Chapter 7

A mass of swollen nodules, grey, scaly skin, blue veins, and stretched sinew, like a massive human assembled from various corpses. Its deformed, claw-like left arm is connected to its torso by translucent sheets of flesh, anchored to the top of the engorged left leg. Resting precariously on its sinewy neck, the tiny head lolls from side to side. Its yellow, bloodshot eyes scan the room as it reels and twists its neck.

It takes an unsteady step on its right leg towards Rinoa, who shrinks back against the wall. With a heave of its whole body, it pulls its grotesque left leg forward to meet the right. Though it has no lips, it seemed to be smiling at her as it reaches its thinner arm towards her.

Rinoa holds her folded Blaster Edge in front of her, but the monster never reaches her. Squall steps in front of her, Selphie and Zell on either side of him, and slashes the blade in front of him. The wiry arm pulls back and the body double cringes around the wounded limb.

"Squall, it isn't bleeding!" Zell shouts.

Squall nods, and Rinoa understands at the same time. Whatever Deling's body double has become, it doesn't have a circulatory system. It's an "undead" creature, operating on magical energy instead of energy from food or oxygen.

The SeeDs are shouting to one another in what seems like another language. "Alpha position" and "Magic support". "Rinoa, get behind the desk." stands out, and Rinoa staggers to her feet and makes her way towards the overturned desk, crouches behind it, and breathes deeply.

When she peers over the edge of the desktop, the monster and the Seeds are fighting across the room. Zell turns to his side, and sharply kicks the body doubles right leg. Rinoa winces at the cracking sound of a bone breaking, and the body double screams, high-pitched and unearthly. It swings its grotesque arm at Zell, knocking him to the ground.

Squall is kneeling in a corner of the room, reloading his gunblade. Selphie stands a few feet from him, casting magic. Rinoa has never seen actual casting, except on television, and it isn't as glamorous in reality. Selphie makes none of the elaborate, graceful gestures of magic users in movies; instead she holds her nunchaku in one hand, and pushes the other forward, palm-first towards the monster. A shock of blue light, like a bolt of lightening, connects Selphie to the body double for a moment. Then it falls to its unbroken, oversized knee and hisses.

Rinoa closes her eyes, and ducks back behind the desk. She feels very drunk, as if the whole room is spinning. Or maybe she's spinning. She realizes all her muscles have seized up, as they start to relax and she falls to the carpet.

Rinoa wakes up feeling warm and stiff, lying in her own bed at the forest owls' base. She sits up and stretches her bruised limbs, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She can feel her heart beat in her temple and ankle.

Rinoa barely recalls rolling the ankle as she fell to the floor of the train compartment. When they'd murdered the president. Then it hadn't been the president. A body double. A legalized clone used for the security and convenience of a public figure, a celebrity, politician. Rinoa groans and rests her throbbing head in her hands. All those months of work, the fortune spent on the SeeDs help, and the trip to Balamb it had taken to procure it. What an incredible waste. Well, not entirely a loss, maybe. The SeeDs could do more for the faction than carry out this one mission… (Hyne…we were so stupid).

Someone knocks twice on the door. "It's open" Rinoa says hoarsely, and the SeeD leader enters and closes the door quietly behind him. He regards her with cold, impartial eyes. Rinoa is suddenly conscious of her disheveled hair and clothes. She's still wearing the duster, shirt and shorts she'd had on during the uncoupling of the train cars. She looks down and quickly smoothes her tousled hair with her palm and crosses her ankles, ignoring the stabbing pain in the left one.

"Here."

Squall hands her a red bottle. She takes it, and motions him to sit down on the cot next to the bed.

"A hi-potion?" she asks, examining the tinted plastic.

"An elixir. Potion and remedy, combined."

Rinoa already knows what an elixir is. Her father had given her one to keep in her purse. (He's so paranoid). Elixirs heal the body, and cure most common "status abnormalities" – temporary changes in behavior or abilities brought on by mind-altering chemicals.

"It's fine, I don't need it." she says, offering the bottle back to Squall. No sense wasting an elixir when a hi-potion will be enough.

"When the body-double attacked you, it inflicted several status effects. Many probably haven't worn off completely."

Rinoa takes a drink from the bottle obligingly. It's thick and grainy, and tastes like artificial fruit. Like a milkshake made of Gatorade. She wrinkles her nose, but swallows the rest, and turns her attention back to Squall.

"How long was I asleep; what time is it?"

"Quarter to nine."

Rinoa traced a rose on her bedspread with a finger, and then glanced out the window. Trees flashed past, below a darkening, overcast sky.

"We're still on the tourist track?"

"Heading back to Timber."

The two sit in silence for a minute. Rinoa flinches a little as her ankle starts burning. Maybe the elixir is starting to work.

Squall glances down and frowns.

"Put your foot up."

Rinoa obeys, setting her leg gingerly on the cot. Squall carefully unlaces her boot, and slides it off the injured foot. Rinoa cringes; her ankle is swollen to twice its normal size.

"I can deal with it." she says quickly, drawing her foot back, I have a first aid kit, right there…" she motions helplessly to the dresser

Squall doesn't move to stop her, but says "You won't be able to walk on it."

Recognizing the truth of the observation, Rinoa returns her foot to the cot, and lets Squall tie an ice pack from the first aid kit to it with an ace bandage. Rinoa can't help but notice that his hands are like his face – soft in a way they shouldn't be, and smooth except for calluses from the grip of his gunblade. She leans back on her forearms and watches the light glint off Squall's mop of brown hair, distantly aware of piercing cold on her skin, and heat in her face.

"Squall, what happened in the train car, after I passed out?"

Squall stays silent for a few seconds, then answers, "We defeated the body double. Zone decided we'd return to Timber by a back route. We left the presidential train car in the forest."

Squall stands abruptly and walks towards the door. "We'll be in Timber by ten." He departs, leaving Rinoa leaning back on her bed with her injured foot elevated. She sighs. They are now, officially, enemies of the Galbaldian government. Rinoa feels an unreasonable surge of smugness. She lies back on the bed, feeling the stiffness in her muscles relax as the elixir takes effect. She wonders who carried her from the fake president's car back to the base.

Very early the next morning the SeeDs and the Forest Owls move from Timber's train station to Zone's house.

"I don't expect we'll be traced anytime soon." he explains to Rinoa "But it'd be crazy to stay in this car. We just need to lay low for a few days. Maybe try to find out what Deling is doing in Timber. He came in by private plane yesterday, a few hours after the train."

The Cannon's house was in the middle of a crowded street a few blocks from the train station. The small, brick house seemed to be squished between the larger houses on either side of it, much taller than it is wide, with curtain-less windows and wilting flower boxes squeezed onto its tall front. The front steps extend several yards above the ground, framed by iron handrails, looking down on an overgrown front yard.

Zone's mother and sister probably aren't awake when the party arrives at five in the morning, so they walk on tiptoe through the eerily quiet house. The smell of cats and dust reminds Rinoa of afternoons spent studying and playing video games in the Cannon's living room.

Watts deposits his backpack in the hall and leaves almost immediately with granola bars and an apple in his coat pockets to "gather information". Zone goes back to bed, while the SeeDs set up make-shift beds in the living room to get a few more hours of sleep.

On her way upstairs, her ankle fully healed thanks to the elixir, Rinoa hears Zell and Selphie talking in the living room. She hears Zell finish a sentence that sounds like "…getting kind of ridiculous." She pauses and leans over the stair rail to see Selphie curled up on the couch, and Zell sprawled under a blanket on the rug.

"Maybe we should ask to see our contract?" Selphie asks uncertainly.

"They probably left it on the train." Zell says. "Besides, basically it says that the contract is in effect until Timber achieves independence."

"That is sooooo vague." Selphie rolls over. Rinoa continues up the stairs.

The hot shower water feels wonderful. At first, all Rinoa can think about is relief at being rested, healed and clean. She washes copious dirt and a pine needle out of her hair, and scrubs under her fingernails. When finally feels clean, Rinoa wraps a towel around herself and moves her clothes from the washing machine to the dryer. She sits on the washing machine, letting water drip from her long hair onto the floor as she waits for her clothes to dry.

She wonders what the SeeDs think of the Owls. Probably not very highly. (We're not the typical clientele for SeeDs. Most measly little political factions can't afford them. They're probably used to really professional organizations…but this is their first mission, for all of them. Why did they want to see their contract?).

Rinoa yawns. Too much to think about right now, it's too early. She curls up on top of the washing machine and lets the rhythm of the dryer lull her to sleep.

Rinoa is in the water again, but it only comes up to her knees. She's standing in wet sand, with cold ocean water rushing around her legs. Sun is breaking through the clouds above her, but the air is cold, and Rinoa shivers and wraps her bath towel tighter around her. The horizon is foggy and gray. She turns to leave the water and get back to the beach, but the grotesque form of the body double is lying in the sand a few feet behind her, dark seaweed and tracks of salt streaking its scaly skin. Rinoa takes a step back into the water, and then runs along the shoreline, trying to put distance between her and the misshapen body. As she moves from the wet sand on the shoreline to the dryer sand on the beach, running becomes more and more difficult. She keeps having to adjust her towel, and finally hold it up with one hand. With each step her foot sinks in to her ankle, then to her knees. She sits back on the beach, her shins buried in sand, panting.

The buzz of the dryer wakes Rinoa up. She hops down from the washing machine and opens the bathroom door a crack to check the clock in the hall. It's almost seven. Rinoa dresses quickly and goes downstairs.

To her surprise, Rinoa finds the SeeDs already seated around the kitchen table eating breakfast with Zone, Mara, and Donna Cannon. Selphie is chatting with Mrs. Cannon, while Zone and Mara argue. Zell keeps mostly to his oatmeal, though he glanced up at Selphie occasionally. Squall sits with arms crossed, staring moodily across the across the kitchen.

"Rina!" Mara greets her as Rinoa enters, the argument with Zone forgotten. She stands up and embraces Rinoa, then pulls out a chair for her. Mara has Zone's dark skin, reddish-brown hair, and black eyes, but wears the colors better than her brother. She's tall and thin, with a long ponytail and dark eyelashes. She's wearing a water polo tee-shirt and jeans. Mrs. Cannon looks like an older version of Mara, but shorter and heavier. Her blue dress and full white apron do little to offset her figure. She wears her hair tied back in a bun, covered with a kerchief.

Everyone at the table greets Rinoa, except for Squall, who busies himself with folding his napkin.

"So Mrs. C was just saying, our attack made the news this morning." Selphie says to Rinoa.

"It was on J77," Mrs. Cannon says quietly "a local station in support of the resistance movement" she added for the SeeDs' benefit. "The anchor was saying that an 'unknown resistance group' attacked the president's body double en route from Deling City, but the president made it safely to Timber…unfortunately in other news…"

Everyone but Squall laughed. (It's nice to know people are on your side, even after something like this) Rinoa speculated.

"Man…I can't believe that president was a fake." says Zone, through a mouth of toast.

"I can't believe you fell for it." Mara adds, disdainfully.

Zone seems about to retort, but is cut off as Watts rushes in though the swinging kitchen door.

"Info, sir! New info! It's big news! I found out the real reason why the president's here, sir! The president's going to the TV Station! Security's really tight, sir!" he announces, barely drawing breath.

"Why in Timber?" Rinoa asks. "They can broadcast just as easily from Galbaldia."

"Maybe the Dollet communication tower has something to do with this?" Selphie says, turning to Zell and Squall.

The rest of the room looks to at three SeeDs.

"What's that?"

"Dollet has a communication tower that can transmit and receive radio waves." Squall says slowly.

It had been abandoned for a long time, but the Galbadian Army got it up and running yesterday."

"Yeah" Zell adds "The G-Army withdrew from Dollet on the condition that their uplink to the tower stay connected…"

Dollet had been the site of Seifer's latest failed field exam, the capital of a small Dukedom about a day's drive from Timber. Maybe these SeeDs had taken the exam with Seifer. What could Galbaldia want with an abandoned communication tower in Dollet, when Deling could snap his fingers and have a new one built anywhere in the Galbaldian empire? Maybe there was something valuable in it? But why would they insist on maintaining their connection to the tower if they'd found what they were looking for. Or even if they hadn't…

When Rinoa turned her attention back to the conversation, everyone was speculating on the nature of Deling's business in Timber's TV station.

"Maybe he's shooting a public announcement or something."

"He could do that in Deling city."

"He sent his personal guard and body double separately, so he must be planning to stay for a while."

"Or he expects to need a safeguard."

"He will need a safeguard if I find him."

"Shut up, Zone."

"The only TV station that can handle broadcasts over the air is in Timber. Other stations use HD cable, which only supports online broadcasting." Squall says softly. The kitchen is silent for a few seconds.

"So what's that supposed to mean?" Zell says impatiently.

"They're planning on using radio waves. This way, they can transmit images to regions with cable." Rinoa explains, her eyes lighting up. Deling was going to use radio frequencies. Why?

"I know that...! But I mean, why use radio waves?"

"There must be something they want to say to the whole world." Mrs. Cannon says to her soup.

"What can it be?"

"'Everybody! Love and Peace!'" Selphie exclaims.

Rinoa laughs. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if the first broadcast could be the declaration of Timber's independence?" she muses.

The Forest Owls set their new course accordingly. While Mrs. Cannon cleared the table, Zone, Watts, and the SeeDs retired to the living room to prepare. Rinoa and Mara went to Mara's room. While Mara organized her desk, Rinoa packed her belongings in her black plastic suitcase and set it beside Mara's dresser.

"Going so soon?" Mara joked.

"I want to be able to get out of the house in a hurry. I don't expect they'll be able to trace us, but I don't like to put you and Donna in danger."

"You know the Galbaldians," Mara says nervously "Bureaucrats to the core. It'll take them days to go through the paperwork…"

"They haven't found the base yet either. We're alright for now, but better to be safe. The fire escape is still open?"

"Yeah, it is. I understand."

The Owls plan to infiltrate the Timber television station is primarily of Watts's and Zone's design. Watts knows every corner of the city, including the area around the station, and draws a map on the back of a garage sale flyer. He explains it to Rinoa and the SeeDs gathered around the coffee table in the living room.

"This is the T.V. station, right here behind the pub."

"What's 'T.M.'"?

"That's the Timber Maniacs building."

"I can't see. It's upside-down." Selphie complains. Zone rolls his eyes as Watts flips the map around.

"We'll enter through the back door to the station, right at the top of these stairs." To the SeeDs, Watts added, "You may have to force your way in. The station doesn't officially open until tomorrow. That's probably when the president was planning to make his broadcast."

"So basically we're going to try to kidnap the president, and then make an illegal television broadcast the next day." Zell says skeptically.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Zone insists. Watts continues,

"You'll make your broadcast in the studio, here. Then either exit the way you came, or leave by way of the roof. The roof of the television station connects to Timber Maniacs, and that's next to Ana's house. You can get to her attic via the skylight."

"Ana?"

"She's the leader of Forest Fox." Rinoa explains. (I hope the back exit is clear. I've had enough of jumping around in high places…). "Alright, so who's going to the TV station?"

"Gathering information is my specialty sir!" Watts says quickly.

"Ah…my stomach is acting up." Zone says, suddenly doubling over. "I think I'd better go make sure Ana knows what's going on."

Rinoa sighed. "So me, Squall, Zell, and Selphie. We'll make our broadcast, and then meet back here or call you from Ana's."

Rinoa said goodbye to Mara and Mrs. Cannon, and left for the TV station.