Chapter 13: Shadow Cat
Carson Brecht sat down at his desk, his freshly starched uniform pinching and chafing. He relished the discomfort of the formal Balamb Garden uniform. It was a constant reminder to him that he was an instructor at the best military training facility in the entire world with a blonde bombshell of a girlfriend who was so beautiful that she had her own fan club. Life had treated him well; he was a happy man.
The remains of the previous night's dinner at a posh Balamb restaurant sat on his desk in a to-go box, and the smell of the freshly microwaved meal was making his mouth water. He flipped the box open and looked down at the long, flat noodles smothered in a rich creamy sauce with a smile. They were practically begging to be eaten, lavishing in their container like a naked woman on silk sheets, waiting to sate his hunger.
Ah, Hyne.
Since when did dinner become so sexual?
He really missed Quistis.
He took a bite and then turned in his chair to check his messages. Pleasant thoughts were running through his mind as his fingers moved across the keys and logged into the Balamb Garden network. He was really hoping that he might have a new message from his girlfriend, some hint as to how her mission was going or just a short line letting him know that she was okay. When his mail finally loaded, he had two new messages. He opened the first:
Mr. Brecht,
Thank you for your interest in our magazine. However, we regret to inform you that we do not have any staff openings or freelance opportunities at this time. We wish you luck on any future forays you may make into the world of journalism.
Timber Maniacs
Carson frowned. If complete idiots like Laguna Loire could write for Timber Maniacs, why couldn't he? Frankly, the magazine could use a dose of class. And as an instructor, he thought he had plenty of interesting stories and insights to share. He shrugged. Their loss.
He opened the second message.
Garden staff,
Please be sure to have all of your evaluations in by the end of the week. Also, grades and ranks will be coming out at the end of the month. Remember to have all of your paperwork filed by the twenty fifth! Thank you!
Xu
Nothing from Quistis? He was disappointed and shoved another forkful of pasta into his mouth as he contemplated things. He hadn't heard a word from her since they'd left. For the past few days, he'd been assuming that meant they'd found the island and were busy exploring. After all, if they were still traveling, what else would she have to do but write to him? It was difficult for him to imagine her stuck on a tiny boat with Seifer and Adrian, two of the world's most tiresome men. Seifer was a loser and a screw up, the worst kind of nobody. And Adrian was famous only for his reputation with women. The man had gotten into more panties in Garden than the Island Closest to Heaven had malboros. Together they were everything bad about SeeDs, all arrogance and blood lust without substance. He wouldn't have blamed Quistis if she'd already killed them both.
But now he was starting to get worried. He was beginning to wonder if her silence was evidence that something horrible had happened. Maybe Adrian had done something stupid, or Seifer had gotten Quistis hurt and she was stranded in the middle of the ocean without anyone there to help her. Throwing down his fork, he got up from his desk and started toward the third floor. He needed to have a chat with Cid.
Xu looked surprised when he entered the headmaster's office.
"Can I help you, Instructor Brecht?" she asked.
"I need to speak to the headmaster. Is he in?"
"Not right now." She shook her head. "It's after hours. He's eating dinner."
"Well, I need to speak to him immediately," Carson replied. "It's about Quistis."
"What about her?"
"Something's happened to her."
"What?"
"I don't know. But I haven't heard from her in days," he explained.
"I'm sure she's fine," Xu soothed. "She's just on a mission. She's busy. And Seifer and Adrian are with her. They're more than capable of—"
"Please! Don't talk to me about Seifer and Adrian," Carson interrupted. "Just tell the headmaster I need to speak to him when he gets back. Have him call me. I don't care what time it is."
"All right." Xu shrugged and wrote a note on a small pad of pink paper on her desk. "I'll let him know."
He'd never let Quistis run off blindly into danger like this again, he promised himself as he left.
0 0 0
Quistis unzipped her vest. Seifer stood behind her, his presence radiating throughout the room. It made her nervous knowing he was so close at hand, even if he wasn't actually watching her undress. Carefully, she hooked the few hair pins she'd scrounged from the bottom of her backpack to the front of her bra, lining them up right between her breasts where she could easily access them. Behind her, Seifer was pulling some wire from the collar of his trench coat. He was angry about having to rip his beloved coat apart and swore every time the fabric tore.
"Here. This is all you're getting," he said and handed her a chunk of wire.
"Should be enough," she said and added it to the growing arsenal on her bra. Her feet were bare against the cool cement floor and her whip was already coiled at her side. The weight of it there was reassuring.
"Don't do anything stupid out there," Seifer said as she zipped her vest.
"I'll do what I have to in order to get what we need. But…I'll be careful. Don't worry."
"I meant, don't screw up," he replied.
Ah, Seifer. He hadn't lost any of that special Almasy charm.
"If you're not back in an hour, I'm coming to get you," he added. "And I don't care if they've developed the cure for cancer here, I'll kill them all. Understood?"
"Absolutely."
She wouldn't have felt safer even if Squall himself were baking her up. Still, she could feel the adrenaline rush coming. This was what she had been trained to do: infiltrating enemy territory, defeating evil, gathering intel. She hadn't had a mission quite like this one since the Galbadian missile base years ago. Though, hopefully, this one would have a better end than the Galbadian one which had found her hiding with Selphie and Irvine inside an armored vehicle while the entire base explosively self-destructed around them.
"Wish me luck," she said.
He smiled. "Luck is for people who need it."
Blushing a little, remembering so many years before when she'd teased him about needing a dose of luck to pass his field exam, she quietly slipped out of the room and into the half-lit hallway. It was late, long past dark, and there was no light coming from underneath most of the doors she passed. She had an idea where she was going but was only half sure how to get there. The area she and Seifer were staying in was obviously a dormitory wing — there'd be nothing interesting there. She wanted to get back to was the hallway where they'd overheard the conversation since that seemed to be both a restricted area Abra did not want them in and an area frequented by the people in charge. It was her best bet of finding a solid lead.
She was approaching the cafeteria when she heard voices up ahead and ducked into an intersecting hallway, plastering herself up against the wall and straining to hear every word.
"…think they know?" A male voice, low baritone.
"I doubt it." This one was female. Though, they weren't the same couple she'd overheard before.
"Did you hear about 454?" the man asked. "It's a fucking shame. Was just a baby yet. I didn't even get the chance to check it for the I9 mutation before they destroyed the body…said that wasn't a high priority concern. Like, yeah…whatever. They'll change their minds if it manifests in the beta group."
"I heard," the woman replied, then changed the subject. "Are you going to stay?"
"With you?" he asked, sounding playful.
"Well…yeah." She giggled girlishly, like the way Rinoa sometimes would. Quistis supposed it was supposed to sound seductive or innocent.
"You know where're supposed to be on call tonight."
"I know. At least this way we'll both be up. Besides…nothing's going to happen," she said and let loose a breathy groan that made Quistis want to gag.
"You're dangerous," the man said, and she heard them kiss. "I like that. Let's go."
Their footsteps hurried by and she caught a glimpse of them as they passed. They were young like everyone else here. Sascha Maurden's age. She stood quiet and still where she was until she heard a door slam down the hall. Then she cautiously continued on.
The first door that caught her interest didn't have any lights on, but thick cables running along the ceiling ran through a hole drilled through the wall and into the room. She crept slowly up to the door and then pressed her ear against it, listening for any sounds from within. After several long moments of hearing nothing at all, she was satisfied that the room was empty and dropped to her knees, reaching inside her vest to retrieve the wire Seifer had pulled from his coat. She bent it in half so that it would be stronger, then slowly inserted it into the lock, feeling for the right mechanism. When she found it, she held it back with the wire, then retrieved a pin and used it to pop the lock.
Easy. Grinning to herself, she slipped the pin and the wire back into her cleavage and silently opened the door. Locking picking was a skill Garden didn't even teach anymore. But damn if it didn't come in handy from time to time. Inside, she shut the door behind her and turned the lock again before running her hand along the wall in search of the light switch.
When it flashed on, she was amazed to see row upon row of computers.
Where the hell were these people getting the energy to run an entire computer lab? Pursing her lips, she walked down the first row and pressed keys on each of the computer keyboards, hoping one of them had been left on and would wake up. None did. But they were all wired — both to one another and to large, boxy printers at the end of each row. It looked unnervingly similar to the lab Garden had recently added to the library.
Puzzled and intrigued, she shut off the lights and escaped back out into the hallway.
The cables running along the ceiling showed her three more computer rooms next to this one. If each were the same size, that would mean they easily had two computers for every person on the island. Perhaps, she thought, they'd been left behind by Esthar, though that seemed unlikely. These weren't the old models that the Estharan military would have left behind. If the islanders had brought all the equipment here, she couldn't imagine what they were using it for. It was a an awful lot of processing power.
As she kept moving, something new got her attention: a set of double-doors. The lock on these was different, more complicated, and she crouched in front of it for several minutes before the lock finally gave way. Releasing the breath she hadn't been aware of holding, she turned the handle and opened one of the doors.
She didn't have to turn on a light. This room was already partially illuminated by an orange glow coming from a set of glass cases covering the whole of one wall. On the shelves sat row after row of jars, each with something the size of a fist floating inside. It looked like a mad scientist's laboratory. And the entire room reeked with the plastic stench of formaldehyde. Quietly, she shut the door behind her and padded over to the first case to peer inside.
It was a specimen collection. Every jar contained a pathetic, wrinkled fetus clearly labeled with genus and species. Quistis walked from one case to another, astounded and horrified by the breadth of the collection: t-rexaur, blue dragon, ruby dragon, hexadragon, bite bug, abyss worm. They even had a tiny, still undifferentiated mass labeled "malboro." Horrified, she stood back and took it all in, not yet able to process what it meant. The tiny teeth and claws, the open but unseeing eyes of monsters she'd only ever seen on remote, dangerous islands. It was impossible to guess how they'd managed to amass such a menagerie. Even Garden would have had trouble putting this together.
"Hyne…" she breathed and moved onto the last case. This one was different than the others. The jars themselves were labeled only with numbers and dates. And every specimen inside was the same species. Or…close to it. One had a half-formed wing sprouting out of its back. Another had two heads. And another was covered in scaly growths all over its tiny body. Still, they were all recognizable as the monster that had attacked her team in the jungle.
She turned around and was bending down to sift through some papers lying spread out on one of the desks when she heard someone coming. There wasn't much time to think. She dove under the desk and pulled the chair back in, pushing her knees up against her chest.
The door swung open an a pair of high heels entered. Quistis heard the regular clack of the woman's footsteps as she walked past the specimen jars without pausing and then stopped in front of the desk next to Quistis's. She held her breath, afraid that the woman would hear, and tried to slow the frantic beating of her heart. The person picked up some papers, tapped them against the desk, and sighed.
"Abra?"
From out in the hallway, he answered. "Yes?"
"Why wasn't the door locked? We've been over this. With the SeeDs here, we can't take any chances. Remind everyone in the morning of our new protocol."
"Sure. It won't happen again."
"It had better not."
Abra walked into the room. "I'll handle it. You should go get some sleep."
"I haven't been able to sleep since they got here," she admitted.
"It's a wrench," Abra replied. "But everyone's working as fast as they can. We're really close. And anyway, if it gets to that point, the shadow cats are more than able to get the job done. 454 was a fluke…a juvenile. I've already released Lucy as a precaution."
"Lucy? Good."
The woman left the desk, walking back toward the door again. "Deliver these for me, and then go check on the SeeDs. Make sure they haven't been out of their room."
"Yes, sir."
The door closed behind them, and Quistis had to force herself to sit still and wait. Her legs itched to bolt for the door and her heart was pounding in her ears. But she needed to be calm. She didn't wait as long as she should have before crawling out from under the desk and escaping out into the hallway. Thankfully, the woman and Abra were both gone.
Light footed, she ran back the way she had come, whipping past the computer rooms and the cafeteria back into the dormitory wing. She had no idea how much time she had before Abra would be knocking on her door. But if he got there before her, Adrian was as good as dead. And if he got there and found her still up and dressed, he'd definitely be suspicious enough that the woman in charge might decide to hedge her bets and have them all killed.
Damn. She needed a plan. And there was no time.
Turning now into the hallway where her and Seifer's room was, she picked up her pace. Abra wasn't there yet.
She lurched to a halt in front of their room and, gasping for breath, slipped inside. They needed a good alibi. Something that wouldn't be questioned. Something, she thought with a flash, that would explain why the hell she was so out of breath. Only one thing came to mind.
Seifer was sitting on the bed and had just opened his mouth to ask her what was going on when she reached out and turned off the light.
"Get undressed," she said.
"What?"
"Now!"
Desperately, she unzipped her vest and threw it onto the floor, then wriggled out of her shorts. She'd never shed her clothing so fast before in her entire life. In the dark, she couldn't see what Seifer was doing. But as she struggled to unclasp her bra, she thought she heard someone walking toward their room. Hyne — they were out of time. She managed to pop her bra clasp and dropped the garment as she ran across the room to Seifer. More forcefully than she had intended, she pushed him down onto the bed again and leapt on top of him.
He was trying to say something when she knotted her hands in his hair and pinned him to the mattress with a passionate kiss.
Their lips connected for a startling moment and Quistis felt like her heart might swell and burst with the gallons of blood pumping through it. Then their door swung open and the lights flared on.
Tearing her mouth from Seifer's, Quistis shrieked.
His arms flew around her as he rolled to one side, hiding her with his body and holding her tight, cradling her face against his shoulder.
"What the fuck!" he yelled at the same time as the man who had interrupted them, Abra, called out an apology and slammed the door, not even bothering to turn the light off again.
For a brief moment after he was gone, Quistis was bathed in relief. And then, like a wrecking ball, the fact that she was lying naked in Seifer's arms hit her. Her body was still throbbing as her heart raced, and her breathing was ragged, every breath she sucked in pressing her chest to his.
"That was close," she whispered, not sure what else to say.
Seifer hadn't let go of her yet.
"They just about caught me," she added. "And we…uh…I needed a…" God. It was hard to think so close to him like this. She swallowed and pressed her hands against his chest. As he moved back, she grabbed the sheet and pulled it up to cover herself. "I need to tell you what I found. You won't believe it."
He arched an eyebrow. "I don't know. I can believe a lot right now."
