Cloud sat in a back corner of the cafeteria, sipping something carbonated and incredibly sweet. He didn't particularly care for it, but when a SOLDIER and a Turk both told you to drink and then glared until you did, well. He pushed the food around on his plate.
"Eat it, don't play with it."
"I still think you're overreacting." Cloud said, aiming for calm. It may have come out a bit sullen.
"I still think we should drag you to the infirmary." Luxiere retorted.
"What I said." Cloud replied.
"What Luxiere said." Freyra pointed at Cloud, "Eat, or we take you there anyway."
Cloud sighed, and ate a few more bites. The chatty Turk hadn't been a one time thing. She kept showing up. She'd be lingering just outside whatever training room he was in, and haul him off to the cafeteria. Sometimes she'd show up at his room and take him there. Cloud wasn't sure why she was so obsessed with his dietary habits. Maybe Freyra was one of those people who thought meals were a social occasion. Between her and Luxiere, he'd yet to eat in peace and quiet.
"It was just a small fracture. I'm fine." Cloud insisted, swinging his leg a bit and tapping the floor for good measure.
"Rhapsodos said his sense and cure fixed the 'clean, simple break', but said you should still get it checked out. So finish your food, and then go rest, or I'll change my mind about letting you skip out on the doctor."
Sometimes this Turk reminded Cloud of Tifa fussing over Denzel. The SOLDIERs weren't as bad, but even they had their moments. He had avoided the white lab coats so far through sheer stubbornness. It had been a little tricky, as minor training injuries happened, and everyone wanted to haul him off to the infirmary for the simplest things.
When Cloud had gotten settled in his new room, and had some time to think without being interrupted by nosy Turks, he considered the question posed by Luxiere and Genesis. At first, Cloud thought it was a kind of moral conundrum. Whatever the situation with Wutai, there was some kind of hostility going on, and Yuffie wouldn't appreciate Cloud teaching Shinra her country's "secret ninja arts". Even if Yuffie had made up her moves, they weren't something he could just hand over to SOLDIER. Anyway, Cloud had never really gotten the hang of her specialties. Actually, he hadn't managed most of her "normal" techniques either. They were designed for a flexible, lightweight female to use, and he had the wrong musculature for them. Cloud had ended up mostly inventing ways to block and coming up with his own...that SNEAK! She hadn't taught him anything! He had obligingly put aside his sword and fought using methods he wasn't very good at, then handed over some of his best materia as a thank-you. Cloud was split between self-disgust and wonder at her sheer gall. Yuffie was a conniving sneak thief.
It had then occurred to Cloud, that he could pull the same trick on Shinra. The deal had always been materia for martial arts, and he was so different from the SOLDIERs, that they'd have to modify anything Cloud taught them, anyway. They would have to give him back his materia, and Cloud would bargain for more. He snickered and wondered how she had rubbed off on him so much - he'd never had Yuffie inside his head. Thank Gaia; Cloud was messed up enough without her kind of crazy added to the mix.
So he had agreed to show them his hand-to-hand, provided they gave Cloud back his materia. Negotiating for more was a work in progress. The problem they kept running into, was the SOLDIERs were tall and strong to begin with, and then they had added the mako enhancements. Even being careful, SOLDIERs received a fair number of training injuries, and Cloud was small and not enhanced. The first time Cloud hadn't moved away in time from a punch, and the black, prickly haze of almost-unconscious had faded, there had been several near frantic people crowding the room. Genesis' hands were glowing a faint green from a just finished cure, and Luxiere was peering at Cloud in concern. The SOLDIER Cloud had been fighting was talking very loudly with Freyra, and when had she gotten here?
"I'm telling you it was an accident, he's dodged everything else!"
"Well, I should hope it was an accident; the question remains: why were you swinging so hard in the first place?" Freyra bit back, and it sounded like the kind of conversation that had been going in circles for awhile.
"Enough." Genesis said. "Let's get you to the infirmary, Cloud." And then he reached over to, Cloud wasn't sure, maybe pull him up?
Cloud scooted back, and responded firmly, "I'm not going to the creepy Science people."
The room had gone mercifully silent, and then Genesis responded calmly, "The infirmary has doctors in it who will make sure you are uninjured. Some of them work in the Science Department also, but I haven't found them 'creepy'."
"I'm not going to those cackling, white-lab-coat maniacs." Cloud had insisted. "My head is fine, it wasn't that bad of an injury." His head had still hurt a little, but he wasn't going to admit it, if it meant scientists would be involved.
"The doctors in the infirmary aren't maniacs, and don't-"
That had been the beginning of people trying to haul him away for every little thing. So far, he'd successfully won each argument, but there was still a price to be paid.
"-yeah and I suppose if the cat had actually been up that tree you would have been pretty helpful; drink some more of the juice kid, but it wasn't, so-"
"And I'm saying, it didn't matter if it was or not, I still climbed the tree, and-"
Cloud let his shoulders sag, and sipped more of the sickening beverage. With those two in the same room, the talking never stopped.
ooOOOoo
Cloud behaved circumspectly the whole time Genesis' section was present. He showed up bright and early at whatever training room was chosen for the day, and worked with the SOLDIERs. Around mid-day, he would be dismissed with, "That's enough for now, Cloud." After he had gone straight to his room a few days in a row, Freyra had showed up and started hauling him from sparring directly to the cafeteria. He had tried going back to train, or sneak off to one of the gyms after lunch, but he had been stopped by Genesis, who told him firmly to go rest.
His room was small, but definitely not a cell. Cloud did escape there when he wanted a break from people, or to think, but it became very dull to be there for hours on end. So, to scope out possible escape attempts for the future, Cloud became helpful. All those secretaries who thought he was adorable had some errand they were delighted for him to run. There were some dangers in using even this as a smokescreen. After a few days of fetching and carrying, Cloud explained to Freyra over lunch, that he could see the morning training as him "earning his room and board", but since he was doing part-time in the afternoons, he should get paid. Preferably with more materia. After this, he stopped seeing Turks just happening to be in the same area as him. Cloud was careful not to go into any areas that looked important or secure; while there was a camera that would catch him, anyway.
Occasionally, Genesis would simply stride up to wherever Cloud happened to be, and take him to the Virtual Reality room. Usually shortened to VR room, it was used primarily to simulate terrain for practice skirmishes. It had other uses, however, and after fiddling with the controls, some kind of energy shield shimmered into place around the inside edges of the walls. Then they would play with materia. They discussed the ones Cloud and Genesis owned or had heard of, and how to truly master them. Genesis seemed fascinated with how Cloud had used Time, and they had one session where they traded Genesis' Barrier and Cloud's Time back and forth, trying to trip each other up.
That had been fun. Cloud started to feel winded around the sixth time he'd cast reflect at Genesis, to prevent stop from hitting himself. He hadn't known for sure if it was from draining his inner core of manna, or from laughing at how Genesis' hair had looked by that point. When they took a break for Cloud to catch his breath, he had explained this. The SOLDIER had simply rolled his eyes and huffed.
"I don't see why you're laughing; it took several powerful spells to make my hair stick up like this. Yours already does all the time, without such an excuse."
For the most part, though, Genesis and the others were very busy. After awhile, even Luxiere only showed up at meals to talk at Cloud. The SOLDIERs were all training intensely, and Cloud had snuck into the air vents a few evenings, to see what they were all doing in one of the meetings Cloud wasn't invited to join. Sometimes they discussed things like materia theory, combat tactics, and military stategy. Sometimes they seemed to be studying lists of monsters, and the general areas they were found in. Cloud knew most of the things they talked about, and what he didn't was boring enough he stopped eavesdropping.
Soon he gave up the afternoon errands with the explanation, "if I'm not getting paid in materia, I'm on strike", and napped. Then evenings and nights were spent crawling around the tower, sometimes in the vents, sometimes not. It was a massive place, and when he needed to get out quickly, he wouldn't have the ability to brute-force his way out like before. Lack of cameras or terminals, areas that didn't get a lot of traffic; he found a few routes with promise.
ooOOOoo
Cloud made himself scarce when the three sections converged back to Shinra Tower. It had been a busy hum of of low-key activity on floor sixty-three, but with all the SOLDIERs there at once, it was loud and crowded. Thirty men, most of whom could be described as small giants, all talking about what they'd seen and done, and then trying to beat each other up. Every training room and gym had anywhere from two to five SOLDIERs in them at any given time.
The third time he caught a glimpse of Sephiroth, with subsequent confusion about where Cloud was and what he was doing, he headed off to the most out of the way place he had found to date. He only avoided surveillance at night when he was supposedly in his room, so wasn't too surprised when Freyra eventually showed up.
She leaned against a filing cabinet, and said with a smirk, "You're not going to be able to avoid all that hubbub when you're a full-fledged SOLDIER, you know."
It was mostly Sephiroth that was the problem, but Cloud wouldn't deny he was tired of the noise. Also, "When I'm SOLDIER I'll be taller and enhanced, and so less likely to be stepped on." Cloud tried to say with some dignity.
Freyra laughed. "You've got a point there, kid. Even the Turks keep some distance when they all herd up like that. Come on, it's closer to dinner than lunch, and a little bird told me you ate like a bird at breakfast."
Cloud stood to follow, but gave her a sideways look. "They've probably eaten all the food anyway."
She reached out to ruffle his hair, which he deftly dodged. "There are more cafeterias in this building than the one on floor sixty-three, you know. We'll go to one of them."
Not too long after that, Genesis and Sephiroth left with their men, and SOLDIER's floor went back to tolerable. Cloud braced himself for seeing Zack. He wasn't sure how to handle that situation. So he was in a rather tense state for the first several days of training with Hewley's section. Until he'd met and fought with all of them, and there was no Zack. Cloud couldn't think of why they would put him with Sephiroth, but where else could he be?
That night, Cloud chose an out-of-the-way terminal, and very carefully accessed personnel records. He could wait until the next section came back, but... although Cloud had avoided the group as a whole, surely he would have noticed Zack?
Cloud was good at a lot of things, but hacking wasn't one of them. Still, a complete list of Shinra's employees wasn't terribly secret. He wasn't trying to figure out who all the Turks were, after all. Just find out the names of men who had signed up for an experimental procedure, which was classified as top secret. That should be how they make SOLDIERs, though, not who was chosen. Everyone introduced themselves readily enough, and Cloud was pretty sure they were using their real names.
There was no Zackary Fair working at Shinra. There was only a Mabel Faire in Urban Development, and a Zach Vairen in the Space Department. Cloud spent a few moments wrestling down wild, racing thoughts about Zack being experimented on by the Science Department. Hojo hadn't done that before until after they were both declared KIA, or MIA, or maybe just deserters. Cloud was never sure about that part. If Zack wasn't here, it was because he hadn't joined yet.
Cloud wandered back to his room in a daze. That was so strange. Still, he supposed he couldn't expect everything around him to be the same as last time. When Tifa would make breakfast for the kids, Denzel would vote for pancakes some mornings, and waffles on others. Marlene and Denzel once had a very detailed discussion on how he decided. Tifa had rolled her eyes and said Denzel just felt like waffles that day, and would someone please pass the syrup already? Cloud supposed life was like that. People might get up one day and decide to do something different than they had before. What could have happened that made Zack decide not to join SOLDIER, though? Maybe Cloud's memory was just too sketchy. Cloud did know that Zack had risen very quickly through the ranks. Maybe he joined older than some did. After far too long trying to puzzle out how much older Zack was than him, Cloud gave it up as a lost cause. A few years, he wasn't sure how many. Which led back to the question, how old was Cloud? He was growing increasingly aggravated that he hadn't thought to ask his mother before he left.
Working with Hewley wasn't as easy as Genesis. The vague familiarity Cloud had felt with the latter had never turned into anything more than than that. It was refreshing to work with someone that didn't come with disturbing memories attached. When Cloud met Hewley for the first day of sparring with the new section, Cloud felt a bright, near joyful sensation, along with a strong urge to glomp the man, and yell "Angeal!". This was incredibly easy to push aside and label as not his own self. Nothing about that reaction was like Cloud at all, unlike some things he had to examine and think about first. Besides, that afternoon's sleep was interrupted with a sharp awakening from one of Cloud's own memories. A helicopter crash, a scar on Zack's face that never faded, and Zack holding the buster sword like he couldn't decide whether to hug it closer or throw it as far as he could. So this SOLDIER 1st Cloud called by his last name, and was careful to avoid unnecessary crossing of paths. If Hewley had intended to seek Cloud out for anything extra, like Genesis did, Cloud never found out.
With the SOLDIERs so busy training, and his exploration of the building as complete as he could manage, Cloud was ready for the next step. After lunch, as soon as Freyra wandered off to do whatever Turks did in the afternoon, instead of heading to his room, Cloud left the building. "Tell someone if you're going to leave", Genesis had said. Cloud told one of the secretaries he had run errands for. She was on the elderly side, and amazing at filing things, but if you didn't write it down, she didn't necessarily remember to pass on messages.
Cloud had known it was unlikely he'd be done by evening, but it took far longer than he had expected. Every piece he needed was somewhere he wasn't. He had to run errands for this person, or dig through a different trash heap, and had to give up haggling in the interest of saving time. Cloud winced at how much gil some of the components cost. Finally, he'd gathered everything he would need. Cloud bundled it all up; bigger parts, little tiny pieces, tools, small containers of chemicals, and approached one of the least used exits of the Shinra Tower. Technically, it wasn't an exit, it was more of a garbage disposal area, fashioned a bit like a laundry chute. That you could access from the air vents. Whoever designed that tower needed his head examined; even Cloud wasn't that messed up. He left the bundle just inside a vent for later retrieval, and shimmied back out.
About mid-morning, he walked slowly up to Shinra Tower's entrance number three. This was the one most employees used, as it had easy access to the elevators. Keeping a firm hold on his handy, little rolly cart, he walked in, and punched the sequence that would make the elevator take him directly to floor sixty-three. When the doors opened on SOLDIER's floor, three people were waiting for him. Tseng was standing back farthest, looking...neutral. Hewley was a few steps forward from him, with his arms crossed. Freyra had been right next to the door, Cloud thought, as she grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the elevator.
"Where were you, Cloud?" Freyra queried, and probably would have shook him a little, if Cloud hadn't neatly disentangled his arm from her grasp.
"Shopping." Cloud said, waving towards his purchase.
"All night?" Tseng asked blandly.
Cloud sighed. "It took longer than I thought to find one this size, and I figured the doors would be locked by the time I got back. So, I came back this morning instead." He finished with a faint smile, proud of himself. His misdirection was getting to be amazing.
"You were supposed to tell someone if you were leaving." Angeal Hewley said, a bit sternly.
"I told Aeghel."
"Who?" Hewley asked, confused.
"Aeghel, the secretary on floor forty-five. She's in charge of paid vacations. I told her I was leaving, and even though I missed morning training, it should still count as me working. You know, since I probably have a few days of vacation saved up by now." Cloud finished, trying not to grin. This "innocent" business was tough, how did Marlene do it?
"Next time, tell me or one of the SOLDIER 1sts , kid, not one of the secretaries." Freyra said, exasperated.
Cloud shrugged. If all went to plan, there wouldn't be a next time. "Okay." He replied, and grabbed the cart's handle and pulled in the general direction of his room.
"What is that, Cloud?" Hewley asked, following.
"Aquarium." Cloud said shortly, huffing from exertion.
"For what, a shark?" Freyra asked in disbelief.
Cloud stopped and caught his breath. "For Little Friend. You've kept him long enough, I get him back now. If you want a touch-me, you'll have to catch your own."
Tseng just made a "hmm" noise and left; Freyra rolled her eyes and followed Tseng. Angeal Hewley sighed, and took the cart handle from Cloud.
"You think this is going to fit in your room?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"If not, I can move the bed out, and sleep on the floor." Cloud replied.
The SOLDIER shook his head and chuckled.
ooOOOoo
Cloud screwed a metal plate over the wires, and then got out the pliers. This wasn't like working on a motorcycle at all. Still, he had watched Tifa make several of these in a row one night, and Cloud was pretty sure he was doing it right. It was the best long-range idea he could come up with. His close-range attack on Sephiroth only worked because of the element of surprise. Several surprises all wrapped up into one neat package.
Cloud glanced at Little Friend. The touch-me was snoozing under a log in its aquarium. Hewley had helped him set up all the stuff for the inside so it was like a mini-jungle in there. Very nice of the man, even if he did back far away, and refuse the offer to pet Little Friend. It had been meant as a sincere thank-you; Cloud had proffered his mastered Heal with its resist for the occasion. Genesis would have taken Cloud up on the offer. Probably to try out the materia, more than petting Little Friend, though.
Cloud wrapped more wires around the packet of chemicals. This was an odd contraption, but Tifa had insisted it was fool-proof. "Jesshie taught thish t'me," She had slurred, having drank a shot every time she picked up a different tool. Apparently, it was an "old school AVALANCE special" whatever that meant. Passed down by someone to Jessie, then Tifa, who didn't exactly teach Cloud, more made multiples while he watched. At the time he was more interested in making sure she didn't set them off by accident than ancient AVALANCHE history. Some of it stuck with him though, and bits and pieces of trivia drifted through his mind while he worked.
Cloud pushed away a few bitter thoughts about what AVALANCHE had roped him into doing while he was still so suggestible from the mako poisoning. This time, he would make sure the only person caught in the blast was Sephiroth. Which made the timing and location incredibly important.
There was an office on SOLDIER's floor that Cloud thought was intended for the Firsts. He hadn't checked to see if all three used it when all the sections were together, but Genesis and Hewley had when they had been the only SOLDIER 1sts present. The evenings there hadn't been meetings, sometimes Genesis had stayed there until the early hours, doing some kind of paperwork. Or maybe just reading. The air vent wasn't very well located for spying on that room. The first several nights of Hewley's return he had been there, filling out charts and such. If Sephiroth was the same, that could be the location. Cloud was no architect, but even he could tell the walls of the office weren't load-bearing, and this particular bomb was small-area affect.
The problem came with timing. If he didn't care about potential innocents, he'd just set the bomb, and leave, and by the time it detonated, Cloud would be long gone. Except a few times, one of the SOLDIERs had interrupted the Firsts. Once it was three of them with some complaint Hewley handled with a pretty impressive combination of diplomacy, and sheer disappointment with their actions. If Cloud was amazing with computers like Reeve, this wouldn't be a problem. Cloud had watched him work a few times, and almost all the "how" of what the man did was still a mystery to Cloud. He had picked up enough to check for Zack, for instance, but being able to access and alter active security feeds and not get caught was way beyond his skill level. He'd have to be sure Sephiroth was the only one in there, trigger the bomb, and then get out of Shinra Tower.
The majority of the surveillance cameras were just recording devices. If one stopped working right, someone would check the footage, so sabotage was out. But if Cloud chose just the right time, he could skip the door, and use the vent to place the bomb. He would still be caught on film, but no one would view it until after, when they were investigating.
The Turks would take it personally, a bomb going off in Shinra Tower on their watch, so they would figure it out fast.
There wouldn't be time to use the elevator, and the stairs would flood with security. Cloud would have to stick to the air vents. It was a really bad idea to only have one avenue of escape. What else could he do, though?
Cloud had a few more long days and nights to think about it when the sections all returned, but a better solution did not present itself to him. So, the day the next two sections were due to leave, in those early hours of the morning when everyone was in their apartments, Cloud sneaked into the Firsts' office, and placed the bomb inside Sephiroth's desk.
Then he paid Aeghel a visit, explained he was taking one of his vacation days, and then locked himself in his room. He wouldn't be able to act normal around this section when Sephiroth would be there. There were probably more subtle ways to handle this last day, but Cloud really didn't care at this point.
The tedium was only broken by Freyra trying to get him to eat. He sent her away with the excuse it was his day off, and she wasn't allowed to bother him. Finally, evening came, and he packed up his few things into his rucksack, and attached Little Friend to its staff. It was a pity the touch-me hadn't been able to enjoy the aquarium longer. He climbed into the air vent, and crawled to the office; no one was in there yet. Cloud cast sense, and moved to a vent that had a good view of the hallway. The materia's range was good enough, he was sure no one had come this way, so the office was still empty. The hallway was clear, and Cloud waited.
Late enough floor sixty-three had actually gotten quiet, Sephiroth came down the hall. He was carrying a large stack of papers, and strode without pause into the office. Cloud thought it likely the first thing he'd do would be set down the paperwork. Would he sit down immediately, or pin things on that board they all used? Cloud waited, and listened, but no sound carried that could tell him what was happening. Then came a very faint one-sided conversation, like someone talking on the phone. The phone was on the desk, and so Cloud slipped the cover off his remote trigger, and clicked the button.