Chapter 15
After riding the chocobo for a few minutes, Sifan and Phillona stopped near the tree where Phillona had tied the other chocobo. Sifan was too busy thinking about home to notice that they had stopped and he still had his arms wrapped around Phillona.
"Um, Sifan?" She said chuckling to herself, "We're here. I don't mind it but can you take your arms off me?"
"Huh?" Sifan said snapping out of his thoughts and removing his hands quickly as if they had been burnt, "Er, right."
He jumped down from the chocobo and yawned, stretching his arms. Phillona fed the other chocobo and rubbed its feathers. The weather was still warm but the trees they were standing under made it tolerable.
"Where the hell is Avatar?" Sifan said, "Don't tell me he is as bad as me at catching chocobos."
"Don't worry, Seef." Phillona replied, "I trust Avatar to get it right."
[Seef?]
"My name is Sifan. I don't want any petty short forms of it." He said trying to pluck an apple from the tree.
"You and your cold shoulder." She replied, "I'll call you Seef, like it or not."
Sifan sighed and munched the apple, "Whatever."
Just then, they saw a figure of a chocobo on the plains approaching them. Avatar Fenis was seated on its back. He waved to them as the chocobo trotted towards them.
"See, I told you Avatar would get it right." Phillona said, plucking the apple from Sifan and throwing it away, "Another bite of that apple and you would've been lying unconscious."
"What?" Sifan said spitting out.
"Shin-Ra poisoned a lot of trees near Mideel." She said sighing, "So they could at least try and poison us out of Mideel."
"Talk about low down strategy." Sifan said groping his head, which was feeling a bit funny. Avatar brought his chocobo to a halt and jumped down to his feet. His usual relaxed look was missing. He was in some state of incomprehension, as he stood there, speechless.
"Hey, cat got your tongue?" Phillona said loosening Sifan's chocobo from the tree, throwing Avatar a puzzled look, "Say something."
"Uh...sorry...Just a bit tired... that's all..." he muttered as the three of them slowly trotted across the plains, gradually building up pace.
"Can't these things go any faster?" Sifan said sleepily.
"You can't handle him if he goes fast." Phillona said, "Unless you're an expert chocobo rider."
"Yeah. Believe me buddy, ya can't..." Avatar said recalling how his chocobo had gone berserk when he had landed on it, an hour ago.
After traveling for quite a distance, Sifan could see the outline of the ocean ahead of him. He heaved a sigh of relief as their chocobos ran towards the port, which was clearly visible on the horizon. It wasn't as big as Sifan had expected it to be. It was just an area of many peninsular- shaped footboards made of wood extending over the surface of the water. A ship was already docked there and its turbines were churning up the water. A few people stood on board with binoculars looking at the vast blue ocean. A few others arrived in chocobo carriages and made their way to the ship.
The ticket master impatiently looked around and shouted, "FINAL CALL! Costa de sol! Tickets here please!"
"Ok...." Phillona said as the three of them dismounted the chocobos, "Its gonna cost 200 gils for you two."
Avatar looked at Sifan.
"Don't look at me." Sifan said, "I am broke."
Avatar smiled sheepishly at Phillona, "Uh, we don't have money."
"I know." Phillona said taking out some money from her pocket, "I have some. You can use it."
The three chocobos stood playfully pecking at each other as Phillona bought a couple of tickets from the ticket master. Both the SeeDs stood quietly, each of them lost in their own thoughts, when Phillona came up to them with the tickets.
"Hey." She said, giving Avatar a ticket, "Cheer up. I am sure Prof. Hamilton will help you."
She took out another small folded paper from her pocket. "I wrote this letter to the professor. Give it to him. My dad and he were close friends. He'll surely help you out. Nobody knows all that stuff about time-travel, dimensional stuff or whatever, like he does."
Avatar took the letter from her and placed a kiss on her hand, "Thanks a lot, Madame!"
She smiled, "Hey, no big deal. You're the one who saved Mideel from those Shin-Ra troops. That was the big thing. Not this."
Avatar nodded, "Nice knowing you Phillona. Who knows, maybe we'll see each other again if the professor screws up."
[Nobody's gonna screw up, we're going home.]
{In your dreams.}
[Damn you, Lyris.]
After Avatar had said his goodbye, he waved the ticket to the ticket master and ran away, aboard the ship.
Phillona took the other ticket and walked up to Sifan who was doing his best to look at the clouds and not Phillona.
"Fine." She said placing the ticket in his coat pocket, "Goodbye."
She walked past him and was about to climb on her chocobo when Sifan blurted out, "P-Phillona."
"Yeah?" she said turning to him.
"Er......................"
"Want more money? I gave some to Avatar just in case of emergencies."
"N-No." he said scratching his neck, "Uh....."
{'Thank you' would be an appropriate thing. She saved your worthless butt last night.}
"T-Thank you." He said looking at her, somehow, in the eye, "and sorry."
She smiled and walked up to him, "Sorry for what?"
"F-For............uh............ not liking you." He said as she watched him, her head tilted to the side a little bit and the smile still on her lips.
[I am Pathetic.]
{I Agree.}
She stood in front of him silently for a few seconds. She raised her hand and brushed the strands of hair in front of his eyes to the side with her finger "Get a haircut. There are good hairdressers in Costa de sol. Expensive but good."
"Uh, yeah." He said, "But I like my hair this way."
"Well, it covers your eyes. They're beautiful."
{She likes you.}
[Shut up.]
{But not as much as you like her anyway.}
[I said shut up.]
She laughed softly, "Good bye handsome."
"Uh yeah." He said, "Bye."
She nodded and walked away. Letting two of the chocobos go free, she climbed the third and trotted away as the young Leonhart made his way into the ship bounded for Costa de Sol.
Shin-Ra labs would always be full of commotion with all of Shin-Ra's key scientists and computer geniuses running around the place the whole day. They would scamper from one cubicle to another on the sixth floor, exchanging information and everything they could dig out from the old Shin- Ra's database. But soon, they would stop their scurrying around and plop on their chairs; discouraged they couldn't go beyond a certain level of information on the semi-destroyed hard drive on Shin-Ra's old master computer. Even the best of them couldn't hack or crack anything at all. It was completely foolproof.
Professor Lorenz was the most frustrated of them all. Two years and not a single raise. His colleagues of course always had their wallets thick and full because they would fish out information and make the president believe it would be useful. They were one of the contributory causes for Shin-Ra's secret underground Makotech and Magitek projects. They were the ones who had fished out the information for the project. Lorenz had helped out too but he was a 'small scientist'. Hence he didn't get any of the privileges the others did.
And so there he sat, smoking his cigar in his room while others were out there with the computers and the gadgets, once again prying for information on Shin-Ra's old database.
The door creaked open and General Rupert walked in, a gruff look on his face. He pulled a chair in front of Professor Lorenz's desk and sat down, sighing.
"What's the matter, Rupert?" Prof. Lorenz said, "That dork of a prez is shoutin' at ya again?"
".............................."
"Thought so." He said puffing a ring of smoke into the air, "Anyway, that's yer problem. I called ya here coz I need a buncha your soldiers."
General Rupert eyed him suspiciously, "What now?"
"There's this twerp that goes by the name of Hamilton in Costa de sol."
"Another scientist kidnapping, Lorenz? Count me out."
"HEY!' professor Lorenz said sitting up straight in his chair, "You callin' me a kidnapper?"
"Cool yer horses, Lorenz" the general snapped, "We all know you aint an angel."
"Cut the crap, Rupert." the professor hissed, "Get me Hamilton, and I'll give you a part of the reward."
"REWARD, Lorenz?" Rupert said, "How long are you gonna wait for this 'REWARD' of yours?"
"Look. Hamilton's got the passwords for the highest classified info in Shin- Ra's old mother computer."
"So ya want to bring him here and force him ta give you all those passwords. And you can fish out all the classified stuff."
"Yeah. We'll get the stuff out to the president's table, and I'll get a big fat raise. And you get a part of the dough too."
General Rupert sat back and thought for some time, "This is the last favor you're getting' if I don't get any benefits, Lorenz."
"I want to come to Costa de sol with yer soldiers. While you bring Hamilton's ass back here to Midgar, I wanna take a look around Hamilton's house. They say he's working on some useful stuff."
The general nodded, "I'll get an airship ready. We'll leave in ten minutes."
The professor threw away the cigar as the general opened the door and left the room. He pulled a drawer from his desk and took out a small diary. It was ragged and most of the pages were torn and missing. A few of them were intact but the ink was snubbed out. Most of it was just useless scribbling on some failed projects. There was however, one page that interested him. He flipped the diary to that page and feasted his eyes on the writing that had kept him sleepless the whole of the previous night.
On the tattered and moth-eaten page was written,
'THE FOLLOWING IS WITH REFERENCE TO PROJECT Y567. PASSWORD 1 IS APOCALYPSE. PASSWORD 2 IS WITH HAMILTON. PASSWORD 3 IS ALSO WITH THAT LOSER BECAUSE THAT FOOL OF A PRESIDENT, RUFUS, TRUSTS HIM MORE THAN ME. BUT I DON'T NEED TO KNOW THE PASSWORDS BECAUSE PROJECT Y567 HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY CLOSED."
It was signed, "Professor. Hojo."
Professor Lorenz smiled slyly. He turned on his desktop computer. After going through an avalanche of passwords, he finally logged into the Shin-Ra database. The small blinking cursor awaited his input.
Query?
PROJECT Y567
Password?
Project Y567. Led by Professor Gast. Shut down after death of Prof. Gast. Re-opened later by Professor Hojo. Shut down after death of Prof. Hojo. Secured with 3 passwords due to nature of classification.
Professor's Lorenz's eyes widened when the computer added one last line of information on the screen.
Original name of project Y567: PROJECT JENOVA.
After riding the chocobo for a few minutes, Sifan and Phillona stopped near the tree where Phillona had tied the other chocobo. Sifan was too busy thinking about home to notice that they had stopped and he still had his arms wrapped around Phillona.
"Um, Sifan?" She said chuckling to herself, "We're here. I don't mind it but can you take your arms off me?"
"Huh?" Sifan said snapping out of his thoughts and removing his hands quickly as if they had been burnt, "Er, right."
He jumped down from the chocobo and yawned, stretching his arms. Phillona fed the other chocobo and rubbed its feathers. The weather was still warm but the trees they were standing under made it tolerable.
"Where the hell is Avatar?" Sifan said, "Don't tell me he is as bad as me at catching chocobos."
"Don't worry, Seef." Phillona replied, "I trust Avatar to get it right."
[Seef?]
"My name is Sifan. I don't want any petty short forms of it." He said trying to pluck an apple from the tree.
"You and your cold shoulder." She replied, "I'll call you Seef, like it or not."
Sifan sighed and munched the apple, "Whatever."
Just then, they saw a figure of a chocobo on the plains approaching them. Avatar Fenis was seated on its back. He waved to them as the chocobo trotted towards them.
"See, I told you Avatar would get it right." Phillona said, plucking the apple from Sifan and throwing it away, "Another bite of that apple and you would've been lying unconscious."
"What?" Sifan said spitting out.
"Shin-Ra poisoned a lot of trees near Mideel." She said sighing, "So they could at least try and poison us out of Mideel."
"Talk about low down strategy." Sifan said groping his head, which was feeling a bit funny. Avatar brought his chocobo to a halt and jumped down to his feet. His usual relaxed look was missing. He was in some state of incomprehension, as he stood there, speechless.
"Hey, cat got your tongue?" Phillona said loosening Sifan's chocobo from the tree, throwing Avatar a puzzled look, "Say something."
"Uh...sorry...Just a bit tired... that's all..." he muttered as the three of them slowly trotted across the plains, gradually building up pace.
"Can't these things go any faster?" Sifan said sleepily.
"You can't handle him if he goes fast." Phillona said, "Unless you're an expert chocobo rider."
"Yeah. Believe me buddy, ya can't..." Avatar said recalling how his chocobo had gone berserk when he had landed on it, an hour ago.
After traveling for quite a distance, Sifan could see the outline of the ocean ahead of him. He heaved a sigh of relief as their chocobos ran towards the port, which was clearly visible on the horizon. It wasn't as big as Sifan had expected it to be. It was just an area of many peninsular- shaped footboards made of wood extending over the surface of the water. A ship was already docked there and its turbines were churning up the water. A few people stood on board with binoculars looking at the vast blue ocean. A few others arrived in chocobo carriages and made their way to the ship.
The ticket master impatiently looked around and shouted, "FINAL CALL! Costa de sol! Tickets here please!"
"Ok...." Phillona said as the three of them dismounted the chocobos, "Its gonna cost 200 gils for you two."
Avatar looked at Sifan.
"Don't look at me." Sifan said, "I am broke."
Avatar smiled sheepishly at Phillona, "Uh, we don't have money."
"I know." Phillona said taking out some money from her pocket, "I have some. You can use it."
The three chocobos stood playfully pecking at each other as Phillona bought a couple of tickets from the ticket master. Both the SeeDs stood quietly, each of them lost in their own thoughts, when Phillona came up to them with the tickets.
"Hey." She said, giving Avatar a ticket, "Cheer up. I am sure Prof. Hamilton will help you."
She took out another small folded paper from her pocket. "I wrote this letter to the professor. Give it to him. My dad and he were close friends. He'll surely help you out. Nobody knows all that stuff about time-travel, dimensional stuff or whatever, like he does."
Avatar took the letter from her and placed a kiss on her hand, "Thanks a lot, Madame!"
She smiled, "Hey, no big deal. You're the one who saved Mideel from those Shin-Ra troops. That was the big thing. Not this."
Avatar nodded, "Nice knowing you Phillona. Who knows, maybe we'll see each other again if the professor screws up."
[Nobody's gonna screw up, we're going home.]
{In your dreams.}
[Damn you, Lyris.]
After Avatar had said his goodbye, he waved the ticket to the ticket master and ran away, aboard the ship.
Phillona took the other ticket and walked up to Sifan who was doing his best to look at the clouds and not Phillona.
"Fine." She said placing the ticket in his coat pocket, "Goodbye."
She walked past him and was about to climb on her chocobo when Sifan blurted out, "P-Phillona."
"Yeah?" she said turning to him.
"Er......................"
"Want more money? I gave some to Avatar just in case of emergencies."
"N-No." he said scratching his neck, "Uh....."
{'Thank you' would be an appropriate thing. She saved your worthless butt last night.}
"T-Thank you." He said looking at her, somehow, in the eye, "and sorry."
She smiled and walked up to him, "Sorry for what?"
"F-For............uh............ not liking you." He said as she watched him, her head tilted to the side a little bit and the smile still on her lips.
[I am Pathetic.]
{I Agree.}
She stood in front of him silently for a few seconds. She raised her hand and brushed the strands of hair in front of his eyes to the side with her finger "Get a haircut. There are good hairdressers in Costa de sol. Expensive but good."
"Uh, yeah." He said, "But I like my hair this way."
"Well, it covers your eyes. They're beautiful."
{She likes you.}
[Shut up.]
{But not as much as you like her anyway.}
[I said shut up.]
She laughed softly, "Good bye handsome."
"Uh yeah." He said, "Bye."
She nodded and walked away. Letting two of the chocobos go free, she climbed the third and trotted away as the young Leonhart made his way into the ship bounded for Costa de Sol.
Shin-Ra labs would always be full of commotion with all of Shin-Ra's key scientists and computer geniuses running around the place the whole day. They would scamper from one cubicle to another on the sixth floor, exchanging information and everything they could dig out from the old Shin- Ra's database. But soon, they would stop their scurrying around and plop on their chairs; discouraged they couldn't go beyond a certain level of information on the semi-destroyed hard drive on Shin-Ra's old master computer. Even the best of them couldn't hack or crack anything at all. It was completely foolproof.
Professor Lorenz was the most frustrated of them all. Two years and not a single raise. His colleagues of course always had their wallets thick and full because they would fish out information and make the president believe it would be useful. They were one of the contributory causes for Shin-Ra's secret underground Makotech and Magitek projects. They were the ones who had fished out the information for the project. Lorenz had helped out too but he was a 'small scientist'. Hence he didn't get any of the privileges the others did.
And so there he sat, smoking his cigar in his room while others were out there with the computers and the gadgets, once again prying for information on Shin-Ra's old database.
The door creaked open and General Rupert walked in, a gruff look on his face. He pulled a chair in front of Professor Lorenz's desk and sat down, sighing.
"What's the matter, Rupert?" Prof. Lorenz said, "That dork of a prez is shoutin' at ya again?"
".............................."
"Thought so." He said puffing a ring of smoke into the air, "Anyway, that's yer problem. I called ya here coz I need a buncha your soldiers."
General Rupert eyed him suspiciously, "What now?"
"There's this twerp that goes by the name of Hamilton in Costa de sol."
"Another scientist kidnapping, Lorenz? Count me out."
"HEY!' professor Lorenz said sitting up straight in his chair, "You callin' me a kidnapper?"
"Cool yer horses, Lorenz" the general snapped, "We all know you aint an angel."
"Cut the crap, Rupert." the professor hissed, "Get me Hamilton, and I'll give you a part of the reward."
"REWARD, Lorenz?" Rupert said, "How long are you gonna wait for this 'REWARD' of yours?"
"Look. Hamilton's got the passwords for the highest classified info in Shin- Ra's old mother computer."
"So ya want to bring him here and force him ta give you all those passwords. And you can fish out all the classified stuff."
"Yeah. We'll get the stuff out to the president's table, and I'll get a big fat raise. And you get a part of the dough too."
General Rupert sat back and thought for some time, "This is the last favor you're getting' if I don't get any benefits, Lorenz."
"I want to come to Costa de sol with yer soldiers. While you bring Hamilton's ass back here to Midgar, I wanna take a look around Hamilton's house. They say he's working on some useful stuff."
The general nodded, "I'll get an airship ready. We'll leave in ten minutes."
The professor threw away the cigar as the general opened the door and left the room. He pulled a drawer from his desk and took out a small diary. It was ragged and most of the pages were torn and missing. A few of them were intact but the ink was snubbed out. Most of it was just useless scribbling on some failed projects. There was however, one page that interested him. He flipped the diary to that page and feasted his eyes on the writing that had kept him sleepless the whole of the previous night.
On the tattered and moth-eaten page was written,
'THE FOLLOWING IS WITH REFERENCE TO PROJECT Y567. PASSWORD 1 IS APOCALYPSE. PASSWORD 2 IS WITH HAMILTON. PASSWORD 3 IS ALSO WITH THAT LOSER BECAUSE THAT FOOL OF A PRESIDENT, RUFUS, TRUSTS HIM MORE THAN ME. BUT I DON'T NEED TO KNOW THE PASSWORDS BECAUSE PROJECT Y567 HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY CLOSED."
It was signed, "Professor. Hojo."
Professor Lorenz smiled slyly. He turned on his desktop computer. After going through an avalanche of passwords, he finally logged into the Shin-Ra database. The small blinking cursor awaited his input.
Query?
PROJECT Y567
Password?
Project Y567. Led by Professor Gast. Shut down after death of Prof. Gast. Re-opened later by Professor Hojo. Shut down after death of Prof. Hojo. Secured with 3 passwords due to nature of classification.
Professor's Lorenz's eyes widened when the computer added one last line of information on the screen.
Original name of project Y567: PROJECT JENOVA.