1-7. Contact

Vincent did not look surprised when he stepped into the lab, which could mean one of two things: either he'd seen it before, or he hadn't seen it before and, as usual, was very good at hiding the fact. Lucrecia pointed everything out as if he hadn't seen it; no use in embarrassing both of them by asking. "That's the chemistry equipment, where Shelan...worked; my section, for studying cells; the general equipment; Hojo's stuff; and down the hall is Dr. Gast's office." Vincent nodded. "I hope you won't be too bored...?"

"No." He wandered toward Lucrecia's section, looking over everything. "This is yours?"

"Yes. I'll just be running some tests on the 40% cells today--not too complicated, but very time-consuming."

"I see. Forty percent?"

Lucrecia nodded and opened her notebook. She flipped a few pages to a taped-in photograph of the crucial cells and handed it to him. "They're the most promising of the trials I've done so far," she explained, as he studied the picture. "Though we have to test them more thoroughly--which I'm starting today--they seem to be closest to what we're looking for."

Vincent nodded and gave her notebook back. "And you're looking for...a way to create Ancients."

"Right." Lucrecia crossed to the Project-only incubator and withdrew a rack of plates. "They have powers beyond that of normal humans, although their genetic makeup is almost identical to ours. So it's thought that it might not be very hard to... force this state onto a normal human." She carried the rack of plates to the microscope counter and carefully set them down.

"To turn a 'normal human' into an Ancient," Vincent clarified.

"More or less, yes." She sat down at the counter and readied her notes, then slid the first of the plates onto the microscope. "The problem was, we didn't know what made Ancients the way they were. Are," she corrected herself, switching to another plate. "For years, Shinra has had dozens of projects working on different possibilities. Genetic engineering, genealogy studies, Mako exposure, infusions with different metals and minerals... Some have worked, some haven't. The most promising was the Mako project; that opened up a whole new field of study. Groundbreaking work." She set aside the last of the series and began to check the next, thoroughly but mechanically, automatically. Her mind was focused on the history of the Project; and constantly, silently, Vincent's presence prickled across her skin. It was not an unpleasant situation...

Her curiosity gaining the upper hand, Lucrecia turned to see what his reaction was. Vincent stood in the middle of the room, leaning back against the desk. He'd picked up a notebook from the desk and was paging through it, thoughtfully. Lucrecia hoped he wasn't bored...he'd wasted his day off here, after all, waiting around in this dungeon of a laboratory instead of...whatever he usually did on his days off. She still didn't know why he'd chosen to do this, or what he would have done otherwise. She wasn't quite courageous enough to ask him.

He didn't look bored...or at least she didn't think he did. It was encouraging. His attention seemed to be given to reading, and she took the opportunity to watch him for a moment; his head was bent over the book and his hair shadowed his eyes, but he seemed at ease--if a bit out of place--down here. Or was it just a projection of her own mind, that he didn't belong here? He was assigned to assist the Project members, and was authorized to view any classified information. Of course, no one expected a Turk to be interested in the minute details of the Project, but it certainly wasn't forbidden... Vincent looked up, and Lucrecia startled, caught staring into space in his direction, her mind having drifted; she felt her cheeks flushing. It's not what you think, I wasn't... was I? The sudden possibility hijacked her train of thought--suddenly, it was him she was staring at, looking odd and intriguing as he did in regular clothes--they say it's the uniform that does it, but the few times he's without makes him seem so...normal, so reachable... I wonder....if someday...he could think the same of me, when I'm not in this lab coat...Stupid! Lucrecia abruptly turned back around, snapping her reverie. Not only was there work to be done, but she couldn't let herself get caught mooning over him like a schoolgirl. She shouldn't be mooning like a schoolgirl in the first place!

Vincent waited, calmly, it seemed, as if waiting for her to speak, as if he hadn't noticed her odd behavior. He cleared his throat quietly. "This Project started as one of those many projects, then, with the same goal?"

Lucrecia paused for a moment, recalling the path of the conversation, as she loaded the next plate onto the microscope. "Yes. It originally started when an unusual meteorite was found at the Knowlespole archaeological site, which is far north of here. It gave evidence for several Cetra legends about an object called 'Jenova', or as the original Ancient name translates, 'crisis from the sky'." She made a note of the plate's appearance and switched to the next. "According to the Ancients, this meteorite brought nothing short of catastrophe; many of their people were infected with a strange disease and died, usually raving mad. They connected it with the meteorite immediately, which made the Shinra researchers wonder whether the meteorite might have carried some unknown pathogen with it...a virus from outer space, in short."

"That would explain the secrecy on Shinra's part, wouldn't it?"

"Exactly. Out of all of the scandals let loose to the public, 'killer mutant viruses from outer space' seems especially dangerous. So rather than start a worldwide panic over nothing, we chose to conduct the Project here, in secret." Lucrecia stacked the last plate back onto the rack and turned the microscope off. She carried the rack to the inoculation cabinet and slid it in through the side door. "It's working so far. We haven't had any major problems with the people of Nibelheim."

Vincent nodded; his voice was quiet, controlled. "You haven't. Though may I add, if you did have problems, you might not even know about it."

Lucrecia realized what he meant: that was the Turks' job, to deal with dissent from the public. He knew the state of the public much better than she did. "Oh. That's...true." Embarrassed by her accidental arrogance, she slipped her hands into the sealed gloves in the front of the chamber and busied herself with the plates. Vincent stepped away from the desk behind her to watch; she could see his reflection, pale and thoughtful, in the glass.

"What are you doing now?"

"Just getting ready for some tests. I'm going to compare the cells I mutated with a profile of real Ancient cells and see how close we really are." She continued to dispense a layer of enzyme solution over the cells on the plates. Vincent stood close behind her, watching her work, and Lucrecia tried not to let her hands tremble.

"Please go on," he said. "Viruses from outer space...?"

"Oh, right." Lucrecia remembered where she'd left off, grateful for the distraction. "At the excavation site, they also found something even more interesting to the department--a preserved body of one of the Ancients who had been infected with the Jenova virus. They studied the remains, and found that the virus actually caused the Ancients' cells to mutate more easily than usual. In most cases the victims died before a great deal of mutation could take place; their bodies could not handle a widespread change without assistance. Hojo thinks that if they had been exposed to both the virus and Mako energy, they might have survived and mutated further, but that's really not useful to our study. In any case, it's thought that the virus can come in contact with Ancient cells and cause them to quicken, in a way, so that they will mutate faster and also spread their changed makeup to the cells around them. More importantly, we found no traces of the intact virus in the frozen specimen's system. So we think after infection, it just...dies out, disappears."

"That's unusual, isn't it?"

"Very. It seems to go against all we know right now. That's one of the reasons this project is so important." Lucrecia swirled one of the plates; the solution she'd placed on it had caused the cells to come unglued from the plastic. She carefully poured the cell mixture into a test tube. "The aim of the JENOVA Project is to see if these quickened Ancient cells will also mutate regular human cells into their own kind. If that works, then we have a way to create neo-Cetra--an injection of these cells will cause the cells around them to mutate into their own kind, like a chain reaction, and hopefully, by the end, the whole body will be transformed into something new."

Vincent was quiet, thinking it over, it seemed, as he watched her transfer the cells into tubes for testing. Finally he said, almost as if to himself, "Interesting...and frightening, as well. Why are they so eager to recreate an Ancient in the first place?" he asked her.

"Well, as I said, they have powers that normal humans can't fathom. They can draw on the strength of the Planet itself. It's said that they also know of a place of untold power, the 'Promised Land', which is said to be a source of pure Mako energy. Needless to say, if Shinra were to claim a source of power as tremendous as that...they could provide energy to the entire world at almost no cost to themselves."

She saw Vincent's thin smile reflected in the glass. "It all comes back to profit."

"Of course; it is a business." Lucrecia couldn't help the trace of cynicism that darkened her voice. "But it would also advance the field of science, so we aren't complaining."

In the reflection, Lucrecia saw Vincent glance over at Hojo's equipment, the locked boxes and specimen tanks. "Maybe you should," he murmured. Lucrecia wasn't sure whether he meant her to hear it.

Somewhat troubled, Lucrecia poured off the last of the plates into its numbered tube and pushed the empty plate into the incinerator hatch. She was used to hearing such criticism of her field; in her first year in graduate school she had even had to break through lines of protesters to get to work. But she wasn't used to fielding questions from people she actually respected. --Cared about, her mind corrected. She left that thought unconsidered for the moment.

Still, Vincent showed no signs of disrespect or indignation about it. He didn't act like the protestors she'd seen, cutting down Shinra power lines, screaming at the graduate students as they sprinted through to work. He didn't accuse. He simply questioned. She was actually interested in what he thought...he probably had some interesting ideas on the subject.

"What problems do you have with our work, then?" she asked Vincent. "Forgetting Hojo's reputation, I mean. What are we doing that's so wrong?"

Vincent considered the question, leaning against the cabinet with his arms crossed. Waiting for his answer, Lucrecia straightened up the racks of test tubes and consulted her notes. Some of them were marked for genetic profiling, others for chemical analysis--a point she hadn't told Hojo, preferring to figure out the protocol herself from books rather than trust her project to him. He'll know when my report comes out, she thought. But by then I won't have to deal with him nearly as much...

"I think the Project assumes too many rights," Vincent said at last, carefully. "It assumes that Shinra has the right to claim whatever it wishes, although my thoughts were that the Ancients deserved the right to their own ancestral ground. I'll have to read more on their history, though, before I decide that." Lucrecia had given him the book on Cetra history two days before; she couldn't see how he'd had time to read it, though she suspected that he'd managed to, somehow. "It assumes that the...patient? Subject? --has no rights as well, that the progression of the Project and the profit of the corporation outweigh any rights the subject has to a normal life."

"Why wouldn't they have a normal life? They'd be very well treated by the company. They'd be the company's greatest asset."

"Until the Promised Land is found," Vincent said. "Then they'd just be an outdated piece of survey equipment."

"That's a little harsh."

"Maybe. I've seen how this company regards human life."

"But we have standards in Research!" She regretted the phrasing of that at once. "I mean, we have regulations, standards of operation; I don't mean your department has no...oh, never mind!"

"I know what you mean. It's true, anyway." Almost involuntarily, Vincent tucked his right hand under his left arm. The gesture seemed to have some meaning, though Lucrecia couldn't place it. Vincent went on, "The Turks have no respect for life, by their unofficial definition. By their official definition we do; we're only 'investigators'. We harm no one. In theory." He sighed, and his hand tightened over his side for a moment. Was he wounded, she thought, on assignment in Corel? Why didn't I notice that?... "I hope you never find out what this company is capable of," he said quietly. "That's all."

Lucrecia watched him, thinking over his comment. The lab was quiet except for the distant hum of the ventilation system. Finally, she nodded. "I hope so, too." After another moment's pause, she impulsively pulled her hands from the cabinet's gloves and stood up. Stop thinking for a minute, Luce, you're going to miss everything... She reached out and gently pulled his hand away from where it clutched his side. Vincent stared down at it for a second, as if he hadn't realized what he'd done, then his eyes locked on her face. He brought his left hand up to hers, and she did the same, enclosing his hands in hers. They stood there, still, almost afraid to move, stricken by something that was almost violent, almost frightening in its suddenness. This is something, here...this could be something real, something incredible, if it works, if I don't mess it up, if he doesn't come to his senses and realize he's too good for me, I can't let that happen, I can't stand this... They stood there, two separate souls thrown together by chance and the Corporation, both sensitive, both guilt-ridden for their individual sins, both convinced they did not deserve this thing which fate had thrown in their paths. Two months they'd been here. Two months. The world could shift that quickly...

The phone rang.

Lucrecia jumped, her thoughts shattered. She glanced around, confused--what phone? It rang again, and she remembered the office phone, down the hall in Gast's office. Of course. She looked back at Vincent, at their entwined fingers, and blushed deeply; how could she have... She sprang away from him, stammering an apology, and sprinted down the hall to Dr. Gast's office.

She snatched up the phone before its jagged ring could crack the stillness again. "Dr. Gast's office, Nibelheim, how may I help you?" she reeled off, expertly.

"Is Gast in?" a voice demanded on the other end: not Hojo, no one she recognized.

"No, sir. He and Dr. Hojo are both off today."

"Oh, that's just great. You're one of the grad students, I assume?"

"Yes, sir."

"Maybe you can answer my question, then, nobody else seems to be able to. Why in hell haven't you sent your biochem student? He was reassigned to our project two and a half weeks ago."

"Shelan?" Lucrecia frowned, confused. "From our project?..."

"Yes, I have his reassignment forms right here. Third-year biochem, Strife, Shelan. Where is he, why haven't you sent him? We can't hold up the project forever."

Lucrecia answered helplessly, "We...did send him. He left two weeks ago."

"Well then, he must have swum the whole way, because we haven't seen a trace of him yet."

"Really? I...don't quite know what to tell you, sir. He's not working on the JENOVA Project now. As far as I know, he left Nibelheim two weeks ago."

"Fine, then you tell Dr. Gast to call us about this. This is a waste of our time and money, you know."

"Yes, sir." Lucrecia picked up a pad and pen from Dr. Gast's desk and wrote, Urgent: Dr. Gast--Shelan's new team called, hasn't seen him. Call back: "Where should he call?"

"Call the central Research office and ask for Dr. Lansing, Midgar Reactor Project."

Lucrecia finished the note: central Research, ask for Dr. Lansing at Midg. Reactor Proj. "I'll let him know. Thank you for calling."

"Right, just get it done." The voice on the other line hung up, and after double-checking the note, Lucrecia did the same. Her head was starting to hurt. Where on earth was Shelan, then, if he hadn't shown up in Midgar...? She sighed, placed the note and the pen back on the desk, and walked back down the corridor. Her work was waiting...and so was Vincent...

She never saw the note again.

And neither did Dr. Gast.