FINAL FANTASY VIII: BRIDGES
by Corvus
PART SIX
Without being able to see the movement of the stars and the moon in the velvet dark sky outside the window, Quistis had no way of judging the passage of time. Thirty short minutes on the clock stretched into an eternity in the secret places of her mind as she sat behind Dr. Kadowaki's desk, waiting.
The good news was that Anson Benedict had finally called from Esthar. Kadowaki's instincts had proven themselves again. With the ultra-sensitive equipment at Hyne's Grace, Benedict had detected UPM fluctuations two orders of magnitude lower than the instruments at Balamb Garden could perceive. Millionths of a percent. How anything could survive at that level was completely beyond anyone's knowledge. It did mean, though, that Fujin was indeed still alive, and was holding steady in some near-death state.
The bad news was that no one was sure what to make of the information. The intruder, whatever it was -- Dia had taken to calling it a virus -- was absorbing Fujin's inherent paramagical energy as fast as she could produce it, but was somehow managing to keep her alive at a UPM level nothing should be able to tolerate. The obvious course of action was to give Fujin regular transfusions of UPM-rich solution in order to bring her out of her coma, but at what levels? Would it make the virus stronger? Would attempting to wake Fujin even be worth the risk, since she might not be able to tell them more than Raijin already had?
Quistis rubbed her eyes and reached for the cup of hot tea she had kept full and at hand for... how long was it now? She looked at the clock. (One thirty-six...) Too long. (I'm starting to get caffeine jitters.) She looked over at one of the darkened cubicles, where Xu lay sleeping on the bed. (I can't even begin to imagine what this is like for her. Getting her sister back after so much, but only because she's so close to death... Dear Hyne, I'm going to make myself cry.) Quistis stood and stretched, then strode down to Fujin's isolated room. She didn't even bother looking at the instruments; she knew there would be no change.
Something kept nagging at her, an inescapeable urge. This virus, this intruder, was obviously new, not like a cold or flu. That meant it must have had one of three origins -- mutation, biological engineering, or xenobiological -- alien. If it had mutated from an existing virus, its attack wouldn't be so well-executed, so evolved. That left engineering and alien origin. There was the case of that Galbadian scientist manipulating the genetic codes of local monsters several years ago, but nothing in the records SeeD had captured had mentioned anything about virii. Someone else could have continued the work in Galbadia and used Fujin for a test subject, but that was more complicated than it needed to be. The simplest and therefore most likely answer was that the virus was Lunar in origin.
Of course, once again Quistis had no idea what to do with the information. So what if the virus was Lunar? Without more data there wasn't much anyone could do. If it were discovered that the virus was infecting wildlife, especially the new monster species brought across in the last Lunar Cry, then perhaps a cure could be traced somehow. The blonde Instructor had already contacted Squall. The Commander had been silent for a moment, then thanked her suddenly and closed the link, obviously setting a plan in motion. Of course, any new data could be days in coming, and that wouldn't help Fujin one bit.
None of this was the true source of the continuing tug on Quistis's psyche, though. No, that was something so farfetched she didn't even want to waste time thinking about it... but she couldn't get away from it. What if there were some way to communicate with the intruder? Just because it seemed to behave like a terrestrial virus didn't mean that it behaved *exactly* like a terrestrial virus. What if it had some kind of collective intellect? Could it be reasoned with? Could they reach an accord with it, perhaps even... befriend it?
(Stupid speculation, you ought to know better,) Quistis cursed herself roundly. (You're a professional. You know that in times of great stress the mind will offer all sorts of wild notions to find even a faint hope. Focus on reality and find a cure.) Approaching footsteps made her turn from her blank contemplation of the comatose albino. Dia was approaching with a prepared IV bag. "What's the solution?" she asked.
Kadowaki's assistant grimmaced at the bag. "Seventy percent. If this doesn't work we'll try one hundred. If that doesn't work, well, nobody's ever manged to supersaturate a UPM solution, but there's a first time for everything..."
Quistis made a noncommittal noise and turned back to the window. Even with all her expertise she was as completely lost as the doctor and her assistant. (Someday people might remember us as pioneers and heroes, when all we really are is a bunch of desperate people fumbling in the dark. Amazing how history works.) Beside her, Dia unlocked the cubicle and stepped inside, locking the door again behind her.
Dr. Kadowaki's warm presence materialized at the window next to Quistis. "I don't like this," the matronly physician said, "I don't like it at all. We tested the high-concentration solutions on the blood samples we had and the results were the same, just slower. All the paramagical energy was absorbed."
"Did the rate of absorption increase at all?" Quistis asked. If infusing Fujin's blood with the strong UPM solutions made the virus multiply, the energy would drain faster.
The doctor shook her head and a small smile appeared on her lips. "No. One small mercy. As far as we could tell, the virus did not strengthen or multiply."
Inside the room, Dia hung the IV bag from the stand next to the bed and flushed the transfer tube of air bubbles. She inserted the tube into a small valve that they had placed in Fujin's arm and, after turning to get Kadowaki's final nodded approval, began the transfusion.
--------------------
The fluid level in the bag drained slower than the eye could actually see, but Dia watched it anyway. Anything to avoid looking at Fujin. Every time she looked at the albino, Siren began clamoring for attention in her mind. This was something humans would have to handle, something they would have to learn from, not something to just be tossed to a Guardian Force to fix. The more Siren insisted that Dia consult her, the more the doctor's assistant ignored the GF. Truth be told, she was about to just take the damn stone from around her neck and lock it in a safe.
Dia knew this was only hurting her relationship with the GF, which would be a detriment to any future cooperation between human and spirit avatar. Dia knew that many SeeDs related to their Guardian Forces on a personal level, treating the spirits as true friends, more than just battle allies. It seemed strange to Dia, like a kind of silent admission that SeeDs had trouble making normal friends. She didn't really want anything to do with it. Her relationship with Siren was professional, an alliance of skills to further each other's aims, coworkers and nothing more. Humans were trouble enough, who knew what the alien intelligence of a Guardian Force would demand from one moment to the next for its friendship?
Despite her effots, though, her eyes drifted back to the porcelain skin and silvery hair of the cycloptic woman sleeping on the bed. Just as before, Dia's mind was full of Siren's insistance, but this time the Guardian Force wasn't taking no for an answer. Dia nearly stumbled from the force of the GF's demand for contact and knew that she wouldn't be able to shut Siren out any longer. Opening herself to the contact, Dia turned her mind's eye inward.
Before the darkness of her subconscious could even lift to display the familiar tableau of a rocky shoreline, Siren perched with her harp upon a wave-washed outcropping and bathed in golden light, Dia demanded, her patience snapping, "What in Hyne's name do you want, you feathered nuisance?"
The Guardian Force's winged head drew back, her eyes wide in shock. "Who are you to speak to me with such an insolent tone?" Siren demanded, her lips never moving. The silent voice.
"I'm the healer you've been insolent enough to keep distracting and interrupting. By rights I should have just taken your stone off and gone about my business. Don't give me that crap," Dia spat back, her anger continuing to rise. "Now what do you want?"
Siren's hands stroked the gilded frame of her harp for a moment in obvious consternation. Then, finally, she said, her unvoiced words quiet over the rushing of the waves, "Forgive me. This situation is hard on us all."
"I assume you mean that it's hard on you as a healer as well, then."
The Guardian Force nodded, the elegant rainbowed wings fluttering slightly with the motion. "Aye... but also in my heart."
This gave Dia pause. Fujin's GF was Pandemona, the Wind Lord. Her name even meant "noble lady of the wind" in the language of the Lin Ren. Some believed that Pandemona had chosen Fujin before she had even been born. So why would Siren be so torn up? "I don't understand."
Siren's fingers touched the strings of her harp, evoking a plaintive chord. "Her voice is nearly silent. She is a kindred spirit, dear to me though she is not mine. I would fight this battle with her."
(Just one more example of how weird GFs can be,) Dia thought before realizing an instant later that thought was the same as speech in this inner realm. Siren apparently ignored the offhanded comment. "So basically," said Dia, "you want me to let you try to treat her, even though we don't know anything about what's happening."
"Which is more important, your knowledge or her life?"
(Ouch. Checkmate.) "You're right," Dia admitted. The only life she had a right to risk for knowledge was her own. "Okay. Let's cut a deal. We'll wait for the UPM solution transfusion to finish and see what happens, and then you can do your thing."
"That is agreeable," the Guardian Force said with another gentle nod. She evoked another chord from her harp, this one bright and hopeful. "We wait."
Dia's senses snapped back to reality abruptly. She blinked away her confusion and looked back at the solution bag, which was nearly empty. Time spent with a Guardian Force did that -- sometimes an hour in the inner realm could be seconds in the real world, sometimes the reverse. She didn't care for the unpredictable subjectivity. She felt Siren's presence now, hovering within and around her, almost anxious. Dia restrained herself from sighing in exasperation.
Minutes crawled by. Quistis and Dr. Kadowaki were still watching from outside. At last, it was done. Dia removed the transfer tube from the valve in Fujin's arm and checked the clock, beginning a count. Shortly Dia would draw more blood, which she would give to the doctor to take to the lab for observation while Dia continued to observe Fujin directly. The advance of each second seemed to take a monumental effort from the world. Or perhaps it was just the effort Dia was having to put into remembering to breathe.
"Time," she said to herself when the clock at long last swept out the final second of the wait. Dia began to methodically extract the precious crimson substance of life from Fujin's body, the relief of being free to act making her motions sure and precise. She drew three vials of blood and passed them out to the doctor. Now came yet more waiting.
"Seems like ninety-five percent of everything we do is waiting," Dia muttered to herself as she dropped onto the stool at Fujin's bedside. She fixed her pale eyes on the readouts and finally allowed herself that sigh.
A few minutes later, the numbers fluctuated. Pulse, respiration, everything flickered upward in an instant of astonishing hope. Then the numbers crashed back down to settle where they had been the entire evening, no sign of their brief attempt to rise remaining.
"Dammit! Damn it all!" (Do it,) Dia hissed to Siren. The Guardian Force's essence flared within her...
--------------------
The sound of Dia's curse filtering through the window made Quistis spin from where she stood, reclining against the wall. She pressed against the glass, tapping her palm on its transparent surface. "Dia? What's wrong?" In a horrible realization she saw the beginning of a familiar sight, the manifestation of a Guardian Force's avatar. Traces of gold light outlined the phantom, the lush body of a nearly-naked woman, strange thin wings emerging from her temples and a harp in her grasp. "What are you *doing*?" Quistis shrieked in her astonishment. "No! Dia!"
The manifestation was too far along, there was no turning back. In desperation Quistis jabbed at the wall panel, trying to open the door she knew to be locked. Inside the room, Siren's avatar plucked the strings of her harp, the sound making the wall hum in sympathetic vibration. Somewhere deep inside Quistis recognized the sound. Selphie Tilmitt had briefly Junctioned to Siren during the Ultimecia War and through her Siren had been able to treat poisons and paramagical ailments. That was the sound. But why was Siren *herself* here? Triggering the comm, Quistis shouted, "*Doctor*!"
Kadowaki let loose with a startled oath and something crashed in the lab. Quistis watched helplessly as Siren reached out to touch Fujin... and her hand began to vanish. An unnatural keening burst from the avatar and shattered the window, spraying razor-edged shards across Quistis as she raised her arm and turned in reflex, tearing her uniform and slashing skin. Siren vanished, and Dia crumpled to the floor of the room. On instinct Quistis searched within herself for the energy of a simple healing spell, sealing the welling cuts.
Kadowaki burst from the decontamination chamber and charged full-tilt down the corridor. The doctor collided with Quistis in her haste and fumbled at the wall panel, the first time the Instructor had ever seen her lose her calm demeanor. The door hissed aside and both women tumbled into the room. Fujin and Dia both lay unmoving. A deathly silence had settled over the scene.
The doctor knelt quickly at Dia's side, checking her assitant's pulse and breathing. Trickles of blood had streamed from Dia's eyes, nose and ears, but they were stopped now. "She's alive," Kadowaki said when she completed her examination. "Get her to a bed."
Quistis nodded mutely and, in an action she had not made since the end of the War, shifted the quanta of paramagic within herself, Junctioning the spells to her physical strength. She lifted Dia easily from the floor and carried the unconscious assistant from the room, taking her to the one adjacent and laying her gently on the bed. Reaching inside, Quistis tapped a curing spell and focused its energy on Dia. She didn't know what other damage there might have been, but that would stabilize it for the time being. When Quistis returned to Fujin's room, the doctor was standing, staring at where the window had been.
"What happened?" Kadowaki demanded. Her voice was shaking.
"She..." Quistis swallowed past a sudden constriction in her throat. "She summoned Siren. I don't know why." She stopped, not knowing what to say. At Kadowaki's nod, she continued, "The GF reached out to Fujin and suddenly started to vanish, starting with the hand she had near Fujin. She screamed and disappeared. The sound... That's what broke the window."
"That would explain Dia."
Quistis nodded. "I used a Cure on her," she said simply.
The doctor drew a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm herself. "I'm afraid I have to deputize you for the time being. Get Fujin moved to another room, then inform C-and-C. They'll send a security team, naturally, but that can't be helped. I'll examine Dia... and then I've got to clean up the lab."
"I'm sorry," Quistis offered, but Kadowaki cut off her apology.
"Don't worry about it. It's just some containers and water. I--" Kadowaki stopped, looking over the Instructor's shoulder. Quistis turned to see Xu staring through the gaping hole in the wall, her eyes wide.
(I completely forgot she was still here.) "It's okay, Xu. We've got it under control."
Fujin's sister waved her hand through the space where the glass had been, then looked down at the shattered mess on the floor. "If you say so."
Quistis felt her teeth grinding together. Instead of getting better, this was only getting worse. "Come on, you can help me." She could have lifted Fujin easily by herself, since she still had her paramagic Junctioned to her strength, but she knew that being able to touch her sister would be theraputic for Xu. Together they lifted the comatose albino and carried her through the door and into another room. Isolation procedures were useless now; if the virus could spread by contact they were already all infected anyway. The Instructor left Xu with Fujin and went to inform Command-and-Control of the incident.
(What a night,) she sighed to herself.
by Corvus
PART SIX
Without being able to see the movement of the stars and the moon in the velvet dark sky outside the window, Quistis had no way of judging the passage of time. Thirty short minutes on the clock stretched into an eternity in the secret places of her mind as she sat behind Dr. Kadowaki's desk, waiting.
The good news was that Anson Benedict had finally called from Esthar. Kadowaki's instincts had proven themselves again. With the ultra-sensitive equipment at Hyne's Grace, Benedict had detected UPM fluctuations two orders of magnitude lower than the instruments at Balamb Garden could perceive. Millionths of a percent. How anything could survive at that level was completely beyond anyone's knowledge. It did mean, though, that Fujin was indeed still alive, and was holding steady in some near-death state.
The bad news was that no one was sure what to make of the information. The intruder, whatever it was -- Dia had taken to calling it a virus -- was absorbing Fujin's inherent paramagical energy as fast as she could produce it, but was somehow managing to keep her alive at a UPM level nothing should be able to tolerate. The obvious course of action was to give Fujin regular transfusions of UPM-rich solution in order to bring her out of her coma, but at what levels? Would it make the virus stronger? Would attempting to wake Fujin even be worth the risk, since she might not be able to tell them more than Raijin already had?
Quistis rubbed her eyes and reached for the cup of hot tea she had kept full and at hand for... how long was it now? She looked at the clock. (One thirty-six...) Too long. (I'm starting to get caffeine jitters.) She looked over at one of the darkened cubicles, where Xu lay sleeping on the bed. (I can't even begin to imagine what this is like for her. Getting her sister back after so much, but only because she's so close to death... Dear Hyne, I'm going to make myself cry.) Quistis stood and stretched, then strode down to Fujin's isolated room. She didn't even bother looking at the instruments; she knew there would be no change.
Something kept nagging at her, an inescapeable urge. This virus, this intruder, was obviously new, not like a cold or flu. That meant it must have had one of three origins -- mutation, biological engineering, or xenobiological -- alien. If it had mutated from an existing virus, its attack wouldn't be so well-executed, so evolved. That left engineering and alien origin. There was the case of that Galbadian scientist manipulating the genetic codes of local monsters several years ago, but nothing in the records SeeD had captured had mentioned anything about virii. Someone else could have continued the work in Galbadia and used Fujin for a test subject, but that was more complicated than it needed to be. The simplest and therefore most likely answer was that the virus was Lunar in origin.
Of course, once again Quistis had no idea what to do with the information. So what if the virus was Lunar? Without more data there wasn't much anyone could do. If it were discovered that the virus was infecting wildlife, especially the new monster species brought across in the last Lunar Cry, then perhaps a cure could be traced somehow. The blonde Instructor had already contacted Squall. The Commander had been silent for a moment, then thanked her suddenly and closed the link, obviously setting a plan in motion. Of course, any new data could be days in coming, and that wouldn't help Fujin one bit.
None of this was the true source of the continuing tug on Quistis's psyche, though. No, that was something so farfetched she didn't even want to waste time thinking about it... but she couldn't get away from it. What if there were some way to communicate with the intruder? Just because it seemed to behave like a terrestrial virus didn't mean that it behaved *exactly* like a terrestrial virus. What if it had some kind of collective intellect? Could it be reasoned with? Could they reach an accord with it, perhaps even... befriend it?
(Stupid speculation, you ought to know better,) Quistis cursed herself roundly. (You're a professional. You know that in times of great stress the mind will offer all sorts of wild notions to find even a faint hope. Focus on reality and find a cure.) Approaching footsteps made her turn from her blank contemplation of the comatose albino. Dia was approaching with a prepared IV bag. "What's the solution?" she asked.
Kadowaki's assistant grimmaced at the bag. "Seventy percent. If this doesn't work we'll try one hundred. If that doesn't work, well, nobody's ever manged to supersaturate a UPM solution, but there's a first time for everything..."
Quistis made a noncommittal noise and turned back to the window. Even with all her expertise she was as completely lost as the doctor and her assistant. (Someday people might remember us as pioneers and heroes, when all we really are is a bunch of desperate people fumbling in the dark. Amazing how history works.) Beside her, Dia unlocked the cubicle and stepped inside, locking the door again behind her.
Dr. Kadowaki's warm presence materialized at the window next to Quistis. "I don't like this," the matronly physician said, "I don't like it at all. We tested the high-concentration solutions on the blood samples we had and the results were the same, just slower. All the paramagical energy was absorbed."
"Did the rate of absorption increase at all?" Quistis asked. If infusing Fujin's blood with the strong UPM solutions made the virus multiply, the energy would drain faster.
The doctor shook her head and a small smile appeared on her lips. "No. One small mercy. As far as we could tell, the virus did not strengthen or multiply."
Inside the room, Dia hung the IV bag from the stand next to the bed and flushed the transfer tube of air bubbles. She inserted the tube into a small valve that they had placed in Fujin's arm and, after turning to get Kadowaki's final nodded approval, began the transfusion.
--------------------
The fluid level in the bag drained slower than the eye could actually see, but Dia watched it anyway. Anything to avoid looking at Fujin. Every time she looked at the albino, Siren began clamoring for attention in her mind. This was something humans would have to handle, something they would have to learn from, not something to just be tossed to a Guardian Force to fix. The more Siren insisted that Dia consult her, the more the doctor's assistant ignored the GF. Truth be told, she was about to just take the damn stone from around her neck and lock it in a safe.
Dia knew this was only hurting her relationship with the GF, which would be a detriment to any future cooperation between human and spirit avatar. Dia knew that many SeeDs related to their Guardian Forces on a personal level, treating the spirits as true friends, more than just battle allies. It seemed strange to Dia, like a kind of silent admission that SeeDs had trouble making normal friends. She didn't really want anything to do with it. Her relationship with Siren was professional, an alliance of skills to further each other's aims, coworkers and nothing more. Humans were trouble enough, who knew what the alien intelligence of a Guardian Force would demand from one moment to the next for its friendship?
Despite her effots, though, her eyes drifted back to the porcelain skin and silvery hair of the cycloptic woman sleeping on the bed. Just as before, Dia's mind was full of Siren's insistance, but this time the Guardian Force wasn't taking no for an answer. Dia nearly stumbled from the force of the GF's demand for contact and knew that she wouldn't be able to shut Siren out any longer. Opening herself to the contact, Dia turned her mind's eye inward.
Before the darkness of her subconscious could even lift to display the familiar tableau of a rocky shoreline, Siren perched with her harp upon a wave-washed outcropping and bathed in golden light, Dia demanded, her patience snapping, "What in Hyne's name do you want, you feathered nuisance?"
The Guardian Force's winged head drew back, her eyes wide in shock. "Who are you to speak to me with such an insolent tone?" Siren demanded, her lips never moving. The silent voice.
"I'm the healer you've been insolent enough to keep distracting and interrupting. By rights I should have just taken your stone off and gone about my business. Don't give me that crap," Dia spat back, her anger continuing to rise. "Now what do you want?"
Siren's hands stroked the gilded frame of her harp for a moment in obvious consternation. Then, finally, she said, her unvoiced words quiet over the rushing of the waves, "Forgive me. This situation is hard on us all."
"I assume you mean that it's hard on you as a healer as well, then."
The Guardian Force nodded, the elegant rainbowed wings fluttering slightly with the motion. "Aye... but also in my heart."
This gave Dia pause. Fujin's GF was Pandemona, the Wind Lord. Her name even meant "noble lady of the wind" in the language of the Lin Ren. Some believed that Pandemona had chosen Fujin before she had even been born. So why would Siren be so torn up? "I don't understand."
Siren's fingers touched the strings of her harp, evoking a plaintive chord. "Her voice is nearly silent. She is a kindred spirit, dear to me though she is not mine. I would fight this battle with her."
(Just one more example of how weird GFs can be,) Dia thought before realizing an instant later that thought was the same as speech in this inner realm. Siren apparently ignored the offhanded comment. "So basically," said Dia, "you want me to let you try to treat her, even though we don't know anything about what's happening."
"Which is more important, your knowledge or her life?"
(Ouch. Checkmate.) "You're right," Dia admitted. The only life she had a right to risk for knowledge was her own. "Okay. Let's cut a deal. We'll wait for the UPM solution transfusion to finish and see what happens, and then you can do your thing."
"That is agreeable," the Guardian Force said with another gentle nod. She evoked another chord from her harp, this one bright and hopeful. "We wait."
Dia's senses snapped back to reality abruptly. She blinked away her confusion and looked back at the solution bag, which was nearly empty. Time spent with a Guardian Force did that -- sometimes an hour in the inner realm could be seconds in the real world, sometimes the reverse. She didn't care for the unpredictable subjectivity. She felt Siren's presence now, hovering within and around her, almost anxious. Dia restrained herself from sighing in exasperation.
Minutes crawled by. Quistis and Dr. Kadowaki were still watching from outside. At last, it was done. Dia removed the transfer tube from the valve in Fujin's arm and checked the clock, beginning a count. Shortly Dia would draw more blood, which she would give to the doctor to take to the lab for observation while Dia continued to observe Fujin directly. The advance of each second seemed to take a monumental effort from the world. Or perhaps it was just the effort Dia was having to put into remembering to breathe.
"Time," she said to herself when the clock at long last swept out the final second of the wait. Dia began to methodically extract the precious crimson substance of life from Fujin's body, the relief of being free to act making her motions sure and precise. She drew three vials of blood and passed them out to the doctor. Now came yet more waiting.
"Seems like ninety-five percent of everything we do is waiting," Dia muttered to herself as she dropped onto the stool at Fujin's bedside. She fixed her pale eyes on the readouts and finally allowed herself that sigh.
A few minutes later, the numbers fluctuated. Pulse, respiration, everything flickered upward in an instant of astonishing hope. Then the numbers crashed back down to settle where they had been the entire evening, no sign of their brief attempt to rise remaining.
"Dammit! Damn it all!" (Do it,) Dia hissed to Siren. The Guardian Force's essence flared within her...
--------------------
The sound of Dia's curse filtering through the window made Quistis spin from where she stood, reclining against the wall. She pressed against the glass, tapping her palm on its transparent surface. "Dia? What's wrong?" In a horrible realization she saw the beginning of a familiar sight, the manifestation of a Guardian Force's avatar. Traces of gold light outlined the phantom, the lush body of a nearly-naked woman, strange thin wings emerging from her temples and a harp in her grasp. "What are you *doing*?" Quistis shrieked in her astonishment. "No! Dia!"
The manifestation was too far along, there was no turning back. In desperation Quistis jabbed at the wall panel, trying to open the door she knew to be locked. Inside the room, Siren's avatar plucked the strings of her harp, the sound making the wall hum in sympathetic vibration. Somewhere deep inside Quistis recognized the sound. Selphie Tilmitt had briefly Junctioned to Siren during the Ultimecia War and through her Siren had been able to treat poisons and paramagical ailments. That was the sound. But why was Siren *herself* here? Triggering the comm, Quistis shouted, "*Doctor*!"
Kadowaki let loose with a startled oath and something crashed in the lab. Quistis watched helplessly as Siren reached out to touch Fujin... and her hand began to vanish. An unnatural keening burst from the avatar and shattered the window, spraying razor-edged shards across Quistis as she raised her arm and turned in reflex, tearing her uniform and slashing skin. Siren vanished, and Dia crumpled to the floor of the room. On instinct Quistis searched within herself for the energy of a simple healing spell, sealing the welling cuts.
Kadowaki burst from the decontamination chamber and charged full-tilt down the corridor. The doctor collided with Quistis in her haste and fumbled at the wall panel, the first time the Instructor had ever seen her lose her calm demeanor. The door hissed aside and both women tumbled into the room. Fujin and Dia both lay unmoving. A deathly silence had settled over the scene.
The doctor knelt quickly at Dia's side, checking her assitant's pulse and breathing. Trickles of blood had streamed from Dia's eyes, nose and ears, but they were stopped now. "She's alive," Kadowaki said when she completed her examination. "Get her to a bed."
Quistis nodded mutely and, in an action she had not made since the end of the War, shifted the quanta of paramagic within herself, Junctioning the spells to her physical strength. She lifted Dia easily from the floor and carried the unconscious assistant from the room, taking her to the one adjacent and laying her gently on the bed. Reaching inside, Quistis tapped a curing spell and focused its energy on Dia. She didn't know what other damage there might have been, but that would stabilize it for the time being. When Quistis returned to Fujin's room, the doctor was standing, staring at where the window had been.
"What happened?" Kadowaki demanded. Her voice was shaking.
"She..." Quistis swallowed past a sudden constriction in her throat. "She summoned Siren. I don't know why." She stopped, not knowing what to say. At Kadowaki's nod, she continued, "The GF reached out to Fujin and suddenly started to vanish, starting with the hand she had near Fujin. She screamed and disappeared. The sound... That's what broke the window."
"That would explain Dia."
Quistis nodded. "I used a Cure on her," she said simply.
The doctor drew a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm herself. "I'm afraid I have to deputize you for the time being. Get Fujin moved to another room, then inform C-and-C. They'll send a security team, naturally, but that can't be helped. I'll examine Dia... and then I've got to clean up the lab."
"I'm sorry," Quistis offered, but Kadowaki cut off her apology.
"Don't worry about it. It's just some containers and water. I--" Kadowaki stopped, looking over the Instructor's shoulder. Quistis turned to see Xu staring through the gaping hole in the wall, her eyes wide.
(I completely forgot she was still here.) "It's okay, Xu. We've got it under control."
Fujin's sister waved her hand through the space where the glass had been, then looked down at the shattered mess on the floor. "If you say so."
Quistis felt her teeth grinding together. Instead of getting better, this was only getting worse. "Come on, you can help me." She could have lifted Fujin easily by herself, since she still had her paramagic Junctioned to her strength, but she knew that being able to touch her sister would be theraputic for Xu. Together they lifted the comatose albino and carried her through the door and into another room. Isolation procedures were useless now; if the virus could spread by contact they were already all infected anyway. The Instructor left Xu with Fujin and went to inform Command-and-Control of the incident.
(What a night,) she sighed to herself.