Chapter 18

"We start swimming in three days, Hayden. Three days!" I hissed, glancing toward the bathroom door again to ensure that no one would walk into our conversation. We'd timed our discussion to before the pre-lights-out bathroom rush, but we couldn't be too careful. "What am I supposed to do?!" We'd too busy learning the weapon-of-the-day's basics and the new material the History of Midgar teacher kept throwing at us in the days before our schedules completely changed to worry about my watery predicament until now.

Hayden shrugged helplessly. "We don't know what they put in the pool, so we can't say you have a chlorine allergy or something…."

"And I can't fake something like that, and I might fail if I don't do swimming, but I will fail if I do!" I wanted to strangle the chauvinist pig who had decided that girls couldn't be SOLDIERs. I'd had everything figured out in advance—except for this.

"What if—"

The door burst open, and Hayden and I turned just in time to nearly get bowled over by Vanni and Oliver.

"Run for your lives!" Vanni cheered as he raced farther in.

"Why?" Hayden asked as I pointed out, "We're in a bathroom."

"Exactly!" His hands reached up from a stall to move a ceiling tile aside.

Before I could say anything, tampons rained down onto him from above.

Oliver stared at Vanni. "I didn't… Did you put those…?"

Hayden shot a look at me. I could feel my face burning, but I was powerless to stop it.

Vanni noticed. "Dustin? Did you…?" He lifted one by the edge of its edge.

Work, brain, work. "…I put them up there for pranks."

Vanni jumped down and burst out of the stall at me. "Where did you find such a rare and havoc-wreaking commodity?!"

"…With skill?" I tried.

Vanni cackled, holding the tampon aloft. "Dustin is back on the team!"

I could feel Hayden's eyes boring holes in my skull and quickly covered. "I love pranks as much as the next guy, but I can't risk—"

"SOLDIER, we know." Vanni leaned in. "How would you like to be supplier and co-planner?"

Hayden's eyes were now drilling through my brain. "Sorry, but that's too—"

The door exploded inward with a triumphant shout of "Found you!"

Vanni flung the tampon over his shoulder and sprang for the stall he'd retrieved it from.

The man I recognized as the redheaded Turk who had fallen victim to the toilet prank stopped partway into the room and pointed at Hayden and me. "What are you two doing in here, yo?"

I stared at him. "Do you really need to ask?"

Frustration flashed across his features before he ran for the stall Vanni was working on ascending from. "Not again, you don't!" the Turk's voice grunted, and Vanni's hands flailed for the opening in the ceiling for a moment before they disappeared. The triumphant redhead dragged Vanni into the main area by the arm. "Where's your pal, yo?"

Vanni mimed a zipping motion over his lips.

"This is going on your permanent record unless you tell—"

Vanni pointed to a stall near the door. The Turk marched him over and kicked open the door before reaching in and dragging Oliver out by the arm.

No honor among thieves, I thought, very happy that I'd gotten a deny-all-knowledge deal with them before the toilet prank.

The redhead started hauling them towards the door before pausing and looking at me. "Have you seen any hot girls yet, yo?"

I shook my head and forced myself to smile. "You'll be the first to know." How did he remember that? That was over a week ago, and he must have gone through hundreds of cadets in that day alone!

He nodded and muscled the two tricksters out the door.

Hayden blinked. "Um…what was that all about?"

I sighed through my nose and turned to pick up my scattered tampons. "Trust me—you don't want to know."

\

At breakfast the next morning, Vanni and Oliver sat down across from me in the mess hall.

Knowing what they were going to say, I beat them to it. "I can't supply you guys. It's way too risky, and that was a one-time find." Lie, but I wasn't about to tell them that I'd snuck into the secretaries' main bathroom and spent half my gil on the tampon dispensing machine so I wouldn't have to worry about feminine problems for a few months. They'd want to know how I'd gotten in undetected. "How'd you guys escape in one piece, anyway?"

Oliver shrugged. "He chewed us out and made us promise not to pull any more pranks."

"Which means 'don't get caught again.'" Vanni smirked for a moment before looking at me earnestly. "You'd have made such a great addition to the team, Dustin."

"Thanks, but—"

"SOLDIER, we know." Vanni waved my words aside. "You ever want back in, let us know."

I nodded. "Have fun."

We started eating.

\

I found Hayden in a secluded area of the bookshelves during Study Hall. "I'm out."

"Good."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? That's it?" He turned to go farther into the library, and I followed. "Are we good, then?"

He stopped and turned to look at me, voice low. "As long as you don't pull any other stupid stunts that could get us kicked out."

"I'm sorry. I thought…" I glanced around and leaned in. "I thought it would be the guy thing to do."

Hayden looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You have to do something risky to make others believe you're a guy?"

"But you said—"

"Just because guys are more likely to do certain things doesn't mean that you have to. The less attention you get, the better. If you want to succeed, you have to just go for SOLDIER and screw everything else. Both of us are on the line here, Dustin. They know we're friends from before, so if they find out you're—"

"I know. You get it, too." My stomach knotted. I really hadn't thought that one through.

Hayden let out a breath and rubbed his temples. "Well, at least you have more allies. That can't hurt you."

I nodded. Maybe it hadn't been as much of a flop as we'd thought, but it was still too risky to repeat.

Hayden looked at me. "Was the prank fun, at least?"

I smiled at the memory. "Yeah, but it was also pretty terrifying. We almost got caught, but we were wearing our helmets so they couldn't identify us."

"And the victim?"

"The Turk that barged in looking for Vanni and Oliver the other day."

Hayden grinned and lifted the notebook under his arm. "Want to study for the History of Midgar exam?" he asked in a normal but library-appropriate voice.

"Sure." As soon as we figured out how to deal with swimming, I would be home free.

\

The next night, we gathered for our Corporal time as usual.

"Cadets Tanik Maesrof and Cloud Strife!" he barked.

Well, that's new, I thought. He hadn't started off a meeting by calling people out before, opting instead to make the unlucky cadet squirm in his seat for a while before pointing out the example-setter.

But what had Cloud and Tanik done?

"Sir!"

"Report to Level 59 immediately. You two are dismissed."

I glanced at both of their faces as they left. Both sets of eyebrows were slightly farther down and closer together than usual—they were just as confused as the rest of us.

As soon as they'd gone out the door, the Corporal started the actual meeting. "The state of everyone's combat boots is a disgrace to Row 14." Shifting around the room as everyone looked at his own or his neighbor's. "Starting tomorrow, I should be able to see my face in them."

Jake stood up at attention. "Sir?"

"Yes, Cadet?"

"What are we supposed to clean them with, sir? We don't have boot polish."

The Corporal reached into a pocket and tossed the small jar he pulled out to Jake. "Now you do."

"Thank you, sir."

"Sit down, Cadet."

Jake quickly sat down.

"Any other questions?" Silence. "The History of Midgar test is tomorrow. Your score impacts your chances of making SOLDIER, so if you're serious about it, you'd better ace it. Your new schedules will be up by this time tomorrow. Questions?" Silence. "Attention!"

We leapt to our feet and snapped to attention.

"Dismissed!"

\

The door opened, and I glanced over to see either Cloud or Tanik—I couldn't see who at this distance—entering the barracks. The door swung shut behind him and didn't open again as he walked farther in. As he approached, I recognized Cloud.

Where was Tanik?

Cloud crouched at his footlocker, and I glanced at the door again. Still no Tanik. "So, what happened?"

"One of the higher-ups wanted to talk to us."

I waited, but he didn't elaborate. "And…?" I prompted.

He stopped and looked at me. For some reason, my stomach slowly contracted. "It was about the blood test. Tanik and I…" He trailed off and resumed twisting out his combination.

They called them up about the blood test? I thought my heart stopped for a moment before I reminded myself that the executives would have called me up tonight, too, if they'd discovered my secret. "What?"

He pulled his lock down and sighed. "We're twins."

I stared at him. "…Well, that explains a lot."

Cloud nodded. "Yeah, but…" He fingered his open combination lock for a moment before looking at me. "Do you trust Tanik?"

I blinked. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I?"

"Doesn't something about him…scare you? Even a little bit?"

"Why do you ask?" I slowly replied.

He looked like he was about to reply for a moment before he turned away and opened the lid of his footlocker. "Never mind."

I stood up and walked closer. "What is it?"

He pulled his regulation sleepwear out, shaking his head. "It's nothing."

Not when Tanik's involved. "Cloud. Seriously. What's going on?" I blocked his path as he stood up.

His eyes briefly flicked over my shoulder to the door. "Well, he didn't take it too well when the scientist told us, but that makes sense—I had a hard time taking it in, too, and that's minor compared to what he's trying to process, but…" Cloud hesitated. "…he said some weird things."

This couldn't be good. "Like what?"

"How much do you know about Tanik?"

I thought for a moment. "Not much," I finally admitted.

"Do you have any idea why he was on the run?"

I had to choose my words carefully. Suspicion wasn't fact, and I hadn't even told Hayden my thoughts in case I was blowing things out of proportion. "Not really."

Cloud's eyes darted to the door again. "I really shouldn't be telling you this, but you're one of the few people he's even remotely close to, so I think you have a right to know." He drew in a breath. "He made me promise that if anyone came looking for him, I would get out of there as fast as possible."

That wasn't what I'd expected. "What?"

"When I asked him why, he avoided the subject. All I could get out of him is that he's in some kind of trouble but can't say anything about it."

My eyes narrowed. "Are you sure that's everything?"

Cloud nodded. "He keeps saying that he's fine, but he's seriously not okay. Something about having a twin really scared him, and not just because his mom never told him he was adopted."

Bum-bum-bum! And the obvious truth is out. (Did I manage to mislead anyone with the clone comment in a previous chapter?)

P.S. Reviews are lovely. :)