CHAPTER 25: PUNISHMENTS
[In which Reno comes to terms with Cissnei's double-dealing, and both Zack and Aerith turn to Tseng for advice]
Thinking it over a week or so later, Tseng came to the conclusion that their first mistake had been their willingness to believe that Genesis was dead. No one had seen his body with their own eyes. They had simply assumed that what ought to be, must be - always an unwise thing to do, as the recent events in Junon had amply proved. For on the same day that Reno had returned from Rocket Town, and Tseng had flown with Knox to Costa to bring back Cissnei, a very-much-alive Genesis had overrun Junon with a platoon of clones and sprung Profession Hollander from his interrogation cell, despite the best efforts of Zack and the Turks to stop him.
Tseng blamed Cissnei for this, too – possibly unfairly, but he felt it was her fault he had taken his eye off the ball. He had found her in Costa lounging on the beach in a skimpy bikini, watching Zack go through his morning exercises – Zack had looked almost relieved when Tseng appeared, an irony which, under other circumstances, might have afforded the Turk a degree of amusement. Cissnei had kept her cool, though; he had to admire her for that, even though she must have realized as soon as she saw him that her gamble had failed.
The surprise attack by a dozen Genesis clones had bought her a little time. Zack in his swimming trunks had fended the clones off with a rolled beach umbrella, and then Commander Veld had called, summoning them all to Junon, and so Cissnei's punishment had had to be deferred until the situation there was brought under control.
But now a week had passed, and she was gone. Gone for good this time, their brass-knuckled butterfly. The Commander had dealt with her. Where she had been sent, what she would do now, Tseng wasn't told, and he didn't ask. It was easier not to think about her – or if he must think of her (and he seemed unable to help himself) then it was not her husky laugh that he should remember, or that smile that brought sunshine into a room; he must forget her charm and her courage, forget the childlike way she cocked her head to one side when she listened, and the light that shone in her golden eyes when she took aim with her shuriken. Better to remember only that she was a liar and a manipulator, who had disobeyed her orders, deceived her partner, and betrayed the deepest of company secrets in pursuit of her own selfish ends. She had put herself first, and an innocent girl's life was now at risk as a result.
Tseng could not forgive her for that.
As for Reno… as soon as the stripes on his back healed, the Commander banished him to work on the bunker deep inside the plate. Reno was – not obedient, exactly – not resigned… Apathetic was the word Tseng eventually arrived at. He did what he was ordered to do without comment or complaint, and this, in itself, was a cause for anxiety. For several days Tseng found excuses to be down in the bunker with him, half-afraid that he might try to blow his own brains out.
But Reno was a survivor. As they all were.
He had brought this misfortune on himself, of course, by flagrantly breaking the very rules that had been established for his own protection. One ought not to feel compassion for him, nor to wish, in any private corner of one's being, that things could have somehow turned out differently. Love, for a Turk, was a self-indulgence that could only ever end in disaster. Look at Rude – at Knox – at Rosalind – at Natalya and Charlie. Yet still they failed to learn.
And there were times when Tseng himself wasn't sure whether he pitied them, or envied them.
He tried to express something of what he felt to Reno, even though he knew he was clumsy with kind words.
"Typical of me, though, eh?" Reno replied. "What a sucker."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. Look, can't you just bugger off and leave me to wallow in my self-pity for a while? I won't drown, if that's what you're afraid of. The puddle's pretty shallow."
Turning away from Tseng, Reno picked up an acetylene blowtorch, pulled his goggles over his eyes, and set to work soldering together two lengths of copper piping. Tseng glanced around. Over in the far corner he saw a shinrafoam mattress, covered by an old sleeping bag, lying on the concrete floor. Beside it was a bottle of what looked like vodka, three-quarters empty.
Raising his voice above the noise of the blowtorch, he said to Reno, "That boy Tys, your bike thief – the doctors tell me he's out of danger."
Reno went on working as if he had not heard.
"He says he took the bike for a dare," Tseng pressed on. "But my guess is, it was an initiation of some sort. From his tattoos it's clear he's a member of one of the Devil Ride gangs from the wasteland. Naturally, he denies it. He keeps asking about you, though. Seems you made quite an impression on him."
Reno concentrated on his welding.
"The Commander's thinking of recruiting him. There aren't many boys his age who could outwit our security, steal a Hardy-Daytona, and control it well enough to ride it out of the door. If you hadn't been there, he'd have got away with it."
The ends of the copper pipes were greenly hot, glowing like mako. Reno still said nothing.
"You were the last one to pull anything remotely similar, if I recall," Tseng reminded him. "Stealing our own security cameras and fencing them in Wall Market. You had some nerve."
Reno faltered. His finger slipped from the trigger; the torch cut out. "Yeah. Too right I did." He looked round, pushing up the goggles. "And it took you bastards three months to catch me."
Extract from Aviva's diary, 3rd July 2002
…. I keep coming back to the same question: why didn't I say something? I had information Mr Tseng needed. It was my job to speak up. Isn't that what R's always telling me? Stop thinking so hard and just do your job.
I can't blame Rude. He did what he thought was right. I didn't. I knew I should have stopped them.
I kept my mouth shut because I was afraid somebody might guess my true feelings if I said anything.
And even if nobody had guessed, I would still have known the truth. I was jealous. Sick jealous. I'm still jealous. Whoever said jealousy is a poison was right. It seeps into everything, like a pain that won't let me sleep or think about anything else. My clock says it's four o'clock in the morning. Does he sleep, down there in the dark? Does he ever get a break from thinking about her?
I feel like I stood by and did nothing and watched while they drove their car off a cliff. Is that what I wanted? To get rid of her?
I'd give anything to be able to turn back time and undo the damage I've done….
One week and four days had passed since Hollander's escape from Junon, and Tseng was in his office, busy with the inevitable paperwork, when out of the corner of his eye he saw his doorway darken. He looked up.
"Can I talk to you?" asked Zack.
He did not wait for Tseng to reply, but came right in, carefully shutting the door behind him. With one fluid movement he detached Angeal's sword from its hook between his shoulder blades and leaned it against the wall, then strode over to Tseng's desk and dropped his six-foot-three of mako-powered muscle into the nearest swivel chair. Its springs creaked in protest.
Zack began, "About yesterday…."
The previous afternoon Tseng and Zack had run into each other outside Aerith's church. Such encounters were rare: Tseng usually saw or heard Zack coming from a long way off and took evasive action. Caught by surprise, but struggling not to show it, he had said something he immediately regretted. Luckily, that child had interrupted them (the kid, a little Reno in the making, was well known to Tseng, and smart enough to act like he'd never seen a Turk before; the Commander was keeping an eye on him as a potential future recruit). Tseng had taken the opportunity to withdraw, and had waited until he was certain Zack was not coming back before he went into the church.
"You know, Tseng, you've got me all wrong," said Zack now. "I'm not fooling around with Aerith. She means the world to me. But I just… There's so much stuff going on that I don't understand. I need some answers. You've always been honest with me, and you seem like an OK kind of guy. For a Turk. So I thought the best thing would be if I came and asked you straight."
Tseng had been half-expecting something like this ever since their return from Junon. Putting down his pen, he raised his coffee mug to his lips, took a sip, and said, "Go on."
"OK….Let's start with Cissnei. What's happened to her? She sent me an email a week ago and I replied but I never heard back from her. Her phone's been disconnected. Is she OK?"
"Cissnei's been redeployed. You won't be seeing her again."
"I asked if she was OK," Zack repeated, a little more aggressively.
"The internal workings of this department are not your concern. One of our operatives said some things she should not have said. She has been disciplined. That's all I'm prepared to say."
Zack opened his mouth to press the point, but the stoniness of Tseng's expression evidently made him think twice. Leaning back heavily in his chair, black brows knotted, he was silent for a few moments, and then said, "SOLDIER's my business, though. So what about my Executive Director? Can you tell me what's happened to him?"
"Director Lazard has left the company. We don't know where he's gone, or what he's doing."
"Cissnei said he was funding Hollander and Genesis." A note of pained disbelief had come into Zack's voice. "Is that true?"
"I'm sorry," said Tseng, feeling, in that moment, that he really was. "But I can't talk about it."
Zack threw up his hands angrily. "Goddamn company secrets! I'm sick of them! What else can't you talk about? How about Aerith? Or is she a company secret, too?"
"She was. For her own protection."
"Yeah, right."
Tseng leaned forward. "Zack, what did Cissnei say to you about Aerith, exactly?"
It took Zack a while to describe the things that Cissnei had said. Tseng listened patiently, and gradually it became clear to him that Zack did not fully understand everything his ex-lover had told him. He lacked the vocabulary – and, perhaps, the imagination.
"…I understand that she's the last surviving member of this tribe she comes from; I get that, but I still don't understand exactly why she's so interesting to you," Zack concluded. "She sees like a pretty normal girl to me. What is it about her that makes her important to Shinra?"
"Some powerful people within this company believe she may have information that could prove… beneficial. To everyone's interests.
"Make Shinra rich, you mean," Zack countered, cocking a cynical eyebrow. It didn't look good on him.
"Shinra is already rich. In any case, I wouldn't have thought the two were mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite, in fact. But that's beside the point. Because of this information that Aerith may have, she is at constant risk of falling into, or being seized, by the wrong hands – "
"And who decides which hands are the wrong hands? You?"
"I think AVALANCHE would be the wrong hands," Tseng replied smoothly. "Don't you? Or have you already forgotten what happened to Essai and Sebastian?"
Zack's face darkened. "Of course I haven't. But are you telling me that that's why you're always hanging round her? To guard her?"
"Primarily, yes. Of course we would like her to share the information with us. But we can't force her. We hope that in time she'll come to trust us enough to work with us of her own free will."
"And you're not going to tell me what that information is, are you?"
"No. It is her secret. If you really want to know, you must ask her."
Zack sat in silence, turning Tseng's words over his mind. "OK," he said at last. "I guess that seems reasonable. But if she's so important, why do you leave her in the slums? Shouldn't she be living somewhere more - I don't know – appropriate?"
"We don't tell Aerith what to do. She lives where she wants and she does as she pleases. If she wanted us to move her, she would only need to ask. But she's happy where she is."
"Yeah," Zack smiled. "That's true. She loves that Church. And everybody in the whole neighbourhood loves her. This is kind of embarrassing, but – you know who I thought she was the first time I saw her? An angel."
The boy was blushing.
"Are we done here?" asked Tseng.
"Yes – I mean, no –" Zack stumbled over his words. "There's something else I have to know. Cissnei said… I mean, when you watch her, you don't just watch her, right? You record everything…" Zack's blush had deepened. He fidgeted in his chair, unable to meet Tseng's eyes. "Like mission reports. You record everything Aerith does. I mean, what she and I do when we're together. Cissnei said you have files – "
"We do not discuss our confidential files," said Tseng, terminating this awkward line of inquiry.
Zack continued to look uncomfortable, shifting restlessly in his chair. Without warning he jumped to his feet, moving so fast that for a moment Tseng thought he was going to flee from the room. But he only crossed over to the window, and stood there, arms folded, apparently staring down at Midgar, though it was obvious to Tseng that he was looking at nothing. Some unhappy thought had taken hold of his mind, and he was giving it his full attention.
Zack stood like this for almost a minute, and Tseng watched him, saying nothing. Then Zack turned away from the window and walked over to where Angeal's sword rested against the wall. Tenderly, wistfully, he put out a hand and caressed the smoothness of its hilt. The gesture was one of respect, and grief, and longing.
If Angeal were still alive, Tseng realized, Zack would not be here now talking to me.
When Zack looked up, his face was deeply troubled.
"Tseng – we're friends, aren't we?"
Are we? thought Tseng in some surprise.
In all the many hours of mental energy he had expended on this SOLDIER, friend had never been a word that came to his mind. Asset, yes, and sometimes also potential liability, question mark; occasionally, colleague, but just as frequently, tool.
And in the quietest hours of the night, when he was being most deeply honest with himself: my gift to her.
"There's something else that's been bothering me," Zack continued. "This one isn't really about Aerith. Or… I don't know, maybe it is. Have you seen that thing that's come to live in her church? It sits up in the rafters, like a big bird with four legs."
"The monster?"
Zack frowned. "I wouldn't call it a monster. More like a – a - guardian? It saved her from a rogue robot once. I get the strangest feeling that it's watching over her too. It has…. It's white, you know. White and gold. Like – like he was."
"Angeal?"
"It has his face."
"I know."
"What is it?"
The Turk shrugged. "Probably one of the fragmentary copies that split off during the cloning process. But that's just my guess. I don't know much about how it works."
"But remember how we thought the Genesis clones were remnants? And now it turns out he's still alive? And now Seph says Hojo thinks the clones can only stay alive as long as the original donor stays alive – "
"That's just Hojo's theory. He's been wrong before."
"Angeal could still be alive, Tseng."
There was so much hope in his eyes, so much longing in his voice.
"You killed Angeal," said Tseng. "You know you did."
"But maybe I didn't. I thought I'd killed Genesis, but he's not dead either. Maybe they can't die. That fall down the mineshaft would have killed any normal person. If Angeal is alive – "
Tseng held up a hand to stop him. "Zack, believe me when I say that what I'm telling you now is for your own good. Don't go any further down this road you're on. Nothing but madness lies at the end of it. Angeal is dead. He's happier dead. You gave him what he wanted. Now let him rest in peace."
The light of hope went out of Zack's face. His shoulders slumped. Still he continued to stroke the sword as if it were a living thing. His eyes were unbearably sad. Tseng had to look away.
"I guess you're right," Zack admitted at last. He shook himself (throwing off the burden of longing, the weight of a dead hand on his shoulder) and straightened up. His face looked calmer, but no happier.
Tseng said, "Can I ask you something now?"
"What?
"Who else have you spoken to about Aerith? Have you told Sephiroth?"
Zack snorted. "Are you kidding me? You don't talk to Seph about stuff like that. I haven't told anyone. Just my friend Kunsel. But don't worry – he can keep a secret."
Rude was down in the bunker, working with Reno. He wasn't supposed to be there, but he went anyway – quietly, but openly. He knew Tseng knew. Which meant the Commander knew. If they wanted to forbid him, they had only to say the word.
Most of the time he and Reno worked together in silence. Makes a change, thought Rude to himself, not really meaning it. He'd found peace in silence. But Reno would suffocate. That was why Rude was here. There was nothing like saying nothing to get someone talking.
He did little bits and pieces for Reno. Tidied up – cleaned the ashtrays, threw out the empty bottles. Bought new ones. Took his clothes away, washed them, brought them back.
"Gee, thanks, Mum." There was no bite to Reno's sarcasm. He only said it because he knew Rude expected it. Which meant he was trying at least, Rude supposed.
The work itself was good. It felt satisfying to build something where nothing had been before. Rude enjoyed scavenging the corridors and contractors' dumps for items they could re-use. There were real treasures to be found: an old pinball machine that Reno soon had working again, and a bicycle bent out of shape. With a hammer and some pliers, a little oil and a lot of patience, Rude fixed it, got on it, and rode it around the bunker.
He could have sworn he heard Reno chuckle.
One day he and Reno were building a partition wall out of old sheetrock and salvaged joists – Reno was holding the board in place, and Rude was hammering – when Reno said, "D'you ever blame her?"
Rude's mouth was full of nails. He spat them into his hand. He knew who Reno meant. "Yeah. At first. Not now."
"D'you think you'll ever see her again?"
"Who knows?"
"D'you want to?"
Rude thought about this one for a long time. Finally he said, "No."
All this time Reno had been holding the board in place, as if he'd forgotten about it. Now he put it down. "I don't blame her," he said.
He was talking about a different her now.
"She just did what she had to do. You know what I'm saying? Whatever it takes, right? She was a Turk on a mission, and I was a means to an end."
Doesn't make it any easier to forgive, thought Rude. You guys were partners.
"She never lied to me. It was me who didn't listen. I heard what I wanted to hear."
Tell me about it, thought Rude. He'd been down that road too.
"I should have known better. I knew what she was."
Rude waited for Reno to elaborate, but Reno was lighting a cigarette and seemed disinclined to go on. Eventually, Rude had to ask. "What was she?"
"Oh, come on," Reno laughed, a mirthless sound. Smoke curled out of his nostrils. "What we all are. What the Chief wants. What Shinra needs."
"You mean the company's to blame?"
Reno did not answer him directly, but instead, after thinking for a moment, posed a question of his own: "Rude, d'you have any idea how many kids there are in that orphanage she came from?"
"I don't know. Hundreds."
"At least three hundred. And how many has the Chief ever recruited?"
"Just her."
"Right. Because she was the one who had what it took. It was the same with all of us. He came looking for us, and he found us, and he licked us into shape, but he didn't make us what we are."
Rude, who had given this matter a lot of thought over the last few years, tended to agree. "So - what did?'
"Who knows? Life? Genes? Bad blood?" Reno snorted. "Fate, if I believed in it."
"You're saying it was inevitable?"
"I'm just saying I don't blame her, is all." Reno picked up the particleboard. "You know, you talk too much, Rude. Has anyone ever told you that? Now quit your yakking and let's get back to work. This bunker isn't going to build itself."
As it turned out, Zack was wrong about his friend. Kunsel couldn't keep a secret. He told Luxiere; Luxiere told his girlfriend, who worked in Fleet Management, and she told everyone who worked on her floor. Few of them cared one way or the other about a slum girl they had never met, but most of them – the women, anyway – were interested enough in Zack to pass the news on. Thus, slowly, through the osmosis of idle gossip, knowledge of Aerith's existence seeped up through the Shinra Building. With most of the employees the news went in one ear and out the other; the word 'Cetra' meant nothing to them, and anyway they had more important things to think about. But a few found it worth remembering.
Recognising that it was only a matter of time before the rumour reached the 70th Floor, Veld had already made a pre-emptive strike and broken the news to the President himself. The Old Man was almost delirious with joy. He was all for sending the troops down to bring her into the labs straight away, so that Hojo could scan her brainwaves, unravel her genes, map her memories, find out the coordinates for the Promised Land, and clone half a dozen of her just to be on the safe side. With difficulty, Veld managed to calm him down and make him understand that Hojo's labs were incapable of carrying out the kind of procedures he dreamt of: there was no materia for mind-reading. And the cloning process was far from perfected. It tended to damage the minds of its subjects rather than duplicate them. Did Shinra really want to risk the last surviving Cetra in what was, essentially, an experiment?
"Sometimes I have to wonder just how much my old man understands of the science that goes on in this building," said Rufus, giving his version of these events to Tseng the following day. "Of course, he'll believe anything Hojo tells him. How else could that old fraud keep persuading my father to underwrite his useless so-called experiments? When I'm running this company, my first act will be to demand his resignation."
Only since Lazard's disappearance had Rufus begun to talk like this, referring openly to the things he planned to do when he became President. Some of his ideas, Tseng had to admit, made sense.
"I remember Aerith," Rufus went on. "She used to pull my hair and hit me with a metal ruler. Imagine you managing to track her down after all these years. I'm impressed."
"It would have better for the company if her identity could have remained a secret."
"Yes. I do see that, actually," Rufus replied. "But now that her existence is public knowledge, how long will it be before AVALANCHE try to get their hands on her? All the Old Man's hopes are pinned on that girl, you know. I don't know what he'd do if you were to lose his Cetra."
This concern was also uppermost in Veld's mind. Left where she was, the primary objective was vulnerable. Yet taking her into protective custody would instantly break the trust Tseng had painstakingly been building between them for the last six years. More could be lost than gained… especially now that her relationship with Zack Fair was bringing her closer to Shinra than she had ever been before. Soon, Veld hoped, she would arrive at the point towards which Tseng had been coaxing her all this time, when she would, at long last, identify her interests with the Company's, and tell them the secret they had waited so long to know.
Ifalna's stubborn silence and needless death were never far from Veld's thoughts. Aerith's loyalty to her mother would make any direct cooperation with Shinra feel like a betrayal; he understood that. But Ifalna's voice must be fading in the girl's memory by now. Zack was alive, warm, flesh and blood, and she loved him. Tseng had been absolutely right to defend the boy: they wouldn't be where they were now without him. So close. So close. No, they couldn't risk alienating her at this critical juncture.
Thus, after giving the matter lengthy consideration, Veld chose to maintain the status quo.
PHS Transcript 9th August 2002, 7.12 am
Hunter: Tseng, sir? It's me, Hunter.
Tseng: Are you all right? Where are you?
Hunter: Yes I am, no thanks to my so-called colleagues. Skeeter and Tys spiked my soda and left me to sleep it off in a slum bar!
{static. Staccato bursts of noise}
Tseng: Is that gunfire?
Hunter: I'm in a bit of a situation here, sir. It's nothing I can't handle, but the girl insisted I ring you.
Tseng: What girl?
Hunter: The one these thugs are chasing. She ran into me when I was trying to find my way back to the plate, and I'm helping her. She knew who I was from the suit. She thought you'd sent me, sir. It seems like she knows you.
Tseng: Aerith.
Hunter: I'll just ask her. {static} Yes, that's her name.
{loud gunfire}
Tseng: Talk to me! Are you still there? Is she all right?
Hunter: We're in a house. We're going to go out over the roof. Why are they after her, sir?
Tseng: Listen carefully. Try to elude them and make your way to the church. She knows what I mean. I'll meet you there. Hunter - keep her safe. She's very precious.
.
When Tseng arrived at the church steps half an hour later, the doors were standing wide open. He paused on the threshold to listen. Silence. The scent of the flowers was more than usually intense. Gun in hand, he entered, closing the doors behind him. The first thing he saw was Hunter, crouching on the floor between the pews, holding her left arm at an unnatural angle. Before he made a move towards her, he completed his visual survey of his surroundings. Carefully he examined the spaces under each pew, scanned the rafters, and listened for footsteps on the roof. There was nothing to be seen or heard - nothing but the white, winged creature perched on the beam overhead, almost lost in the shadows. It seemed to be asleep.
"Hunter?" he said quietly.
"They've gone, sir. They heard the helicopter and they left."
He lowered his gun and came over to her. "How many?"
"Chasing us? About half a dozen. Then here, three." She grimaced as pain shot through her arm. "They were waiting when we arrived. Big guy. Gay nerd with glasses. Tough-looking woman."
"Where's Aerith?"
Hunter gestured towards the east end of the nave. "She went that way. She's OK. But boy, she's furious. I don't think she wants to talk to you."
"You need medical attention," said Tseng, looking down at her. "Go to the helicopter, have them take you home. I'll make my own way back."
He helped her get to her feet. With her good hand Hunter flicked her ponytail over her shoulder. "I just want you to know," she said, "That I do not have the slightest idea what has been going on here, and I was in the middle of it. Not a very good position to be in, sir. Can I expect some kind of explanation later?"
"What you need to know, you'll be told. Go now."
Once she was gone, he continued to walk up the nave, measuring each footstep, reluctant to break the peace of this place with the echo of his heavy boots. He called her name, and then, when he got no reply, he called to her again, more loudly. A door opened in the north wall of the sanctuary. His knees weakened with relief when she appeared, her face smudged with dirt and her hair-ribbon coming untied, but safe - safe and whole.
She advanced on him with rapid steps, her plait whipping from side to side, her lips set in a stern line. There was anger in her voice, and authority, when she pointed at his gun and said, "The day you fire that thing in here is the day you are no longer my friend."
To please her, he put the gun away.
She said, "How's that girl? She saved my life, I think."
"That's her job. Aerith, tell me, what did they say to you? What did they want?"
"Oh, stop it!" She beat the air with her fists. "Questions! Work! What do you think they wanted? What do you all want? Why can't you stop hounding me? I just want to be left alone to get on with my life."
"I warned you this would happen," he reminded her. "You were lucky today." "Lucky! Lucky! How can you say that?"
"You're still alive – "
"Yes, and my life is so wonderful, isn't it?"
Abruptly she sat down in the nearest pew. Wrapping her arms around her thin shoulders, Aerith stared at the floor and said in a bleak voice, "Zack found out about me."
She looked so lost sitting like that, and so alone, hugging herself for comfort. A part of him wondered if maybe she was hoping he would hold her; but the part of him that longed to throw caution to the winds and take her in his arms was reined back by the remembrance that nothing good could come of giving way to such impulses - not for him, not for her, not for anyone.
He remained standing. "I'm aware of that," he replied.
The coolness of his tone, like a slap in the face, revived her anger. She threw up her head and stared at him accusingly, "I thought it was a secret. Our secret."
"Nobody meant this to happen."
"Oh yes they did. That other girl did, the one who told him. The one who works for you. His other girlfriend."
"Aerith, Zack doesn't have any other girlfriends."
She laughed in a way he had never heard her laugh before: sourly. "You're always trying to protect me, aren't you? But I'm not a kid any more. I have eyes; I can see. He's looking at other girls all the time, even when he's out with me. And they look back. If he's looking at them when we're together, what's he doing with them when we're apart? Especially now – now that he knows I'm…. not like other people – "
"Aerith – "
"I wouldn't blame him if he decided I wasn't worth the trouble. He has enough on his plate as it is. He doesn't need this."
Tseng's gut instinct was to rage at Zack. Why couldn't the SOLDIER at least have the decency to curb his roving eye when he out was with Aerith? Couldn't he see how vulnerable she was beneath that streetwise veneer? If he loved her, as he said he did, then why did he have to make her unhappy -
God, what a stupid question.
Tseng sat down in the pew beside hers. "What do you want me to say?" he asked, folding his arms. "It's a difficult situation. You're very young. Both of you."
"Oh please. You sound like my mother."
"Elmyra doesn't approve?"
"That's the understatement of the year. She thinks he's no good for me. According to her, all soldiers just want one thing, and any girl who runs around with them gets a reputation."
"Don't you think she'd think that about any man her daughter dated? You're very dear to her, Aerith."
Aerith sighed, and pulled at the white drop earring Tseng remembered had once hung in Ifalna Gast's ear. "The thing is," she confessed, "I hate to admit it, but sometimes I can't help wondering if maybe my mother is right. When he's here with me he's so – so – overwhelming, I can't think of anything except how much I want to be with him. It's when I'm alone that the doubt starts to eat away at me. I want to trust him, but I'm afraid to. I know I'm young. But I don't want to be played for a fool."
She looked expectantly into Tseng's eyes.
The pain he felt when she did this was of a peculiarly exquisite kind. She trusted him to give her the truth. But she wanted more than that. She wanted hope, too. She wanted him to tell her she could trust Zack – and she would believe him, though she had been unable to believe Zack when he told her the same thing.
Well, the truth he could give her. As for the hope… that was something she would have to make up her own mind about.
"Aerith, I can't predict what will happen in the future. I can't promise you it will all work out. All I can tell you is what I see happening now. Yes, it's true that Zack used to have a lot of girlfriends, but I don't think any of them were very serious. Since he met you, that's all stopped. As far as I know, you are the only one."
"Truly?"
"Yes."
She smiled. "So… do you watch him too, then?"
"On occasion."
Her smile deepened. A glint of mischief brightened her eyes. "That's really not good for me to know. I might be tempted to ask too many questions. Are you really sure he hasn't got anyone else?" she demanded, suddenly earnest again.
"Yes."
"But if he's happy with me, why is he always looking at other girls?"
"Men do look. It doesn't necessarily mean anything."
"Do you look?"
"When I'm not working."
She laughed, "But you're always working." Her heart sounded lighter now. "Poor Tseng, what a life! Looks like I'll just have to fix you up with a girlfriend myself. Let me see – you need a girl who likes to live a little… Someone petite, and not too serious – oh, and she should be a good cook, too, to stop you looking so peaky. Yes, you just leave it all to me…."
He allowed her to rattle on in this vein, amusing herself, until her imagination was exhausted and she fell silent, her eyes sparkling.
He said, "I need to know about the three people who were here."
"Oh, you're no fun. All right, let's see – " She began ticking the points off on her fingers. "One was a thin man with glasses and a gun, and one was a tall, strong man wearing a bandana. I don't know what their names were. Then there was a tall woman with short brown hair. They said her name was Elfe. She's sick."
"Sick?"
"In pain. I could see that. And she has a secret, but she doesn't know that she does. A secret secret. Maybe it's the secret that's making her sick."
"How can you know that?"
Aerith grinned. "The flowers told me. But seriously, she is ill. I was worried for her. They told me the cure for her illness could only be found in the Promised Land, and that was why they wanted to find it."
"You're not really that gullible, are you?"
"They didn't know what they were talking about. It's funny how everyone believes in this place. I wonder if it even exists. If it does, why hasn't someone found it? You've been all over this planet – why haven't you seen it?"
"This planet has barely begun to be explored. It would take us lifetimes… "
She put a hand on his knee and looked into his face. "I don't know where it is, Tseng. Why won't you believe me?"
A thought darted across his mind: because if I believed you, I'd no longer have an excuse to come here…
Down at the far end of the nave the church doors boomed open and Zack came bounding in, his footsteps making the floorboards shake. "Aerith! Are you all right?" He ran up to her and pulled her into a protective embrace. "Tseng, what happened? Is she all right?"
"I fought them off with my bare hands! Biff, pow - " Aerith giggled, landing a playful punch on Zack's chin.
"Was it AVALANCHE?" he asked Tseng.
"She had a lucky escape, but she's fine. Now that you're here, I'll leave her with you," he added as he got up to go.
"Hang on," said Zack. "I'll walk with you. Aerith, wait here. I'll be back in a minute, OK?"
Tseng had no desire to talk to Zack right now. All he wanted was to get away. But Zack was determined. He followed Tseng out the door and onto the porch, and when Tseng would have walked down the steps he put a hand on the Turk's shoulder to hold him back. Tseng wrenched away from Zack's grip, and turned around to face him.
The SOLDIER had taken up an aggressive stance, feet wide apart, arms folded. Never before had Tseng been made to feel so conscious of Zack's sheer size, his height and the strength of his presence.
Zack said, "I don't think she's safe here any longer. We should move her for her own protection."
When he heard this, something inside Tseng – his patience; his willingness to efface himself from the picture – snapped.
"I've known Aerith all her life," he said, "And you've known her for what, a year? Don't try to tell me how to look after her."
"All her life?" Zack was startled. "But I thought - "
"This is nothing to do with you. It's between Aerith and me. She knows she has only to say the word."
"What word? What are you talking about? What the hell is going on here, Tseng? What do you mean, you've known her all her life?"
"I've told you before. Ask her."
Zack's brow furrowed. He stood deep in thought for a few moments.
How he's changed, thought Tseng.
The clueless boy who, nearly three years ago, had partnered the Turks' second-in-command on that mission to Banora would never have dared to assert himself like this. Nor would he have asked the kind of questions Zack had begun to ask these last few months. Or doubted his superiors. Or criticized Shinra.
No one could call him a puppy now.
"I'm not happy with this situation," said Zack.
"Do you think I am?"
Zack shrugged as if that didn't matter. "It's not just that she's in danger," he said. "I really hate knowing we're being watched all the time. What happened today proves that you can't guarantee her safety. So why don't you call off your goons?"
Tseng opened his mouth, but Zack waved a hand to show he hadn't finished. "Listen, Tseng – we both want Aerith to be safe, don't we? So let's come to some arrangement. When I'm with Aerith, I'll be responsible for her protection, and your watchdogs can clear off and let us have some privacy. When I have to leave her, I'll give you a call, and your people can take over. What d'you say?"
"I can't make that kind of decision – "
"Put it to Commander Veld then. C'mon, man, help me out here. I know you have to do your job, but you're the one guy who really understands what Aerith means to me. We have so little time together. When we are together, I'd like for us to be alone. Couldn't you let us have at least a chance?"
A chance for what, though? Tseng wondered.
He avoided giving Zack a straight answer, and left soon after, but the question continued to worry away at his mind. What kind of chance was Zack dreaming of now? Did the two of them actually believe they had some sort of future together?
Were they falling into the danger, as Aerith's parents had done before them, of being seduced by the illusion of freedom?
I've made a mistake, Tseng told himself, not the first time. Over these last weeks doubt had been hardening to certainty. It was his fault; he should never have allowed Aerith's relationship with the SOLDIER to progress as far as it had. Yet it had seemed so harmless at first: a little flirtation, a light romance. He had not wanted to deny her these things, things every normal girl longed for – but it felt to him now as if he had encouraged her to deceive herself.
Where would it all end? For end it must, sooner or later, and all the ends he could foresee were bad ones. Yet how could he stop it now?
19th September 2002 15.45 pm
Reno was back in the office for the first time in almost three months. He'd been inside the plate for so long he looked like something that had just crawled out from under a rock. His colleagues were being very careful around him, carefully pretending that he had never been away. To his face they acted so normal it was almost painful to see. But when they thought he wasn't looking….
Aviva's huge round black eyes, pitying him –
Rosalind, her glow extinguished, glancing his way with a look on her face that said, I know –
Knox, sighing from time to time over his paperwork –
Skeeter, eyeing him curiously and waiting for - what?
It made him want to take out his gun and fire it into the air. Fucking stop tiptoeing round me!
Had they all sat down before he came back and had a discussion about how they should handle him? Don't talk about stuff he wasn't here for! Don't ask any questions! And never mention her name!
It was more than flesh and blood could bear. He stood up. "It's dead in here since Cissnei left," he said, pushing the components he was working on into a box. "You stiffs can keep your morgue. I'm going to go work somewhere else."
He went into the briefing room and spread his work out on the table.
Progress on the bunker had advanced to the stage where the computer network could be installed. The work was time consuming; Mozo and Rude had been assigned to help him. They could not simply walk down into the plate carrying boxes of monitors and CPUs; that would be too conspicuous. Each item had to be taken apart and labeled, carried down hidden under their clothes or in shopping bags, and then painstakingly reassembled. The task demanded concentration and a high level of attention to detail: it was the kind of work Reno could lose himself in, as long as he was left alone.
The door opened. Mozo and Rude came in, carrying boxes of their own.
"Fuck off," said Reno.
"I'd like nothing better," Mozo replied, setting his box down on the table, "But right now I've got wiring to do, and you took the needle-nose pliers."
They spread themselves out around the table and went to work. For some time, maybe half an hour, there was no conversation beyond 'pass me that screwdriver' and 'where's the tape?'. Reno smoked while he worked. With both his hands engaged, he never took the cigarette from his mouth, but occasionally rolled it from one side to the other, skillfully flicking it with his tongue so that the ash dropped on the floor and not in his workspace. Mozo went and got everyone coffee. When he came back, he asked, "What's the plan with these things? How are they going to work?"
Reno explained, "The Chief wants me to connect them up to the surveillance bank here with a radio link. But I don't like it. Radio's too easy to jam. I'd rather run a cable. Hide it among all the others."
"Be kilometers of cable," said Rude.
"I could do it. Wouldn't be hard. Just take time."
They went back to working silently.
While his hands were busy, Reno's thoughts ranged over many things, some of them more pleasant than others. Eventually they came to rest on the memory of helping Cid Highwind on the Shinra 26 - maybe because what he'd been doing there that day was like the work he was doing now, fiddling with a finicky mess of wires, turning them into something that made sense and had a purpose. For almost two whole days, there in Rocket Town, he hadn't been a Turk; he'd just been a regular guy doing a regular job. A different person. And it had felt… OK. Though maybe it wasn't something he'd want to do for the rest of his life.
"Hey guys," he said, "D'you ever…." No, stupid idea. He tailed off.
"What?" asked Rude.
"Nothing. Forget it."
"Go on, we're curious now," said Mozo.
"Well… All right. But you asked. I was just thinking, do you ever wonder about that other life? I mean, the one you'd have had if the Chief hadn't come for you?"
"Sure," said Rude. "Sometimes."
"What would it have been, d'you think? What would you have done?"
Rude shrugged. "Brickie's mate? Junk dealer? I'd enjoy that."
"Cabaret artist, you," Mozo laughed. "But you forget, Reno, I had another life before I came here."
"Nah, I remember. You were a private eye inn Costa."
"So what went wrong?" asked Rude.
Mozo turned to him. "I broke the first rule of sleuthing."
"Which is?"
"Never get involved." Mozo paused dramatically.
Rude and Reno waited.
"If you're going to tell, tell," said Reno.
"OK." Mozo put his feet on the table and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "So – here's the gig. There's this guy who owns half the Costan coast and he has this son that's his only child. So this rich guy fixes it for his son to marry the daughter of his biggest business rival. The companies are going to merge, everybody gets richer, everybody's happy. But there's a hitch. Junior doesn't want to marry business rival's little heiress. He's already in love with some other chick. So he runs away with said chick. Rich guy hires me to track them down. I'm supposed to eliminate the problem."
"Couldn't you find them?" asked Rude.
"Oh, please, don't insult me. I found them, no problem. Cutest pair of love bugs you ever saw. And scared shitless at the sight of your truly." A shadow passed over his face; his smile faltered. "Good kids. Nice kids." Then he rubbed a hand briskly over his scrubbing-brush hair, grinned, and took up the story again. "I guess I let them get away. What a sap, huh? Thing is, if I'd kept my mouth shut and let the rich guy think the kids had given me the slip, I'd probably have got off with nothing worse than a few bruises and some dents in my reputation. But no. Like a fool, I decide that I can fix it for everybody. So back I go to rich guy and say, 'hey, why can't you be a proper Dad and respect your son's wishes? Don't you want him to be a man? A man has a right to choose his own wife.' So now guess whose blood this guy's after? That was when I called the Chief and told him I wanted to accept his offer."
"He'd been trying to recruit you for a while, huh?" said Reno.
"Hey, I was the best. You ask anyone in Costa. They'll remember me. But what about you, Reno? You asked the question. D'you ever wonder what you might have done if things had turned out differently?"
"Yeah. I was thinking maybe I could have been an electrician – "
Rude burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" Reno demanded.
"You," Rude chortled. "Denim overalls. Cloth cap. Little toolbox. I can just picture it."
Rude's laughter was contagious. Mozo started chucking too, and said, "Yes, yes – look, this is Reno, knocking on the door." Putting on a reedy nasal voice, he drawled, "'Morning, ma'am, Sparky here, just come to fiddle with your fuse box, yo –' "
"Fuck you, I don't sound like that!" Reno paused. "Do I?" The note of anxiety in his voice set the other two laughing harder. After a few moments, Reno joined in.
When their laughter had died down, he asked Mozo, "So anyway, how old were you? When you signed up?
"Twenty-four. Young and idealistic."
"D'you ever regret it?"
"Nope. I like being alive. I mean, everyone gets the bloom rubbed off them sooner or later, but this is a pretty good life. We do work that needs doing. The pay's not bad. My colleagues are all lunatics, but you can't have everything. And you know me: I always like to see the bad guys get what's coming to them – "
The ringing of his phone interrupted Mozo in mid-flow. It was Tseng. They spoke briefly. Then Mozo shut his phone, stood up, and said to Rude and Reno, "Gotta go. The Boss has an assignment for me." Shaping his hand into a gun, he squinted down the barrel fingers, pretending to shoot each of them in turn. "Pyow! Pyow! Catch you later, eh, Rude? See you, Sparky!"
20th September, 2002, 10.00 am
Shinra Helicopter B1-9 hovered in the sky above the Nibelheim reactor. Tseng was at the controls, with Cavour in the co-pilot's seat beside him. Back in the hold Mink and Mozo were putting on their parachutes. Tseng looked down through the wispy clouds at the domed roof of the reactor, straining his eyes for some sign of life.
All contact with reactor personnel had been lost twenty-four hours earlier, halfway through a phone conversation made by the terrified manager to Director Reeve Tuesti. In the transcript of their conversation, which Tseng had read, the manager had said they were under attack, and kept repeating the words it's the monsters. Those monsters.
But monsters did not try to take over reactors. Monsters did not plan, or have a purpose, or organise. They were animals: they slept, ate, and responded to stimuli. Some human intelligence was behind this. Tseng suspected Genesis, and possibly Lazard, though it could just as easily be AVALANCHE.
To make matters worse, he'd been unable to get in contact with the Commander. Veld had disappeared a week ago on an unspecified mission with Charlie and had been incommunicado ever since. "I can't hold your hand forever," he'd said to Tseng before he left. "I miss the field work, goddammit. You'll be fine. I have faith in you."
From the back of the helicopter Mink said, "We're ready, sir."
"Proceed with extreme caution," Tseng advised them. "You don't know what you'll be facing down there. The priority is to establish the facts of the situation, and to save lives if you can, but don't put yourselves at risk."
"Roger," Mink and Mozo replied. They each removed their headsets. Mozo went first, throwing himself through the open door and hurtling earthwards. Mink followed more sedately, stepping out into the air.
Tseng gave them a few moments before he yawed the helicopter around. Far below, their two parachutes bobbed like thistledown on the wind. "I hope they'll be all right," he murmured to himself. Then he brought up the collective, and began the long flight back to Midgar.
.
15.40 pm
The coastline of the Great Continent was just appearing over the horizon when his phone rang.
Mink: Sir, it's impossible to get anywhere near the reactor. The entire mountaintop is overrun with dragons.
Tseng: Any sign of survivors?
Mink: None, sir. But the reactor itself is still generating some power.
Tseng: Any evidence as to who's behind this?
Mink: None, sir, I'm sorry.
Tseng: Damn. What's your current position?
Mink: We're on the path just below the reactor.
Tseng: It's too easy to get lost in those mountains. Can you see the ropeway from there?
Mink: I know where it is, sir. I've been here before.
Tseng: See if you can get to it. Go down to the town and await my instructions.
.
17.15 hours
He was climbing out of the helicopter on the edge of the Sector Six slums when the phone rang again.
Mozo: We're in the town now, Boss. The cable car was attacked. It's been destroyed. We walked down. A girl showed us the way.
Tseng: What girl?
Mozo: One of the locals. We found her up near the reactor. She was looking for her lost cat. She seems to know these mountains pretty well.
Tseng: Good. We're going to need a guide. Hire her. The President's called out SOLDIER. He's sending Sephiroth and Zack Fair.
Mozo: Both of them? Is that really necessary?
Tseng: It's the President's decision. That's reactor's our flagship. They'll be there tomorrow afternoon with a couple of regular army troopers. Wait for them at the inn, and brief them.
Mozo: Roger.
.
Zack had asked him to come to the playground. Tseng made his way there on foot. While still some distance away, he saw that Zack was not alone, and felt angry with himself for having failed to foresee this. He was in no mood for Aerith's playfulness this evening.
The wagon Zack had made for her was loaded with flowers. Were they trying to sell them? Who in these slums had gil to spare for something they could neither eat nor wear nor use? And why set up shop in the playground? Was this some kind of game they were playing? They'd have done better to push it to Wall Market, though if Aerith really meant to make a go of this venture she'd need to come to Upper Midgar; that was where the money was. She would have to get over her fear of the sky… but then, if Zack had talked her into selling her flowers, he could probably talk her into anything.
Tseng concealed himself behind the big slide and waited for Zack to realize he was there. It wasn't long before one of the local children came in, a friend of Aerith's. While she was showing him her wagon and explaining about her new business, Zack came over to Tseng.
"Look after her while I'm gone," he said. "You're the only one I can rely on."
Tseng gave his throaty chuckle.
"What's so funny?" asked Zack.
Just do your job, thought Tseng, and I'll do mine.
.
22nd September 2002, 08.32 hours
Mink: Sir, the General is refusing to let us accompany them to the reactor.
Tseng: Did he give a reason?
Mink: No, sir. Zack said we cramp their style, though.
Tseng: All right. Don't push it. They can brief you when they come back.
Mink: Roger.
Tseng closed the phone.
Clearly, Sephiroth suspected Genesis, too.
.
22nd September 2002, 19.45 hours
Mozo: SOLDIER's back, Boss. But Sephiroth's acting very strangely. They won't tell us anything.
Tseng: Have you talked to the troopers who went with them?
Mozo: One got left behind when a rope bridge broke and had to make his own way back. He doesn't know anything. Sephiroth wouldn't let the other one go in the reactor.
Tseng: There's something not right about this.
Mozo: I agree.
Tseng: Now that they've cleared the path, I want you to go up to that reactor yourselves tomorrow and check it out.
Mozo: Understood.
.
22nd September 2002, 20.00 hours
Tseng: Zack, what's going on?
Zack: There was nothing in the reactor. Nothing.
Tseng: No sign of Genesis?
Zack: No!
Tseng: Is there something wrong with Sephiroth?
Zack: No. He's fine. Look, Tseng, I'm the only friend he's got left. Just leave him to me, OK?
Tseng: Be careful, Zack. Don't forget who you work for.
There was a click, and the line went dead.
.
23rd September 2002, 13.50 hours
Mink: We're up here at the reactor, sir, but we can't get in. It's been locked. We can't pick it.
Tseng: Who locked it?
Mink: I guess SOLDIER did, sir. Do you want us to blow it open?
Tseng: No. We don't want to risk letting loose whatever is in there. But one of you needs to keep an eye on the reactor at all times. What are Zack and Sephiroth doing?
Mink: The General went into the old mansion this morning. Said he wanted to do some research. Zack's in there too.
Tseng: What are they up to? Mink, tell Mozo I want him to watch the reactor. You keep an eye on the General. Report to me if he does anything unusual.
Mink: Roger.
Tseng made himself sound more confident than he felt. He wished Commander Veld would return, if for no other reason than to reassure him that he was making the right decisions. He'd never had to deal directly with Sephiroth before. How did one handle a thing – a man – like Sephiroth? What was going on in that cold mind of his, that heart without desires? Did he miss his old comrades, his peers? Was he planning, perhaps, to join Genesis and Hollander, as Lazard had done? The possibility was there… So shouldn't he, Tseng, be doing something to prevent it? But what? All the Turks put together were not capable of taking on Sephiroth. Zack might be… But Zack too was beginning to show signs of chafing under the yoke of his bondage to Shinra. His loyalty could not be taken for granted, either.
To move against them in any way might be to provoke the very turn of events Tseng feared. For now, then, Mink and Mozo would continue with their watching brief. And if it became necessary to take action…
Tseng would cross that bridge when he came to it.
1st October 2002 10.56 am
The office was almost empty. Reno and Rude were still at work dismantling the last of the computers for the bunker. Hunter was over in the weapons room, cleaning guns. The cat was asleep under Rude's desk. On the wall, the minute hand of the clock ticked slowly towards eleven.
"I'm bored," said Reno.
The door hissed open and Tseng came running in. He looked closer to panic than they had ever seen him. "Who else is here?" he demanded.
"Just the Honey," said Reno, jumping to his feet. "What's happened?"
"I have no time to explain. Arm yourselves, get Hunter, and meet me at the helipad as fast as you can. Cavour will come with us too – " These last words were thrown over his shoulder; he was already halfway out the door.
Reno called after him, "Where are we going?"
"I'll brief you in the chopper. Hurry!"
Reno turned to Rude. "What lit his fuse?"
Rude shook his head. His eyes said something bad's happened. Can't you feel it?
"Yeah," Reno nodded, tightening his grip on his mag-rod. "Well, come on then, partner, don't just stand there. Let's move."
Next chapter: Nibelheim