Chapter Nine
Cooking the Books
October 15th, [ μ ] – εγλ 2000
Vincent's room was largely as he remembered it, many coffins lining the walls with a few laid out on the floor, covered in dust and cobwebs from being undisturbed for so many years. He walked over to one of the central coffins, indistinguishable from all the others. Not having bothered to find the keys — the idea of a coffin having a lock was one he didn't want to think about too much — he took hold of the lid and ripped it off, breaking and splintering the wood around the lock until the whole thing snapped off and fell to the floor. So much for Yuffie's insistence that learning lock picking would be a useful skill. Pushing the lid to the side, he was greeted by the red eyes of the coffin's occupant staring back at him.
"Hello, Vincent," Cloud said as the red-caped man sat up in the coffin, his golden-clawed gauntlet gripping the side to pull himself up.
"Cloud."
Cloud's train of thought found itself going in reverse. "Bu… wha… you're here?"
"Yes."
"I would be pissed off if I wasn't so happy to see you," Cloud said, pulling Vincent into an uncharacteristic hug. "Why did you come?"
"I… owe you more than I can express, Cloud. I could not leave you to face this alone."
Cloud was genuinely touched by the rare admission from his taciturn friend. And having Vincent here made things… perhaps not easier, but he didn't have to take the burden alone. For all he could be a loner, Cloud knew how much strength he drew from his friends.
"I'm here with Zack, so you'll have to get away without being seen," Cloud said. Vincent merely nodded his assent. "Here, I got you this."
He could see the small twitch upward in the corner of Vincent's mouth as he pulled out the phone and handed it to him. They were both terrible with the devices and had both been on the receiving end of lectures about picking up when someone called.
They both stopped at the sound of footsteps creaking on the floorboards upstairs. "I will head to Midgar," Vincent said, slipping the phone into a pocket. "I will contact you when I can." He slipped out the door and in a flash of red, was gone. Remembering his little lie to Zack, Cloud pulled his own cell phone out, checking the screen to see if there was enough signal to phone in a transport.
Cloud sighed, shoving the phone back into his pocket. As expected, the signal underground was less than impressive. Following Zack's path up the hidden spiral staircase, Cloud entered the bedroom on the top floor, noting that Zack had figured out the hidden door in an impressively short amount of time. The bedroom was much as he remembered it from when he stayed here as a trooper, standing by the bed and watching the hidden door, but too terrified to go down and confront his commanding officer. Climbing up to the window, he sat on the windowsill, bringing his phone out to dial Reno.
Cloud! The phone picked up almost immediately to the redhead's relieved voice. I heard that your plane went down. What happened?
"Zack and I got out when it was hit," Cloud said, looking out the window to see if he could peer over the town. "Did the pilot come back?"
Fair's OK? Phew, Angeal's been going crazy… damn, he nearly broke down Tseng's door when he heard the news. We found the wreck just south of Rocket Town, it wasn't pretty.
"We made it to Nibelheim on foot, but we're gonna need some transport out." He climbed back down from the window, having found it offered him no view of the town at all, instead sitting on the bed beside it. "From the reactor, not from the town."
I'll pick you up myself. I'm in Rocket Town, I have to refuel but I could be there in six hours.
"Thanks, Reno. I'd better get going." Cloud closed the phone, shoving it back in his pocket as he rushed out of the room and into the foyer. "Zack!" he yelled, looking around for where his friend had got to.
"Over here!" Zack replied, peering around the door to the kitchen. Despite the horribly coloured blood splatters covering his hair and face, he was wearing a huge grin. "Couldn't find any food in the kitchen, sorry."
"Reno's gonna be here in six hours, we need to get a move on," Cloud explained as Zack jogged over.
"Aw, ok." He patted Cloud on the shoulder as the two joined together again, back down the steep spiral staircase into the underground. Grinning sheepishly, he pulled his phone from his pocket once it started beeping at him. "Sorry, Kunsel's been texting me non-stop. What do we need to do here?"
"We need to carry as many relevant books as we can back to the reactor," Cloud said as they entered the library. "Then we destroy the rest."
"Destroy them?" Zack asked, picking up a book and examining its cover. "Why?"
"To make sure no one tries to repeat the experiments again." Cloud took the book from Zack's hands, throwing it on to the table. "See if you can find anything around to help us carry the books. I'll start making piles."
Zack nodded and Cloud began his work of selecting the books to take with him. It would not be easy to decide which ones to take with him and which ones to destroy in only four hours, given the two hours they would need to get to the reactor on time. But it was better that he lose some important information than to have it fall into the wrong hands, especially the dangerous misinformation that had some of the scientists convinced that Jenova was indeed one of the Cetra.
Most of the books were easy to pick between, mass printings of scientific literature, encyclopaedias, various standard textbooks and references. These he just left on the shelves, not caring if they were left behind or destroyed if the fire spread. Anything that was written by Hojo, he threw into the pile to be burned, not trusting that anything the madman had left behind to be helpful or accurate. Much of the work by other scientists on the Jenova Project was also thrown on the pile, after a brief check to make sure there was nothing of value to be gained from the tomes.
Zack had come back with several standard infantry backpacks from the locker rooms of the guards once stationed here, explaining that they could carry one on their backs and two in each hand, and they could be loaded heavily with books without breaking. Cloud started stuffing the backpacks with books, either of Professor Gast's work, or of Lucrecia's research into Omega, getting Zack to help him by discarding commercially available books and bringing anything original to Cloud so he could decide its fate.
Eventually the packs were full, research notes and books packed in until the canvas creaked under the strain. Satisfied with the result, they dragged the packs to the elevator, piling the rest of the books at the end of the room.
"This won't make the town catch fire, will it?" Zack asked as he rolled a fire materia in his fingers.
"This place is entirely underground. It won't catch past the stairwell." Before he set the books alight, Cloud walked up to the door he had been dreading. It wasn't the library he feared, but the cramped room off to the side, where Hojo conducted his… practical experiments, the place that Cloud and Zack had been imprisoned for five long years, a place he would rather not have this young Zack see the inside of. Clenching his fist, he opened the door and in an instant raised his hand, sending a small orange bolt of fire inside. He slammed the heavy door shut just before the explosion sounded, the wood on the door splintering and the metal bracing buckling, though the door stood up to the force.
"What was that for?" Zack recovered from his shock of the large bang, tilting his head in curiosity.
"That was for… human experiments," Cloud explained. Zack seemed to visibly pale with each word. "There's nothing worth preserving there."
"Oh… ok," Zack said, swallowing around a lump in his throat.
"Let's get going." Cloud picked up one of the heavy backpacks, strapping it securely to his back, Zack following suit with his own pack.
"The elevator's down," Zack said, peering down the empty shaft and hitting the button to call the cab. "Must automatically drop to the bottom."
Cloud just nodded, not wanting to contradict him. They dragged the packs into the cab, Cloud taking one final look around the library before throwing a smaller bolt of energy at the books, the dry paper catching fire immediately. Zack reached over and closed the doors, hitting the button down. Just before the floor rolled up above their heads, they could see the flames quickly spreading along the pile, the column of fire extending high enough to lick at the ceiling.
"I'm kinda glad I can't tell anyone about this," Zack said once they could no longer hear the crackle of flames.
Cloud turned to look at him. "Why's that?"
Zack shrugged. "I don't know where I'd even start to explain."
"I can relate to that." Cloud chuckled softly and half-heartedly.
The cab stopped at the bottom floor with a judder, bringing them to the smell of unrestrained mould and stagnant water. Picking up their packs, they trod down the walkway, tracing back the steps they had taken a few hours before. The path was mostly clear of the Sahagin, the ones they had killed on their journey to the mansion either serving as a warning to the others, or they did not have the numbers from Cloud and Zack's enthusiastic culling.
"I never thought books could be so heavy," Zack complained as he dragged his burden through the canals, adjusting his grip on the straps every time they were able to pause for a moment. His superhuman strength was still struggling to cope with the vast weight of the books as they were carried.
"They're heavier than you'd think," Cloud replied, though he was coping better than Zack was during the journey. He also had the added advantage of not having to drop the bags to kill a stray Sahagin, merely pointing his arm at the lizard-folk to incinerate them before they got close.
Neither the weight of the books nor the resistance on the way back was enough to slow them down, arriving at the elevator on the other end of the sewer nearly an hour earlier than Cloud had planned. They took a short break after loading their cargo on the elevator, to allow Zack to at least catch his breath.
"I swear, when we get back the first thing I do will be to eat an entire cow," Zack moaned, leaning back against the elevator wall as the cab rumbled upwards.
"Make that two." Cloud slumped to the floor beside him. Neither had eaten a decent meal in the nearly two days that they had been out in the Nibelheim area, whatever rations they could have hoped for gone up in flames with their transport.
"Should've gone into town for food," Zack said, picking up the packs once the elevator had ground to a halt.
"Too risky," Cloud replied as he opened the doors and hauled his own baggage into the air. "When we get back, we're going to the fanciest restaurant in Midgar… or at least, the fanciest one that serves giant steaks."
"You promise?" Zack asked with a grin as they left the elevator.
"Sure, I'll even pay for it." Cloud smiled back. "I think we'll have to take a shower first, though."
"Deal!" Zack laughed, dragging the backpacks up the winding stairways. An arduous journey of half dragging, half carrying the canvas packs up the steep stairs later, they were able to drop their luggage in the entrance, even Cloud sighing with relief as he unclipped the pack on his back and let it fall from his shoulders.
"I see what you mean about the weight," Cloud groaned as he slumped against the closest control panel. He wouldn't be surprised if there were several hundred kilos of books that they'd been lugging all this way. Zack just glared at him, unclipping his own backpack and letting himself drop to the floor in exhaustion.
"No more stairs ever."
Cloud smirked, pushing one of the packs on to its side. "Maybe we can get Reno to load them."
"When's he supposed to arrive?" Zack asked, sitting up and shimmying himself back against the wall.
Cloud shrugged, opening his phone to check the time. "In an hour, but I guess it could be any time." He sighed. "We should get these to the helipad."
Zack groaned, reluctantly getting to his feet and strapping his backpack on once again. Neither of them bothered to pick up the packs, instead dragging them the short distance outside the reactor.
"Well, he's not here yet," Zack said as they left the warm reactor and entered the icy embrace of Mt. Nibel, finding the helipad annoyingly empty.
"Let's just get these books over there." Cloud dragged his own sacks ahead, pulling them up the metal stairs and dumping them at the edge of the helipad. Zack grudgingly followed, slowly dragging the packs up the metal mesh walkways until he too dumped them next to the already impressive pile.
"Next time we bring some grunts along to carry the loot, yeah?" Pulling himself up into a cross-legged position, Zack resting his back against the pile of books.
"Hey, I was a grunt once," Cloud grumbled, lying down next to his companion.
"Fine, fine. We'll bring a car."
Cloud chuckled. "No complaints here."
They sat there in the cold, waiting for the helicopter to arrive as they talked, Cloud trying to reassure Zack about the events of the past two days, about the world changing experiences he had seen. The experiments that Shinra had covered up, the victims not even left to rot, suspended in their preserving fluid until they were no longer useful. For most of his life, Zack had believed Shinra to be the good guys, fuelled by their pervasive influence and pernicious propaganda, every stream of information to him doled out drop by drop from the tap of Shinra, Inc.
"You intend to destroy Shinra?" Zack asked once Cloud had finished his explanations.
"I hope I don't have to," Cloud replied, still unsure as to how much he should be telling Zack. Thinking and thinking on it had not provided him with a clear choice, each time he would reach a decision, he would come up with ten more reasons to go the other way. "I just wish there was a way of doing something without anyone else getting hurt."
"But you've stopped the experiments." Zack got to his feet, beginning to pace around the edge of the helipad. "I mean, you're doing something, right?"
"Something, yes. But it won't be enough." Cloud looked up, seeing that Zack had stopped to look at something in the distance, he followed his gaze to see the small profile of a helicopter appearing around the mountain. "We shouldn't talk about this near Reno."
"The Turk?" Zack asked. "Yeah, I guess that'd be a bad idea."
They could soon hear the echoing drone of the powerful rotors reverberating through the twisting valleys, the faint profile soon turning into a distinct helicopter, glowing brightly in the fading sunlight, red Shinra diamond emblazoned on the door.
"You know Reno?" Cloud asked, shifting his focus from the approaching helicopter to his fellow warrior.
Zack shook his head, rolling his shoulders as he paced. "Never met him. Just know he's one of the Turks. You do, though?"
"He's supposed to be my temporary assistant," Cloud said. "Or hindrance, whatever the correct title is."
"He's getting in your way?" Zack asked, stopping his pacing and look back at him curiously.
"Not intentionally, he's just…" Cloud shrugged. "He's got your attention span."
"Hey! I'm great at my job!" Zack protested, pouting back.
"I'm sure he's fine at… Turking." He wasn't quite successful in finding a verb. "How good do you think you'd be at filing budgets?"
"Ok, point taken." Zack laughed, his final words almost drowned out by the sound of the helicopter approaching for landing. The craft swung around them, circling the pad before it drained off enough momentum to drop down on the concrete.
Fighting against the downwash, Cloud opened the door to the rear of the helicopter, letting Zack throw two of the backpacks into the cargo hold. They both hurried back, each hauling the packs two at a time into the storage space until they had ferried them all. Closing and securing each side of the door, they walked around each side and boarded the helicopter.
"Yo Cloud! Man, you guys look like shit!" Reno yelled over the roar of the rotors as soon as they had closed the doors and fitted their headsets. They took off immediately, banking to the side heavily to get clear of the mountain.
"Thanks, Reno," Cloud muttered. "Where are we going?" he asked as they clicked their seat belts — rather than the previously annoying safety harnesses — in place.
"Rocket town," Reno said. "It's got an airstrip there; we'll get a plane back to Midgar when we land."
Cloud nodded, despite Reno not being able to see him. Sitting back in his chair, he looked out the window at the shrinking Nibelheim reactor, sparkling in the remaining daylight as part of the always breath-taking sight of the sun sinking over Mt. Nibel.
"How long will it take us to get to Midgar?" Zack asked over the headset. "I'm starving."
"It'll be overnight, just pick up some grub in Rocket Town," Reno replied. "So what shot you down?"
"A dragon," Cloud said quickly, before Zack could join in. "Decided it liked the look of the plane."
"Damn." Reno whistled as he tilted the helicopter forward, into a slow dive as they left the mountains and entered the plains stretching towards Rocket Town. "So you jumped out?"
"Someone had to kill the dragon." Zack nudged Cloud, giving him a wink. "I jumped out to kill it, Cloud here decided to take his chances with the mountain rather than the plane."
"Must've been one hell of a lucky landing," Reno said. "Still, good call… that plane was a wreck."
Cloud nodded along as he looked out the window, at the faint outline of a town that was growing in the distance. It looked smaller than he remembered, but it was obvious even from here that the eponymous rocket was still being built, so the only buildings around would be related to that project. Tethered near the launch pad was the great airship Highwind, bustling with activity as the workers unloaded the cargo it carried. Still closer, he could see that there were only a few permanent buildings around the site, not yet the houses and hotels that would be built once it became a tourist destination, but a great number of tents and prefabs housing temporary workers.
The one thing that was absolutely the same was Cid's house, a long and empty airstrip running out from the edge of his yard. Of course he would have built the house as soon as the project started, to stay day and night to look over his dream of being the first person into space.
The helicopter came in low, rattling the house and flapping the tents with its powerful downwash. They circled briefly around the rocket, dropping speed before they went into a tight turn to drop the aircraft right onto the grass.
"Showing off, Reno?" Cloud muttered as the queasy feeling returned into his stomach from the sharp turns. "If I throw up in here you're cleaning it up."
"Aw, man," Reno said in a sad whine, turning around in his seat once he had killed the engine. "You get airsick? Shit, I'm sorry. Please don't tell Tseng."
Cloud just mumbled in reply, throwing his safety belt off and jumping from the helicopter, eager to get solid ground under his feet as quickly as possible. He stood there as the rotors slowly wound down to a stop, hands on knees while waiting for the wave of nausea to pass. His motion sickness had improved considerably since his teenage years, though it was cured completely when he was under the delusion of being a cocky and arrogant SOLDIER First. It had returned somewhat with the regaining of his memories, but it had gone away for the most part, unless he was violently rocked around in a vehicle he couldn't control.
"Your pilot's a guy named Cid." Reno pointed towards the large house they had landed near, looming its dark silhouette against the pale glow of twilight. "The stuff you chucked in the back, does that need to go with you?"
Cloud nodded, walking around the back of the helicopter to check on the dangerous cargo. "It's… well, classified," he called back once he had made sure it was secure, with no stray books falling out. "No one can see what's inside."
"Gotcha." Reno nodded to Cloud before leaning back into the cockpit. "I'll get it shifted to your plane, don't worry."
They thanked Reno for the ride, though the redhead just brushed it off with a short joke. Trusting the books to Reno's hands, Cloud led Zack down the short path to the house of Cid Highwind.
