The Frogmen of the Apocalypse: Gongaga
By TacomaSquall
Chapter 6:
On the morning after the terrorist attack on the Reactor, I left home to go to my internship at the Reactor compound. No one had contacted me to tell me otherwise, and I did not feel it would be right for me to just forget about going to work, even if terrorists had attacked last night. Besides, I sincerely doubted that they would have been after anything in the little cubbyhole where I worked at a drafting table.
As I walked the distance that separated Gongaga from the Reactor, I pondered the nightmare that I had just before waking to the alarming news that the Reactor had been attacked. I was confused, because the memory of the creature's touch, caressing me in the dream, both repelled and excited me. I was repelled by the horror of the creature, its razor-sharp talons and techno-organic features. But I had felt something that I had only barely experienced when Jon and I first kissed. Was this what Elmyra was always talking about, when she talked about boys?
Lost in thought, I wasn't paying attention to the twists and turns of the pathway, until I had stepped off of the pathway and into the lush undergrowth that marked the border between man's domain and the wilds of the Gongaga rainforest. I stopped, and started to turn to get back into the road. As I turned, I planted my foot on a fallen bough that lay in the bushes at my feet. The branch yanked itself out from under me.
Bewildered, I staggered and hastily tried to keep my balance. My arms windmilled, trying to gain purchase somehow by grabbing the air itself. I failed and fell backwards. When I landed in the brush behind me, I felt some of the sturdy, but slender limbs of the brush I fell into jab me, sharply, near my ribs. The impact knocked the wind out of me with a solid "Whoof!"
Stunned, I watched as a gangly Frogman, a full five feet tall, levered itself to a sitting position. It massaged its leg, which I had taken for a deadfall bough, wincing as it touched the area where I had placed my weight. It was a miracle that I had not broken the poor creature's leg.
"That hurt!" It tried to get up and hop away, but the leg could not bear enough weight to be able to leap with it. It started to hobble away from me.
"Wait!" I called at the Frog. "I didn't mean to hurt you! Perhaps there is something I can do to make your leg better?" I had a portable first aid kit that Daddy insisted I carry with me wherever I went, since I was determined to spend so much time in the forest alone. There were always a couple of Potions in there, along with some pills to help relieve pain. Maybe they would do some help for this Frog.
The Frog tried to stop in its hobbling shuffle, and placed its weight upon its injured leg. With a cry of agony, the Frog collapsed. Without a second thought, I ran forward to him, bulling my way through the undergrowth. As I ran, I shrugged my pack off of my shoulder (I usually carry it by one of its straps), and opened the pack to get at the first aid kit.
I knelt at the Frog's side. I noticed that there was an elongated slash in his belly that had reopened from his exertions, or when he fell. Blood was starting too ooze out of the wound. The Frog was clutching at his injured right leg, specifically below his knee. I ignored the old wound to take a closer look at his leg.
From the cursory inspection I could give it, his leg did not look like it was broken. It was not hanging at an abnormal angle. The green skin of his leg was mottled and purpled, and it looked like he had a serious bone bruise or possibly a muscle strain or a sprain. However, I had had worse, from the time I decided I was going to try and climb to the upper plate in Junon. I broke my leg from hitting the girders on the way down when I lost my grip and fell. According to Zack, a dolphin had saved my life, pushing me to shore, where I could be resuscitated.
I reached into the first aid kit, and pulled out a small bottle. "You need to drink this. It will help you heal some," I admonished the Frog. He blinked back tears of pain, and nodded, as I opened the bottle and poured the Potion into his mouth. He coughed at the acrid taste, but swallowed the draught.
As I watched, a faint, sparkling green light suffused the Frog's skin, and he gasped in surprise, as the pain lessened. The ugly, purple mottling of his skin faded to a pale yellow that was barely visible against the lambent hue of his skin. The slash across his belly closed, and faded to a pale line that crossed him from left to right.
"Are you still in pain?" Slowly, he shook his head, amazed at the cessation of his agony. Trying to lighten the mood, I quipped, "The wonders of ShinRa Pharmaceuticals."
I was surprised by how worried I was about the Frog. I was afraid he'd be found by one of the other townspeople, and blamed for the attack on the Reactor. I didn't know then that he was involved…
* * * * *
Talos watched, from his hiding place, as the girl tended Shander's wounds. He grimaced sourly. Another loose end left to tie up.
The girl looked familiar to him, and he fought to remember where he had seen her before. His mind went back, as he quested through his memory for the young woman's face. She can't be…
Talos awakened from a sound sleep to see a woman's face a few inches from his own. "Are you okay?"
She was a little younger than he was, and was dressed in the same overall that was given to all of the Professor's test subjects, a blue garment, made of a synthetic fabric that caressed the skin as softly as silk did, without being as heavy. It clung becomingly to her full curves, showing them off to what would have been, in a different situation, a very stirring effect. Her hair was shoulder length, raven-black, and wavy. Her eyes were wells of near-ebon depth. The woman's nose was petite, and her chin had a slight cleft in it. Her face openly showed concern for Talos' well-being, which surprised the hard-bitten thief.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Get outta my face." When Talos spoke, he saw a fleeting expression of pain cross the woman's face as she pulled back from him. Talos realized that he was alienating a possible ally in an attempt to escape. "Hey, I'm sorry. I'm not used to having someone ask me how I am doing."
Mollified, the woman stopped pulling away from Talos, and she nodded. "From your scars, you must've had a pretty tough time before you were captured."
Talos nodded curtly.
"I'm Jessan. I used to live in Wutai, before I was captured and brought here. I have been a captive for the last three weeks. Two weeks ago, you were brought in, and subjected to the same …" Her voice trailed off into silence.
Talos remembered the agony of the burning fluids that had injected into him. He remembered the restraints that held him down as they prodded and poked him, that held him down so that he could not stop them from putting another dose of the poison within him.
They said they were going to make him into a superior man, and all they were succeeding in doing was hasten his end. Now, he could feel the liquids burn within him for an hour after the treatment, before being subdued by his body's defense mechanisms. The pain lingered for more hours, with surcease coming only just before the next treatment.
"They did this to you, as well?" His voice rasped from screaming that had worn his vocal cords nearly raw.
"Once only. They say that I am a … a breeder. I think they wanted me to …"
Talos caught her meaning and frowned in anger. There was no way that he was going to do what they wanted and bed this girl, just to provide another generation of test subjects.
The door to the cage rattled, and Talos' prime tormentor looked in. "Awake at last, hmmm? It is time for your next treatment, Subject #142."
Talos snarled in rage, but held himself back. He knew there was no way that he would be permitted to harm the Professor, and all that trying would do was buy him was greater pain. He stiffened and grudgingly permitted the Professor to open the cage door enough for an orderly, armed with a shock-stick and carrying restraints, to enter the cage.
"Good, 142. You are realizing that resistance is futile. You will serve the cause of science whether you will it or not. It is just so much better for all concerned when you don't resist."
The orderly took Talos' hands and pulled them away from the thief's body. He clasped the two hands together and fastened them in a set of special handcuffs, designed to offer exactly as much resistance as the captive applied force to them. After attaching the cuffs, the orderly pulled Talos to his feet and half-led, half-dragged him from the cage.
As the orderly dragged Talos to what turned out to be last Mako treatment in ShinRa's care, the Professor turned to one of the other orderlies. "Release the woman in #142's cage. Make sure her memories are suppressed, and create a new identity for her in Junon. Keep an eye on her and her children, when she has any. They may be of value to the Project…"
The Frogman shook his head. There was no way that this child could be Jessan. In a moment of clarity, he remembered where he had seen her before. He had lured her brother away from the road a few years before, and was about to transform him, using the Song, when she and her boyfriend had arrived. At that time, he felt it was the better part of valor to escape, for he doubted that he could transform all three of them before one of them could escape to warn the townsfolk. The last thing Talos wanted then, was for the townspeople of Gongaga to be alerted to his intentions before he had begun his plan.
He sensed that her involvement in things at this point could be very useful, if he could just arrange for things to happen the right way…
* * * * *
"You're the human girl that the Eldest has taken a liking to." His tone was matter-of-fact.
I nodded. "Yeah. I'm Maiji Carpenter. If I had to guess your name, it would be Daphne." I referred to a danger-prone girl from an old cartoon I used to watch on television back in Junon.
He laughed. "Actually, my name is Shander. I just came to Nuavalan from our people to the east, over by Mideel and Condor Fort."
"I hope you didn't swim all the way across the ocean." There was something about this ridiculously tall Frog that instantly put me at ease. For one thing, he, now that he was no longer in pain, seemed so open and friendly that it was impossible not to like him. His eyes had a sparkle, as if he were always laughing at some joke that the world was playing on all of us.
He laughed again. "I stowed away on the boat from Costa del Sol. I'm glad you had that Potion, or else I would have never been able to get back to Nuavalan. I really do need to get going."
"I'm late for work, too! I'll look for you the next time I visit Tara and Patter, okay?"
He grinned and nodded. "I plan on being in the area for quite a while."
I continued to the Reactor, waving farewell to my new friend before he hopped into the forest. All things considered, today was turning out to be a pretty good day.
To be continued …