Chapter 15: Dark Water

Gossip, Quistis found out, spread even faster on a small island than it did through a school. When she and Seifer sat down to breakfast the next morning, everyone in the room turned to look at them. Some people were even brazen enough to gesture and whisper behind their hands. It seemed like everyone in the entire compound had heard that Abra had caught them in a compromising position the night before.

"We're famous," Seifer said under his breath.

"I can tell," she replied.

The full light of morning had done a lot to replace their confusion and lust with renewed focus on the task at hand. All the young faces staring at them, judging them, were far from innocent themselves. Every one of them were somehow involved in engineering monsters. They were manufacturers of terror and death. It wasn't difficult for Quistis to shrug off her embarrassment in favor of contempt.

"Doesn't matter," Seifer said, reflecting her thoughts. "We won't be here much longer."

She and Seifer had spent most of the morning discussing what Quistis had discovered and developing a plan of escape. They both agreed that they couldn't remain in the compound any longer. Everyone on the base was busy during the day. But Abra shadowed them everywhere they went. Even now, he was sitting at the next table, watching them over his breakfast. There was no way they would be able to retrieve Adrian under his guard. So they'd agreed that night would be their best shot. Quistis was guessing from what she'd overheard the night before about people frequently forgetting to lock doors that the island's isolated location had allowed them to become fairly lax about security. She was positive that they'd be able to make it out without too much trouble.

The real problem was the monster — the shadow cat. They had barely escaped their first run in with the beast, and this time they would be running through the jungle in the dark with the added weight and hassle of a prone man. The odds were stacked against them. They had no idea how far they'd have to trek through the trees before reaching their boat. It was going to be difficult if they had to carry Adrian the whole way, or worse…leave him behind to save themselves. With any luck, getting Adrian away from the doctor and whatever the man was giving him would bring him about.

Luck. It made Quistis uncomfortable how much of this plan relied on luck.

They were betting their lives. And she had never been the gambling type.

0 0 0

Cid fussed at his sweater, pulling it down over his belt. It was becoming a habit, a detrimental twitch, and he knew he needed to stop. The garment was getting stretched out with how often he'd been tugging and pulling at it recently.

A long, glossy table spread out in front of him. Each side was filled with the apathetic faces of the Garden governance board. They didn't want to be in this meeting and weren't particularly interested in the mission that Cid had called them there to discuss. Since they had already gone over this mission, it was a bit unorthodox to do so again. Garden couldn't afford to be tied to every SeeD and had a habit of letting go of missions that were going awry; it allowed them to classify failed missions as rogue acts and avoid legal scraps with other institutions.

But Quistis, Seifer, and Adrian had gone for a long time now without checking in, and Carson Brecht was more impassioned than Cid could ever remember seeing him when he insisted that something had gone wrong. Somehow, he'd even managed to rein in the support of the young forensics woman who had worked in the preliminary aspects of the mission. Back then, it had been a simple case of transporting a body from the Centra shore to Deling City. Cid wasn't sure exactly how it had turned into this mess.

He pulled his sweater over his stomach and addressed the board.

"We've been asked here by Mr. Brecht to consider sending reinforcements to our men in the southern sea," he announced.

He hated this. There had been a time when he hadn't needed to consult this board to make decisions. But since Garden has lost its major benefactor, Norg, during the war, he'd had to create a more democratic structure in order to satisfy their new investors. It was a difficult change to make and he hated handing over his power to this fickle committee. But that was life.

"Have we heard anything from the team?" one woman asked.

"No." Cid shook his head. "That's the problem."

"You think they're dead?" another person asked.

Cid blanched. Seifer and Quistis were practically his children.

"I don't think so," Cid replied. "They're all very good SeeDs."

"Can someone please remind me what the whole point of this mission was?" a heavyset man roared.

"The monster," Cid replied.

"Right," he said, waving one chubby arm. "They go to the island, kill one, and bring it back. Correct? These three are some of our best. If they can't get one off the island, I don't think we need to worry about the goddamn Galbadians doing it. If they're dead, the mission's over and it's not something we need to worry about."

"It could just be a communication glitch," Cid pointed out. "Coverage is patchy down there. They could have the monster and just can't contact us to come meet them."

"Still, there's no reason to send reinforcements," the man replied. "They'll be able to contact us once they get the thing to Centra. That's what we decided, wasn't it? No back-up? I don't see any reason we should change the mission profile at all. Instructor Brecht is personally involved, and he should know better than that. A SeeD's job is dangerous. That's just the way the business is."

Cid didn't have anything to say to that. The board had been reluctant to agree to the mission in the first place, and he was wasting his breath trying to convince them to invest even more resources in it. A majority was never going to agree to that.

"It would be a shame to lose them," someone said. "Cid's right. These three are some of our best."

"Then let's put it to a vote," the fat one replied.

"Okay," Cid agreed. "All in favor of sending reinforcements?"

He held up his own hand. Two other people did as well. But everyone else remained unmoved. There wasn't any need to count or discuss the matter any further. Motion defeated. Quistis would be getting no aid in her quest. And Brecht was going to be livid.

0 0 0

Seifer lurked behind Quistis's radiating blonde form. He wasn't sure how it was possible, but she was utterly luminescent even in the ugly, yellow tinge of the island compound's bare bulbs. It was late, so half of them were off, and she still had that fresh from the shower smell that wafted toward him as she flipped her hair over her shoulders so that it went tumbling freely down her back to hug the curves of her waist.

As she turned into Adrian's room, Seifer stayed behind.

"Hi," she said.

"Come to see your friend?" a voice replied — the doctor.

"Yeah. I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd just come down here and sit with him for a while. You don't mind, do you?" she asked, her voice a few notes higher than usual. Seifer could practically see her chewing gum and twirling her hair, though he couldn't tell who it was she was trying to channel. Selphie or Rinoa?

"Fine with me," the doctor said.

"How's he doing?"

"Not well." The doctor's voice was dead serious. "To tell you the truth, I'm a little worried we might lose him."

Seifer knew better, and it was all he could do not to stalk into the room with Hyperion drawn and ask the bastard to repeat that lie to his face. He held the desire in check and leaned up against the wall, waiting for Quistis to make her move.

"You really think he might not make it?" she asked. "Is it the poison still?"

"No. We've got all the poison out of his system, but the fact that he hasn't woken up yet makes me think it might have permanently damaged his brain before we got to him. At this point, I don't think he's going to wake up."

Quistis made a small sound of dismay that was so unlike her Seifer almost had to laugh.

"I know you probably heard about…what happened last night," she said. "But it's not what you think. It's me and Adrian, you see. I love him." Seifer thought he heard real tears as she continued. Where had she learned to be such a theatrical actress, he wondered? "And I know I shouldn't fall in love with another SeeD. It makes situations like this complicated. Anyway…I'm sorry. I'm babbling. Do you think you could give me a minute alone with him? To say goodbye in private?"

The doctor hesitated a second. "Sure," he finally said, and Seifer heard his footsteps approaching the door.

They knew what they needed to know now. The poison was all gone, and if Adrian was going to recover, the only way he was going to do it was outside of this wretched building and off this island. As the doctor walked out the door, Seifer held out one hand and murmured, "Break."

The doctor didn't even know what hit him. He froze solid, petrified. It was a fluke that Seifer had even had the spell on him. He didn't remember where he'd gotten it from or how long he'd had it. But it was damn handy. It would be a long time before it wore off, and even when it did, the doctor would have no memory of being hit with it.

"Nice job," Quistis said as he rounded the corner, hefting the doctor's petrified body up and pushing it back into the room so that they could close the door behind them.

They didn't have a very large window of time, so they got started right away. Quistis pulled the IV out of Adrian's arm, and Seifer bent down to haul the other man out of bed. They stopped just long enough to move the doctor's frozen body onto the bed and cover it with a blanket, leaving only his hair peeking out the top, before Seifer slung Adrian across his shoulders. Adrian was easily fifty pounds heavier than the doctor, and Seifer foundered for a moment under his dead weight before finding equilibrium.

"You okay?" Quistis asked.

"Yeah. I'm good. Let's go."

The hallway was empty and quiet when they left Adrian's room. Everyone had settled in for the night. Certainly, this wasn't the most difficult place Seifer had ever been trapped in. Whoever these people were, they weren't military. And as civilians, he was hoping they'd be hesitant to shoot. If they'd really engineered the monster here, that meant that most of these people were actually scientists. Not exactly angels, but not blood thirsty or hardened either. Still, he'd rather not take the chance.

He lumbered down the hallway after Quistis and followed her, unmolested, all the way to the front door. She peeked around the corner, then whispered to him. "Two guards." They were speaking back and forth to each other in a tongue Seifer didn't recognize. But it didn't sound like they were talking business from the way one of them was laughing.

Shifting Adrian's weight on his back, he reached for his gunblade.

"I can handle it," she whispered and put a hand on his wrist.

"No. I'm good. I'll take the one on the right." He'd never fought before with so much extra weight, but he didn't think either of the men would offer up much resistance. And he didn't want to be just trailing along like a pack mule.

The man facing them, Quistis's target, saw the attack coming. He raised his gun and almost got a shot off before Quistis knocked it out of his hand with her whip. Seifer's man though was taken completely by surprise and didn't even cry out as Hyperion came into rough contact with his chest, slicing through clothing and bone. The blow was clumsy and threw Seifer off balance. He struggled to find his center again as his man crumpled to the floor, mortally wounded. It would only take him a few minutes to die, and his eyes were already rolling up in his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Seifer saw a Quistis's whip slice the other guard across the face. He screamed, but the sound was quickly cut off as a golden cord wrapped around his throat. Quistis stood behind him like an avenging angel, her arms straining as he gurgled and sputtered. Seifer had never seen her fight this way before and watched in amazement as she gave the whip a sharp, terrible tug, snapping the man's neck with a loud pop.

God, she's beautiful.

She grabbed a ring of keys from the man and tried them one by one in the doors until one caused the old latch to lick into place and freed the bolt holding the doors shut. The metal door swung open, allowing inky blackness and the heady scent of the jungle inside. The dark looked safe, like good cover for their escape, and with Adrian balanced precariously on his shoulder, Seifer scrambled over the dead men and into the night air.

Quistis was right behind him. She slammed the door behind her, cutting off the light from inside and leaving them with only the moon and the stars above. Shadow flooded in and surrounded them. Shafts of pale moonlight managed to penetrate the canopy at intervals, showing them isolated slices of broad fern leaves and tangled vines coiled around knobby tree trunks. It was a gauntlet of pitfalls and poisonous beasts. Quistis grabbed Seifer's hand, and together they set off through it, moving at a quick pace away from the island compound and into the night.

Even as Seifer's eyes adjusted, the jungle was dense and dark. Every shadow seemed to contain the potential for unknown horror, and his heart was racing as his senses strained to detect any sign that something was nearby, any small hint that they were being followed by either man or beast. The monster had managed to sneak up on them in broad daylight, so he knew he didn't have much hope of seeing it coming at night. He didn't like being at such a disadvantage. His instincts begged him to run faster.

"Shhh!" Quistis stopped in front of him.

"What is it?" he whispered.

Adrian was beginning to stir, and Seifer nudged him quiet.

Silence fell around, spreading thick and hoary. He strained to hear whatever had alerted Quistis.

"I think they know we're gone now," she said. "They're coming after us. This way. We've got to follow the mountains back to where we landed."

He followed her blindly, distantly wondering how she could even see the mountains to follow them. But she seemed to know where she was going. Plants crunched under Seifer's feet, and he struggled through the low bushes and trees that grabbed hungrily at his clothing and flesh.

This, he thought, must have been what the last moments of Sascha Maurden's life had been. He'd been in a frenzy, racing through the trees, trying to escape from the monster he knew was lurking in the jungle. Maurden must have worked here, maybe even helped to develop the beast that killed him. He wondered if the others had turned on him, or if they even suspected that his body had been recovered.

They emerged into a small clearing flooded with moonlight. Quistis stuck to the edges, hurrying Seifer along as fast as he could go. As they reentered the trees, a loud puff of hot air shattered the silence.

Right away, Seifer felt the massive presence of something close by, and his blood became dangerously thin, coursing fast through his body, as he fought against the instinct to throw Adrian off his back and run full-tilt. Instead, Quistis threw out a random spell. The firaga flashed and burned out quickly without a target, but it illuminated the night and allowed them the novelty of seeing the face of the devil not far behind them. A blunt snout filled with teeth was tattooed onto the back of Seifer's eyes, the image staying there long after the fire spell had died out.

They ran as fast as they could. Seifer's heart pumped fast, channeling an inhuman amount of strength to his legs. They drove relentlessly underneath him, propelling him forward with enough momentum that he knew he wouldn't be able to stop if he needed to. And he knew that if he tripped, or stepped wrong, both he and Adrian were as good as dead.

Heavy footsteps pounded behind them. The shadow cat changed gaits, switching from an easy walk to a swift and agile trot.

Desperately, they ducked and weaved between branches and trees, picking tight paths the monster would have trouble following them through. They were in dense vegetation now. Seifer stumbled a few terrifying times but somehow managed to stay upright as they plowed on.

Still, the shadow cat was getting closer. It was ruthless, a manufactured killing machine that was after them and wouldn't stop until they were dead. It was designed to defeat SeeDs — the single biggest threat Garden had faced since Ultimecia. And all they could do was run. Seifer was panting, his muscles turning liquid with the smoldering fire of exhaustion.

Then he felt something on his lower back. Heat spread quickly, bringing pain with it. Was it claw snaring flesh? Or teeth? Was it poison? He wasn't sure. But he felt for a moment like he was flying, propelled forward by the monster's breath at his back like a rocket ship, sending him soaring up to the stars which danced drunkenly about in the sky.

Quistis screamed somewhere ahead of him.

Oh no. Quistis!

Then he stumbled and fell.

The entire world seemed to have dropped out from underneath him, and he plunged for long moments through complete darkness.

A shock of bitter cold put the pain in his back into sudden, sharp focus. Water rushed over him, covering his head and his feet, and ushering in dead silence. With a massive effort, he kicked and propelled himself back up until his head broke through the surface.

"Seifer!" Quistis was screaming his name.

He called back, floating for a minute as struggled to lift Adrian's head up out of the water. Pain was already making him dizzy. But, for the moment at least, he was still alive.