Update: 6/19/17
Nothing much, except I changed Cloud's monologue during his vision... revealing his slightly cynical worldview...
Ch 8
Bad Premonition
Vincent and Zack waited outside of the doctor's office. Yuffie was behind the door with a nurse, examining her head. For a moment, Zack contemplated whether or not to try and call Cloud, but he opted to keep his cell phone in his jacket pocket. Vincent eyed him intensely.
"What exactly did he tell you when he spoke to you?" Vincent asked.
"Hum?" Zack replied.
"Did he say anything strange or unusual? Besides… the usual?"
Vincent believed that he would understand. After all, it was obvious that Zack would know Cloud better than anyone else.
Zack frowned slightly and leaned against the wall. "If he did… should I be telling you that?"
"I am his colleague," he replied.
After a fashion, I suppose…
" I'll speak to your superiors then. No offense."
Vincent decided not to pry any further.
A few minutes of silence later, he received a call from his cell. It was from Barret.
"Yeah, what is it?" Vincent asked, answering it.
"We have a problem," Barret replied coldly.
Vincent walked away from Zack's side and spoke in low voice, cupping the side of his mouth. "Problem?"
Zack watched observantly as Vincent stood several feet away. His back was turned. Judging by the fact that the conversation was being concealed from him, Zack rightly assumed that something serious had happened. He bit his lip, hoping that Cloud was all right.
"After he gets back," he muttered with a scowl, "we're going to have a nice, long chat…"
00000
When they had returned to headquarters in a huff, Tifa had been the first to step out of the screen. As Barret and Sephiroth followed far behind, her face turned bright red, and she was gritting her teeth. With each step she took, it was almost as if her feet threatened the shake the ground. One arm was pumping, and the other was holding Cloud's bag (it was stuffed with his clothes and the gun that were left behind).
Sephiroth was too disturbed (and still too weak) to hold the bag himself. He was barely handling the weight of the sheathed sword strapped to his waist.
"Tifa?" Barret said anxiously.
Barret had been too consumed in the situation to ask what it was or where he got it. He was grateful for that.
"Tifa?" Barret said anxiously.
Tifa was too busy in her turbulent inner world to hear him. Vincent's previous warnings kept repeating themselves in her mind. "To put it bluntly… if he was merely 'involved', that would be the best case scenario."
"Stupid," she whispered. "I'm so, so stupid!"
Giving up on her, Barret turned his attention to his long lost subordinate. He was decidedly not happy. "What were you doing out there… with him? Huh!?"
Unfortunately for Barret, Sephiroth was also deeply contemplating something… and chose to ignore him.
"Do you know how much ruckus you caused over here!?" Barret berated him. "We were trying to track you down all night! If you think that…"
"Ah, lay off me!" Sephiroth snapped, waving him off. "I was just following orders. Mr. Ambrose is the only person I want to talk to right now! And I'm trying to think!"
Barret flinched in surprise. Did one of his subordinates just give him blatant sass?
Sephiroth stood still and rubbed his forehead, obviously puzzling very hard. Barret stopped, completely forgetting about Tifa, who left them far behind for her own purposes.
"Now, you listen here…" Barret growled.
Sephiroth suddenly smiled. He chuckled under his breath, his shoulders quivering. "It's all a cover-up! An absolute farce!"
"I'm not finding anything funny about this!" Barret retorted. "And for we know, Cloud could be dead…"
"Well played, Mr. Tuesti," Sephiroth interrupted quietly. "Well played. But I pretty much knew it the whole time. Anyone with a half-functioning brain cell could tell what you're doing, but there aren't many people like that, are there? In comes Cloud Strife, the untried recruit. On the books, he's a member of Titans 7… but meanwhile, under our very noses, he's happily following your orders… and he knows more of what's going on than any of us. And he's allowed to know more than us… because he's the precious grandson of your friend… Dr. Enoch Strife…"
Barret stared at him, dumbstruck. Sephiroth sighed deeply and stopped talking for a moment, doubting whether or not he should say what else was on his mind. He nodded confidently to himself; he was sure he was correct.
"And that's not all…" he said, now speaking to Barret directly. "Even though, on the books, he's on our team… he's not like the rest of us. Cloud… he's something totally different."
"What are you sputtering on about…?" Barret replied.
"He knew … that thing… whatever it was, I've no idea. He knew exactly what it was, and he walked up to it like he owned it. And I have a hard time believing it was a bug."
Fully satisfied, Sephiroth continued onward along the hall. Barret just stood where he was, watching him.
"Cloud hasn't bitten the dust," he went on. "He's too fond of himself to let that happen. But whatever he and Mr. Tuesti are up to, it must be one sensational operation! That's all I can work out for now… but make no mistake… there's a lot more going on than… and I'm still not going anywhere near his clothes…"
Sephiroth looked and realized Tifa was long gone.
"Where'd she go?" he asked Barret.
Barret grimaced, already knowing. "The Director's office…"
00000
To Tifa's confusion, Aerith wasn't at her post. Nevertheless, she fearlessly walked up the door of Mr. Tuesti's office. She balled up her fist and rapped her knuckles hard against the door.
"Yes?" Mr. Tuesti asked.
"It's Miss Lockheart," Tifa announced sharply.
"Of course… come in."
The door slid open, and Tifa glared at him from the threshold of the door. Mr. Tuesti, who seemed unsurprised by her sudden visit, sat forward in his chair. He was typing something on his computer.
Tifa sucked in her lip and walked boldly into his office, lifting the bag off of her shoulder. She stepped right up to his desk, opened the bag, and dumped all of the contents onto the surface. Mr. Tuesti reacted with a blank calm, watching it all pile up before him. As soon as the bag was empty, she dropped it onto the desk as well and crossed her arms against her chest.
"What have you done to Cloud?" she asked coldly.
Mr. Tuesti saw the small velvet box, slightly covered by Cloud's boxers. He grabbed it quickly and put it in his pocket.
"Thank you for bringing back his things," he said nonchalantly. "Although, I don't think even he would approve of having it strewn all over my desk."
"What have you done to Cloud!?" she repeated loudly.
"Calm down, Miss Lockheart. Whatever I've done to him, it all happened by his free will…"
"That's not…!"
Tifa's voice became choked. She looked at Cloud's clothes, wrinkled and sprawled all over the desk. She would clean and iron them later, after she gave the kittens their evening meal.
"I…" she murmured softly. "I saw… what happened to him in Rona… he… he… his body…"
Mr. Tuesti smiled, closing his eyes. "Miss Lockheart… what you watched disappear… that wasn't Cloud anymore. It was nothing more than an empty vessel. A container."
Tifa blanched. "What!?"
"Cloud simply went through a body transfer. The 'container' he was previously inside of… it was never meant to be permanent. After the transfer was complete, there was no further use for it. And it was disposed of."
Tifa took a step back, horrified at his words. And to say it in such a businesslike, scientific tone…
"You talk about it… as if you were taking out the trash!" she balked. "How could you…?"
"The only thing I value above all else in this world," Mr. Tuesti replied with brusque candidness. "… is the human spirit. Flesh and blood mean nothing to me. Besides, it's hardly any different than what you went through when you arrived here."
Tifa swallowed.
"Are you frightened, Miss Lockheart?" he asked. "I suppose that's because you don't understand… but that's perfectly natural…"
He grinned dryly, speaking more to himself than to her.
"Cloud and I… we're both… very frightening men."
00000
In a small room, within the headquarters of the Foundation, Reno was working madly over a computer. His fingers worked rapidly over the keyboard, as if he were playing a complicated piece on an organ. The codes he typed, all complicated commands, flowed effortlessly. A wide smirk was stretched on his face. He never took his eyes off of the monitor. Not once.
After he entered the last commanded, Reno took a deep breath. With his smile widening, he reached out dramatically for the enter key.
"Ding!"
00000
The entire building of Wilhelmina headquarters suddenly went dark. A blackout. The lobby was filled with startled gasps.
Inside his office, Mr. Tuesti hummed in surprise at the sudden occurrence. Tifa looked about herself in shock; she had never seen a blackout happen at headquarters before.
"Is there a bug traveling through the circuits?" Tifa asked, almost forgetting the situation.
Mr. Tuesti didn't reply. Within a couple of minutes, the electricity came back on without a fuss.
00000
Meanwhile, Reno nonchalantly got up from his seat and briefly went to get a leisurely cup of coffee. He grinned smugly.
Once LOLITA secured a grasp on its target, it was impossible to escape its clutches.
00000
It wasn't dark, but it wasn't bright. And it wasn't dim either.
It felt, Cloud thought, that he was floating. He was tucked into himself, his body in an almost fetal position. His surroundings were warm and something uncomfortably sticky was wrapped around him… but it wasn't unpleasant. He felt…as if something was protecting… as if a shell had been wrapped around him.
There was something outside of the shell, something formless and vast. He wasn't able to tell if what he was seeing was real… or just a figment of his imagination. It was pushing against his protection, and he could feel a strain, threatening to break it apart.
Cloud didn't know whether on not to dread it.
He closed his eyes and breathed. He was very good at waiting.
But when he opened his eyes, the strange world had suddenly given way. And Cloud wasn't sure…if it was another possible illusion. The first thing he saw was an old, destroyed car. To his gruesome surprise, there was a body sitting in the driver's seat; it was old and decayed.
The car had long crashed into the side of a very tall building… only, the building was not standing tall. It—Cloud couldn't believe it—the building had toppled over into the city! And in its wake, it had completely demolished another building on the other side of the street. He looked on in horrified amazement. And as he observed even more, the scene grew even worse…and more impossible.
The streets were filled with empty cars and scarce evidence of previous human life. There was a smashed teddy bear in the middle of the intersection, sitting right in the middle of a crater. The sidewalk had a large crack, much like a gash. Many windows, thousands of them, were shattered. Another building, several yards away, had fallen over as well, but a more stable skyscraper was supporting its weight.
The city was almost unrecognizable, but it was familiar somehow. At some point in time, Cloud had been to this city. But he couldn't think of what it was.
He looked up at the sky, above the buildings. He didn't see a dome.
This had to have been caused by a virus, he pondered, trying to gather his thoughts. This isn't Sandeep. And it's not Rona either. I haven't been to any other wild cities before. So…
Cloud stepped forward, deeper into the vision. It was the best way. The only way. The streets were also covered in the glass. He stepped on it at every step, but he didn't feel it. He was inside the vision, but he was not of it.
The extent of the damage was much more than Cloud had realized. It was the same everywhere; the entire city had been devastated and emptied. All that was left were lost memories and rotted corpses, littered around him like waste. Mr. Tuesti had shown him the destruction a virus could cause in a wild city…but this? This exceeded that by an overwhelming margin.
Cloud swallowed and held himself. He was shivering.
He had horrible premonitions before…but never at this level. Never…
"That's wrong…" a voice boomed.
Cloud jumped, the voice resonating through his entire body. He looked around, turning to and fro. No one was there.
"You should know," the voice spoke again. "You should know… you've seen this all before…"
"Who…?" he whispered back.
Suddenly, someone bumped into him; he could be feel the person's skin against his. Cloud looked on and saw a child running away from him, a boy in pajamas. He noticed that the boy's hair was blonde… and unruly… like his. The boy was running away quickly, and he was carrying a plush toy in his hand. Cloud recognized the toy… a stuffed rabbit. It was an old bedfellow, a gift from his grandfather!
Without thinking, without willing himself, he ran after the boy. And the boy led the way.
00000
After the chase had gone on for a while, Cloud noticed that he had ended up in a residential district, full of townhouses. He knew of them. He had lived there before. Yes! He knew exactly where he was. It had to be. It had to! But…
No! he denied it. It can't be! It makes no sense! All of the domed cities look practically alike! And this can't be a domed city. There's no shield!
The boy was far ahead of him, never once changing his pace. He wondered why he never caught up.
And then, when he had reached the center of the district, Cloud found himself standing inside of a park. It was barely touched, save for broken streetlights and car that had crashed into a bathroom station. It was empty, just like the rest of the city, but it's emptiness caused a darker, more unsettling feeling in his chest. The boy was nowhere to be seen.
Cloud couldn't deny it. He recognized this park. He recognized the trees growing around and among it. He saw a grove of trees and bushes, only a few yards away, and he knew what was behind them, what should've been behind them. He walked towards them and climbed over the bushes. He had to know what this place was. He had to know for sure!
Cloud reached the other side. He froze. He gazed. He felt sick to the stomach.
Before him, in the middle of a clearing, there was large play area for children. Cloud trudged towards it, his body suddenly feeling very heavy.
Of the few things that were starkly unique amongst the domes… all of the children's play areas were different. Cloud never understood why.
As he came closer and closer, he become more and more certain.
This place, this little playground for children, the only untouched in the city, he used to go there as a child. Mrs. Fair, Zack's mother, often had to come to this city to meet with Shinra Headquarters. When that happened, she brought both Zack and him, along with a nanny. While she attended her meetings and lunches, the nanny took them to this park, and Zack played with the other children, if there were any. Most of the time, especially when other children were there, Cloud sat on a bench and read books.
While Mrs. Fair attended to business in the city of Pathea.
Cloud laughed. It wasn't a pleasant one. The sound that came out of his mouth was choked and unstable.
"Are you laughing?" a child's voice asked.
He turned towards the bench, that bench near the play area. The boy was sitting there, cuddling the rabbit in his arms. He stared in alarm. He and this child—they both had the same blue eyes, the same face.
The boy, his childhood self, briefly averted his gaze, nuzzling his cheek against the fuzziness of the rabbit. Cloud only stared, without a word.
"Why are you crying?" his younger self asked.
Cloud was completely taken aback. He touched his face, feeling his skin, and found the tears that he didn't notice.
"I…" he murmured. "I don't know…"
"Are you sad?"
"I don't…I don't know."
Cloud fell to his knees. His body was trembling violently.
"Are you angry?"
"I…I'm not sure."
No, that wasn't true. He was angry. So angry that it made him cry. The entire vision played out through his mind, faster than he could think, faster than he could blink. He gritted his teeth.
"So, this is it, huh?" he hissed. "This is how it all ends. The final legacy of the Shinra Foundation. They wanted control, and they got their control… and this is what we get."
He scoffed in disgust, wiping the tears from his face. His childhood self did not move.
"Do you why I laugh all the time?" he muttered. "Because the world is such a damned joke. We... are all so stupid. Everyone, so completely oblivious to everything going on around them. We've all… we've become complacent with the very people that are trying to control us. They don't care about us. They only care about themselves…. and way they think everything's supposed to be. And they'll keep forcing it on us, even if it means destroying everything! All we wanted was safety and relief… and they took advantage of us and turned us away from the truth!
"But you knew that all along, didn't you?" his childhood self replied.
Cloud nodded, smiling unpleasantly. "Yes… of course, I did. I did. So did all of them . So did… so did Grandfather… so did Grandfather."
00000
The vision shattered around him, and he was back inside his little shell. It continued to strain and crack, buffeted by the outside forces. His head ached terribly.
"How are you feeling?" a voice boomed.
Cloud's ears twitched. The creature's voice almost seemed to echo, confusing his hearing.
"That depends on what you mean," he replied.
"Emotionally," the creature added.
Cloud curled into himself a little more, as much as he could. "In that case, not very well at all."
"Are you feeling any regrets?" it asked.
"Of course not. Why should I?"
"Even though it will be painful? Even when… you may have to fight for the rest of your life?"
Cloud felt the shell vibrating and convulsing around him. It was time.
"It's alright. I knew what I was getting myself into."
And the shell broke away, almost as if by explosion. His body was flung back, out of the fetal position, into the void.
00000
Cloud opened his eyes, as if for the first time. He didn't feel disoriented or even dazed, but he knew quite well that he had been sleeping. His headache was gone.
He was lying inside of a capsule, and strange, gel-like substance surrounded the back of his body, from his ankles to the crown of his head. As he started to get up, trying to sit up, the capsule suddenly opened. He continued to rise, and the gel peeled off as he moved.
There was classical music playing in the background.
Cloud realized that he was naked. That wasn't a surprise. His whole body felt lighter, but he wasn't as thin, even if it was of the exact same bone structure. He took a deep breath to test his lungs; it still gave him the same sensation.
"Not too different," he commented blankly.
Cloud was inside what could have possibly been another type of room at some point in time. But now, it looked more like an unruly computer lab, with wires and cords attached to the capsule and a system of monitors on a table.
"Cloud?"
He heard Aerith's voice speaking through an intercom.
"Miss Gainsborough?" he asked.
"Good, so you're actually awake," she replied. "The monitor said so. And your vital signs are excellent. Mr. Tuesti will be pleased."
Cloud heard the sound of hydraulics. On the other end of the room, an opening had appeared. It looked rather dim on the inside.
"The cyberonic fluids might have left some residue," she said. "So please, go ahead and take a shower. There are some clothes waiting for you. After you're done… then, we can talk."
The intercom turned off. Cloud sighed and climbed out of the capsule. The vision flashed in his mind, making him feel ill. He suppressed those troubled thoughts and stepped into a small bathroom. The door closed behind him.
Sure enough, there was a plain white t-shirt, boxers, and pair of jeans from his closet, all folded neatly on the toilet cover. A few towels were sitting on a rack. Cloud took another deep breath, gripping the edge of the counter, and looked at his reflection in the mirror.
All he saw was the exact same face. He pondered whether or not he was expecting anything different.
"I wonder what kind of chaos I caused back there," he mused quietly.
Judging by the manner that he had "departed", Cloud was certain that he had caused quite a stir in Titans 7. It was the only plausible and understandable reaction. And the way that Tifa came charging towards him… she briefly reminded him of a mama bear.
He allowed himself a small laugh, despite his current mood. Seeing her like that… caused a very strange sensation to well up inside of him. To be sure, he was definitely startled when she came after him; he was afraid that her interference would ruin the task he was trying to accomplish. Nevertheless, the obvious concern and impulsive protectiveness on her part… he wasn't entirely sure what it made him feel.
Though maybe, just maybe… it made him feel… quite happy.
Cloud thumped his knuckles against the side of his head and walked towards the shower. Time to get to get to business.
00000
It was nighttime… according to Aerith's cell phone. She couldn't tell underground.
She ended a long call with a worried, burned out sigh, like death warmed over.
"This is bad," she muttered. "This is very bad."
As she waited for Cloud to appear, Aerith glanced at the two wrapped sandwiches that she had laid out on the bar counter. She had hastily bought them from Wilhelmina's café. Before the call had arrived, she had busied herself in trivial thought, hoping that Cloud, good cook that he was, wouldn't tease.
She was sitting in the basement bar of the Titans 7's new base, a small boutique hotel in Uptown Sandeep that had been closed down earlier during the previous year. The white paint was eroded in a stylized way on the walls, revealing the red brick underneath. Through a long hall and up a flight of black steel stairs (or a small elevator if so inclined), there was the lobby and a lounging area with a library, which led up the rest of the hotel. There were no more than twenty-six guest rooms.
More personnel would be coming to join them later.
Aerith couldn't comprehend why anyone would try to run a hotel that was so small. But judging by the extended halls above her, and the stone bar top she leaned on, it had probably been a high-end establishment. Such a pity, she thought. I think it's actually rather cute.
To give their people credit, finding the place had been a Godsend. Among other the places they handpicked around the city. And with a few tweaks here and there, converting a few rooms, building up a few needed doors, the place had been turned into the perfect hideout.
In the past, Aerith hoped that it would be a temporary hideout if something went wrong. But given the circumstances...
A few minutes later, at long last, Cloud quietly entered the bar with wrinkled eyebrows. He was still toweling his face dry.
"This place," he said, "What was it called?"
"The Seventh Heaven Inn," she replied.
He turned about, glancing around the bar. "It's nice. Why did it ever shut down?"
"Apparently, financial issues. It was foreclosed."
Cloud smiled ruefully. "What a shame."
Aerith sighed, not liking what she was about to say. She sucked in her breath and bit her lip.
"Cloud," she began, "we have a problem."
He raised his head, peaked at her through the towel, and chuckled. "There's always a problem, isn't there?" But his smile disappeared in a flash and he asked, "What is it?"
"About an hour ago," she began, "security… our security realized that Wilhelmina was attacked by a hacker today."
To her lack of surprise, Cloud reacted almost impassively. "What was touched?"
"Our security cameras."
His eyes narrowed, and he flung the towel over his shoulder. He walked up to the bar counter and sat next to her on one of the stools.
"The Director is working to find out what the hacker was after…" she continued. "But we've determined that it definitely came from the Shinra Foundation…"
"I've been discovered," he interrupted.
"What?"
"The Foundation knows. They know that I'm still alive."
Aerith grunted and went pale in dismay. "What…why?"
"I felt," he replied, "that something would go very wrong… because of that hacking session. That it would bring trouble…"
"Last night's hacking session… are you saying that we were spotted? But… they've never noticed us before. And we've always kept up with their upgrades."
Cloud stared down at the floor in thought. "I wonder if Mr. Valentine believes in clairvoyance now?"
"Excuse me?"
"It's nothing… and the cameras in my apartment. Were they compromised too?"
"They run on a different system from the rest of the security cameras… so… whatever came after our cameras didn't notice their existence."
"And Mr. Tuesti's penthouse?"
"All fine."
Cloud hummed in relief. "There's hope for us yet."
Aerith nodded grimly. She faced her cell phone once more and pressed a number of speed dial. She was going to calling Mr. Tuesti. Cloud hadn't cracked one smile since he entered to room. It was beginning to unnerve her.
"Cloud?"
"Something else is bothering me," he declared.
Aerith blinked in surprise but said nothing.
"While I was sleeping in that capsule," he revealed, "I started to remember things. I… when I was about seven years old, about six months before my grandfather died, I had several visions… more accurate than what I'm used to. My grasp on my memories is still very hazy, so I can only remember a few of them right now. There was one in particular that terrified me… and I've just had it a second time. It was of Pathea. The entire city was a graveyard…"
"A what!?" she gaped.
"What happened in Rona… couldn't even compare to what I saw. It was in ruins; I almost didn't recognize it. It was obviously caused by a virus attack of a very large scale… I'm certain of it. The dome was gone. And the rotting corpses. I thought I was going to be sick…"
"But Pathea is a domed city!"
"Then, you understand what the vision implies, don't you?"
Aerith trembled, too afraid to answer.
"I cried for weeks when I saw it as a boy," Cloud admitted. "But I wasn't sad. I was angry. I was furious… but it didn't understand why. Not until today."
He ruffled his fingers through his hair. He was thankful to have enough to work his stress through.
"Do you know…" Aerith began quietly, "Do you know when this is supposed to happen?"
"I don't," he replied.
"Is it… inevitable?"
He shook his head vigorously, a determined frown on his face. "It's not going to happen. I won't let that happen. We won't let it happen."
Cloud finally acknowledged the sandwiches on the counter and took one. He carefully and unhurriedly unwrapped the plastic. Aerith watched him with amazement. It was the first time she had ever seen him so terribly serious.
"But there's something else that I don't like," he said. "This vision… that I've had before. I had completely forgotten about it."
"How on earth… could you possibly forget… something like that?" Aerith asked in disbelief.
"How, I wonder. There's no way I would have forgotten. Not when I remember so many predictions… especially the ones that mattered. So why then… after all these years… why couldn't I remember it? Why am I starting to remember all of this only now?"
Aerith swallowed and pursed her lips. Her face was downcast.
"…Miss Gainsborough?"
"I think… that's for the Director to answer. Not me. Sorry."
She continued making her call without incident, with dark bags under her eyes.
