BOOK ONE: MIDGAR

SEVENTEEN

We stepped into a wide, open area on the 59th floor with two sets of elevators, one directly ahead of us and the other off to our left. A short distance to our right sat two light green sofas in between a small table, but other than that, this floor was practically empty except for the trio of guards standing in front of the first set of elevators.

"Destroy the intruders!" one of them yelled when he spotted us.

I rushed at the guards, Buster already drawn, while Tifa raised her gloved fists and did likewise and Barret fired his gun-arm. The guards didn't last long under our combined assault. I brought one down with a series of quick slashes while Tifa took out another with a swift chain of punches, the mythril claws of her new gloves leaving bright red lines of blood in their wake with each hit. Barret leveled the last of the guards, peppering him with bullets until he fell limply to the floor.

Barret grinned. "Now that was a good warm-up! Right, Cloud?"

"It won't be that easy for long," I reminded him.

"Hell, I know that! Jus' a good start is all I'm sayin'. Man, you really gotta lighten' up sometime."

I shrugged. "I can when I want to."

Tifa bent over to inspect one of the down guards. "Well, if you two are through, I think I've found something."

"What have you got, Tif?" I asked.

She lifted her hand to show us a slim plastic card with the message "STANDARD ACCESS: FLOORS 1-60" imprinted upon it. "One of the guards was carrying this. I think it might be useful."

"We already on 59," Barret said. "That ain't gonna get us very far."

"I know, but maybe we can find something on 60 that'll help us go further than that."

I nodded. "Let's do it."

We went into the elevator, and the doors slid closed behind us. The lift was little more than a transparent tube of some hardened material, and beyond it we could see all of Midgar sprawled out below us. Lights flickered and glowed in the endless gloom like a forest of fireflies. Well, almost everywhere. Slightly to our right, the gaping hole that had once been Sector 7 lay shrouded in darkness, and I saw that Barret and Tifa avoided looking in that direction.

"This is the real thing," Barret said. "Don't let your guard down."

Tifa sighed. "I hope Aerith is alright."

"She is," I replied, leaving no room for argument.

Tifa nodded, then she slid the keycard into a slot next to the doors. When the control panel lit up, she pressed the button for the 60th floor, and a moment later, the elevator started to rise. We rode in silence, and I noticed that she kept her eyes fixed upon the level indicator and away from the view outside of how high up we were.

A chime sounded, and then the doors slid open. We went out into another largely deserted floor, only this one was divided by two rows of yellow pillars that stretched out across the area in between two closed-off rooms. A few guards stood in front of the closest line of pillars, but this time we crept out of sight before they could spot us. There was no way into the room on the right from here, so we snuck into the one on the left and didn't speak until the door closed behind us.

"Look at all them guards runnin' around out there," Barret said, his voice low as he peered out another door.

I followed his gaze, crossing the room to join him. Past the second row of yellow columns, a small contingent of guards marched endlessly back and forth along the back of the area, their eyes alert. Although we could have taken them out without much trouble, I didn't want to start another fight yet. I figured we could sneak past them if we waited until the right time to move.

Barret went on. "Cloud, go on ahead and signal us when it's safe to move. An' when them guards turn around, you'd better get your skinny ass in gear an' get movin'!"

"Stay in the shadows!" Tifa added.

Wondering just how I'd gotten volunteered for this job, I sighed as I crept out the door. As I watched the soldiers, I noticed they moved in a set pattern back and forth in two separate groups. A tall pedestal was set in between the first few yellow columns and the rest of them, and it was wide enough for all three of us to hide behind.

When the guards turned away, I snuck behind the first column and waited for them to move again. When they did, I hurried across to the next one, and from there to the pedestal. Once I was safely there, I held out my arm back toward others and motioned for them to join me one at a time, indicating when it was safe for them to move and when they needed to stop. Before long, we were all behind the pedestal.

From there, I crept out again when the guards weren't looking, and I made my way past the columns until I stood by the door to the other room. Then I turned back to the others, keeping an eye on the guards, and guided them safely over to where I was waiting. It didn't take long, and the soldiers never heard or saw us the whole time. We didn't speak again until we had gone into the room ahead of us.

"Okay!" Barret hefted his gun-arm. "Now we gonna rock!"

Tifa glanced at him. "Remember, Barret, we're here to save Aerith, not to try and take down Shinra all by ourselves."

"Hell, I know that!"

"Then let's keep moving," I added.

There were two escalators in the room, one going up and the other one down. We rode the first escalator up to the next floor and a similar room. The nearby door was unlocked, so we went cautiously through it and into the main area. A collection of tables and chairs were scattered all across the large room. Round ones filled the near half while longer, angled tables stretched along the height of the far side of the floor. All along the walls stood a number of potted plants, tall shrubs as green as the floor, and in the center of the room was a tree, a huge oak that rose up above everything else here.

All through the area, people bustled about or sat in the chairs, and I guessed that this floor must have been an employee lounge. We didn't seem to have attracted much attention, only a few curious glances cast in our general direction. I supposed that people came and went in this place all the time, and most of them were so wrapped up in their work and their own lives that they probably didn't give much thought to who else showed up here.

I glanced at Tifa and Barret. "Let's split up and take a look around. Try and find a way to get to the higher floors. Another keycard, maybe. We'll meet back here in fifteen minutes. Got it?"

They nodded, and we all wandered across the floor and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. I walked around, not really sure where I was going but keeping my eyes alert nevertheless. I was just pausing to look at the tree again, thinking about how it was the only one I'd seen in the city, when a voice suddenly spoke up behind me.

"The hell are you?" It was a man wearing a dark gray business suit. "What're you doin' around here?"

I blinked, unsure what to say. "I was just…"

Before I could finish, the man's eyes suddenly lit up as though he'd just thought of something. "Oh, I know! You must be from that… what do you call it? Shinra Repair Division!"

"Yeah, that's right," I nodded.

"You know, this building looks like it's starting to fall apart. There's this door that was just pushed open. You ought to fix it right away! Oh, and take a look on the other floors, too. Here, take this."

The man gave me a slim card with the words "ARCHIVE ACCESS: FLOOR 62" imprinted on it. After I took the keycard, he walked away, and I made my way back to the escalator room. Barret and Tifa met me there a few minutes later, and I showed them what I'd found. It was just one more floor that we had access to now, but it would have to do. We'd just have search for a way to go further when we got upstairs.

The 62nd floor was largely deserted, with a few other rooms divided by narrow corridors. We walked through the halls, and as I peered into one of the open doorways, I saw shelves full of books standing in neat, orderly rows. The sign posted on the wall outside confirmed it was one of Shinra's research libraries. We went on until we found another room, smaller than the others. An older man stood by the door, poring over a stack of documents in his hands.

"How do you do?" he asked when he saw us. "This is the Mayor of Midgar's office. Mayor Domino is inside."

Barret frowned. "An' who are you?"

"I'm Deputy Mayor Hart. If you should have any other questions, feel free to ask me."

"Do you know who we are?" I asked.

Hart shrugged. "I can tell you're not Shinra employees, at least. But the Mayor told me someone might be coming."

Tifa blinked. "He did? How did he know?"

"I'm not sure. All I know is that Shinra thinks that some members of that AVALANCHE group may have survived the fall of Sector 7. I'm guessing that would be you."

We all glanced at each other. Did Shinra know we were here? That would certainly complicate things. But if they did, and this was all just a trap, why would Jess have shown me how to get inside? There had to be more going on. In any event, our goal hadn't changed. We were still going to save Aerith. We just had to keep our eyes open, because if was a trap, then Shinra would spring it sooner or later, and when they did, we would have to be ready. But I didn't think that Hart had anything to do with it, either. "You're not going to report us?"

"No," Hart replied. "The Mayor can explain further, but suffice it to say, Shinra's made a joke of his position. So he's quite resentful of them. He might even help you. So go on inside, it's quite alright."

We did, and a moment later, we stood in the Mayor's office. He got up from his desk and walked over to meet us, seeming almost eager as he approached us and rubbed his hands together. Domino looked at us from behind a pair of metal-framed eyeglasses. He was a lean, balding man maybe in his early fifties and wearing a crisp business suit and tie, and he greeted us with a sly, knowing grin.

"You all must be those… ahem…" he began with a discreet cough, then continued. "Me? I'm Domino, the Mayor of Midgar. Actually, I'm just the Mayor in name only. The city and everything in it is really run by Shinra. And you can see how well that's working out."

Barret grimaced. "Yeah, I know. They're runnin' everythin' into the goddamn ground. So what do you do here, then?"

"Oh, it's quite dull, really. My only real job is watching over Shinra's documents. Me! The Mayor! A librarian! Oh, joy…"

"Can you help us get upstairs?" I asked.

Domino thought for a moment and then nodded. "You want to get upstairs? I tell you what. If you can guess the password, I'll give you my keycard. Get it on the first try and I'll even throw in something special! How's that sound?"

We didn't have much of a choice, and we knew it. "Alright. How do we figure it out?"

"Just check the libraries. Hart can explain further."

As it turned out, Domino was right. We left his office and spoke to Hart again, and he explained about the Mayor's little game. Apparently, four different files had been deliberately placed in libraries where they didn't belong just before we had arrived here, and each one held a letter of Domino's password in its title. So all we had to do was enter each of the four libraries, find the right file, and then find the right letter using the file's reference number.

We split up so we could get this ridiculous game of his done faster, and then we searched the fourth library together. It didn't take as long as I'd thought it would, and I suspected that Domino might have made it fairly easy on purpose. Hard enough to slow us down for little while, but not so hard as to keep us from moving on, either.

"BOMB," I told him when we returned to his office.

"BOMB!" he echoed. "God, I love the sound of that! I'm so angry, I'm like a walking time bomb waiting to explode! Well, okay. Here, take it. You've earned it."

He handed me his keycard, which was imprinted with the message "EXECUTIVE ACCESS: FLOORS 63-65" in small, black type. I took it, slipped it into my pocket, and wondered what else he was going to give us. He'd mentioned something about an extra prize if we got it right on our first attempt, after all.

"I never thought you'd actually get it on the first try," he said. "Just goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover. Oh, well. A promise is a promise. Take this, too."

Domino held out a small blue materia orb, and I took it gratefully. "Thanks. Why are you helping us, though?"

"For revenge, of course!" he explained. "Shinra's been torturing me forever. I was a little rough on you all just now by making you play my little game, but that was my way of paying you back for what you did to the reactors and the people who died because of it. But even so, I can't excuse what Shinra did to Sector 7 in response. So I want you to go up there and really make them suffer!"

Barret hefted his gun-arm. "We will, dontcha worry 'bout that, Mr. Mayor! We really gonna light things up!"

"Mayor Domino," Tifa cut in, glaring at Barret as she did so, "What floor would any prisoners be kept on? Do you know?"

He nodded. "Ah, so that's why you're here, to rescue that Ancient. I believe she's being held on the 67th floor. But my card will only get you to the 65th floor. Can you believe how they treat me? Me! Like I'm some common employee!"

"I know. Thanks for all your help, Mr. Mayor. Oh, by the way, what kind of materia was that?"

"Elemental," he explained. "I don't know much about how it works, though. Nabbed it from the science lab the other day when I managed to sneak up there. I hope it helps you cause Shinra some pain!"

We left and hurried back to the escalator. Now we knew what floor we had to get to. Playing Domino's game might have cost us some time, but we had gotten some valuable information out of it in the end. Now that I understood why he had put us through all that to get it, though, I found I didn't blame him.

We rode up to the 63rd floor, and I was just about to move on to the next escalator to continue our ascent when I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned around. My heart beat faster as I caught a glimpse of Jessica. As her translucent form walked slowly past the open doorway, she turned her head for a moment and looked at me without stopping, a tender smile on her face as she went.

I bolted after her, hurrying through the door and ignoring Tifa and Barret as they called out after me. I turned right and saw Jess moving a short distance ahead of me as she walked around a corner at the end of the hallway I was in. I followed her, and when I came around the bend in the corridor, I saw her walk into another open doorway, this one on my right just a short distance away.

But when I entered the room myself, she was gone.

I didn't leave right away, though. I knew Jess had led me here for a reason. I just had to figure out what it was. The room was lit by the soft blue glow of a nearby computer screen, a pale blue like a summer sky. I stood there and looked around, searching for anything Jess might have wanted me to find or see. A tall air duct stood against the back wall by the computer, and on the other side was what looked like some kind of dispenser unit. And when I stepped closer to it, I saw an object lying in the unit's bin as if it had been waiting there for me.

I picked it up and gazed at it. It was a pendant made of mythril and crafted into the shape of a five-pointed star. It felt warm in my hand as I held it. I had heard of items like these before. They were imbued with a touch of mako and could protect you from any poison. I held it up in front of me and knew Jessie had wanted me to have this. Why that was, I didn't know yet, but I was sure she'd had a reason. I lifted the pendant with its shining mythril chain up over my head and hung it around my neck as Tifa and Barret finally caught up to me.

"Yo, Cloud, why'd you run off like that?" Barret griped.

"Sorry," I shrugged. "Thought I saw something and went off to see if I could find it. Found this instead."

I showed them the pendant, then slipped it inside my shirt so it lay against my skin. As we headed back to the escalator room, I thought of Jess and wished she was still alive and with us. It hurt to know that she was gone, that I would never be able to hold her again, or talk with her, that I would never be able to explore what we might have had together. But… a part of Jessica was still with me, it seemed. I didn't understand it, but I was glad for it nonetheless.

We skipped the 64th floor and headed straight up to floor 65. This floor had several small rooms and one larger room in the center. Inside it was a scale model of the entire city about twenty feet in diameter, but it seemed to have some pieces missing from it. I sighed, not wanting to waste time playing another game, but the lockbox by the escalator had been sealed tight, and it was my guess that another keycard was inside it. So somehow, we had to put this thing back together. It was probably some kind of bizarre security measure, and I couldn't help but wonder whose demented mind had thought this up.

At first we spread out, as I had thought that if we were able to find all the pieces first, we could just bring them all into the large room and fix the model right then and there and be on our way. But it didn't turn out to be that easy. There were boxes in each room, but only one would unlock at a time. So we had to find each piece one by one, and when it was fitted into the model, whatever sensor device was embedded into it would send out some kind of signal to open the next box. It didn't take long to finish, and after I had put the last piece in place, a light flashed from the replica of Shinra Headquarters on the model as something in it clicked and the whole thing hummed with energy.

We headed back to the escalator room, and the lockbox that sat in the corner opened easily this time, and just as I had thought, a keycard lay inside. Across it, the words "CONFERENCE ACCESS: FLOOR 66" were imprinted in black letters. One step closer to Aerith. As I took it, I heard Barret grumbling behind me.

"Gettin' tired of playin' all these damn games," he muttered.

I nodded. "I know how you feel, Barret, but we're making progress. We're almost there. Just a little longer."

"How are we going to get out once we find her?" Tifa asked.

"One step a time, Tif," I answered. "Let's find Aerith, and then we'll worry about how to get the hell out of here. But it is a good question. I wish I had more of an answer for you."

Tifa smiled. "It's alright, Cloud. I know you'll figure it out."

"No pressure there," I smirked.

When we got up to the 66th floor, we crept outta the escalator room and headed around to a long hallway. There was two other rooms here, one on either side of the one we came from, jus' offices an' such. But as we passed one of 'em, we overheard part of a conversation between two Shinra workers, an' what they were talkin' 'bout got our attention right away. We stopped jus' past the door an' listened.

"They're having another executive meeting," a guy in a suit said. "I wonder if it's about that plate incident?"

His pal nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"Hey, when you're in the bathroom, do you hear whispers coming from somewhere?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it, I do. Weird, huh? And is it just me or does the conference room smell? There's a really bad stench coming from somewhere…"

We went on down the hall a bit, then I turned to Cloud an' Tifa, an idea comin' to mind. "Hey, let's check out that bathroom. Might find us a way to eavesdrop on that meetin' they was talkin' 'bout."

"Good idea," Cloud agreed. "Let's go."

We followed the hall to the end, and when it split off to the left an' right, we went right. The doors to the conference room were locked as we passed 'em. When we ran into a young secretary carryin' some files, she told us where to find the bathroom when Cloud asked her 'bout it. Didn't take long to get there after that. We jus' made a right at the next intersection and went to the last room on this side of the floor. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to us, an' I wasn't sure whether I should relax or be worried. Wasn't much I could do either way, so I put it outta my mind as we went into the bathroom.

When we went into one of the stalls, we found an open grate in the ceiling above the toilet. And damn, did it smell. After flushin' it, Cloud stepped onto the seat and pushed open the grate. Then we crawled into the air duct on the other side 'til we was all inside. There was only one way we could go from there, so we followed the duct, an' after jus' a few minutes, we came to another grate, this one overlookin' the conference room. An' I froze when I saw who was in there.

"Geez!" I gaped. "That's a lotta suits!"

Four men and one woman was sittin' around the conference table. At the head of it was President Shinra himself, puffin' one of his cigars an' lookin' out at his cronies with them cold blue eyes of his. Rage filled my gut as I looked at him, an' it only grew when I saw Heidegger sittin' on his right next to that fat oaf Palmer. I hadn't forgotten 'bout Sector 7 an' knew that black-bearded son of a bitch had been behind that whole goddamn mess. I hated that friggin' bastard.

Across from them on the President's left was Scarlet, Shinra's head of Weapons Development. I'd heard of her, now that I thought about it. Scarlet was utterly ruthless an' loved killin' and thinkin' up new ways of doin' it. She wore a dark red slip dress that made her look more like she was a Wall Market whore than one of Shinra's top execs. Her blond hair was pulled back into a tight bun, an' she watched everythin' with cruel, dark eyes an' a vicious grin.

Sittin' next to her was Reeve, Shinra's head of Urban Development. Him I didn't know much about, actually. He wore a dark blue overcoat, a white button-down shirt, an' a black tie. A short black goatee covered his chin, matchin' the hair on his head. Reeve looked younger than the rest besides Scarlet, an' he seemed like he might be the sanest one outta the whole bunch, but he was still a Shinra, an' I didn't trust none of 'em. Especially after what they'd done to Sector 7.

"We have the damage estimates for Sector 7," Reeve said, shufflin' a stack of papers in front of him. "Considering those factories we already set up and all the investments, the damage is approximately 10 billion gil. The estimated cost to rebuild Sector 7 is–"

"We're not rebuilding," President Shinra cut him off.

Reeve stared at him. "What?"

"We're leaving Sector 7 just as it is," President Shinra went on. "And restarting the Neo-Midgar plan."

"Then the Ancients…?" Reeve asked.

The president grinned like a shark. "The Promised Land will soon be ours. I want you to raise the mako rates 15% in every area."

"Rate hike! Rate hike!" Palmer cheered, bouncin' like a damn fool. "And please include our Space Program in the budget!"

President Shinra shook his head. "Reeve and Scarlet will divide the extra income from the rate increase."

Reeve didn't look too happy 'bout it. "Sir. If you raise the rates, the people will lose confidence…"

"It'll be alright," the president sneered. "The ignorant citizens won't lose confidence. They'll trust Shinra even more."

"After all, we're the ones who saved Sector 7 from AVALANCHE!" Heidegger laughed.

My blood boilin', I clenched my good hand into a fist an' jus' barely kept myself from shootin' him. "That goddamn son of a bitch!"

I thought of Jess and all that she'd told me about her old man. Since the Turks was under his command, I knew he was responsible for what had happened. It was 'cause of him that Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge was… was dead. An' so many other people, too. Heidegger had killed his own daughter jus' to keep a hold on his power. Damn, I was so pissed. Tifa an' Cloud was, too. The way their eyes narrowed when they heard that bastard's words showed me that clearly enough. Cloud looked ready to jump on down there himself an' start slashin' away. Only Tifa's hand on his shoulder kept him in control.

Jus' then, someone else entered the room, a skinny scientist wearin' a white lab coat an' thick eyeglasses. He had long black hair pulled into a thin ponytail and a hawk-like nose. It was Hojo, head of Shinra's dirty Science Department. They did all kinds of weird experiments in there, an' it was them that turned people into SOLDIER warriors. I glanced at Cloud an' blinked. He stared at the man for a minute like he knew him, then shook his head, his face utterly blank. The hell was goin' on there? I hoped he wasn't havin' another fit. Cloud was a bit of a basket case at times, I tell ya. 'Course none of us knew why at the time, not even him. That came a lot later and a lot farther away from where we was. An' I'm gettin' ahead of myself again. Sorry 'bout that.

"Hojo," President Shinra asked. "How's the girl?"

The thin man's voice was barely more than an icy whisper when he answered. "As a specimen, she is inferior to her mother. I'm still in the process of comparing her to Ifalna, but for now the difference is 18%."

"How long will the research take?"

Hojo sighed. "Probably 120 years. It's likely impossible to finish in our lifetime. Or the lifetime of the specimen too, for that matter. That's why we're thinking of breeding her. Then we could have one that could withstand our research for a long time."

President Shinra frowned. "What about the Promised Land? Won't that hinder our plans?"

"That's what I need to figure out. The mother is strong, and yet she does have her weaknesses."

"That concludes our meeting," the president said.

With that, all them suits got up an' left. All but Scarlet. She glanced up at the ceiling for a moment an' sniffed. "Something stinks…"

Then she was gone, too. I looked at Cloud. "What now?"

"They were talking about Aerith, right?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I dunno."

"Probably," Tifa said. "It makes the most sense."

Cloud nodded. "Let's follow Hojo, then. He may lead us straight to her. He knows where she is, at least."

We headed back through the duct, dropped into the bathroom, an' crept into the hall. From there, we snuck back the way we'd come 'til we was jus' around the corner from the conference room doors. A minute later, Hojo came out, walkin' down the hall toward the escalator room, so we followed after him, stayin' back as far as we could, jus' enough to keep him in sight. When Hojo went inside an' rode up to the 67th floor, we waited a minute or two, then rode up ourselves. We'd come a pretty long way, but nothin' could've prepared us for what was waitin' upstairs in Shinra's dark an' twisted Science Division.