Chapter 19
The stairs lead up to a tiny room over-looking city hall, empty except for a stool, control panel, and wrinkled copy of Deling City in the New Millennium thrown into a corner. (He made me read that in 9th grade…I wonder if I'm really going to die…that'd be the second time tonight.) Somehow panic didn't even register.
Irvine led Rinoa hastily, as though hoping to leave her behind, through a tiny passageway to another small room, this one even dirtier. A trapdoor in the dusty floor had already been opened and a rope attached to an iron fed through it.
"Squall, Quistis and Selphie used their sliders already. You take mine." (Selphie is down there? So they don't need a caster…) Irvine tosses her hollow, metal cylinder with a handle. It clips and unclips. "Wait, here." He takes the cylinder from her, clips in to the rope, and adjusts a knob under the handle and tugs on it. It slides jerkily on the rope.
"Hold onto this. Your bodyweight will pull it down. Don't let go."
Rinoa crouches, determinedly grabs the handle, and sits on the edge of the hole in the floor. (Please let this work.) She slides off of the edge and stops with a jerk that almost breaks her white-knuckled grip on the slider. (Slider…silly name…this is really high…I've been in a lot of high places tonight). The slider drags down the rope. She's facing the far wall of the arc. By stretching out a foot, Rinoa manages to touch the wall and spin herself towards the sorceress's float.
Squall and Seifer are fighting hand-to-hand with their gunblades, Seifer holding his in one hand like a fencer and balancing his weight with the other, Squall in a katana stance, parrying Seifer's blows. At the back of the float, a huge, wooden floor with a raised, decorated throne and several low torches, Quistis is on the offensive with Edea. She keeps trying to rush her with her whip. Never having seen Quistis fight hand-to-hand, Rinoa is fascinated with her technique, throwing it above her head like a dancer with a scarf, and then lashing towards Edea, who consistently blocked her and pushed her back, but without touching her. Sitting composedly in her chair, she pushed a hand forward and threw Quistis back with some invisible extension of herself. Turning back and forth between the two fights, Selphie periodically heals Squall and Quistis, and tries to cast magic on Edea, though Selphie's lightening and fire stops a few feet from her.
The rope sways and jerks a little. Rinoa looks up to see Irvine climbing hand-over-hand, his legs wrapped around the rope. A few feet from the ground, Rinoa lets go of the slider and lands crouched on the cobblestones. She runs up to the float, climbs onto the edge of the raised floor, and narrowly avoids being stepped on by Seifer, who's retreating. Instinctively, she grabs his ankle and pulls him down. Sadness and guilt and hopelessness wash over her as she realizes that Seifer was going to be dead again. (I dunno if I can handle it a second time.) Seifer falls to one knee, slides off the end of the float, staring up incredulously at Rinoa. Squall jumps down after him, but stops to look up at Rinoa too, giving Seifer a chance to recover and run back from the float. Selphie's moved to stand on the edge of the platform and is throwing offensive spells at Seifer, who's moving too fast to make a good target. She cries out in surprise when she sees Rinoa, but helps her up onto the float.
"What are you doing here!"
"Helping. Quistis is in trouble."
Quistis had given up trying to attack Edea and fallen back, throwing spells at her. She was no match for Edea in magic though, and Edea's thunder spell had knocked her back into one of the torches, which was now burning on its side. Selphie quickly cast a curative spell on her. The thunder had been different from the thunder spell Rinoa knew. Instead of stretching between Quistis and Edea, the spell had appeared above Quistis as a shower of sparks. Quistis struggles to her feet.
"I've got Squall, help Quistis." Selphie looks surprised, but obeys and turns to the fight with Edea, who still hasn't risen from her chair. Outside the arc, guards and spectators are screaming and shouting. The dancers trapped inside the gate with Edea's float have gathered in a huddle in a corner of the cage made by the arc and gates.
Rinoa turns to Seifer and Squall. Seifer has climbed about twenty feet of the rope, and is sawing at it with his gunblade, trying to drop Squall, who's still near the bottom. Above him, Irvine is climbing back up the rope. His hat falls and floats towards the ground. (C'mon Irvine, cut the rope!) But he's already climbing back through the trapdoor. Seifer reaches the top and follows him into the arc, while Squall throws spells at him helplessly. He drops to his heels slaps his palms to his forehead. Rinoa turns back to Edea.
The sorceress hasn't attacked them yet except to keep them away, waiting perhaps for her guards to get inside. Rinoa unclips her Blaster edge and unfolds it. It snaps into a full circle. She quickly opens out its base and snaps it onto her forearm, sets the Blaster edge onto it.
Selphie and Quistis are both throwing spells at Edea, who's finally risen to her feet. Selphie is casting spells Rinoa's never seen before. She draws back both hands and throws them forwards as if to push something heavy. Ice bursts from her fingers, encircles Edea's torso. With a wave of Edea's hand the ice falls away. Quistis, a less experienced caster, is using spells Rinoa's done herself, mostly protective and curative.
Rinoa holds her arm up towards Edea, pulls a latch in the middle of her blaster edge. The steel disc spins off of her arm towards the sorceress, who stops it mid-flight with a raised hand, then flicks a wrist. Rinoa's muscles freeze up, though this time she isn't surprised. Her blaster edge clatters to the ground and spins on its edge before falling flat. Selphie is fishing around in her item pouch for something – a white ball? She jogs over to Rinoa, forces the ping-pong sized ball between her barely parted lips.
"It's a soft" she explains in a rush. "Just let it melt." She stands in front of Rinoa like a shield. (Why doesn't Edea just freeze us all at once and kill us? Or control us like she did with me in City Hall?) As the soft melts and trickles down her throat, Rinoa feels her muscles warm and relax. (All these SeeD cures…they must go right to your blood stream somehow. Do they penetrate through the skin like a potion?).
By the time Rinoa has control of her muscles again, Squall has climbed onto the float platform. He draws his gunblade and takes a combat stance next to Rinoa and Selphie.
"Get out of here, you could be killed."
Stand your ground and fight.
"Rinoa, go!"
Stand your ground.
"Rinoa! Stand down!"
Stand…
"I'm staying!" She says heatedly, her voice breaking. She turns back to Edea. She's gliding towards them, hands at her sides. Quistis has given up trying to attack her with her whip, and Selphie her futile casting She tries to rush Edea with her nunchaku drawn. Without turning, Edea holds up a hand and Selphie stumbles backwards into the throne.
"A SeeD. Planted in a run down garden." Edea's voice is as calm and colorless as ever. "Accursed SeeDs." Squall brings his gunblade down overhead, meets Edea's blue shield. "Impudent SeeDs." She thrusts a hand towards Squall and turns her wrist, closing her fingers into a fist. Squall drops to his knees in agony.
"Stop!" Rinoa screams and throws herself on Edea, taking her by surprise and knocking her backwards. She quickly recovers herself and flings Rinoa to the ground with a flip of her free wrist. Landing on her side, she struggles to her feet again, her elbow and hip badly bruised. Squall, too is back on his feet. Trying a new tack, he swings his gunblade in a circle behind him and rushes Edea with a palm outstretched. The sorceress, breathing heavily now, bends her knees to lean her body weight into a shield of magic, struggles to keep Squall from coming any closer.
From further back on the float, Selphie and Quistis are casting cure and defensive spells on Rinoa and Squall. Squall and Edea are locked in an impasse, each pouring their energy into charging and blocking the other. (What do I do? What now? Leviathan, talk to me!) Leviathan doesn't answer. The fallen torch, still burning over Edea's shoulder, reminds Rinoa of the resources available to her now. She casts a fire spell, and Edea doubles over as heat builds around her. The feathers on the collar of her dress smolder and ignite. She presses a palm to her neck to extinguish the flame, giving Squall time to rush at her again. Edea holds a hand out defensively, and ice pours from it like Selphie's, hardens into spear shaped shards and drives into Squall.
In the same moment that the ice pierces Squall's chest, the gates creak and begin to rise. Someone's gotten through the side entrance to the controls. Soldiers pour inside. Rinoa watches in slow motion as Squall stumbles backwards, the ice spear protruding from his chest at an angle. He staggers, steadies himself, and drops backwards towards the edge of the float. Rinoa runs after him, crouching to try to catch him, but he's already falling gently to the ground. Rinoa reaches down. Someone is screaming.
Then the soldiers are all over the float. Selphie and Quistis give themselves up quietly. Rinoa's first instinct is to bolt, but she's frozen to the spot, and in moment two soldiers are on her. One knocks her to the ground, holds his short sword to her throat. (Squall is already dead?) The other guard is cuffing her wrists roughly in front of her, reciting her rights. Out of the corner of her eye, Rinoa sees Quistis throw her cell phone the ground with such force that it smashed into pieces. (What!) Shouting ensues. Squall and Selphie follow her example, and Selphie casts lighting spells on the broken phones in rapid succession until one of the guards forces a white rag over her mouth and nose, and she collapses into his arms.
Irvine: Though I gave a more elaborate version later, this is what really happened. I was halfway down the rope when Edea's blonde bodyguard jumped onto it, running from Squall. He climbed up a few feet, gave Squall a good kick in the head that made him stumble back, climbed a few feet higher. I tried to reach for my gun, but I was using both hands to stay on the rope. I started climbing back up so I could get a seat inside the arc and either shoot him or cut the rope. The casually dressed guard had the same idea, but he could hold his weight with one hand, and cut the rope with his sword. Poor Squall fell about six feet and rolled.
I got to the top first, climbed out, and started to close the trapdoor, but he got out. I backed away and took a shot at him while he was half way through the door, but he held the flat of his sword over his face, and I only managed to singe his hair. The blade turned from silver to glowing orange in the middle.
I think he must have cast blind on me while I was shooting. Realizing he would kill me before I could get to m eye drops, I started running back to the control room, turning and firing shots blindly. I felt the door to the passageway behind me, slammed it shut and felt for the locking button. The bodyguard pounded on the door while I fished around for the eye drops (they're supposed to have such a distinctive shape that they're easy to locate blind, bullshit) and dropped them into my right eye just in time to have the damned giant bodyguard ram through the flimsy door with a shoulder. Seeing out of one eye, I turned and fired several shots at him.
On unprotected, human skin, a plasma shot at point-blank range should leave a nasty, painful burn comparable to a high-level fire spell. My first shot burned through his trenchcoat and barely fazed him, though I never saw him cast protective magic. I threw myself down the stairs, leaping down them several at a time and almost twisting an ankle at one point. That part in particular, I omitted in my reports to Squall and Garden. There were several Galdaldian guards, locals in green uniforms, not the sorceress's personal guard, standing outside the side entrance to the arc. I was just deciding which would be worse – a gang of lightly armed soldiers or the blonde bodyguard with the giant sword, when I realized the blonde wasn't chasing me. Maybe he'd given up and gone back to help Edea, assuming I'd be stopped by local law enforcement? I fished out my last bottle of eyedrops, having dropped the first one somewhere upstairs, and fixed my other eye. I blinked as my vision started coming back. If I ran out the side-door I'd be easy to identify as part of the attack. If I went back upstairs there was the chance of meeting the bodyguard, and the Deling city police would find me anyway.
I went upstairs. Sure enough, he'd gone back through the trapdoor, though it must have been a long way to the ground with a third of the rope cut off. I found my first bottle of eyedrops, closed the door to the stairwell, and propped in shut with a stool. Now, to get out. I remembered diagrams of the arc from the general's strategy meetings, but I've never been good at that stuff; guns and women, those are my areas of expertise. Leave that shit to the architects. I thought I could climb out the window overlooking City Hall, but there were two stories of smooth wall under it.
I ended up going through the sewers, which was disgusting. In the back of the trapdoor room is a crawl space leading to a ladder that goes down the other side of the arc. It leads to a storage room, locked from the inside, connecting to the control room where Zell had been stationed. A copy of Combat King magazine with a picture of a muscly, shirtless blonde kicking a punching bag on the cover was open on the floor. Zell's exit, unlike Quistis and Selphie's, would have led him outside the arc. He probably couldn't fight his way through the crowd. Or maybe he'd been seen coming out of the arc? The general couldn't have known that his post was connected to Quistis's, or he'd have had Zell use the path I'd just taken.
A short ladder outside the control room led to a wire fence covered with tarps. I guess some kind of construction was going on; there were piles of bricks in the corners of the fence. Unless civilians had started using military codes, there were soldiers watching this, and probably every other entrance to the arc. I couldn't climb the fence and run, because they would catch me. Instead, I went through a sewer grate.
The sewers were lined with think cement paths, probably for maintenance workers, with murky, brown water flowing between them. The smell was too awful for words. Kind of like an outdoor public toilet that hasn't been cleaned in years, but everywhere. I was tempted to climb the first ladder I saw, just to get away from it, but it creaked and wobbled, threatening to fall away from the wall if I put my weight on it. I buttoned the top of my coat over my mouth and nose and breathed shallowly through my mouth, through several blocks worth of sewers. Periodically red bats – tiny, urban bats that were presumably living off human sewage – would fly out of some moldy corner or crack in the ceiling. Like all monsters, they were somewhat aggressive, but a plasma shot at one of them would send the rest scattering. The next ladder led to a grate in some public place, I could hear voices above it and feet thumped rhythmically across it – people walking. The next two were a little quieter, but they must have been in the middle of a street. Cars zoomed noisily over them a few times each minute, and I wasn't willing to risk being run over, even to get out of the sewer.
Eventually, I found a quiet grate that opened into an alleyway Hyne-knows where or how far from central arc and city hall. I climbed out and walked a few blocks to find myself in a brightly lit street. Everyone gave me a wide berth until I found a little perfume shop with free samples and surreptitiously doused myself in "Mystery" by Shorla Babcock. After that I got strange looks, and I felt naked without my hat. It was a miserable walk back to Carraway's mansion, but I got there eventually by following Telegraph until I got away fro the shopping arcade and into a residential area.
I didn't look forward to telling the general that his daughter that his daughter had been arrested because I'd allowed her to follow me, or that I had missed the sorceress. Not that it was my fault. But he took it much more calmly than I'd thought.
"I know, it's all over the news. It isn't your fault; if I can't control I can't expect you to." the general sighed and rested his palms over his eyes. "My career is over. I need to leave immediately." He stood up abruptly. "Pack whatever you brought with you; take anything you need." We're leaving in ten minutes. He called his chauffer from a household telephone in his office, and within five minutes we were driving towards the city limits
The SeeDs, as a matter of precaution, would have a cover story to protect their client (not to mention garden) in case they were caught. Not being part of the mission, Rinoa doesn't know what it was, so when uniformed men ask her questions, she answers only in Chali, with hysterical tears and pleading. When it becomes clear that none of them understand, she answers insolently, but with an earnest tone.
"What's your name?"
"You could afford to drop a few pounds."
"I said what… is …your… name." The soldier enunciates carefully and speaks slowly.
"I don't understand, fat pig man."
"Who are you working for?"
Rinoa tells him to do the unmentionable with the blade he holds deliberately visible at his side. When the novelty of insulting the guards wears off, she drops her face into her hands, her body racked with fake sobs until the police cars reach Deling City jail.
Selphie, Quistis and Rinoa share a cell with two other women, while Squall is taken, presumably to a hospital, in another car and Zell is lead to another section of the jailhouse. A girl of about twenty with pale skin and dark hair and eye make-up introduces herself as Rhyla. The other, Cheyenne, has dark skin and clothing, and a nose ring. She says little, and is unintelligible when she does speak. The cell is small, equipped with four, blanket-less cots on bunk beds and a moldy-smelling wooden bench. Quistis sits tentatively on the edge of a cot. Cheyenne and Selphie start a game of triple triad on a board scratched into the wooden bench with Cheyenne's battered deck. Rhyla coaches Selphie in a twangy, street accent. "No no no, dis'un here." pointing to a card. Quistis shakes her head unhappily,
"Amazing. We could be dead in a week and she has the energy to play cards."
"Don't worry; I'm sure garden will back you all up. If anyone's going to be executed …it'll probably be me." Rinoa swallows hard with the realization.
Quistis lowers her voice further, "not unless they can trace the attack back to your father. If it's classified as an independent action…well he'll still have his influence in the military. He'll get you out." Quistis puts a comforting arm over Rinoa's shoulders. "Good job, speaking that Estharian language. Just remember, we're working for clients of garden, not for garden directly. The sorceress must not trace the attack to the garden circuit."
"Hey! Ladies!" Rhyla's grating voice interrupts, "what are y'all in for?"
"Street-walking." Quistis answers quickly, in a decent imitation of Rhyla's accent.
"Yeah, right. Y'all's hookers, fine." Rhyla turns away in disgust, gathers up her cards. The others go to bed, Rinoa curled up at the foot of Quistis's cot. Cheyenne sits smoking pensively on the edge of her cot. Irvine's elixir pill is wearing off, and she drifts off to sleep to the smell of cigarettes and the rhythm of Rhyda's accent as she bantered with the guards, with a picture of Squall's pale face falling backwards off the float in her mind.