The
slamming of a door made Cloud wince and slowly open his eyes. Bright
light pierced his vision and the world instantly started spinning. He
sat up quickly and retched; thin, watery fluid hit the floor. He
shuddered in revulsion. Wires and pipes tugged at his body, and he
looked down at himself.
There was a tube in his nose and another
in his arm. Thin sliver wires cris-crossed over his naked body,
creating a spider's web over him. He was atop a long white table,
spot lights shining at him from all directions. With a grunt, he
yanked the IV from his arm and slid the tube out of his nose. Then he
tried to stand–which proved to be a very difficult task–and the
silver wires slid off. He stumbled across the bare white room and
fell to his knees just in front of a metal locker. Gasping, he
grabbed its ice cold handle, his arm muscles quivering as he dragged
himself to his feet. He yanked the door open and found his clothes
lying on a shelf at eye level. Thankfully, he leaned against the
locker and slipped the mercenary uniform on. He snapped his belt into
place and realized that his materia and armor were missing. Cloud
limped over to the door and turned the knob–it rattled. He tried
again, but figured it to be locked from the outside. That confused
him; why would he be locked in a room, naked, with an IV in his arm?
Cloud looked around, taking note of his surroundings. No windows,
one door, one locker filled with things he couldn't name, and a
table. His eyes darted across the ceiling and he spotted the air vent
in the right-hand corner of the room. Thinking quickly, he kicked the
table, sending it sliding across the room and crashing into the far
wall. He walked after it and pushed it into the corner. He climbed
up, grabbed the vent slots, and yanked on them. He did this three
times before it actually came loose and fell to the side. Cloud
sighed and hoisted himself up into the dark pipe.
As he crawled
along, he wondered where he was and what the hell he was doing there.
He couldn't remember anything when he thought about it. The
farthest he could recall was being in Wutai with Tifa and Yuffie.
He
continued to move forward until he reached a vent where voices
floated up to him. Two men were discussing something in hushed tones.
Cloud peered down into a another white room and gasped.
Tifa was
in that room, the men talking to each other over her naked body. She
had tubes in her arm and nose as well, and the same silver wires
lined her figure. Cloud recognized one of the men, though he couldn't
believe it: the mad Shin-Ra scientist–Hojo. He was arguing with a
taller man, white-haired and green eyed, who had Cloud's Ultima
Sword strapped to his back. He looked around twenty, and wore a
first-class Shin-Ra SOLDIER uniform.
"How can you just kill
them!" he hissed at the scientist. "My contract said nothing
about killing the innocent!"
"But they're not innocent,
Zeo," Hojo growled back. "If you don't recall, these are the
people responsible for Shin-Ra's collapse."
"But they saved
us from Meteor."
"That's precisely why I ordered you to
capture them. Can you imagine artificial SOLDIERs as skilled and as
powerful as these eight? We could control the world within the next
year!"
Zeo shook his head.
"The liquid I had you inject
into each one six months ago kept them in their unconscious state. It
also made a genetic copy of their DNA, which has taken all this time
to extract. Very soon now, the clones should be up and running. We
can't have the real ones alive to discover their clone's
weakness. They could defeat them easily."
"All except for the
blond one, right?"
"That one would be hard for anyone to
defeat," Hojo grinned a twisted little grin. The two men moved
toward the door, which Hojo knocked on twice.
"When shall I do
it?" Zeo asked, rather reluctantly.
"The sooner, the better,"
Hojo replied, and the door swung open.
"Tonight, then."
The
door slammed shut.
Cloud sat frozen in light of all he had just
witnessed. He waited until he couldn't hear anything anymore, then
slammed his feet down on the vent. It gave way and he slipped into
the white room. He ran over to Tifa and shook her gently.
"Tifa,
wake up. Come on, you have to wake up!"
She moaned and her eyes
slowly fluttered open. She squinted up at him, looking quite confused
for a moment, then blinked.
"Cloud? Where–"
He hoisted
her into a sitting position then went to get her clothes from the
metal locker.
"I don't have time to explain. We have to get
out of here, now."
"Why do I feel like crap..?"
"Just
concentrate on getting dressed first," he replied, bringing her
clothes over to her. She pulled the tube from her nose and winced as
she looked at the one in her arm.
"I hate needles."
Cloud
reached over and slid it out as gently as he could.
"You'll be
fine. Hurry," he said.
She got shakily to her feet and began to
pull her clothes on. Cloud shoved the table over to the vent in the
corner then turned to check on her. She was hopping around
unsteadily, trying to slip one of her boots onto her foot. She
teetered, got it on, and stood upright. She looked back at him.
"You
can explain now."
He motioned for her to come over to him, and
lifted himself up onto the table.
"There's not much to
explain, because I don't know everything. I heard Hojo and some guy
discussing it–"
"Hojo! As in like, 'mad-Shin-Ra-scientist'
Hojo!"
"Yeah, that's him."
"How..!"
"Remember
he told us that he had implanted himself with Jenova cells? I think
they kept him alive until someone found him and helped him."
"Oh,
that's just great."
"Listen, Tifa: Hojo is doing some kind
of cloning experiment. He took our DNA to make an army of
indestructible monsters– which he modeled after us."
They were
crawling through the vents, whispering back and forth to one another.
When she heard the last statement, she stopped dead.
"Like
us!"
"Yeah, and they want to get rid of the original copies
tonight."
"But...but..." Tifa stammered.
"Look, I know
it sounds stupid," Cloud shook his head, "but it's true. Now we
need to find the others and get out of here."
"They kidnaped
everyone, I take it?" Tifa shook her head. "Okay, I'll go check
back this way and you go on ahead. I'll see you later," she
turned.
"Tifa," he called. She glanced back at him. "Be
careful."
She smiled. "You too."
Cloud checked the
room before kicking the vent open. Cid lay on the table, groaning and
shaking his head.
"Ow... Where the hell am I?"
"Cid,
you okay?"
"That you, Kid?" he sat up slowly. Then he
blinked and looked down. "...Where the fuck are my
clothes!"
"Here," Cloud pulled them out of the metal locker
and tossed them at him. Cid yanked the tubes from his body and stood
up shakily as he caught the bundle.
"You mind tellin' me what
in the hell's going on here? Why is there an IV in my arm? Why am I
not dressed! Why did you come into the room by a vent!"
"If
I could have used the door, I would've." Cloud glanced back at
Cid once the man had his pants on. "But I don't have time to
explain. We need to get the others and get out of here."
"Cloud,"
Cid growled as he buttoned up his jacket, "when you tell this story
to your children, make sure you leave this part out."
"Now,
just the animal to check on the next floor," the scientist
muttered, circling the table slowly. Tifa waited until the man in the
lab coat walked out of the room. Then she detached the vent and
dropped down lightly. Vincent Valentine groaned and sat up, shaking
his head.
"My head..."
Tifa crossed the room and avoided
her eyes, but wound up looking somewhere she wasn't supposed to.
Blushing furiously, she watched him sit up and pull the wires from
his unclothed body. He saw her staring and blinked.
"Tifa, is
that you?"
"Um, yeah," she replied. Then, clearing her
throat and shaking her head, she walked over to the metal locker
across from her and opened it.
"What in the world is going on?"
he asked, sliding off the table. She wordlessly tossed him his robes
over her shoulder. He caught them, then looked down at himself.
His
cheeks reddened: "Um..."
"Could you hurry up and put
those on, please?" Tifa snapped. He jumped and pulled everything
on. When she heard the click of the metal glove on his forearm, she
turned to look at him again. He brushed his hair back, tying the
bandana in place over his forehead.
"I am not asking anything
except what the hell is going on?"
"I'll explain later–right
now, we have to get out of here."
"Where is 'here'?"
"You
wouldn't believe me if I told you," she shook her head, tugging
the table over to the far wall. Vincent helped her and they both
climbed onto it. He hoisted himself into the vent first, then pulled
Tifa up. They began to crawl through the vents, Tifa thinking about
what the man in the lab coat had said. The animal on the next
floor...?
"I need you to keep going until you find an exit. I
have to go get Nanaki," Tifa slipped back out of the vent.
"Tifa,
no!" Vincent hissed.
She ignored him, running over to the door
of the room and studying the frame. It was made of thick metal and
locked from the outside. She fiddled with the hinges until one of the
pins came loose, then worked at it with her nails and after a moment,
the pin fell to the floor. She paused then bent down and unhooked the
second one. Tifa pushed her shoulder against the door and it slid
open enough for her to duck out into the hallway. She glanced around,
taking in the situation:
Ten doors, all lining one wall, all
locked from the outside. A guard was asleep at his post just in front
of the corridor. Tifa saw an elevator at the end of the hallway. She
went over to the sleeping guard and glanced him over. There, on his
belt, were the keys to the cells. Tifa leaned down and jangled the
keys a bit. The man's brow furrowed slightly but he didn't wake
up. Shaking her head, Tifa slipped the ring off his belt and went
back into the hallway.
