raced back to Balamb Garden.
When Cid received the papers he was absolutely ecstatic! He knew Alpha Team would be able to pull it off! "Good work!" Cid called out, shuffling through the papers and slipping them into a little manila envelope for safe keeping. "Go on out and celebrate! I know it's your weekly Friday night dinner together, so go ahead. However, I do ask that you come back before midnight due to curfew." He gave them a curt wave, then headed for the bridge to examine the loopholes and context of the papers.
As soon as he left, the others sighed with great relief. They'd be going somewhere close for dinner that night--thank goodness. They headed out for Balamb to one of their absolute favorite restaurants: Nida's Corner, opened and owned by a student of Garden who was not so well noticed. Ironic considering his restaurant was always difficult to find. They got out and celebrated their success. Finding these papers may have meant saving hundreds of lives in battle.