They crept silently into the guard's hut. Reno stepped forwards, and broke sentry's neck before he could alert anybody to their presence. Then, he bent down, and quickly searched his pockets.
"There's a keycard here," He said, flicking it towards Tseng, "It says "all access". I take it we'll need that." The electricity from his electric-magna rod made the twenty or so images on the miniature computer screens flicker.
"We need to shut down those cameras," Elena searched the room, "There's no switch!"
"Rude," Tseng turned to the silent Turk, "Find a way of shutting these things off."
Instantly, Rude tapped into a laptop that sat on the sentry's desk. A screen demanding a shut-down code flashed up, and Rude typed something in. One by one, the screens went blank.
"How the hell did you work out the code yo?" Reno looked impressed. Rude paused, and then pointed to a piece of paper on the wall. It read "SHUT DOWN CODE: 280391 A5KA".
"So much for our observatory skills," Cefra grinned, patting Reno on the back as they left the hut.
There was nobody about as they silently crossed the gravel driveway and approached the giant concrete building. A single metal door was the only entrance. Tseng swiped the keycard through a scanner, and the door slid open.
The inside of Aska's mansion was a surprising contrast to the outside. Almost everything was marble; marble floors, marble staircases leading off in every possible direction. The foyer was full of sculptures of one man, and in the middle of the massive marble fountain that stood in the middle of the room was the biggest statue of all.
"Somebody has a major crush on himself," Elena muttered.
"Yeah. Reno." Rude cracked one of his rare jokes. Reno punched his friend's arm hard as everybody sniggered.
"Not enough to erect a twenty foot statue of myself," He grinned suddenly, "But if I did, darn that would be a good-looking statue." He looked sideways at Cefra, who was scowling at him, "Calm down, I'm only joking."
"Lets go this way," Tseng scanned the room quickly, and they edged along the wall, keeping in the dark shadows. They came to one of the wide staircases. It was completely clear. Staying low, they climbed to the top.
"This whole place looks deserted," Cefra frowned.
"Yes, but nobody loosen their hold on their guns," Tseng warned, "People could appear at any minute. If the place was empty, then there would be any cameras or security guards."
Right in cue, footsteps sounded from the bottom of the corridor. Concealing themselves in various places (god those statues were useful), they waited.
Two women walked past, wearing lab coats. Cefra frowned. The mission file hadn't said anything about scientific research. She could hear their conversation.
"So how is your department doing? I heard you've made some extraordinary discoveries."
"Yes, its been amazing! Of course, most of the subjects have died, but the other day we managed to get one to breathe on its own."
"No way!"
"Yeah, it was awesome…at first."
"Why, what happened next?"
"It breathed for about thirty seconds, and then we lost it."
"No!"
"Unfortuantly, we still haven't worked out how to keep them alive."
"Is it not upsetting to see them die?"
"I'll admit, at first it used to creep me out a little, but then you realise its for the good of the company, and then its not so bad."
The two scientists veered to the left suddenly, and one of them ran another keycard through the scanner. A door in the wall opened, and they disappeared through. Cautiously, Cefra emerged from where she was hiding.
"What the hell was that all about?" Reno frowned.
"It sounds like their conducting experiments on dead things," Tseng was equally confused, "But where the hell would a lab be in a place like this?"
"Those scientists used a keycard like ours to get through that door," Elena took the card from Tseng, "Maybe we should try it and see." Gingerly, she placed the card in the scanner, and drew it down. There was a big alarm above the door warning them of the consequences should they fail. Everybody held their breath. A green light! The door opened, and they slipped through.
"Shit!" Reno's exclamation escaped him before he could stop it. Cefra's breath was caught as she froze at the sight before them.
It was a massive laboratory, that seemed to have several floors both above and below them. They were standing on what appeared to be a small platform, with two spiral staircases on either side, leading down and up to the rest of the lab. The hundreds of scientists on the floors below were so engrossed with their work to notice the five intruders. What they were working on made Cefra feel faint.
The walls were lined with vertical incubation tanks, filled with a sickly yellow liquid. Each one contained a child. They all wheeled round. There were three identical tanks on the wall behind them. Cefra walked forwards.
"Cefra!" Reno's voice was wary.
She wiped away the condensation on the glass.
The child inside was a little girl. Her clouds of blonde hair floated eerily about her face, which was pale and pinched. She did not look human at all, and her eyes, which were empty and half closed, were white. She was surrounded by tubes; two in her nostrils, one in her mouth, one in the back of her head, and one in the centre of her torso, which Cefra realised was keeping her heart beating. She stepped backwards as if in a trance.
"Who would do such a thing?" She heard Elena croak hoarsely.
"Cefra?" Reno touched her shoulder.
"Why?"
"Because these people are sick yo. They'd do anything for power."
"These tanks… they're like the ones Hojo has. Does Shin-Ra experiment on humans too?"
"I don't know."
"She's so young. She's like a baby!"
"Stop looking," Reno pulled her away, "There's no point in looking."
"Hey!"
They spun round, and stared angrily at the three guards running towards them. One glance told them that these guys were strong, but only human.
"Intruder alert!" Bellowed the leader of the three guards, and before they could stop him, smashed a glass covering on a large red button on the wall. The lights instantly changed from green to red, and the alarms went off, deafening them. The guards came at them together. One came right at Cefra. There was no time to shoot. She ducked the heavy blow he sent her, and blocked the deft kick. Catching hold of his leg, she brought her arm down heavily upon it. The crack made her feel sick. The guard screamed in agony, and she smashed his head into the glass that littered the floor. He screamed again, glass sticking out of his head, blood pouring from his eye. With one swift kick in the stomach, she sent him flying over the safety rail. There were screams from the scientists who had not fled the laboratory the moment the alarm went off.
Cefra straightened up, in time to see Elena shoot one guard in the stomach, from where he had her by the hair, and Rude break the back of the remaining one.
"We've overstayed our welcome," Reno commented, and then dived downwards suddenly. The guard who had been shot in the stomach was just alive. Reno had him by the throat.
"Tell us what you're doing here!" He snarled, "Or I'll make your death even more painful."
The guard said nothing. Reno reached down and snapped one of his fingers. The guard groaned in agony, but still said nothing. Reno snapped another finger.
"Talk bastard!"
When the guard still said nothing, Reno snapped his wrist. This time, the guard screamed,
"I don't know, alright? Why would they tell me? I'm just a guard!"
"I guess you're right," Reno sighed, and then shot him in the head. A small splatter of blood matter splashed onto his cheek. He wiped it away in disgust.
"I think we've seen enough to send a decent enough report to the president," Tseng said grimly, "All he said to do was to have a look around. We've certainly done that. Let's get out of here before any more of those guards come."
"The keycard!" Elena shrieked, "Its not working!"
"They must have changed the system when the alarm went off!" Tseng frowned, "I guess we'll have to find a new way out."
They ran down one of the spiral staircases, and into a main part of the lab, trying not to look at the children lying half cut open on the "operation" tables. There was another door opposite them.
"It needs a keycard," Rude studied it for a moment. He turned and gestured to the other doors, randomly dotted about, "They all need keycards."
"Are we stuck in here?" Cefra asked, desperately looking round for another exit.
"No," Reno pointed upwards, "The vent."
"How are we gonna get up there?" Elena frowned.
Without a word, Reno took a small run up, and jumped. He caught hold of the vent, and it came out of the ceiling, and came down with him to the floor.
"Have you already forgotten the "special training" we were given? Situations like these are what we were trained for yo."
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"Reno," Elena's voice was muffled, "Can't you hurry up? Your ass is in my face."
"Enjoy the show," Came the cocky retort.
They were crawling through the narrow vent in single file. Reno was leading them, and Tseng brought up the rear. They had no idea where they were going. Below them, and through the walls, they could hear the footsteps of the guards as they searched for them.
"Is now the right time to say that I'm really starting to get claustrophobic?" Rude groaned, a bead of sweat trickling down his head.
"Get off my hand!" Cefra squealed in the darkness.
There was a sudden long, drawn out creak.
"Oh shit." Reno sighed dramatically, and then the vent gave way beneath them. They landed in a crumpled mess, bruised and blinking in the sudden light.
"Reno, I know we're going at and all," Cefra said, looking up at Reno who was sprawled on top of her, "But now is hardly the time."
He didn't hear the joke.
"Oh shit."
They had fallen into what appeared to be a men's changing room. Staring at them as if they were aliens from space, was a whole group of Aska's soldiers, who had obviously just finished some sort of training session, because they were all carrying machine guns.
Elena acted extremely fast.
"Hi boys," She smiled, her voice becoming higher, and girly, "Me and my group here are a bit lost. Do you think you could show us the way to the exit."
"Nobody's that thick," Murmured Rude to Reno, but the soldiers were nodding, and grinning stupidly.
"We'll escort you to the exit ma'am," One of them held the door open for them all. Cefra prayed they wouldn't meet anybody else on the way. They were being escorted like guests out of Aska's mansion.
"Hey!"
"Oh shit!" Reno groaned again.
Another troop of soldiers were running towards them. The troop escorted them looked confused for a moment, and then cottoned on, lifting their guns.
"Run!" Tseng bellowed, and they dived through a random door, which just lead into another corridor. Cefra pulled the bolt and locked it. They shot down the corridor, and then came to a place that branched off either to the left or the right. A sign above the left way read, "this way to the gardens and vineyards" and the one above the right read "helipad, above".
"Rude, we left the chopper behind a vineyard!" Tseng remembered the extremely out of place grapevines, "You go that way and bring it up to the helipad, and we'll meet you there!"
Rude nodded and vanished down the corridor.
A sudden hail of bullets, announcing that the soldiers had broken through the door, made them quickly flee, the bullets sparking at their heels. Luckily for them, the soldier's armour weighed them down, and made them much slower, so they were able to stay some way ahead of them. As they began to climb a flight of stairs, Cefra noticed that Reno had gone very white, and was lagging behind.
"Come on!" She cried, and grabbed him by the hand, pulling him after her. His hand was slippery. But not with sweat.
"Oh my God!" She shrieked, staring at the blood on her fingers, "Reno's been shot!"
"Its not serious…ish," He grumbled.
They tore towards the helipad entrance. The doors were thick, heavy metal, automatic, and slid open for them. The moment they were outside, Tseng tapped something into a keypad. The doors made a strange grinding sound, and slid shut, the first soldier only centimetres from it. Cefra pulled Reno's shirt jacket open. There was blood spreading across his white shirt, coming from a wound in his chest.
"A bullet sort of went across my stomach," He hissed with pain, "I don't think it got any of my internal thingies, but I'm loosing blood quite fast." He sank to the floor suddenly, and they took cover behind a large packing crate.
"I've jammed the door!" Tseng jerked away from the doors as the storm of bullets from the other side made tiny lumps appear, "But it won't hold long. We've got about two minutes."
"But even if Rude gets here on time, they'll shoot the chopper right out of the air!" Elena cried, "There's no point. We're done for."
"Not," Said Reno suddenly, "If one of us stays behind to occupy them."
Silence fell. Cefra shook her head.
"I know what you're thinking," Her voice was strangely high and choked, "No. Please don't do it."
"How much time can you give us?" Tseng's face was white. Cefra rounded on him.
"You can't be considering this? No! You can't let him do it!"
"As long as you need," The blood from the bullet wound was soaking Reno's chest, spreading across his shirt.
"Reno!" Cefra took his hand and stared straight into his eyes, "Please. Please don't do this!"
"If I stay behind these crates until they break through I can distract them from shooting at the chopper," Reno ignored her, "And maybe take a few of them with me. With this wound I won't last long anyway."
"Don't talk shit!" Even though his blood was soaking her hands, she still clung to him desperately, "Come with us."
There was a sudden roar and gusts of wind blew across the helipad as the chopper appeared, and began to land, Rude at the controls.
Reno looked at Elena,
"Yo Elena. Look after Cefra won't you?"
"NO!" This time, Cefra flung herself across him, "You don't need to do this! There must be another way," Sudden inspiration, "Then I'm staying with you!"
"No!" He looked at her finally, "No way! I'm doing this to protect you guys. You need to go with them Cefra!"
"Reno?" Cefra managed to stop crying. She took his hands again, "I can't loose somebody else. I've already lost Dak. Please don't make me loose you as well."
"Cefra!" Tseng called her name sharply from the helicopter, "Get here now!"
"We can't wait forever!"
"If you came with us now, we could make it!" Cefra tried to drag him to his feet, "And then everything will be alright."
"Get in the chopper Cefra," He said bluntly.
"Reno, I-"
"Get in the chopper."
"Why are you doing this? Don't you love me?"
"Very, very much. Get in the damn chopper, or I'll shoot you."
His gun was pointing at her head so suddenly, it made her freeze for a second. Then, shaking, she got to her feet, turned, and walked away. Without looking back, she said,
"I love you."
He watched her go, the heartbreak never once showing on his bloodstained face.
He did say one thing though, just as she'd stepped on the helicopter.
"I love you to, yo."
Cefra paused, and then tried to throw herself back out, but Tseng was too fast, and grabbed her round the waist. She fought to free herself from his grasp, but he held her so tightly she couldn't even headbutt him.
"Reno!" She screamed.
Reno groaned, and slowly rolled onto his stomach, the wound in his chest causing agonising stabs of pain as he pushed himself to his knees. His eyes were fixed upon the doors, now riddled with dents where the bullets had struck on the other side. He felt a rush of air as the helicopter propellers began to turn. Very faintly, over the roar, he could hear Cefra screaming his name over and over again. Even though his heart was tearing to get back to her, he ignored it, and loaded his gun. The doors shook suddenly, and burst open. The troop of soldiers burst onto the helipad.
"They're getting away!"
The hail of bullets told Reno all he needed to know. He leapt up from behind the crates,
"Surprise yo!" And fired.