CHAPTER VII

"Escape" -- Rupert Holmes

Sephiroth stood before her, his presence overwhelming in the confined space of the cell. His brilliant turquoise eyes examined Noin's crouching figure with what might have been curiosity, taking in her rumpled clothing, sweat-dampened hair and pallid face.

"I'm disappointed, little sister," her silver-haired captor chuckled after a moment. "I rather thought that someone of your position and status would hold up better under pressure."

Noin, all too conscious of her disheveled appearance and resenting the familiar diminutive, glared at him silently. She wasn't presenting the image of a worthy adversary, and it galled her. At best, she reasoned, it might make her enemy underestimate her -- though it seemed he wasn't taking any chances.

"I'm a little claustrophobic," she lied. She sat upright and tried not to look pathetic.

A moment of silence passed between them. Sephiroth tilted his head thoughtfully, as if listening to something far away, but his eyes never left hers. Noin felt a brush at the back of her mind, an unpleasant shadow like a forgotten errand. It tugged at her thoughts, threatening to break her concentration. She pushed the presence out of her mind and focused her gaze on her enemy's eyes, the aqua globes that bored into hers with an icy gleam. Go away, she thought, preferring the miserable solitude of her cell to this intimidation contest. Leave me alone.

Sephiroth frowned.

The turbulence in her mind rose to an irritating pitch, a frenzied tickle that made her want to rub her eyes and scratch her ears, but she stared back at him until her eyes began to water, refusing to succumb to the static crackle. A moment later, it was gone, as suddenly as it had begun. Noin blinked a few times, searching her thoughts experimentally, but everything seemed normal...

Sephiroth's countenance had darkened into something that was not quite anger, and now he turned his back on her. "You would do best to cooperate," he said, his words clipped. "And I expect that your friends will do the same, given a choice between your life and the Item." He waited an instant longer, as if he wished to say something else, but then swept out the door without looking back at her.

Noin sagged with relief and exhaustion as the door clicked shut behind him. She could hear the scrape of the heavy bolt as the guard locked her cell. As expected, it sounded more than secure, and she knew that even if she managed to get past the lock she was in no condition to face Sephiroth's guards.

But at least he was gone, for the moment, and had left her in relative peace. She wasn't certain what exactly had transpired between them, but the battle of wills had drained her completely. She leaned back against the wall, struggling to keep her eyes open...

Suddenly she recalled Sephiroth's last words, and she bolted upright, fully awake. As much as she craved it, rest was not an option right now. She was completely in Sephiroth's power, a hostage to be used against her comrades. She would be bartered back to her friends in exchange for... for what? He had called it "the Item," but that was as generic a term as she could think of for anything with which a character might interact. Whatever it was, it was apparently stored at SPCFC headquarters, judging by the comments she'd heard earlier. Sephiroth seemed to have staged the raid simply to gain access to the Item, until he had seen her and changed his plan. The Item must be extremely valuable for him to take that kind of risk.

What Sephiroth valued most, Noin was certain, was power. Whatever the Item was, it must be some thing or artifact that would grant Sephiroth incredible, perhaps ultimate, power.

She stared at the blank wall of her cell, considering her options. If she remained here and did nothing, Sephiroth would almost certainly trade her for this object he wanted. Steed was dedicated to his job, she knew; but he was also responsible, perhaps to a fault, to the people who made up his organization. Noin doubted he'd sacrifice one of his compatriots, and she wasn't sure if Steed and Amon would be able to trick Sephiroth into giving her back in exchange for anything less than the genuine Item.

She could try to make a deal with Sephiroth to spare her, in exchange for... what? She had nothing of more value than the Item itself to offer him, and she didn't dare promise him something she couldn't even identify. Additionally, Sephiroth wasn't likely to trust her, especially if she showed a sudden change of heart.

Another option was to kill herself here, thus eliminating Sephiroth's bargaining chip. But Steed and Amon wouldn't know that she was dead; Sephiroth could pretend to have her in custody, and still arrange to trade her for the Item. Truth be told, suicide wasn't high on her list of favorite emergency measures, either.

The only other alternative she could see was to escape and get word to headquarters before Sephiroth could make his bid. From the look and sound of the door, that wouldn't be easy. Noin glanced around the room, her tactician's eyes taking stock of every detail. Closed ventilation system; no external light sources. Small openings for plumbing, but nothing big enough to crawl or reach through. Solid walls and ceiling, and no tools to break through them. A heavy, locked door with an external bolt. A guard, just audible in the hall, who would hear if she tried to work on the lock. There was no way, short of a natural disaster, that she was going to walk out of this cell.

Assuming she walked.

Noin hesitated, hardly daring to consider the other possibility. A few moments before, she had felt herself go – she hadn't moved, but she knew somehow that she had broken her connection to the world she was in. But along with that feeling of freedom she had felt the silent threat in her mind, the distinct signature of the void.

Even now, terror of the black nothingness nearly paralyzed her. The rational part of her mind screamed facts to dissuade her: The void was, truly, nothing; it was the eternal emptiness that lay outside the habitable bubbles of the known worlds. Even outer space, vacuum though it was, contained planets and stars and the potential for life; the void held only death. In theory, it was impossible to traverse the void without the precise technology they used to navigate and control the portal system.

And yet, Sephiroth was able to move about freely, though he had no visible means of transport. And she'd long known that Black had the ability to phase from world to world without their portals. Was it possible, then, to travel through the void itself?

Noin took a shaky breath, consciously steadying herself. One way or another, she had to escape. She was not going to let Sephiroth use her against her own comrades. If she succeeded in escaping – which, she had to admit, seemed unlikely at best – at least she would be somewhere else, beyond Sephiroth's reach, and could potentially get a message to headquarters to that effect. If she failed, she would be no worse off than she was now.

And, in the worst case, she could only die – which would have been her last resort anyway. Noin's lips curved in a wry smile, and she settled herself more comfortably against the wall. There was really nothing to lose.

She cleared her thoughts, picturing headquarters in her mind. Fear drilled at her attention from every side, but she held on to the image, willing herself to be there. She passed through the prickling touch of the layers she'd felt before, and then more – sharp pain, burning heat, freezing cold – but she kept focusing on the picture in her mind, willing herself more and more to stand there with her own feet on the floor and the familiar walls around her. Her heartbeat slowed... then it seemed to echo... then she lost it all together. There was a strange white numbness that started at the extremities and crept over all of her, at last sweeping through her mind, washing out the fear, and with her mind still fixed on headquarters she succumbed to it...

Gradually she felt her body coming back together, a painful needling sensation after the nothingness. Before her the glare flattened into sterile white walls, and she once again felt – first, pressure beneath her knees as the floor materialized, then against her hands as she caught her weight on them. It was strange to feel heavy again, after being so weightless...

Her stomach heaved again, but she was too drained to be sick. Dimly, she registered someone calling to her, but it seemed so far away... She tipped forward, face against the cool floor, and let the faint sound of footsteps and raised voices carry her beyond consciousness.

- - -

The holding room was empty. Sephiroth stood in the doorway, gazing at the uninhabited cell with a peculiar stoicism. His lieutenants gathered behind him, cautious, but peering over his shoulder with anxious curiosity. Vanduri, who had been placed in charge of guarding the prisoner, trembled against the wall like an albino rat in the den of the Midgardsörmer. The captured Director of the SPCFC, their precious hostage, had escaped.

There was silence for several minutes. No one dared speak to ask what had happened.

Finally, Sephiroth seemed to finish his meditation, and he broke the stillness with a chuckle. "Sasuga da na, imouto yo," they heard him murmur as he turned away.

Desoto, leaning against the doorframe, sighed audibly as their leader strode down the hallway. "He's doing that again, leaving us out. Oye, señor." He glared at the tall, lean Japanese man across the hall. "Entiende, ¿no? You understand that language. Did he say anything important?"

Enishi, staring after Sephiroth with a look of wonder, didn't answer.