3-3. Summoning

Your attendance is requested at the marriage of Elmyra Anthesa Gainsborough

Elly always hated her middle name, Lucrecia thought with a small smile, as she read the dainty white card. It had arrived in the mail that afternoon, and now, resting at the table with her feet up on a chair, she took the time to read it.

to Reece Andreas Logan

So they both have killer middle names, she thought wryly. Not that my "Meresia" is much better—the whole rhyme thing!—but still.

The ceremony will be held at Our Lady of the Flowers Chapel,
Sector Five, Lower Midgar
August 1, eleven a.m.
Reception following at the bride's residence,
1143 Third Circle, Sector Five, Lower Midgar.

It seemed strange to see her own address—her childhood address, at least—printed in this flowing silver script. Stranger still was seeing her baby sister's name, middle name and all, in the fancy phrasing usually reserved for grownups. Elmyra and Reece were supposed to get married someday, her sister had said…but here it was, staring her in the face in the form of a lacy but very real card from the neighborhood printer's. Elly, sweet, pretty, young Elly, was going to be a married woman.

One married, one with children; isn't that odd?

Quiet. I chose this. I think.

Quiet.

Lucrecia slid the card back into its envelope and stood, restlessly, rocking her weight back and forth between her sore feet. Why didn't she mention this before? This isn't something that can come up suddenly...

But if that's the case, why are the invitations going out two months before the ceremony? I don't think that's custom. When Mother's sisters got married, we knew ages before. And what about our parents? What do they have to say to all of this?

Lucrecia checked her watch and did a quick addition: it would be the middle of the night in Midgar. Far too late to call. She set the envelope down on the bookcase just as a quiet knock on the door interrupted the flow of her thoughts. Frowning slightly, Lucrecia crossed the room and opened the door on a uniformed Vincent Valentine. He smiled a little at the sight of her, softening her own unease.

"Vincent." She leaned close to him to give his cheek a kiss as her smile returned. It was a great comfort to see him, even now. "I thought you were on duty tonight."

"I am." Vincent glanced back into the hallway, then kissed her quickly on the lips. When they parted he held out a long envelope, his businesslike manner returned but for a faint spark in his eyes. "This came by courier, directly from Midgar."

"Ooh, fancy." She took the envelope and started to work one corner of the flap loose. "Speaking of Midgar, did you get the invitation to Elly's wedding?"

"Yes; I checked all of the Shinra mail. You and I and Dr. Gast all got them."

"Aww, no Hojo?" Lucrecia ripped the envelope open with a twist of her wrist. The tearing paper roared through Vincent's sudden silence. Lucrecia looked up. "I was kidding."

"Oh." Vincent's uneasy tension slackened, and he cracked a shadow of a smile.

Lucrecia unfolded the single sheet of top-grade paper and read quickly and silently, her mood cooling to match her lover's.

Attn: Dr. Theophilus Gast, Chairman, Shinra Inc. Biological Research Department; Dr. Horace Jones, Vice-chairman, Shinra Inc. Biological Research Department; Lucrecia Gainsborough, Shinra Inc. Biological Research Department An urgent advisory meeting is in order for all members of Shinra Inc. Project #593820-J, also known as the JENOVA Project. Due to recent discoveries by this research team, it is imperative that a clear, mutually beneficial course of action be determined and executed. At the request of Dr. Gast, the meeting will be held on August 2 at 9 a.m. All involved personnel will meet promptly in the Executive Board Room, Floor 66, Shinra Building, Upper Midgar. Cordially, Theodore Lon Chairman, Shinra Inc. Public Relations

"What is it?"

"I think…" The hand holding the paper slowly dropped. "I think Shinra's not happy with something I found."

Vincent frowned. "I thought you were making progress again. You said you were finally getting closer to the truth."

"I was. I am. But…" She looked up at Vincent in his Turk's blue. "The truth isn't all the Corporation has in mind." Lucrecia folded her arms across her chest in the wake of a sudden chill. Vincent stepped past the threshold and held her, without regard for any who might see.




It was nearly two in the morning before the last few tests were finished and the results typed and filed in preparation for the next day's trip to Midgar. Exhausted, Lucrecia dragged her leaden body from the lab directly to Hojo's study down the hall.

The physiologist answered her knock at the door, his usually pale face drawn and grayish with fatigue. Lucrecia knew he'd been waiting for at least eight hours, striving to put his own affairs in order before the summit. His desk was piled with folders and papers, and, she noticed, a not-quite-full bottle of Kalm whisky.

"Lucrecia," he muttered as she entered. "I trust your reports are finished."

"Yes, finally," Lucrecia sighed, heading straight for the padded chair in the center of the room. Lying down, even here, seemed like such a sweet luxury at this hour. "I know you and Dr. Gast have been busy this week, too, but…" She collapsed into the chair, sighing in spite of herself, and rested her head against the high back. "I just…I don't know." She lifted one hand to her forehead, massaging her temples. "I could say it's been a rough week, but that doesn't even begin to cover it." She laughed halfheartedly and dropped her hand to her side, keeping her eyes closed against the cold white light.

She heard Hojo's dry chuckle from somewhere on her right. "The burden of proof is on you, my dear, and most of Shinra's bureaucratic torture." He carefully lowered the chair to a reclining position. "Well… no matter. I imagine you're prepared." Through the low buzzing in her head—funny, that's only supposed to kick in after the treatments start, she thought—she felt the scientist's light touch on her wrist, rolling up her sleeve. Wary but too tired to protest, she let him expose the pale, bruised skin of her inner arm and probe gently for an available vein.

"Ow. What is this, number twenty-five?"

"Seventeen," Hojo answered absently.

Lucrecia groaned. "I look like some Mako addict from the slums."

"Hm," muttered the scientist, as he turned away to wheel in the unearthly metal skeleton that held the cell-and-Mako drip. Lucrecia flinched as the needle bit into her flesh, then slowly relaxed. The low, humming dizziness that accompanied the treatments merged with the heavy weight of sleep already hanging on her mind, lulling her close to unconsciousness. Only Hojo's voice lifted her out of it. "Speaking of the slums, I've heard something about… something happening… the day before the meeting."

Lucrecia opened her eyes a bit; Hojo had retreated to his chair, which was pulled up near the vinyl chair she lay in. His thin hands lay limp on the arms of the chair, and the fluorescent light reflected from his glasses, obscuring his eyes.

"Hm?…oh… yeah," she replied foggily. "Um, my sister. My…my sister is getting married."

"I see. To that guard from the winter party?"

"Mm-hmm. Reece."

"You'll be leaving early, then, I assume. I would advise you not to fly."

"Yeah, yeah, I know… Dr. Gast and Vincent said the same thing." She yawned, then stopped short with a grunt of pain as an involuntary stretch moved the needle. She lay back and stared up at the thinly green, faintly murky fluid in the tube as it descended toward her arm. The silver shielding on the bag prevented her from seeing exactly how much was being dispensed, but she thought she could see the bag shrinking slowly. Her free hand moved absently to her swollen stomach, resting there without moving. She dimly sensed that Hojo was watching it all.

The air was motionless at this hour, the house above still and empty, the lab quiet but for the faint, dream-addled scratching of the slumbering Mako mice. The scientist's voice was low, almost inaudible, as if he were speaking more to himself than to Lucrecia. His normally acerbic tones were neutral and flat with encroaching sleep and a trace of alcohol. "Vincent, you said. Vincent Valentine, that Turk… you still persist in seeing him."

"Of course," Lucrecia muttered, not sure whether she were answering to reality or a strange, Mako-induced dream. "I love him."

There was silence for a time. The trace of green pulsed softly against the room's white light. "I don't see what he can possibly offer you."

"He loves me."

Silence. "You make it sound so simple."

"It is. And… and he's good to me. Respects me, listens to me, all of that."

"That's hardly extraordinary. Any man would do the same."

"No one has so far…"

"Besides, your decision to follow the Project crushed him. The boy must be a fool to go on with it after that… a fool or a masochist."

"No… I don't know. He knows…"

"And he's hardly…" The voice trailed off into nothing, leaving the sentence forever unspoken.

"…he knows…"

Vincent, at the door, when I came home from work aching and disgusted…

…there, always there, with that sense he has of knowing…

Vincent at the ball, killing to keep me safe, that immense potential for evil turned to good…

…because he knew he was the only one I…

Vincent telling me, in secret, how good, how beautiful he thinks I am…

…holding me when I can't breathe for crying, late at night, from the ruination of my life, because…

He said he loves me, that he'll stay with me even after this. Because he loves me and he knows…

He knows…

"…he knows I need him."

Silence.

"Is that all."

"And I love him…"

Silence.

The green light slid silently into her blood, carrying with it the seeds of destruction.

"Do you."

Silence.

"There is no reason in what you say. None at all." She heard no sound, but clinically careful hands now lay over the sleeping power in her body, over the thing that was not quite hers and not quite another's. "But there's nothing I can do about it now."

Silence.

"Not at the moment…"

The voice said no more, and Lucrecia slid completely into a featureless darkness. In time the loaded thrum of energy faded away, and she drifted close enough to light to hear voices, two of them. Both voices were familiar, hard-edged and unclear, like knives concealed in velvet. She felt herself lifted, uncertainly, then surely, bundled up like a child. She went limp again with relief, smelling the faint sweetness of a familiar cologne.

"I swear to God, Hojo, if you've drugged her again—"

"Quiet. She's asleep; she's exhausted. Take her home and see that she sleeps until the train leaves tomorrow."

The silence now was different, charged with energy.

"Valentine."

No answer.

"If anything happens to her, I'll see that you live to regret it."

The world warped around this, the silence between these two men. It stretched from horizon to horizon, to the end of the world. "Nothing will happen. She'll finally be away from you."

Silence. Lucrecia let herself slide away in it now, knowing that Vincent's arms were around her somewhere, in another world.