A distant rumble shook the Seventh Heaven slightly enough to make the glassware to jitter. Accustomed to the tremors of minor earthquakes and passing trains, Tifa thought nothing of it and sat down at own her bar, flicking on a small, fuzzy television box she kept out sometimes for her customers. Following Reeve's request, she turned the dial to Channel Four and waited for whatever it was she was supposed to see.

It began officially when a mesh globe logo twinkling with computer-generated lens flare eclipsed the screen, accompanied by a prosaic fanfare of synthesized brass and timpani. A man with a scalp full of palm oil took the stage, smiling toothily as he sat down behind an affectedly professional-looking sort of table.

After the applause of the studio audience had died down, the host flashed a grin phony enough to put a bellhop to shame and launched into his nightly spiel.

HOST: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another installment of Limit Break, the talk show that knows no bounds. As always, I am your host, Bob Walker.

(The studio audience applauds obligingly.)

HOST: Tonight: the energy debate… will it ever end? Joining us to hopefully answer this question is an unlikely guest panel with an even unlikelier history, starting with the former head of Shinra's urban development program and current leader of the World Restoration Organization, Mr. Reeve Tuetsi.

REEVE: Hi.

HOST: Also here with us is former Shinra pilot and current oil investor Cid Highwind, joining the program from Rocket Town via satellite…

REEVE: Oil investor?!

HOST: Mr. Highwind, are you there?"

(A grizzled, stubbly face set against a generic backdrop appears onscreen.)

CID: Howdy Bob.

HOST: And last but not least, having recently completed a long and painful recovery from a tragic trucking accident two years ago, he's the former head of Shinra's space program and now president of the company, which he hopes to take in a new, ecologically sustainable direction – everybody please give a warm welcome to Mr. Arnold Palmer!

(The studio audience applauds obligingly.)

PALMER: Hey-hey!

HOST: Here you have it, ladies and gentlemen, this is what great television is all about: three different men, three different views on the most important issue of our time, and yet they all stem from a common past.

(Our Host Bob Walker turns to his guests.)

HOST: Gentlemen, I understand you three go way back…

CID: That's correct Bob.

HOST: Now, I'm familiar with this story, but could the three of you please explain it for the viewers? Mr. Tuesti, perhaps you would care to begin?

REEVE: Certainly.

HOST: Go ahead.

REEVE: Well, I used to work with Palmer on an almost daily basis when we were department heads at Shinra… and I met Cid when I was traveling with Avalanche.

HOST: Avalanche, huh? Pretty controversial stuff…

REEVE: Well… yes, but to be fair, by that point the group had completely reformed its objectives and methods…

HOST: Heh, of course… maybe they should have changed their name after they stopped being terrorists then?

(Cid clears his throat, producing a mighty roar of phlegm vulcanized by years of cigarette smoke.)

HOST: Mr. Highwind, is there something you'd care to add?

CID: Well Bob, if I can back things up for a minute, I'd like to point out that technically Reeve himself wasn't traveling with Avalanche, since he was communicating with us though a robot cat thing sitting on top of a robot moogle thing that the cat thing controlled with a megaphone, which Reeve controlled on his computer.

REEVE: And an additional control device implanted in my brain, if need be…

(Reeve strokes his beard with an air of self-satisfaction.)

HOST: Right.

CID: He called himself…. er, it, Cat Sith.

REEVE: It's Cait Sith, and technically he wasn't a real member of Avalance either, since I was using the Toyasaurus–

HOST: Toyasaurus?

REEVE: Yeah, you know, a big mechanical stuffed animal that tells fortunes…

HOST: Oh, one of those…

REEVE: Yes. Anyway, like I was saying, I... er, Cait Sith was never a real member of Avalanche, because I was actually using the Toyasaurus to go undercover for Shinra…

CID: But eventually you sided with us.

REEVE: Yes, I sided with you in order to provide Shinra with the information necessary for tracking down Sephiroth, that's what I said...

CID: Okay, but I'm talking about when you–

REEVE: So anyway, that's the story behind Cid and me.

HOST: Fascinating! And as if all these coincidences weren't enough, you, Mr. Highwind, had met with Mr. Palmer on several occasions to discuss Shinra's space program, isn't that right?

CID: That's correct Bob. In fact, fat man Palmer here came over to my place for tea the day I met Cait Sith… which was when he got smashed by that truck.

PALMER: Erm… maybe we should get on with the debate?

HOST: Right. Thank you, gentlemen, I'm sure you've cleared up a lot of questions for the viewers. Now, on to the debate: Mr. Highwind, would you care to start things off by sharing your thoughts on Midgar's so-called energy crisis?

CID: Well uh, I think oil's the future, see, because back in the day, when I was flying around for Shinra and all that, well, we used gasoline, and that worked out just fine if you ask me.

HOST: Powerful words from a powerful man.

CID: Thank you.

REEVE: Hang on a minute! You smoke a pack of cigarettes every day and you think you know what's best for the health of the Planet?

CID: Whoa there, little fella!

REEVE: "Little fella?"

CID: Uh sorry, it's just the cat thing… force of habit.

REEVE: Never mind, just tell me, have you read any of the pamphlets I've been sending you?

CID: Well, uh, Shera always gets the mail over here, you see, and…

REEVE: If you read any of them, you'd know that the combustion of fossil fuels releases heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere, resulting in a worldwide increase in temperature that could prove fatal to the delicate balance of life on this Planet! In fact, scholars from Cosmo Canyon have proven beyond a doubt that for the first time in history, the Great Glacier beneath Gaea's Cliff has begun to melt!

PALMER: I concur. Mako energy is a far superior choice, especially in light of Shinra's latest breakthrough, Mako 2…

REEVE: You can't concur with me! I disagree with everything you stand for!

PALMER: Just because you don't concur with me doesn't mean I can't concur with you!

CID: I believe he's got you there.

HOST: All right gentlemen, cool your jets. Please, Mr. Palmer, tell us more about this "Mako 2."

PALMER: Thank you Bob. Like I was saying, our team of expert scientists at the Shinra Company have recently developed 'Mako 2', an extremely innovative re-envisioning of our original mako formula that burns with ninety-five percent greater efficiency, ranking higher on environmental standard tests than anything produced by Ibsen Oil.

HOST: Amazing. That doesn't sound anything like the old mako...

PLAMER: No siree Bob.

REEVE: This is absurd! Just to let everyone know, Mr. Palmer here supports taking the stuff that made us alive here today and burning it for fuel!

PALMER: There is absolutely no evidence suggesting–

REEVE: No evidence? What about the Lifestream coming out of the ground to–

PALMER: Ha! I knew you'd drop the L-word sooner or later. You see, folks, it's because of tree-hugging hippies like Mr. Tuesti that this kind of superstitious New Age crap has become such a widespread urban myth in Midgar these days!

REEVE: Excuse me?!

HOST: Um, gentlemen, now of course this program is all about pushing limits, but please try to refrain from personal attacks.

CID: Yeah, good luck trying to get Palmer to shut his fat mouth.

PALMER: Don't say fat!

HOST: Gentlemen!!

– We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special news report! –

Without warning, the spectacle changed shape before Tifa's eyes. The vaporous blah blah of political punditry solidified into stark images of steel melting flaccid ripplingtumors of smoke pouring up into the sky black-faced firefighters struggling to subdue the towering inferno…

"What you're seeing now is footage taken live from the Ibsen oil refinery in Sector One, where some kind of explosion has occurred just minutes ago. We have received unconfirmed reports that the explosion was caused by a group of terrorists, possibly the Ghadma Liberation Front, which as you will recall attacked another Ibsen refinery earlier this year in Bone Village. Again, we stress that these reports are unconfirmed…"

Tifa didn't hear anymore than that. Her ears were dulled by an awful thought, which had begun in her gut, climbed up her throat, and seized her brain.

Barret was supposed to be working near the refinery that evening.