"That Day of Infamy"
Chapter Ten
"Advance by Bounds"
(Day 5.)
"What if she's coming here?" Seifer asked.
Quistis raised an eyebrow. She checked the time. 7:43 PM, internal. Seifer, sitting on the other side of the desk console, was staring at her, expecting an answer. Quistis considered it.
"She can't." She said, "The only available transport, the train, departs from Dollet."
"Yeah, and they have the best of security." Seifer said, "Fucking state of the art and shit."
"No, but say she managed to board a train there. Where does she emerge from?"
"Trabia."
"I don't see a Sorceress with only a working week's worth of experience managing to slip by the outer border checkpoint. Say that she does," she added upon Seifer opening his mouth, "then she'll also have to get past Trabian border security. Jacen Onesson's little outpost is being put to good use there, so there is no way she'll get through that."
"And if by some unforeseen fucking miracle she gets past that and comes fucking here?"
"Then we deal with her." Quistis said, "What else do you want me to say?"
"I don't know, a fucking plan that goes beyond that, maybe?" Seifer said, "Look, I remember how we fought and I remember how hard they go down, alright? I don't wanna get caught with my fucking pants down."
"The world is in lockdown." Quistis said, "That's all we've got right now."
"That and your worker's union."
"Don't remind me." Quistis sighed, "Putting them to work and making sure they would was one thing, but I got their preliminary report and... shit, we're looking at eight to ten months, not six. I can't tell that to the civilians."
"Yeah, they're already fucking restless. They had routines and job and whatever, now all they have is supply runs to their brand-fuckin'-new DMZ."
"I can't risk the workers telling them either. So... I was thinking..."
Seifer raised an eyebrow. He knew that tone of voice.
"Don't tell me." He said, "What did you think?"
"We're going to be here for a while." Quistis said, "The Garden doesn't only offer personnel, we are also a floating, gigantic weapon. The pulse batteries are powerful enough that I think they could even handle a Lunar Cry."
"So you want to..?"
"Settle down in Esthar. Maybe even rechristen this place. Esthar doesn't have a Garden. Squall and I've talked about the possibility, but..."
"Going native, Quist? Really?"
"Why not?"
"Centra doesn't have a Garden, neither does Balamb or FH. I don't see you all torn up about those."
"Centra is a barren wasteland only good for training cadets in monsters. Balamb doesn't need a Garden, we already have the facility there. And FH has had only one cadet in our generation, and by that I mean yours and mine – and she died."
Seifer considered it. Of all the places in all the world, of all the properties that he rented out, same as the others, there wasn't one among them he could call home. He even stayed in hotels just for the fuck of it whenever he had to be stationed somewhere longer than overnight. He had places all over the globe, and now that he had 1/3rd of Squall's share, he had more, but a home?
Home had been a stone house at the very edge of Centra, bonfires on the beach and the presence of unfortunate bastard children like himself. Home could have been Timber once, far away and in another life, with Rinoa in their little summer romance. Home was the Garden, but did it matter where it was?
"Fuck it." Seifer grinned, "Why the fuck not? We've tried it every other way. Let's go partisan, see what happens."
"Just like that?" Quistis asked.
"Just like that. What, were you expecting a fight?"
"From Seifer F Almasy?"
"Seifer what now?"
"That's what they call you."
"What's the F stand for?" Seifer asked.
"It's the word you love so much." Quistis said.
Seifer's confused face made her laugh.
The interview room, for lack of a better name, was a small, empty space with no windows, or mirrors. There was a steel table, bolted to the ground in the middle, two steel chairs and rings embedded into the table for when they had to cuff whoever they were interviewing. Artemisia wasn't in cuffs, but she knew how intensely focused IA could be. One thing you never wanted was to be where she was, especially with a piece of contraband stashed away inside her mattress. On-site evidence of her treason.
The door behind her opened and a SeeD walked in. He had short-cropped, auburn hair and green eyes. A crooked nose and high cheekbones. A martial artist, she guessed, from the way he set himself down and crossed his arms, his muscles evident even under the jumpsuit.
"Artemisia." He said, "No-last-name-given." Artemisia opened her mouth to respond, but the man cut him off, "No need. It's on file. Orphan, origin and parentage unknown. Artemisia Doe. Which is funny, even Squall Leonhart used his mother's maiden name, even if he didn't know that it was that. He never switched to his father's last name, even though they were married at the time of his birth."
"You can't change the name of a legend." Artemisia said.
"Well said. I'm Paull Riveers, and I will be handling your interview."
Artemisia steeled herself. This would be rough.
"All right." She said.
"Now." Paull's eyes narrowed, just a bit, just enough for her to see that they were in it now, "Walk me through what happened."
Artemisia did. From the call at 3 AM to the mansion, the Duchess' claims, the Duke's death, her suicide-by-SeeD, or, by her reckoning, suicide-by-Sorceress. She took great care to not leave anything out, save for the one crucial detail that would cost her more than just the day. Paull Riveers listened, occasionally nodded or let out a contemplative 'hm' or 'huh' but stayed silent otherwise. When she finished, she waited. For a few moments, Paull Riveers just stared at her, or, as she felt it, stared her down. When he spoke, his voice was even.
"There is the matter of the missing diary."
Artemisia took the hit. She knew he would ask about it. CSI should have been all over the place, going through everything with a fine-tooth comb that made fine-tooth combs look like sieves, and they would discover, of course, that the ink stains on the Duke's fingers belonged to something that had mingled with his blood, and it would be missing. Given that the Ellone Diaries were marked "of 2" on the spine didn't help.
"There is?"
"There were two volumes in the library. Ellone Loire's diaries, volumes one and two. Volume two is missing."
"Would that be the volume where Ellone Loire talks about the Sorceress?"
Paull Riveers raised an eyebrow.
"The Duchess told me, like I said." Artemisia said, "I know it's forbidden to me."
"It'd be a violation of Garden Law if you were to take it on purpose. There is leniency for accidental glimpses at it, as you well know, but otherwise... yes, it'd be tantamount to high treason."
"I know."
"So you don't know where the second volume is?"
Artemisia didn't flinch.
"I believe the Duchess had it. She seemed to be fixated on it."
"The second volume specifically?"
"I assumed."
"You assumed? Based on what?"
"The Duke's hand." Artemisia said, well aware that she was telling a bold-faced lie, "It looked like he was holding something when he was stabbed. Rigor mortis held the shape. A small book, or a personal notebook, could fit there."
"What else?" Paull Riveers asked.
"The notebook was in his hand when I first entered the mansion. But it disappeared." Artemisia said, "I was distracted by the Kappa Squad's insistence that they should come in, and when I returned to the scene, it was gone."
"That's not what you said just now. You made an observation about the shape held by the Duke's fingers."
Artemisia mentally punched herself. She cursed up a storm in her thoughts and, clear as day, began to sweat. She had fallen for it. A discrepancy like that bared to him that she was lying about something she had no business whatsoever lying about.
No. Not like this. This wouldn't make her the Sorceress. An IA investigation could be nicely, she knew, but it wasn't worth throwing herself away.
There had to be a way out. She had dug herself in, so maybe she could dig herself out.
"I indicated that to make sure you understood what I meant by the fact that the Duke was holding it at the time of his death. Even after it was removed, the Duke's hand remained in the same position, indicating, in turn, that it had been recently taken. It had to be taken afer rigor had set in."
Paull Riveers smiled. Artemisia barely held back a shudder.
"I see." He said, "You have a background in CSI, correct?"
"Yes." Artemisia said.
"Then is this your offical opinion?"
Artemisia bit her tongue. There it was, the springing trap. If she said yes, anything related that might crop up in the future would be compared to what she would say next. If she said no, then it would be apparent that she was lying. If she just tried to weasel her way out of it, it would be apparent that she was lying. This committed her to keeping up the lie, compelled her to stick to fiction.
"Yes." She said.
"Very well." Paull Riveers said, "That'll be all for now."
Stashed between two piles of luggage, Lea crossed her arms. It was getting colder the closer they got to Trabia. The rhythmic clacking of the train was background noise by now, and she heard it as she would a lullaby. It was hard not to nod off after having eaten the last snack in her backpack. It would have to tide her over for the rest of the trip. It wasn't that important, Lea felt, because after all, she had managed to catch the last train out of Fisherman's Horizon. That, in and of itself, struck her as being nothing short of a miracle itself – two brushes with SeeD, and after having convinced them to pull back the extra forces the had piled on FH by staying out of sight.
She did wish she hadn't had to kill one of them to get to the luggage compartment, but it was too late now.
Staring at the piles of luggage around her, wondering about the lives behind them, Lea couldn't help but think two things. The first was that one of thse lives could have been hers, that she could have been in one of the passenger cars, sitting with her parents... no. Too painful a thought to venture near just yet. But she could have been there nonetheless, instead of stowing away like the fugitive that she now was.
The second thought was that SeeD was not all that she had been told, had read, seen or heard. Of course, most of it had had to do with the Fated Children, the survivalists who had prevailed over everything that had been piled onto them... but without the tight grip of Squall Leonhart on their entire operation, it seemed, things had fallen down the wayside just a bit. Her decision to go down in an inevitable clash with them seemed a bit less unfair against her and a bit more unfair towards them with each passing evasion.
But still, SeeD was all she had left in the world. SeeD, and the crawling sensation on the back of her neck, the goosebumps on her skin when she thought about the moon rising at night.
It would be close to daybreak when she would reach Esthar City, she knew – that is, if she could get past Trabia.
Lea closed her eyes and tried to settle in. She had a ways to go before she was out of the woods, she knew.
...the Duchess killed her brother because she believed that the SeeD before her would pluge the world that has known peace for a century into total war. The inevitability of this was what drove her to what she did.
I have come to understand that all Sorceresses have one desire, the same desire that is embedded into them when they become what they are, by choice or luck. This is the original sin.
A Sorceress -any Sorceress- seeks to undo two things, both of them the same, but different for each. The original sin is Rhea's eating of Hyne's flesh, the act that brought the Sorceress into existence. But just like the Gospels' claim, "and to each a gift," there is something else they inherit: "and to each an original sin."
This is the moment when a Sorceress either first uses the full extent of their power, or, the moment when a pivotal decision is made and its consequences become inescapable. This is improtant, because Adel's original sin is the reason why she chose me as her heir: all those girls she abducted was just to find the one she could, or would, recognize.
To elaborate: my journey into Adel's past has shown that she, after her succession, became one part of twins. Her twin, however, was a boy, and his body couldn't handle the power contained within it. He was the one with the ability to junction himself to those he knew, and since he only knew his sister on account of being bed-ridden for most of his life, he connected with her and "predicted" future events.
That is also where the origin for my ability is.
Sorceress Adel absorbed her twin brother into herself in order to save his life, but since Caleb, the boy, consented to this, knowing that it would kill him, it released his half-power into the aether and it chose me. Her original sin created me, and the power of the witch-kin.
Sorceress Edea consorted with the essence of Ultimecia and experimented with purer forms brought on by black magic, and this led to the untimely death of Daniel, an orphan under her care. It was also one of the two events that scarred Squall for life.
Sorceress Rinoa had the gift of casting illusions, which she used to cheat on Squall, and later to capture him, but her original sin was deceit. Having decieved him, she drove herself away and so decieved herself into believing she was more than she could be. This one act of infidelity laid the groundwork of the Third Sorceress War.
Sorceress Galloway did not have a choice, neither did Sorceress Brea, to use their gifts or to commit an original sin.
Sorceress Lea's original sin was the death of her brother, Josh, in a desperate attempt to stop him. Following this, she accidentally burned her family home down, and her parents with it.
Like this, Sorceress Ultimecia's original sin is, or rather seems to be, the murder of the Dollet Duchess. What marks this event as the beginning of her descent into darkness is actually strangely simple: she only did it because the Duchess ensured she would. Uncle Kiros used to call it a causal loop. This murder was made possible by this diary, which was made possible by the murder and what I learned following my own bloodline into the future. In a way, the conclusion seems inescapable.
The future may in fact be unchangable, as unchangable as the past. There is one exception to this that I can think of, and it is
Artemisia slammed the notebook shut. She gripped it in her hands until her knuckles turned white. The writing was on the wall, and in the notebook, in neat cursive, outlining her doom. Telling her the trut of the one thing she had suspected ever since the Duchess had told her that she would in the end become what everyone suspected she would.
But there had to be hope. Artemisia could not accept that everything she would do was set in stone. Even Ellone Loire had noted an exception to the tyrannical law that governed her forays into the past and her actions in the present: one exception to this that I can think of, and it is
Artemisia's eyes widened. She read the sentence again and once more, just to be sure.
and it is Time Compression.