Seifer stared, certain his eyes deceived him. Fujin had said it, but he still couldn't believe it. He had a vague awareness of something dangerous lurking near her, but his mind could only process one shock at a time.
"Quistis," he murmured, echoing his friend's statement.
The woman in front of him bore more than a passing resemblance to Quistis. This woman had dark hair and eyes, and olive skin, but an identical facial structure. The same slight pout to the lips, the same skeptical arch to the eyebrows. But for the differences in skin color, he might have thought them twins.
"Who...? What...?" he asked, eyes blinking of their own accord, as if they could blot out the mystery.
"SISTERS?" Fujin guessed.
The woman's mouth turned up in harsh contempt.
"Scarlet. Half-sister," she spat.
"How?" Seifer stammered, still mostly non-verbal.
"SEIFER," Fujin murmured, noticing the figure next to Scarlet. "TROUBLE."
"Listen to her," Scarlet smiled. "You have bigger problems than your friend's heritage."
Seifer's eyes traveled away from this not-Quistis to the shape standing beside her. Once again, his breath slid out of his body as he processed the scene. He recognized – at least partially, the person standing next to her: SeeD Cadet McMurdo – a third-rate firearms specialist with nothing to distinguish him from the rest of the herd.
Except for the fact that, at Cid's request, McMurdo had tried to assassinate the Headmaster. Cid would have demanded an investigation into the attack -- with McMurdo implicating Squall in the hit – had Mallis not poisoned the Headmaster first.
Seifer had not seen McMurdo since the moments following the assassination attempt, when a Security team escorted the cadet to Garden's underground interrogation facility, The Dark.
Fujin spent considerable time questioning McMurdo about the shooting, with Quistis overseeing the proceedings. While she rarely spoke about her time in The Dark, Quistis had intimated that things got ugly. She used bureaucratic phrases like "aggressive questioning" or "coercive interrogation."
In short, torture.
And now, here McMurdo stood, bearing no visible signs of imprisonment. In fact, he seemed better than ever. His skin almost glowed with vitality, and he seemed to have... swelled. He seemed at once taller, and bulkier, and more presentthan before. His eyes seemed different too – looking at them, Seifer caught glimpses of something behind them. In one, a flicker of red, like a laser; in the other, green, like night-vision.
"I believe you three know each other," Scarlet smiled, and Seifer could see her teeth. "I'll let you get reacquainted." She turned and walked away, but did not leave the main concourse. The words safe distancepopped into Seifer's head.
"Fujin," McMurdo growled.
His head, jerked, once, and then, somehow, he transformed.
The tips of his fingers popped away, and vicious-looking claws extended, hidden within his hands. His left arm opened, revealing a high-caliber cannon and his right hand slid down and back as a long, gleaming blade unsheathed itself from his arm. A targeting reticle dropped down from beneath an eyelid, covering his right eye.
Seifer's hand dropped to his side, reaching for Hyperion out of instinct, when he realized that he had not brought his gunblade. Knowing he'd have to wriggle through air ducts and dangle off the side of the building, he'd left it behind, sacrificing power for mobility.
McMurdo raised his left arm. Seifer had an instant to see a flash of red behind the creature's right eye. He lunged to one side as the floor erupted behind him, the cannon taking out a nasty chunk of ground.
"Fujin?" Seifer asked, still watching McMurdo, unwilling to take his eyes off the monster.
"HERE," his friend replied.
Seifer heard the whirring of motors as McMurdo's arm moved once more. He watched, waiting, looking at the eye behind the reticle, anticipating the flash. When it came, he jumped, the floor exploding once more.
His move landed him next to Fujin this time, and she placed her hand on his back as he stood. McMurdo's cannon moved again, pointing at Seifer, and then it dropped.
"What?" McMurdo snarled. He raised his arm again, gritting his teeth and struggling as he did so. He roared, bringing the cannon to bear, when the unthinkable happened.
It shut down. The arm dropped, limp, to McMurdo's side, the cannon retreating back within its biological holster. The targeting reticle vanished from McMurdo's eye. McMurdo glared at his useless arm, snarling in impotent rage.
Half a heartbeat passed, and comprehension dawned on Seifer.
"You can't shoot at Fujin," he said. McMurdo raised his left arm into firing position, but it did no good, the cannon hidden. "You can't shoot at Fujin!"
As if to test the theory, Seifer gave Fujin a nudge. She stepped forward, walking into McMurdo's line of fire. His arm jerked, as if firing the absent cannon.
Nothing happened. Fujin did not flinch.
McMurdo seethed. Without warning, the cannon appeared again, as did the reticle. McMurdo fired. And again. And again.
Shots exploded all around Fujin, the ground at her feet exploding. Again he fired, and again. Fujin stood there, watching him, a slow smile growing on her face.
When the cannon fell silent, she stood there, unmoved. A little dusty, perhaps, but not so much as scratched by the flying chunks of rock.
"Why... can't I... kill you?" McMurdo panted, his rage overcoming the mechanical rhythm of his respirator.
Seifer's eyes darted over to Scarlet. If any of this came as a surprise to her, she did not show it. She had a look on her face that Seifer recognized – Quistis's "taking notes" face, the face she adopted when mentally recording something for later review.
McMurdo lurched again, his arm swinging back to Seifer, the cannon emerging. Seifer tensed, ready for the blast, when Fujin intervened.
She darted forward, whirling inside his reach, her elbow seeking out his right eye. It slammed into the targeting reticle, smashing it, making the cannon deactivate once more. McMurdo's right arm – the blade – slashed at Fujin. She ducked, but the blade retracted as it neared her. Fujin's duck turned into a shoulder roll, and she landed at Seifer's side.
Seifer felt himself start to smirk.
"Quistis was right about you," he called. "Third-rate, at best."
A growl sounded in McMurdo's throat.
"Even that's generous," Seifer continued. "She said you lacked the independent thought necessary for the assassination. You know what that means, boy?"
McMurdo's blade extended once more, his clawed hands flexing.
"It means you don't have the balls."
McMurdo took a step, advancing on Seifer. The blond man backpedaled, walking backwards as he talked.
"I mean, come on, kid!" He gestured to Fujin. "She torturedyou! You don't even have the guts to kill her! You can't hit me, you couldn't shoot her? What does a guy have to do to get killed in this place?"
McMurdo continued walking, one step after another, slow, inevitable, powerful, like the movement of a glacier.
"Look at you. Decked out with all this fancy equipment, and you still can't hack it. What made you think you'd ever pass for a SeeD? Mallis spent how many million gil and all you can do is wander around like a demented vacuum cleaner hopped up on crack? Get with the program, you pathetic, worthless miscegenation of inbred genetics and second-hand electronics! My stereo has more functions than you do, you laughable, stupid, gutless waste of—"
Seifer stopped suddenly, his smiled widening. He pointed down. McMurdo glanced at his feet to notice he'd stepped in the small stream, with Seifer and Fujin standing on the opposite shore. Seifer's hand flashed, like a magician producing a card, and suddenly he held the SD-341 tactical stun baton. The Bug Zapper.
He snapped it to its full length and in one clean motion, his thumb moving up the intensity slider at the same time. Seifer plunged the baton into the stream, discharging the full contents of an energy crystal into the water – into McMurdo's body.
McMurdo slumped as the electricity overwhelmed his systems. Seifer grabbed Fujin's hand and tugged her towards the elevator, pressing a button on the handlink clipped to his belt.
* *
His eyes track the movement of the baton into the water. Something in him recognizes the danger, but he cannot tell if this sense comes from his old brain or his new brain.
Err
Critical Failure at 8x00f87
Beginning Dump of Physical Memory...
Scarlet screaming and firing her pistol. Seifer and Fujin running. His field of vision fades to blue.
He comes online again – alive – as he feels himself crumble. As splash echoes in his ears as he hits the water. He tries to breathe, but it feels alien to him. Without the constant pulse of his respirator, the influx of commands from his new brain, the machine does not function. He suffocates, quiet, unable to scream, trapped within the monstrosity of his body.
So little McMurdo remains. A brain in a very expensive jar, and little else. Claustrophobia overwhelms him, like when older cadets pushed him into a weapons locker and closed the door after him.
Did Seifer do that?
He wonders, but cannot recall. Those memories have vanished, chewed up in order to make room for his new brain.
His absent new brain. It has fallen silent, for the first time since his awakening. It no longer chatters in his ear, and he suffers alone with his thoughts.
Claustrophobia. Darkness. Solitude. Uncertainty.
WarMech vanishes. Only McMurdo remains, a small, scared, frightened cadet trapped in The Dark, awaiting interrogation. All around him, the swirl of events he cannot comprehend. Death, at least, will come quickly, his brain choked to death. Hypoxia.
He tries to remember how long it will take, but that memory, too, eludes him. So much of him gone, used up to create his obscene metal bulk.
Power restored at unknown time
Reset internal clock
Missing files
Running "diag.prg"
His breath resumes, and as he inhales, he receives a welcome deluge of information, his other brain awake and soothing once more.
"—useless pile of garbage!" she mutters, and he waits for her to kick him. She does not, and he stands up, a dark smile on his face. "Go!" she commands. "Get them!"
She holds a phone and yells instructions to that, too, but he finds it redundant. He made a simple mistake, brought on by the novelty of his situation, but now he knows, realizes the danger, sees Seifer as a palpable threat.
"Kill," he growls. "Kill them..."
Err
Objective: Fujin
Apprehend with minimal force
Apprehend with minimal force
Apprehend...
Break
He thunders after them, moving swiftly as his motors will allow. He sees them at the top of the elevator, its doors opening. He thought his breakdown lasted longer.
"Stop them!" she screams again.
His legs tense, hydraulic pressure carrying him to the top of the stairs in one bound. The elevator doors have already closed, but he forces his blade into the space between them. He grits his teeth and pushes, and the door separates.
The elevator has ascended. Something beeps.
Up, he thinks. People always panic up. He remembers an Instructor teaching him this once, a lifetime ago – two lifetimes ago.
His blade retracts and he jumps into the elevator shaft, claws sinking into the wall opposite him. He starts to climb, moving after the elevator. A cord brushes his face, and his eyes trace it up the shaft as a voice floats from below.
"What'd I tell you, Fujin?" Seifer says. "He's strong, but not so bright."
"SAD."
He looks down the shaft. His eyes pierce the darkness. In the green of night vision, and the red of thermal vision, he sees them, at the bottom of the shaft, looking up from an access port his other brain has just informed him exists.
His brain, the slow, soft part processes several other details. The bottom of the elevator, its hatch open, a cord dangling down the shaft – their means of escape.
The beeping. He asks his other brain a question, and it identifies the sound, checking it for tone and pitch.
Identified: Standard-issue SeeD remote triggering device
Used to detonate plastic explosives and remote mines...
His brain continues to give him details, an endless stream of trivia that could prove useful in any situation but this one. He glances up to confirm his fear and the elevator shaft explodes.
The fire washes over him, stripping synthetic skin away from his metal skeleton. He survives, somehow, left naked and bare, an engine of death stripped of its disguise.
As the mechanical part of him processes the situation, assesses the damage, interprets the strange noises surrounding, the human part of him floods with relief
This lasts for half a second, when the screaming of metal on metal announces the collapse of the elevator, the car rocketing down the shaft and slamming into him.
* *
Seifer, the need for subtlety past, kicked off the grating allowing access into the parking garage.
"Here we are," he said, standing up and extending a hand to Fujin to help her out of the warrens.
"NOW?"
Seifer's hand danced and produced a key. "Now," he said, crossing the garage, "we ride."
His motorcycle hadn't moved from its parking space. No one had even touched it.
"BALAMB?" she asked.
"And we take the train from there," he said, hopping on the bike and starting it. Fujin climbed on behind him, wrapping her arms around him.
Seifer gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot, not caring if he left tire tracks in the garage.
* *
Rinoa woke to the feeling of weight on her head. She tried to place the source of the rhythmic pressure, when her eyes flew open – Squall, gently stroking her hair.
"Squall!" she exclaimed.
"You're back! I mean, you're
okay! I mean—"
"Shhh," he whispered, pressing a finger to her lips. "I'm back."
Rinoa sobbed, crying into his chest, relieved at his safety.
"What... What did I miss?" he asked, voice weak from disuse.
Rinoa reached out and grabbed the bottle of water sitting on the nightstand pressing it to his lips. When he'd drunk his fill, she replaced it.
"Let's see," she said.
"Quistis relieved you of your command and blew up an arms
manufacturer. Nida stole an
airship. My party was—" she glanced
out the window, seeing the morning sun, "--last night, and it went very
well. Seifer's gone missing, and that's
all I know."
"What?" Squall struggled to sit up, but Rinoa pushed him back down.
"Easy there," she said. "You're not going anywhere until you're cleared by one of your doctors."
Squall nodded, and sat back.
"Attention," came Xu's voice over the intercom, cutting into every corner of the Garden. "This is a priority one alert. All members of the First Team, report to the hanger at once. First Team to the hanger."
Squall started wriggling again, trying to work his way out from under Rinoa. He slid her to the side without much effort and seized the needle of his IV, pulling it out of his hand.
"What are you doing?" she asked. "You can't do that."
"I'll clot," he replied. "I have to go."
"Squall, you can't be serious!" Rinoa protested.
Squall staggered to his feet, still unsteady.
"I need to know what's going on," he said, "I can't do that
here." He took a few steps,
wobbling uncertain, and had to grip onto the chair for balance.
"Please, Rinoa" he said, imploring her with his eyes. "Help me."
Rinoa shook her head, knowing she'd already lost. He'd go, with or without her help, even if he had to crawl to the hanger.
"Just promise me you won't do any fighting while you're like this," she said.
He nodded. "Promise."
Rinoa sighed.
"I'll get your clothes."