James started to follow Barret, but then took a different route, and walked along on his own, down the streets. It was practically deserted, except for one person, who was coming over to him. A simple flower girl. Dressed in pink with light brown hair and sparkling green eyes which were looking intently at him.

'What's happened?' asked the flower girl, tentatively.

'Nothin',' replied James, not wanting to give anything away. 'Hey...'

She stared at him. James felt momentarily uncomfortable, but decided that he ought to say something.

'...Don't see many flowers 'round here,' he mumbled.

The flower girl brightened up and motioned to the wicker basket over one arm.

'Oh, these? Do you like them? They're cheap, only one gil...?' her voice wavered off, in a question.

James fished in his pockets and pulled out a small silver coin, and handed it to the flower girl, who seemed delighted. She enthusiastically thanked him, and handed him a beautiful red rose.

'Here you are!'

James took it from her and was about to say goodbye, when he heard the sound of guards calling to him. They were guards in the enemy, Shinra's defence group, SOLDIER. James took off, leaving them in the distance, trying to make his way to the Sector 8 Station.

He saw a few more, and changed his direction. He looked to his right. There were the train tracks. He had probably already missed the train that he was meant to be catching. There were guards in front of him. There were guards behind him. There were guards on his left. He was completely surrounded, and there were too many to fight. They came closer, closing in the gap when James took off to his right, and made a gigantic leap onto the train tracks...

Biggs, Wedge, Jessie and Barret were inside the train, all wondering what had happened to James. Barret was in a corner, leaning against a large crate, the others milling around, leaning against the walls, their heads all buzzing with thought. At last, after a few minutes, Wedge spoke up.

'James never came.'

Biggs raised his head.

'Hey, d'you think he got killed? And that's why he ain't here?' he asked.

There was a snort from Barret.

'No way! Kid like him, nah.'

'So...do you reckon that he might stay with AVALANCHE, fight alongside us...til' the end?' Biggs' voice sounded excited. He looked at Barret hopefully.

Barret on the other hand, just slammed his gunarm onto the crate angrily.

'The hell would I know?' he screeched. 'Dammit, do I look like a mind reader? Ha, if only you lot weren't such screw ups!'

'Hey, Barret? What about our money?' asked Wedge cautiously. Barret smashed his gunarm on the crate again. 'Uh, actually, never mind...'

So far, only Jessie had not uttered a single sound. The men failed to notice.

There was a strange noise, coming from outside. It sounded a lot like somebody going 'aaaahhhhhh...'. They all looked up as the carriage doors opened. Nothing happened for a few seconds, until James suddenly came swinging from off the top of the train, into the carriage, and landing unsteadily on his feet in front of Barret, who jumped out of his skin.

'James!' yelled Biggs and Wedge. Jessie had also cried out his name when he entered, but she only said it as a whisper. It went unheard from the shrieks of the two men.

James dusted himself off, grinning to himself.

'It looks like I'm a little bit late, don't it?'

'You're goddamn right you're late! Jus' comin' in here, makin' a huge scene, scarin' several goddamn years outta my life,' spat Barret.

James merely gave another one of his shrugs and said 'hey, it's no big deal, just what I always do.'

'Shit! You were havin' everyone worried 'bout ya, and you don't give so much as the smallest damn 'bout no-one but yerself!'

'Huh...you were worried about me?'

'Wha...' started Barret, dumbfounded by James' attitude, 'I'm takin' that outta your money, hot stuff!' he yelled at the others. 'Wake up, you lazy lot! We're gettin' out, so follow me!'

He stormed off to the next carriage, leaving the rest to congratulate and just generally speak to James. They all seemed to have been impressed with him setting the bomb down, and wanted to say something to him.

'You were great back there, mate,' grinned Biggs.

'Yeah,' agreed Wedge, 'and we'll do even better next time! Nice one!'

They both followed Barret into the next compartment, just leaving Jessie and James on their own. She turned to look at him, and slowly made her way over.

'Be careful. I'll just shut this,' she said, motioning to the open carriage door. She turned back to him, and looked a bit startled, and giggled. 'Your face is pitch black!'

She made her way back over to him, taking out a cloth, and gently wiping the soot off his face. She smiled at him and thanked him again for helping her get free at the reactor, and then made her way after Biggs and Wedge. James turned around and followed her. He saw that Barret had scared several of the other passengers away in his anger, and was taking up roughly half of the long plastic seats on one side of the carriage.

Jessie had stopped right at the opposite end of the carriage, and was watching as James came closer. When he got close enough, she beckoned him over. He walked over to the machine that she was standing in front of, wondering what it was. She explained that it was a map of the circular city of Midgar's Railing System, and asked if he wanted to look at it with her. He gave a small shrug, indicating that he really did not care. Jessie took his shrug as a 'yes', and launched into a speech about the Midgar Railing System.

'Okay, it's about to start.'

A green image flashed up on the black screen.

'This is a complete model of the city of Midgar, but it's about 1/10000 scale. The top plate is about fifty metres above ground. A main support structure holds the plate up in the centre, and there are other support structures in each of the eight sections.'

Jessie lowered her voice, and moved a bit closer to James.

'The Number One Reactor we blew up was in the northern section,' she whispered. She raised her voice again. 'Then there's number two, number three, all the way up to number eight. These eight reactors provide Midgar with electricity, Mako. Did you know that each of the eight sections used to have a name? They did, but nobody can remember them anymore, so that's how come they're numbered instead. Guess that's just what this place is like.'

Jessie took a deep breath, before continuing.

'Okaaaaay...this is next. Look, that's the route that this train we're riding at the moment is on. We should be heading to the centre area, pretty soon,' she explained, pointing at the green frames. 'Our route spirals around the main support structure. There are a few checkpoints as well, and at each one, there's an ID sensor device set up. It can check the identities and the background of all the passengers on the train, just by linking up to the central data bank at Shinra Headquarters.'

Jessie's voice took on a more bitter tone as she said the company's name. She leant closer again, and whispered to him.

'Anybody could say that we look a bit suspicious, so we're using fake IDs,' her voice raised again as a red light flashed in their compartment. 'Ah, speak of the devil. That light means that we're in the ID Security Check area. When the lights go off, you never know what kinda creeps will come out, anyway, we're almost back now. That's a relief.'

James nodded, and made his way over to Barret, who was casting him a suspicious look. He waved James over, and pointed out of the carriage window, up at what was above them.

'Look, you can see the surface. This city ain't got no day or night. We'd be able to see the sky if that soddin' plate weren't there,' Barret's voice sounded a bit reproachful.

'A floating city,' mused James, 'pretty unsettling scenery.'

Barret seemed surprised. He told James that he did not expect the ex-SOLDIER to come out with a remark like that, and stated that he was 'jes full o' surprises'.

'The 'upper world',' started Barret, referring to the people that lived on top of the plate, 'it's cause of that damn pizza that us underneath are sufferin'! Full of polluted air, and these reactors keep drainin' all the energy.'

'Why doesn't everybody just move onto the plate?'

'Dunno. Expensive probably, 'cause people ain't got any money, or...'cause they love their land, no matter how polluted it gets.'

He did not seem too sure about this second theory. James had his arms crossed over his chest, and nodded his head in agreement.

'Yeah, I know. It's like this train.'

Barret looked at him.

'Nobody lives in the slums because they want to. It's like this train, it can't move anywhere but where the rails take it,' explained James.

The train had started to come to a stop as it reached its destination. Barret stood up and exited, before gathering the small group called AVALANCHE around him. He congratulated them all on successfully completing their mission, but warned them not to start slacking.

'Don't you all be scared of that explosion, yeah? 'Cause the next one's gonna be bigger! Now move out, meet back at the hideout!'

The five went their separate ways, James taking a slow stroll back to the hideout. When he finally got there, he noticed Barret outside the door of a bar. It was named Seventh Heaven. Barret went inside, who instantly managed to scare off all the drinks in there by firing his gunarm wildly around the room.