There was a rough jolt as the Gelnika touched down, making a suitable end for a flight that had never offered much in the way of comfort. The airship was converted from one of Shinra's old military cargo models, and its background showed in the amount of noise and vibration the propellors sent through the passenger cabin.

"Please do not remove your seatbelts until the vehicle has come to a complete stop and 'Fasten seat belt' light has been shut off," said the copilot's voice over the intercom. "On your departure, please remember to have your papers ready or proceed directly to Customs & Registration at the end of the landing field. On behalf of Shinra Aviation Division, thank you for your patronage, and welcome to Junon."

The airship rolled to a halt, and the dozen or so passengers got up to retrieve their overhead baggage and head down the exit stairs onto the airstrip. Cloud was one of the last to get off; by the time he did, Barret was already in back waiting for his gun-arm to be unloaded.

There were a half-dozen airships lined up along the landing field – two others like the one he had just got off, three smaller, sleeker, newer passenger models, and a tilt-rotor VTOL craft that resembled a smaller version of the Highwind. Opposite them was the terminal building, built over the old Shinra command center that had overlooked the airstrip. Above that now towered the new Shinra Executive Tower, which held the new corporate headquarters. And their next destination.

"You ready?" asked Barret, who had retrieved his baggage. For the moment, he still wore his robot hand, as the Shinra people were a bit touchy about firearms.

One of the ground crew was just unloading the case that held Cloud's sword. Picking it up, he nodded.

"Man, can't believe we're back already," said Barret, as they started walking toward the terminal. "These trips seem like they're gettin' shorter and shorter." He gave Cloud a sideways glance. "Not for you, though, from what I hear."

"Something you wanna say?" asked Cloud, not looking at him.

Barret shrugged. "Ain't my business. Jus' hope you know what you're doing."

Cloud hesitated; his brain froze in the way it usually did when he thought too hard about anything he was doing. "...Yeah," he said, a bit ruefully.

– - I - –

"Mr. Strife!" said the Chairman's secretary as Cloud and Barret stepped off the elevator and into the reception room. "You're back already?"

"Things kind of fell apart," Cloud replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she said. Cloud could never figure out if she was being sincere or not. "The Chairman was notified you were on your way up. You can go right in."

Cloud nodded, and stepped through the ornate automatic door into the office.

It wasn't as extravagant as President Shinra's old office, but it was quite nice. The walls were marble, and the floor was polished wood in an intricate pattern that showed Wutai craftsmanship. There were photographs of shiny buildings, shiny airships, and important-looking people lining the walls, all of which had probably been taken within the last year. Some exotic plants and sculptures had been put in for variety, spaced out so the room still gave a tremendous sense of open space. The Chairman's desk had a built-in computer terminal, of course, and was partly glass; some more pictures sat on top of it, facing away from the doors, along with what appeared to be a plush kitten. And the far wall was composed entirely of panoramic windows that offered a view of Junon looking out over the sea. The Chairman himself was looking out these windows as they came in.

"Hey, guys," he said, turning. "Been a while, Barret. How's Marlene?"

"Can it, Reeve," Barret said. "Let's just do this."

Reeve raised his eyebrows. "What's with him?" he asked Cloud, who just shrugged. "...Well, anyway. I read the wire from the excavation site; sounds like there's not much left to examine."

"The formation collapsed," said Cloud. "It was basically dead anyway. Almost."

Reeve frowned. "Almost? Did you see something?"

Cloud's eyes unfocused for a moment. "...I don't know."

"My people did confirm the formation looked a lot like that one in the Northern Crater, where Sephiroth's body wound up." Reeve nodded to one of the reports on his desk. "That one fell apart, too."

"When I gave him the Black Materia," Cloud agreed. "But all that was absorbed back into the Lifestream. This time, it just kind of shattered."

"Plus, I didn't see no Black Materia," said Barret. "But yo, are you sayin' Sephiroth was down there? 'Cause if we have to kill that guy again, I'm gonna—"

"Not Sephiroth," said Cloud. "Something else. Something..." He shook his head. "I can't quite place it. But it feels familiar."

"Yeah, well you've been all through the Lifestream yourself, haven't you?" asked Reeve. "I can imagine it'd be a bit jumbled." He picked up the report, flipping through the pages of charts and extremely dense text. "Our research people say...where is it? ...Here. There's a theory that formations like that occur around strong concentrations of individual will. Something the Lifestream can't destroy or absorb, but wants to protect itself from. That would make sense for Sephiroth, but if this is the place where that Weapon was..." He shook his head. "Why would the Planet need to protect itself from something it created?"

"Man, all Weapon ever did was trash the place up," said Barret. "What's that got to do with protectin' the Planet, anyhow?"

"You used to blow up buildings to protect the planet," Reeve pointed out. "Two of the locations Weapon attacked were Junon and Midgar, and both had Mako reactors. Still, it feels like we're missing something."

Cloud shook his head. "We're nowhere."

"Yeah," Reeve agreed. "And I'm worried we might be running out of time."

Cloud didn't disagree. For the past seven years, the summers had been getting milder and the winters harsher, and any illusion that stopping Meteor had saved the Planet was gone. People still went about their lives, and tried to cope as best they could, but the only real question was how much longer they could go on without being overwhelmed by the world dying around them.

One of the files that lay open on Reeve's desk caught his eye. "Is that what I think it is?"

"What?" Reeve followed his glance. "Oh. That's Midgar reconstruction plan 12-5. The latest revision. We're leaking it to the press tomorrow."

"Seriously?" asked Barret. "You still think you're gonna rebuild Midgar?"

"No, but if we leak an update every few months, it keeps Mayor Patton off my back." Reeve shrugged. "You know, the census came in. Kalm's population went up 1270 percent since Meteor. And those are the official numbers; who knows how many there are in the slums." He nodded at an aerial photo of the Junon cityscape that hung on his wall. "I mean, people talk about how Junon's quadrupled its urban area over the past 7 years, but our population hasn't gone up more than 300 percent."

"Yeah," said Barret. "You're just livin' it up more. Like this office. An' this whole damn building."

"It's all about appearances," Reeve replied. "It takes a lot to keep investor confidence when you lose half your board of directors and your whole business model all in one weekend. The shiny surface is what keeps them from noticing how massively we're in debt."

"The 18 hours of power probably help, too," Barret said.

Reeve sighed. "Oh, come on. You know we shut down extraction on all Mako reactors right after Meteor. But there's no way to stop at least some energy coming out; we've tried collapsing the conduits, disconnecting the link-ups, and every kind of sealing magic we've got. Plus, I've got a whole corporate division working on the problem. But as long as that energy is coming out, we might as well use it to keep the lights on."

Barret folded his arms, just glaring at him.

"You know there are people saying passive collection isn't enough," said Reeve. "That we should be extracting Mako just like before, to build up our energy reserves before the Lifestream completely dries out. You can't underestimate people's desire for everything to be like normal. People can get their heads around something like rolling blackouts a lot more than something like the Planet dying all around them. Now, 7 years ago, I promised to keep Shinra together so I could use our resources to find a solution to this; and I can't do that if I don't keep the money flowing in."

"Yeah," said Barret. "Ain't you the noblest ol' hoity-toity there ever was."

"At least I'm trying," said Reeve. "You're, what, back at Corel, picking up at the mine where you left off however-many years ago?" He shook his head, raising a hand to his temple. "You say I was trying to make this place another Midgar. Well, okay. But I want this to be a better one, like Midgar should have been. That's my goal. Do you even have one anymore?"

"Who goes runnin' all over the Planet every time you call with a new lead?" asked Barret. "Not my fault if the calls ain't been comin' much lately."

Reeve slumped. "Look. We've got to accept the possibility that there just isn't anything to be done. Except that's the one thing we can't do, because that means we're all dead. Us, the Planet, everything. So people find their ways of dealin' with it. Some of 'em go on like nothing's wrong. I find ways to get their money so we can research our way out of this. You pretend to live your life while you're waiting for the phone to ring." He nodded to Cloud. "Cloud does whatever the hell he does. Which way's better? Does it matter? In the end, we're all in the same boat, and it's sinkin' fast."

Barret finally looked down at the floor, glowering. The room was silent for a while, until Reeve's intercom beeped. "Mr. Chairman?" asked his secretary. "The delegation from MagiTek is here for you."

"Thank you, Madeline," Reeve replied, then stood. "...Well. Maybe we'll still get something from the samples."

"You know our numbers," said Cloud.

– - I - –

"Y'ever wonder what would've happened if Meteor'd fell?" asked Barret, as they stepped off the elevator into the tower's main lobby.

"Everyone would have died," said Cloud. "Jenova would have corrupted the Lifestream, and Sephiroth would have become all-powerful."

"...Yeah," said Barret. "Okay, so that would'a been bad. But everyone's dyin' now. Kinda makes you wonder what the point of it all was, y'know?"

"So you think it's a lost cause, too," said Cloud.

"Man, it's a Planet," said Barret. "And one thing I know is, it's a lot easier to kill somethin' than to heal it. For healin', you gotta know all kinds of medicine and shit. For killing —" He shrugged. "You just gotta wait."

"Then why do you keep going on these missions?" Cloud asked.

"What else am I gonna do?" he asked. "No Planet, no future." He paused. "Plus, the pay's alright."

"Mm," Cloud said, indicating his level of interest in the conversation had sunk too low to continue it.

"So, we're goin' back home now, right?" asked Barret, as they neared the exit. "See the family?" Cloud didn't answer, presenting his ID to the clerk at the holding desk and retrieving their baggage. "Hey, you are comin', right?"

Cloud glanced at him, then started toward the revolving door that led out to the plaza. "Let's go."

As they departed, a man dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, who was seated on one of the couches closed the newspaper he had been holding and stood, folding it under his arm and heading for the exit himself, adjusting the earpiece of his PHS transmitter.

"They're out," he said.