"Sephiroth, do you think... You keep calling the copies abominations. Do you think Angeal and Genesis are also abominations?"

"Genesis focused his attack on the Science Division," Sephiroth said quietly, stirring his noodles with his chopsticks. He tugged at his bland, gray sweatshirt. His hair was tucked entirely into a dark gray knit cap.

Considering the subject matter, he and Zack had opted to have their discussions incognito. As such, they had dressed in unremarkable civilian clothes and gone to a disreputable diner in the Sector Six slums. They couldn't afford prying ears, though they still kept their voices down. Though many slum dwellers despised Shin-Ra, the Turks had managed to cultivate a distrustful attitude among some of them. The worst of them were desperate enough to report even family for infractions both real and imagined in exchange for a handful of gil.

Neither man had any appetite and they barely touched their food. Sephiroth poked at his noodles again and went on, "Not unexpected, given the things Hojo said to us. Genesis and his copies all but annihilated the main lab area." He stopped and smirked with uncharacteristic glee. "I stayed in the shadows and let them do whatever they wished."

Zack stared at him. He couldn't imagine Sephiroth being so derelict in his duties. Many dangerous monsters and experiments had escaped, killing a handful of Shin-Ra employees. SOLDIER and the Infantry had been ordered to track them down and destroy the creatures, and Sephiroth thought it was funny. Zack didn't know what to say, choosing instead to ask about the matter most important to him: "But did he find Angeal there?"

"No," Sephiroth admitted.

Zack felt the leaden weight of disappointment settle in his stomach. "No clues at all?" He was careful to keep his voice down and not to whisper. Angeal had warned him in the past that the sibilant hissing of whispers indicated that secrets were discussed and so often attracted attention. A low voice in a conversational tone, however, was usually ignored. Sephiroth, it seemed, also followed that convention.

"Aside from the Science Department?" Sephiroth huffed. "He didn't go after Hojo this time, which indicates that his primary objective must have been Angeal."

"Yeah, he went straight for Hojo in the last attack. Angeal thought he was going to kill Hojo, but he didn't even try."

Sephiroth inclined his head in confirmation. "Genesis abandoned his previous attack because you and Angeal stopped him."

"Mostly because Angeal showed up, I think," Zack said. Genesis had always expressed contempt for him, but never for Angeal. "Angeal chased him and fought him off. He summoned Bahamut Fury to cover his escape, but Angeal went after him anyway."

Sephiroth grunted in agreement. "This time Shin-Ra devoted more resources to guarding the Science Department, for all the good it did them." He leaned back and casually glanced around the diner as though bored. He lowered his voice even further. "I know Hojo has more facilities in the HQ, as well as labs in a number of other cities. Angeal could be in any one of them. It's already been too long."

Over a month, Zack thought. Not too long in normal custody, but with Science and the Turks involved... Sephiroth was right. It was too long.

Sephiroth leaned over his noodles again, but stared into Zack's eyes. "We need to find him soon. I didn't like how Hojo said he was promising."

Zack remembered that. At the time, he hadn't noticed the present tense, but Sephiroth had obviously taken it to heart. He had a strange light in his eyes, an intensity that would have frightened a normal man and that managed to disquiet Zack.

"Sephiroth." But Zack couldn't continue. Hojo was creepy and disturbing, and rambled about strange things, but surely he couldn't have somehow secreted Angeal—an important First Class SOLDIER—in his labs as a test subject. Angeal was too well known, and it was no secret that he was in Shin-Ra custody.

But then again, Shin-Ra had declared him a traitor, and traitors were usually executed. No one would care about the disappearance or death of a traitor. Most of the public would approve. Shin-Ra wouldn't even need to hold a show trial.

Angeal's only known family, his mother Gillian, had killed herself. His childhood friend was a renegade. No one else other than Zack and Sephiroth would care enough about what happened to a traitor to defy the company and risk their lives for him. He could disappear and the company would just cover it up with their lies, just like they'd covered up the massacre and bombing at Banora months ago.

Besides that, Hojo was somehow so charismatic he could talk anyone into anything. The creepy bastard had managed to talk Zack into participating in some experiments during a crisis, and Zack had gone along with it despite all common sense to the contrary. Hojo hadn't even appeared to care if Zack had died during those experiments. Hojo could do anything, it seemed, and get away with it all.

"It's worse than that. Lazard was working with Hollander all along," Sephiroth said flatly. "He was embezzling money from the company to fund the revolt. It explains how easily the Genesis Army was able to obtain and reprogram Shin-Ra weapons and materiel, as well as break into a secured facility to rescue Hollander. Lazard gave the orders to SOLDIER personnel, managed SOLDIER funds and equipment, and possessed the necessary security codes." In a tone of stating the obvious to even a complete moron, he added, "Those codes have been changed now, and Lazard has been locked out of all company access. Things will be far more difficult for them from now on."

Zack blinked at him in shock. The knowledge was like a punch to the gut. Sephiroth's dry recitation, the revelation that their commander, their trusted leader, had always been working against them—it was too much to take in. "So when Angeal warned me and Lazard about Modeoheim, that means Lazard knew..."

"It's unclear if Modeoheim was a trap or not. It's also unclear if Angeal knew about Lazard's involvement. That fact that he warned Lazard implies he did not. He wasn't with Genesis and Hollander very long. Hollander may not have trusted him with such critical information."

Zack scowled and covered his dismay by picking up a piece of pork and shoving it into his mouth. It tasted dry and flavorless, and he swallowed without chewing. "He could have told me more about what was going on."

Sephiroth tilted his head. "He probably thought he was protecting you by giving you plausible deniability."

"He still should have told me," Zack grumbled. "I would have been better prepared, especially if Lazard warned Genesis and Hollander we were coming."

"It's possible Lazard didn't have time or opportunity to alert them that they were no longer safe. We simply don't know. In any case, you didn't run into significant opposition there."

"No." Zack set down his chopsticks and folded his arms across his chest. "No, there were Genesis copies patrolling, but I was able to avoid them easily. The Angeal copies were all just monsters. There weren't many, and they weren't very organized."

"Without Angeal's guidance they would have been masterless and operating only on their own aggressive instincts," Sephiroth said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, I think so. The Angeal copies have always been kind of random, but lack of Angeal's control explains that. The only one in Modeoheim that was a real threat was a griffon," Zack said. "Those are pretty dangerous even in their natural state."

"Your helicopter crashed outside Modeoheim, yet there was no report that you were attacked."

"Tseng didn't say so, but the crash was so sudden. One moment we were in the air, the next we hit the ground. Tseng only said we crashed and didn't mention any antiaircraft fire. But now that we can't trust the Turks... Would there have been a reason for him to hide an attack on us?"

"Possibly..."

"Maybe he's just a bad pilot." Zack didn't like how events were stacking up. Only a tiny team of four, with only a single SOLDIER, had been sent to Modeoheim to retrieve Hollander and Genesis and deal with the Genesis Army. Just Zack, Tseng, and two regular infantrymen. Zack had made a new friend in one of those troopers, which had been nice, but even so, the mission should have warranted a larger force. Was that how Lazard had manipulated the situation to protect Hollander?

Zack knew he'd been overconfident and assumed the company believed he was just so awesome he could handle anything, but that was his ego talking. Lazard could have sent such a small team with the intent that they would fail.

And what about Tseng? Was he really just a mediocre pilot who couldn't handle the weather conditions in Modeoheim? The Turks should have been wiser to the situation, but instead they had gone along with Lazard's orders for a small, underpowered team. What were they thinking? Zack couldn't trust the Turks anymore, when before he'd have believed they were on the up and up, at least as far as company business was concerned. Now this.

Sephiroth eyed him, as though debating whether Zack could face any more bad news. "While he was still in power, Lazard had the authority to sign Angeal over to the Science Department. The Turks split up Angeal and Hollander immediately after their capture, long before Lazard's treachery was unveiled."

And at that, Zack's stomach gave a wrench as though he might vomit up what little he'd eaten. He leaned forward heavily against the table. "No, he couldn't have. He wouldn't have. Not if Genesis and Hollander wanted Angeal back. You said Lazard was working with them, right? He wouldn't have gone against them, would he?" He felt as though he might cry, and took a drink of his ice water to sooth his throat. Lazard must have been planning, laying groundwork, using his position and all his subordinates for years. He'd lied to them about everything.

"Perhaps," Sephiroth temporized. "It's possible that Lazard just tried to cover himself long enough to escape by going along with company policies. It's also possible that Hojo himself signed the transfer orders without Lazard's consent or knowledge. I haven't found any copies of them yet, and the Turks are continuing to play ignorant. They are complicit, at the very least."

"I can't believe it."

"I do. The copy technology is that important to Shin-Ra. The orders regarding Angeal and Genesis keep harping on it, and so do the Turks." He made a terrible noise, deep in his throat, raw like a wounded animal. "That so-called 'copy technology' is nothing more than Genesis and Angeal's own bodies. Alive or dead, it doesn't matter as long as their cells can be harvested and grown in cell cultures for the creation of abominations as weapons. Hollander has proven this is not only possible, but practical and effective. Even in hiding, using only stolen resources, he has mass produced copies from SOLDIERs, regular humans, and monsters, and waged war against Shin-Ra—and Lazard financed it all with illicit funds. Shin-Ra has noted the possibilities all along.

"If Angeal is dead, I will destroy them all, loyalists and renegades alike. Every last one of them." His voice was low and dark, and though his face was dead as a corpse's, his eyes burned with deep, inhuman rage.

Zack believed him.

Rage this deep couldn't be new. It must have been something that had been building and building, and it could consume him. Now it was close to being released. Unleashed, it could burn down the whole world. Sephiroth was destruction personified, even when he was in perfect control of himself.

Zack closed his eyes and shuddered. Was Sephiroth right? Had Angeal been killed but preserved for his cells? Zack's imagination conjured up the horrors that Sephiroth had not stated aloud but implied all along: Angeal's dead body splayed open on a steel lab table, dismembered, his organs dissected, his tissues cultured into immortal cell lines to create unending armies of copies. Humans and monsters weaponized, mutated and mako enhanced, and with no free will, no thoughts or desires or morals of their own. Much easier to control than SOLDIERs.

Abominations, as Sephiroth had called the copies more than once.

How long had Sephiroth been living with this same dread? Zack thought back, recalling Sephiroth's ambiguous reaction when told that Angeal had been returned to Shin-Ra's custody. Zack had been bubbling with joy that he had saved his mentor, but Sephiroth had only asked, "You brought him back alive?" with a blank expression, as though that weren't a good outcome.

Zack couldn't stand it. He'd been so naïve.

"I see you finally understand the ramifications," Sephiroth said through clenched teeth.

"Sephiroth..." Zack began, but hesitated. When Sephiroth glared at him, he swallowed. "Sephiroth, do you think... You keep calling the copies abominations. Do you think Angeal and Genesis are also abominations? I mean, Hollander said they were both created using Jenova cells, or Gillian's cells after she'd been infected with Jenova cells." He put his head in his hands. "It's so confusing and I don't know how it works. But they—they're people, right? Not monsters, not abominations?"

Sephiroth looked away and didn't answer.

"Sephiroth," Zack lifted his head and tried again, swallowing hard as his stomach lurched once more, pushing sour acid into his throat.

"It all comes back to Jenova," Sephiroth muttered, still looking away. "My mother, or rather, not my mother. The calamity that fell from the sky."

"Hojo said Jenova wasn't your mother, that you were mistaken. Why did you think Jenova was your mother, Sephiroth?"

"It was something I overheard a couple of Hojo's technicians talk about. They were laughing and saying that my genetic tests proved Jenova was one of my parents after all. I was quite young, and I didn't hear the whole conversation. Someone caught sight of me and they shut up. What else was I to think?" He finally looked back at Zack. "She was never around while I was growing up, so I assumed she was dead. But if they claimed Jenova was one of my parents—"

"Sephiroth..." Understanding the implications, Zack was desperate to change the subject and frantically cast his mind about, searching for any other topic that might work as a distraction.

"Was I created like Angeal and Genesis?" Sephiroth finally said it aloud. "Am I like them? A monster, an abomination..."

"None of you are monsters or abominations! You're people! Listen to yourself! If you were a monster, would you care? Would you want to save Angeal? Or would you just mindlessly seek revenge?" Zack clamped his jaw shut, suddenly remembering Angeal saying that as a monster he would want revenge...

No. They weren't monsters.

Sephiroth opened his mouth, closed it again. He sighed and deflated, and Zack almost despaired of talking sense into him. It was Angeal all over again.

Then Sephiroth looked up and his expression froze as hard and cold as a northern glacier. He stood and moved away from his chair, giving himself space to fight.

Zack turned to see what had alarmed him. "Cissnei!" he exclaimed.

"Zack," the young Turk greeted him quietly. For once, she wasn't dressed in the Turks' trademark dark suit. Instead, she wore casual, shabby clothing suitable for blending in with unimportant slum dwellers—patched jeans, a ragged black tee-shirt, and a threadbare denim jacket. Her eyes flicked from Zack to Sephiroth and back again. "You and I need to take a walk together."

"A walk?" Just a month ago, Zack would have considered Cissnei a friend and trusted her with his life. But not now, not when he knew the Turks had been involved in Angeal's disappearance and were stonewalling Sephiroth about it. "Why?"

"Why not? It's just a walk. We can catch up. It's nice to encounter old acquaintances, don't you think?" she said with undertones of meaning. "Your...friend...can stay here if he wants, or return home." She looked directly at Sephiroth and added very softly, "Your height will give you away."

Zack did not want to go. Not with the fears preying on his mind, the same fears he knew haunted Sephiroth. They both needed to support one another. Zack couldn't leave him to face all those terrors and doubts alone.

And what of Cissnei? She was a Turk, first and foremost. Zack had never doubted his safety with her before, or with any of the Turks, but now? He couldn't trust them. No matter how friendly she seemed, he knew he couldn't trust Cissnei.

Sephiroth assessed the Turk. Cissnei's face remained bland, with a smile of faked delight at encountering an old friend. She revealed nothing that Zack could see, but apparently Sephiroth detected something in her, something he understood, because he looked to Zack and flatly ordered, "Go."

The iron tone made it clear that Zack should obey without argument. He could only hope things would be all right.