Author's Note: I finally have this down. Thie chapter, then one more. So, with some further. . .stallation by the author. . .Silver Rose, Chapter Thirteen! The story, with intro and art, is hosted at http://www.geocities.com/gutterpunk33/silverrose/ Sorry for such the long wait. I do believe this is the longest I've taken for a chapter. And I refuse to believe a 7/6 creature is illegal in Magic: The Gathering!
Silver Rose
by Reno Spiegel
Dante@towernetwork.net
December 5, 3076
Afternoon. Office. JRL. 12:12 P.M.
"There are no leads on whom the criminals may be, and there will be a funeral held for the Professor later this week." - Reporter, Junon News
"Oh, fuck."
I'm now standing inside the elevator, after Jinaisim and Reno have opened the hatch on the floor, and looking down. Fifty-eight stories of cold blackness, and I'm about to be forced down there, watching the numbers and grabbing for all hell when I see a lit-up "20" coming up.
Actually, now I'm jabbing a finger at Reno, who's as calm as anything, making jumbled sentences about all the reasons I shouldn't do this. "Aerophobia" and "instant death" come up a few times, but he takes my pause to explain, in that same calm, reasoning voice, that I'm the only one that can do the job. "Look, Reno," I ground out at him, "I see no apparent reason that you can't jump down there yourself! Jesus, you know the system better than I do, and I'm sure you're a lot more in shape!"
He raises two fingers at me, cigarette between, and blows a line of smoke at me before he says anything. Jinaisim has his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, and Aeris is sitting on the floor next to him incase it starts resulting in punches. "Of course you see no apparent reason. It's not apparent. Fuck, you could guess all day and you might hit it once in a green moon. If you know it's coming, you'll never pull it off. Basic instinct of your kind, Sephiroth."
My eyes narrow. I'm sick of playing this idiot's games. "Jesus, Reno! This is all one of your big mind tricks to make me keep my hope till the last minute, then end up as a splatter of red on the floor, isn't it? You're tricking me so you can call the Force, get those two arrested, and take over the whole fuckin' place!" Actually, I'm shooting in the dark. Hell if I know what I'm saying. But the one thing I do know is. . . "And you're not throwing me down the shaft!!"
Jinaisim puts his hands on his face and sighs through his fingers. "Seph', I trust what Reno says. He's been right this whole time, and even though I don't know what your "kind" is, I'm behind him." Aeris is staring at her feet. Reno's smoking almost-peacefully. I'm fuming. Welcome to the fucking crime family.
"You're going down the shaft, and we're all getting out of here alive." I draw the blade, Masamune by the name on the handle, from my waist and hold it in a defensive stance. This guy's going to get a fight if he wants me to go down there. "Oh, for God's sake, Sephiroth, stop it. You don't even have to question the fact that I could have you down quicker than your old rival could've." Speak Hojo's name after death, you get a mouth full of lead, or, in this case, a vision full of steel.
"Don't." One word, even as the sword rushes at the space between his eyes. I'll kill him this time. Send me to my death, I'll chop you in half. Everything slows down, except for him. He lifts an arm and presses two fingers to his forehead. "Murney de pantra." Just like the dream, it bounces off the back of my head and rings in my skull for a solid three seconds. He reaches the fingers out toward me, and his eyes glow. Blood red. Demon red. Eight-foot, speaks-no-English demon red. "Fires of hate, flames of revenge." His lips move now, and a green aura flares around him for a brief second. "Tongue of Jenova!"
Everything goes back to normal speed, and I'm hurled head-over-heels backward into the elevator. As if dropping a nail, I soar down the open hatch without so much as a scrape against one of its sides. I can't see anthing ahead of me, and I can't wrench my head around to see above me, but in a few seconds of free-fall, I hear Aeris. And it's the worst sound I've ever heard. Not only does she scream my name, it's so desperate my head almost explodes.
Let's think over what's happened throughout the day, hm? I woke up, figured out how madly in love I am with Aeris, and then went to breakfast. Got a nice new coat, went shopping, and wound up in the middle of a triple-murder. Now I'm plummetting down an elevator shaft and all I can think about is how bad I have it. God, Seph', buck up and take death like a man. Although I wouldn't know a thing about that, I've been surrendering to people for almost twenty years, up until a few months ago.
I'm going down head-first and all I can do is scold myself. As if Reno's not doing enough of that. From above, he's swearing at me like a sailor, telling me to believe, telling me to hate him. Muney de pantra, murney de pantra, hate me, belive, think that you hate me! Just shut the fuck UP!!!
And then it happens. I'm not sure exactly what "it" is, but it hurts like a bitch. I'm jerked up for a swift second, my back feeling as if the spine had just been pulled out of my leg, and then I start to float slowly downward. In the event of a lockdown, the Force uses rapelling equipment to climb the elevator shafts. Therefore, there are lighted numbers above each doorway, and a button inside opens each automatically. I watch the numbers intently, and although I want to know what slowed me down so suddenly, the first one I lay eyes on says twenty-three.
Twenty-two. . .
Twenty-one. . .
I lean forward, jerk a few times, and then latch onto the ledge for floor twenty. Although I think my legs are going to continue on and the jerk of the blow will knock me all the way down, I reach up and press the button with complete ease. The doors slide open and I blink in the new light for a moment, but then all I hear is the humming of flourescent lights and the ringing of a phone.
The floor is completely vacant, and I, Sephiroth, have just leaped down thirty-eight floors of elevator to open a door without a scratch. Hell yeah. I grunt and pull myself onto the tile, only pausing once again when I hear a sound like ripping fabric, then look back to see something black disappear quickly behind my shoulder. Wonderful. Now I'm stuck with rats. I fucking hate rats. Using all the strength my legs possess, I swing myself up and stumble onto the twentieth floor of the Junon Research Lab. I made it. And I'm alive.
I reach back to try to snag the rat, but all I feel is a large rip -- no, two -- in my coat and small somethings scattered all the way down my back. I turn around. More on the floor. I kneel down and examine a few. Then I stand up and back away as fast as possible. No, no, no, no. . .
I did NOT just see feathers.
I rip the earpiece out of my pocket and blurt into it, "Reno, what the hell did you see from up there?"
I expect Reno. I get a shaky voice of Aeris. She forces out total nonsense statements, and then explodes when I tell her to calm down and explain it. "Would you be fucking calm if you saw somebody blasted to their Goddamn death and turn into a fucking angel halfway down?!!"
An angel. Reno used his little trick, blasted me down the shaft, and I got angry and turned into, most-likely, the true form of a Cetra. No more walking around oblivious. I'm putting two and two together for my own self now. "Put. Reno. On." She's mad, but eventually, she turns the communicator over to Reno. I'm still standing here, looking at the shaft as if Lucifer himself had just jumped down. And maybe, just maybe, he did.
"What fucking game are you playing, Reno? What Goddamn game is worth all this?" I haven't even given him a chance to say Hello before I'm all over him. What has this turned me into?
He sighs, as if talking to a disobedient child. "The game I'm playing just might save all our asses and let you know what you can actually do. Now, you're going to -- and keep in mind, you make no decisions as of now, Angel Boy -- look around for the safe I told you about, use the cracking equipment, and let me know when you're ready for the code."
After a minutes or two of solid swearing, some in hate and some in fear, I no longer question him. I don't yell at him. Because either one will probably get me killed. I feel my back again as I walk toward the safe, right next to the elevator. Two long rips. About three feet long. The black thing disappearing under my shoulder must've been the end of the wing. Makes sense that my back hurt, then. I pull out the safe-cracker and do the process just like he told me. It's oddly easy, then again, he's a Turk; they have some high-tech equipment.
Just like he said, and the safe opens with very little resistance. A steel door makes sense for the weight, though. Alright, just one more -- . . .Oh, fuck, yet again. I've got the communicator in my hand again. "Reno, we have a problem."
"Of course we do." Why doesn't he ever sound worried? It's unnerving as all hell. "Aeris is in the bathroom, puking her guts out because dead people smell bad. I'll throw him down as soon as you give me your news."
I take a look around again. I'm sure of it. Plenty of safes along the wall, but, "There's no pedestal. Just a bunch of ShinRa-marked safes, same size, along one wall. What's your plan now?"
"Think loose tiles. Do you think Hojo would be stupid enough to leave it in plain sight if we know it's somewhere in there? The other ones are all testubes and Jenova files. so don't mind those. And if it's not in there, you try your best to fly back up here and we decide what to do then." He's like the teacher your had at the end of the day in school. So perfect, you just can't wait to leave him and go home. "And if you don't make it back up, in event the tiles aren't loose, me, Jinaisim, and Aeris shoot each other."
Fucking comforting, jackass. I mutter and go about tapping the tiles with my foot. Solid. Solid. Solid. I do this around the entire room, then go back and do it again. No good. No loose tiles. Deciding I'm a bit pissed off, I kick the cabinet in the middle of the room. The glass, a few jewels behind it, shatters, but the thing doesn't move. I kick the side. It doesn't budge. Fall, damn you! I hurl myself at it.
Rooted in place.
I grab the comm from my ear. "Reno, when we get out of here, you're paying for all my therapy."
He laughs. "When we get out. Alright, so this means you found it and you need the code, am I right?"
I give him the bad news that the tiles are all solid. "All we've got down here's some cabinet thing with some," I walk over to it and inspect the jewels for a moment, "damn rocks or diamonds or something." He asks what kind, says they might be valuable somewhere down the road. My God, we're all about to die and he wants to know what kind of rocks they are. "Like I know." I reach forward and pick one up. It's attached to a string, and flies back as soon as I lift it.
The cabinet hisses and opens up slightly, expanding as the jewel case rotates out of view, and infront of me comes a panel with two, what look like, small, metal hoses coming out of the sides. He's laughing in my ear again. I jumped a solid four feet backward. "Funny. Reeeeal funny. Alright, give me the code." I hear some rustling.
"Fuck."
Fuck is never a good exclamation a time of seriousness. Fuck is actually probably the worst warning sign you can get in one, to be honest. "Why fuck? Fuck isn't good, Reno. What's going on?"
"I forgot."
I swear, if I could reach that far, I would be choking him already. He forgot. How Reno. Only Reno would get into a place as serious as this, then tell you he can't remember the access code. I can see two switches already. Elevators: Off. Cameras: On. And a flashing Code box on a small screen above a keyboard. "Okay, then. Well, we'll have to lift up the panel and wire it." As a kid, I got plenty of experience with wires. And ifn you punch the panel hard enough, like so. I ram my holey hand into it and it pops up softly.
Viola.
Almost.
A message flashes across the screen: "ERROR: GAS RELEASE COMMENCING." The two pipes extend about an inch and hiss. I sniff. In about three minutes, the room will have enough gas in it to blow that steel door behind me completely across the twentieth floor, thanks to possibly one of the most effective security systems in the entire Junon Research Lab. "Father" knows son, son is screwed, group planning to perform illegal activities inside vault is screwed tenfold.
"Reno, there's a gas release."
He pauses for a few moments, or else someone had his device hands it back to him. "Problem?"
"That means that if I screw up during the rewiring process, the entire place blows. Didn't you listen in school?"
"I flunked eighth grade over and over until I was old enough to drop out and learned everything else from Tseng, thanks." That comes with a chuckle. Sounds like him. "One word of advice: Don't screw up."
He doesn't have to say anymore. He basically just told me everyone up there's counting on me to make sure the elevators are working in a few minutes and that a screw-up means they're all dead. Blow out the twentieth floor, everything above is screwed. No pressure, Sephiroth. None at all. I lift the panel the rest of the way off and look at the shitty wiring job in the first place. An infant could rewire this.
Assuming Hojo isn't smart enough to pull any tricks, I carefully go about the job. Next to the wire-cutting tools I don't have, my newfound weapons I'd insisted on bringing incase the Force was down here is my best bet. I'll have you know, doing a rewiring job with a seven-foot katana when one tiny error means you're for sale, now in crispy recipe, isn't too simple.
Nevertheless, in about ten minutes, the panel is back on.
And the switches work.
"Lady and gentlemen of Floor Fifty-Eight of the Junon Research Lab, we now have elevator power. The dumbass downstairs apologizes for the inconvenience." I hear whooping cheers, about as loud as you can get from a group of three, and the sound of an elevator door closing a few seconds later. The tubes are on reverse now, and seeing as how safes are usually crackless, I think most of the gas will be back where it belongs in a few seconds.
When they get to the twentieth floor, shockingly without incident, it's about as tearful of a reunion as three guys and a girl can get, without me, Jinaisim, and Reno actually crying. The latter stays in the elevator a moment, as Aeris hurls herself out and clutches me as if I'm going to fly away.
Oh, yeah. The wings.
Reno, briefcase in hand, hurls two uniforms at Aeris and I. Two Turk suits. "So they can't suspect you," he says. Obviously, we may have a little company on our way out the door. We slip into different corners on the floor and return a few minutes later, looking as officially-Shinra as possible. Reno, ever resourceful, shoves our clothes into the case and we re-group onto the elevator.
"Who are you?"
At first, I think she says it to me, but when I turn around, Jinaisim is being stared at by Aeris' large green eyes, looking perfectly at ease. "You wanna die today?" The entire elevator seems to tense and then relax as he says, "Then don't ask me yet." It's a fair deal. You save our asses from Hojo, we let you have your secrets. Somehow, though, I think we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future. Aeris grips my hand, and I hers.
As if fifty floors up, the world doesn't exist, people down here are going about their usual business. They only pause to look at the three Turks and one. . .whatever, walking off the elevator. Reno nods at anyone who catches his eye, as if to say, "It's under control." We get outside, glad to be away from then smell of the dead, and see the Turk van waiting for us.
I blink. I had that last. "But I thought. . ."
"Yeah. I took it." Reno looks as confused as I do. "What, you thought I walked back to ShinRa?"
Fair enough. Freedom. I just realized, in the cool air, we're absolutely free for the time. No ShinRa firing at us, no cuffs on our wrists. We're just. . .free. Jinaisim points down the road. "I'll be leavin' now. You people are enough to kill me."
"Walk backward. Sephiroth here's known for shooting guys in the back."
Ha. Ha. I wonder where we'll head now, Aeris and I. Cities haven't really been our thing for a while now, and ShinRa's still hanging around, so Midgar or Junon are out. Costa del Sol irritates me, so we're done with that place. Maybe somewhere like Nibelheim, up in the mountains. A nice, quiet town where we could settle down with the kid and live in near-peace.
I look down the street. Jinaisim's already headed off. The other way, Reno's sticking his head out of the van and jerking a thumb behind him, toward the back. "Y'snooze, y'lose. Aeris got to it first. You and the other guys in the back, I guess."
Other guys. . .? Oh, God. Another ambush, I can see it now. I'll run back there, try to climb in, and they'll riddle me with bullets. I knew I couldn't trust Reno. Nevertheless, I find myself pulled toward the back of the van. The door opens without a struggle, and I see two men sitting on the tire-coves at a table bolted into the floor, staring back at me with playing cards in their hands. On has tall, golden, spikey hair that touches the ceiling, and looks downright puzzled.
Reno, peering at me through a little doorway in the van, smirks like the devil himself.
Because across the table from the blonde man, I know the other who mirrors the smirk for the first time I've ever seen. "Heya, Punk."
"Hello, Rude."
Veeeeery fucking funny.
I climb in the back and sit under the table, all the while telling myself, as I hear chuckles from all four and the van lurches forward, this is gonna be one helluva trip.
Silver Rose
by Reno Spiegel
Dante@towernetwork.net
December 5, 3076
Afternoon. Office. JRL. 12:12 P.M.
"There are no leads on whom the criminals may be, and there will be a funeral held for the Professor later this week." - Reporter, Junon News
"Oh, fuck."
I'm now standing inside the elevator, after Jinaisim and Reno have opened the hatch on the floor, and looking down. Fifty-eight stories of cold blackness, and I'm about to be forced down there, watching the numbers and grabbing for all hell when I see a lit-up "20" coming up.
Actually, now I'm jabbing a finger at Reno, who's as calm as anything, making jumbled sentences about all the reasons I shouldn't do this. "Aerophobia" and "instant death" come up a few times, but he takes my pause to explain, in that same calm, reasoning voice, that I'm the only one that can do the job. "Look, Reno," I ground out at him, "I see no apparent reason that you can't jump down there yourself! Jesus, you know the system better than I do, and I'm sure you're a lot more in shape!"
He raises two fingers at me, cigarette between, and blows a line of smoke at me before he says anything. Jinaisim has his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, and Aeris is sitting on the floor next to him incase it starts resulting in punches. "Of course you see no apparent reason. It's not apparent. Fuck, you could guess all day and you might hit it once in a green moon. If you know it's coming, you'll never pull it off. Basic instinct of your kind, Sephiroth."
My eyes narrow. I'm sick of playing this idiot's games. "Jesus, Reno! This is all one of your big mind tricks to make me keep my hope till the last minute, then end up as a splatter of red on the floor, isn't it? You're tricking me so you can call the Force, get those two arrested, and take over the whole fuckin' place!" Actually, I'm shooting in the dark. Hell if I know what I'm saying. But the one thing I do know is. . . "And you're not throwing me down the shaft!!"
Jinaisim puts his hands on his face and sighs through his fingers. "Seph', I trust what Reno says. He's been right this whole time, and even though I don't know what your "kind" is, I'm behind him." Aeris is staring at her feet. Reno's smoking almost-peacefully. I'm fuming. Welcome to the fucking crime family.
"You're going down the shaft, and we're all getting out of here alive." I draw the blade, Masamune by the name on the handle, from my waist and hold it in a defensive stance. This guy's going to get a fight if he wants me to go down there. "Oh, for God's sake, Sephiroth, stop it. You don't even have to question the fact that I could have you down quicker than your old rival could've." Speak Hojo's name after death, you get a mouth full of lead, or, in this case, a vision full of steel.
"Don't." One word, even as the sword rushes at the space between his eyes. I'll kill him this time. Send me to my death, I'll chop you in half. Everything slows down, except for him. He lifts an arm and presses two fingers to his forehead. "Murney de pantra." Just like the dream, it bounces off the back of my head and rings in my skull for a solid three seconds. He reaches the fingers out toward me, and his eyes glow. Blood red. Demon red. Eight-foot, speaks-no-English demon red. "Fires of hate, flames of revenge." His lips move now, and a green aura flares around him for a brief second. "Tongue of Jenova!"
Everything goes back to normal speed, and I'm hurled head-over-heels backward into the elevator. As if dropping a nail, I soar down the open hatch without so much as a scrape against one of its sides. I can't see anthing ahead of me, and I can't wrench my head around to see above me, but in a few seconds of free-fall, I hear Aeris. And it's the worst sound I've ever heard. Not only does she scream my name, it's so desperate my head almost explodes.
Let's think over what's happened throughout the day, hm? I woke up, figured out how madly in love I am with Aeris, and then went to breakfast. Got a nice new coat, went shopping, and wound up in the middle of a triple-murder. Now I'm plummetting down an elevator shaft and all I can think about is how bad I have it. God, Seph', buck up and take death like a man. Although I wouldn't know a thing about that, I've been surrendering to people for almost twenty years, up until a few months ago.
I'm going down head-first and all I can do is scold myself. As if Reno's not doing enough of that. From above, he's swearing at me like a sailor, telling me to believe, telling me to hate him. Muney de pantra, murney de pantra, hate me, belive, think that you hate me! Just shut the fuck UP!!!
And then it happens. I'm not sure exactly what "it" is, but it hurts like a bitch. I'm jerked up for a swift second, my back feeling as if the spine had just been pulled out of my leg, and then I start to float slowly downward. In the event of a lockdown, the Force uses rapelling equipment to climb the elevator shafts. Therefore, there are lighted numbers above each doorway, and a button inside opens each automatically. I watch the numbers intently, and although I want to know what slowed me down so suddenly, the first one I lay eyes on says twenty-three.
Twenty-two. . .
Twenty-one. . .
I lean forward, jerk a few times, and then latch onto the ledge for floor twenty. Although I think my legs are going to continue on and the jerk of the blow will knock me all the way down, I reach up and press the button with complete ease. The doors slide open and I blink in the new light for a moment, but then all I hear is the humming of flourescent lights and the ringing of a phone.
The floor is completely vacant, and I, Sephiroth, have just leaped down thirty-eight floors of elevator to open a door without a scratch. Hell yeah. I grunt and pull myself onto the tile, only pausing once again when I hear a sound like ripping fabric, then look back to see something black disappear quickly behind my shoulder. Wonderful. Now I'm stuck with rats. I fucking hate rats. Using all the strength my legs possess, I swing myself up and stumble onto the twentieth floor of the Junon Research Lab. I made it. And I'm alive.
I reach back to try to snag the rat, but all I feel is a large rip -- no, two -- in my coat and small somethings scattered all the way down my back. I turn around. More on the floor. I kneel down and examine a few. Then I stand up and back away as fast as possible. No, no, no, no. . .
I did NOT just see feathers.
I rip the earpiece out of my pocket and blurt into it, "Reno, what the hell did you see from up there?"
I expect Reno. I get a shaky voice of Aeris. She forces out total nonsense statements, and then explodes when I tell her to calm down and explain it. "Would you be fucking calm if you saw somebody blasted to their Goddamn death and turn into a fucking angel halfway down?!!"
An angel. Reno used his little trick, blasted me down the shaft, and I got angry and turned into, most-likely, the true form of a Cetra. No more walking around oblivious. I'm putting two and two together for my own self now. "Put. Reno. On." She's mad, but eventually, she turns the communicator over to Reno. I'm still standing here, looking at the shaft as if Lucifer himself had just jumped down. And maybe, just maybe, he did.
"What fucking game are you playing, Reno? What Goddamn game is worth all this?" I haven't even given him a chance to say Hello before I'm all over him. What has this turned me into?
He sighs, as if talking to a disobedient child. "The game I'm playing just might save all our asses and let you know what you can actually do. Now, you're going to -- and keep in mind, you make no decisions as of now, Angel Boy -- look around for the safe I told you about, use the cracking equipment, and let me know when you're ready for the code."
After a minutes or two of solid swearing, some in hate and some in fear, I no longer question him. I don't yell at him. Because either one will probably get me killed. I feel my back again as I walk toward the safe, right next to the elevator. Two long rips. About three feet long. The black thing disappearing under my shoulder must've been the end of the wing. Makes sense that my back hurt, then. I pull out the safe-cracker and do the process just like he told me. It's oddly easy, then again, he's a Turk; they have some high-tech equipment.
Just like he said, and the safe opens with very little resistance. A steel door makes sense for the weight, though. Alright, just one more -- . . .Oh, fuck, yet again. I've got the communicator in my hand again. "Reno, we have a problem."
"Of course we do." Why doesn't he ever sound worried? It's unnerving as all hell. "Aeris is in the bathroom, puking her guts out because dead people smell bad. I'll throw him down as soon as you give me your news."
I take a look around again. I'm sure of it. Plenty of safes along the wall, but, "There's no pedestal. Just a bunch of ShinRa-marked safes, same size, along one wall. What's your plan now?"
"Think loose tiles. Do you think Hojo would be stupid enough to leave it in plain sight if we know it's somewhere in there? The other ones are all testubes and Jenova files. so don't mind those. And if it's not in there, you try your best to fly back up here and we decide what to do then." He's like the teacher your had at the end of the day in school. So perfect, you just can't wait to leave him and go home. "And if you don't make it back up, in event the tiles aren't loose, me, Jinaisim, and Aeris shoot each other."
Fucking comforting, jackass. I mutter and go about tapping the tiles with my foot. Solid. Solid. Solid. I do this around the entire room, then go back and do it again. No good. No loose tiles. Deciding I'm a bit pissed off, I kick the cabinet in the middle of the room. The glass, a few jewels behind it, shatters, but the thing doesn't move. I kick the side. It doesn't budge. Fall, damn you! I hurl myself at it.
Rooted in place.
I grab the comm from my ear. "Reno, when we get out of here, you're paying for all my therapy."
He laughs. "When we get out. Alright, so this means you found it and you need the code, am I right?"
I give him the bad news that the tiles are all solid. "All we've got down here's some cabinet thing with some," I walk over to it and inspect the jewels for a moment, "damn rocks or diamonds or something." He asks what kind, says they might be valuable somewhere down the road. My God, we're all about to die and he wants to know what kind of rocks they are. "Like I know." I reach forward and pick one up. It's attached to a string, and flies back as soon as I lift it.
The cabinet hisses and opens up slightly, expanding as the jewel case rotates out of view, and infront of me comes a panel with two, what look like, small, metal hoses coming out of the sides. He's laughing in my ear again. I jumped a solid four feet backward. "Funny. Reeeeal funny. Alright, give me the code." I hear some rustling.
"Fuck."
Fuck is never a good exclamation a time of seriousness. Fuck is actually probably the worst warning sign you can get in one, to be honest. "Why fuck? Fuck isn't good, Reno. What's going on?"
"I forgot."
I swear, if I could reach that far, I would be choking him already. He forgot. How Reno. Only Reno would get into a place as serious as this, then tell you he can't remember the access code. I can see two switches already. Elevators: Off. Cameras: On. And a flashing Code box on a small screen above a keyboard. "Okay, then. Well, we'll have to lift up the panel and wire it." As a kid, I got plenty of experience with wires. And ifn you punch the panel hard enough, like so. I ram my holey hand into it and it pops up softly.
Viola.
Almost.
A message flashes across the screen: "ERROR: GAS RELEASE COMMENCING." The two pipes extend about an inch and hiss. I sniff. In about three minutes, the room will have enough gas in it to blow that steel door behind me completely across the twentieth floor, thanks to possibly one of the most effective security systems in the entire Junon Research Lab. "Father" knows son, son is screwed, group planning to perform illegal activities inside vault is screwed tenfold.
"Reno, there's a gas release."
He pauses for a few moments, or else someone had his device hands it back to him. "Problem?"
"That means that if I screw up during the rewiring process, the entire place blows. Didn't you listen in school?"
"I flunked eighth grade over and over until I was old enough to drop out and learned everything else from Tseng, thanks." That comes with a chuckle. Sounds like him. "One word of advice: Don't screw up."
He doesn't have to say anymore. He basically just told me everyone up there's counting on me to make sure the elevators are working in a few minutes and that a screw-up means they're all dead. Blow out the twentieth floor, everything above is screwed. No pressure, Sephiroth. None at all. I lift the panel the rest of the way off and look at the shitty wiring job in the first place. An infant could rewire this.
Assuming Hojo isn't smart enough to pull any tricks, I carefully go about the job. Next to the wire-cutting tools I don't have, my newfound weapons I'd insisted on bringing incase the Force was down here is my best bet. I'll have you know, doing a rewiring job with a seven-foot katana when one tiny error means you're for sale, now in crispy recipe, isn't too simple.
Nevertheless, in about ten minutes, the panel is back on.
And the switches work.
"Lady and gentlemen of Floor Fifty-Eight of the Junon Research Lab, we now have elevator power. The dumbass downstairs apologizes for the inconvenience." I hear whooping cheers, about as loud as you can get from a group of three, and the sound of an elevator door closing a few seconds later. The tubes are on reverse now, and seeing as how safes are usually crackless, I think most of the gas will be back where it belongs in a few seconds.
When they get to the twentieth floor, shockingly without incident, it's about as tearful of a reunion as three guys and a girl can get, without me, Jinaisim, and Reno actually crying. The latter stays in the elevator a moment, as Aeris hurls herself out and clutches me as if I'm going to fly away.
Oh, yeah. The wings.
Reno, briefcase in hand, hurls two uniforms at Aeris and I. Two Turk suits. "So they can't suspect you," he says. Obviously, we may have a little company on our way out the door. We slip into different corners on the floor and return a few minutes later, looking as officially-Shinra as possible. Reno, ever resourceful, shoves our clothes into the case and we re-group onto the elevator.
"Who are you?"
At first, I think she says it to me, but when I turn around, Jinaisim is being stared at by Aeris' large green eyes, looking perfectly at ease. "You wanna die today?" The entire elevator seems to tense and then relax as he says, "Then don't ask me yet." It's a fair deal. You save our asses from Hojo, we let you have your secrets. Somehow, though, I think we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future. Aeris grips my hand, and I hers.
As if fifty floors up, the world doesn't exist, people down here are going about their usual business. They only pause to look at the three Turks and one. . .whatever, walking off the elevator. Reno nods at anyone who catches his eye, as if to say, "It's under control." We get outside, glad to be away from then smell of the dead, and see the Turk van waiting for us.
I blink. I had that last. "But I thought. . ."
"Yeah. I took it." Reno looks as confused as I do. "What, you thought I walked back to ShinRa?"
Fair enough. Freedom. I just realized, in the cool air, we're absolutely free for the time. No ShinRa firing at us, no cuffs on our wrists. We're just. . .free. Jinaisim points down the road. "I'll be leavin' now. You people are enough to kill me."
"Walk backward. Sephiroth here's known for shooting guys in the back."
Ha. Ha. I wonder where we'll head now, Aeris and I. Cities haven't really been our thing for a while now, and ShinRa's still hanging around, so Midgar or Junon are out. Costa del Sol irritates me, so we're done with that place. Maybe somewhere like Nibelheim, up in the mountains. A nice, quiet town where we could settle down with the kid and live in near-peace.
I look down the street. Jinaisim's already headed off. The other way, Reno's sticking his head out of the van and jerking a thumb behind him, toward the back. "Y'snooze, y'lose. Aeris got to it first. You and the other guys in the back, I guess."
Other guys. . .? Oh, God. Another ambush, I can see it now. I'll run back there, try to climb in, and they'll riddle me with bullets. I knew I couldn't trust Reno. Nevertheless, I find myself pulled toward the back of the van. The door opens without a struggle, and I see two men sitting on the tire-coves at a table bolted into the floor, staring back at me with playing cards in their hands. On has tall, golden, spikey hair that touches the ceiling, and looks downright puzzled.
Reno, peering at me through a little doorway in the van, smirks like the devil himself.
Because across the table from the blonde man, I know the other who mirrors the smirk for the first time I've ever seen. "Heya, Punk."
"Hello, Rude."
Veeeeery fucking funny.
I climb in the back and sit under the table, all the while telling myself, as I hear chuckles from all four and the van lurches forward, this is gonna be one helluva trip.