Subject C descends, dizzy from the spiral and unsteady on his feet. He hasn't walked more than ten paces in weeks, so his legs quiver by the end.
Guards in field dress wait at the bottom. Navy fatigues with white helmets and scarves. They each have a standard issue service rifle, and a TAC belt of survival basics. C is sweaty and weak, his head pounding with a low-level headache that hints at dehydration. There isn't a lot he wouldn't do to get a drink from one of their cantines.
Hojo must have intended this, because he had left the water and juice unopened on the lunch tray. He steels himself for whatever humiliation he'll be subjected to to earn that drink later.
Cruelty is familiar to him. It slots into his understanding of the situation with ease, like armor molded to his shoulders. It's neither surprising or upsetting. It's how bullies operate.
This process will be a contest of wills, a war waged on the battlefield of his body. Hojo will turn his nerve endings against him, and leverage pain to assert his control.
C resolves—as a guard slaps cuffs around his wrists—to fight that internal battle to the end. Hojo can break his body, but he will never surrender his mind.
His wrists sting when the guard yanks the chain, but he doesn't growl or fight. He chases the tension from his limbs and allows himself to be dragged into the unknown.
Cameras and guns hang from the low ceiling of the tunnel. They pass two doors, and a third still open. He catches a flash of metal walls and bloody floors before they're past, approaching the far end of the corridor. Sharp gravel becomes smooth steel.
"Professor," the scientists in the next room greet. They all rise as one.
It's a lab. Cramped and poorly lit, but unmistakable in its purpose. Two tanks take up the nearest wall. Both empty, one wet. Fat and Ugly stand at attention beside a worktop littered with paper cups. The Turk slouches against a bookshelf, clearly bored. Bennett's nowhere to be seen.
"Is the airlock prepared?" Hojo asks.
"Yes, sir." Fat says.
"And the clean room?"
"Sterilized," Ugly confirms.
The Turk punches a code into a panel and a bookcase pivots from the wall. The hand on his hip looks casual, but C knows he's hovering his pistol. It's a signature Turk move. He endeavors not to give him a reason to draw, moving briskly when Hojo waves him forward.
Three steps down, and then he's squinting at the brightness of a white tile room. He isn't allowed to hesitate.
Rough hands shove him into a wall. It's humid, the scent of blood and disinfectant thick in his nostrils. The ties down the back of his smock are tugged open one at a time. He starts to lose his calm.
"Wait," he says, ready to bargain against whatever might be coming. The guards don't stop.
They clip the chain of his cuffs to a ring on the wall, and the whisper of damp air over his bare legs makes him shake. A yawning chasm of unseen space opens up behind him as they back away. He braces, unsure of what's coming but certain it will hurt.
A blast of harsh water steals his breath instead. It hits his center back like a punch and scatters, cascading down his legs. The force knocks his head forward when it reaches his hair.
They turn him around, his arms stretched to the limit by the short chain, and repeat the process on his front with no regard for his healing wounds or unprotected privates. The hit to the face sends him sliding down the wall, coughing and spitting.
"Oh look, he's makin' it easy for us." A guard laughs, short and harsh.
"Thank fuck, I need a break after the last one." The one holding the hose throws it down, and the metal fitting on the end clatters.
Subject C pants, head hung forward so the water drips from his bangs instead of down his face. He eyes their looming figures, their faceless masks. One particular fear rises above the rest as the tallest guard approaches and kicks his legs apart with a steel-toed boot.
Fingers wrap in his hair and wrench his head up, then move to pinch his nose and chin, forcing his mouth open. A gloved finger that reeks of latex presses in and lifts his tongue.
"A little too easy, if you know what I mean." The rude guard continues, leaning forward to get a better view. "Bet he's one of them queers. Likes it up the—"
"Markella," the tall guard warns, letting go of C's face only to squat and shove his finger somewhere worse. Subject C yelps, drawing his legs together.
"See?" Markella snorts. "Better hurry, boss, before he gets a crush on ya."
"One more word and you're getting unpaid leave." The tall guard growls and pulls out. He rips off the latex glove with a snap and misses the waste basket by a mile.
"Yeah, yeah," Markella waves a careless hand over his shoulder, and heads for the door. The other guards follow.
Hojo waits in the hall, hands in his pockets. He clearly heard the chatter, his gaze newly sharp and calculating. Subject C clenches his teeth around the urge to vomit, and does his best to hide behind his knees.
"Cavities clear," the tall guard says. "Subject secured."
"Proceed," Hojo orders. The door shuts.
It's quiet except for his frantic gasping, the sound amplified by the tiles into a spectral rhythm; like the room itself is alive, breathing with him, digesting him. Sprinklers in the ceiling join the symphony, chittering and clicking as they emit a blue mist.
It smells like alcohol, and bubbles when it touches his skin. He doesn't think to close his eyes or mouth until it's too late, and a taste like bile burns his tongue.
Hojo's voice comes through a grate in the door. "Turn over, Subject C."
He jerks against the chain without thinking, an automatic reaction to that voice in his ear, and stares in surprise when the anchor comes clean out of the wall.
It swings like a pendulum between the cuffs, chain links bent open but still hanging on. Bits of broken tile fall from the base, and he blinks slowly at them, like they might explain themselves if he stares long enough.
The collar tightens around his neck. He rolls onto his knees.
Mist trickles and sizzles down his back and thighs, over his lower legs and feet. A minute later the sprinklers cut off.
"Wash your feet, mutt. They're filthy." Hojo strides in, nose wrinkled in disgust. He tosses a bundle of fabric on the floor, unconcerned when it lands squarely in a puddle. "And put those on. Quickly. We're running late."
The collar doesn't slack until his feet are spotless. He wants to choke Hojo—with his hands, with his own metal collar, with the soggy cotton pants that C finds on the floor. He puts them on, and the matching short-sleeved shirt.
They're military-issue gym clothes, just without the drawstring and the block lettering across the back. The shoes are more like slippers, with thin soles and no laces. They're just slightly too large, which turns the three stairs out of the room into a treacherous climb.
He doesn't dare ask if he'll see Subject Z now. It feels like tempting fate.
"Late for what?" he says instead.
"Your Reunion," Hojo says. It sounds dangerous, the way he says it. Like a bad omen or a witch's hex.
The soldiers eye the ring dangling from C's cuffs, and he senses fear in their stares. When they return to their positions escorting him, none of them gets within arm's reach. It should settle him, but it feels too much like a tell. They won't let their hackles down around him now. He's lost the element of surprise.
The next door isn't like the others. It's massive, the top and bottom halves meeting horizontally in an interlocking pattern of square teeth. The professor leans over an input panel, and a red laser passes over his face.
"Welcome, Professor Hojo," the chirpy robot says. The blast doors open like a mouth. Steam creeps over the bottom edges, spreading and dissipating into smoke.
"Mind the gap," Hojo chides, leading the group through. The floor becomes a catwalk, suspended over a massive cavern. The high ceiling has the craggy, mineral-pocked texture of an excavated cave.
Specimen pods line every meter of the floor, alongside the walkway and glowing ominously underneath. Mounted ladders provide access to the lower level, stuck in at odd intervals wherever the labyrinthine tangles of insulated tubing allow. The conduits hiss ominously, many of them cracked and leaking clouds of mako vapor, visible only by the stark white beams of evenly spaced floor lamps.
Humanoid figures hunch within the tubes, unmoving but watchful. It's unclear whether they're dead or alive, or if they're even human anymore. They're arranged in groups of like-figured creatures. Humans, dogs, sea creatures preserved in yellow fluid.
The tank directly to their right contains two creatures, bipedal but no longer human. Their bodies are covered in plated, black carapaces with oozing crimson cracks in between. One is bent over the other's unmoving corpse, devouring its innards with long, pointed teeth. C shivers, and keeps his eyes forward from then on.
"Welcome to The Cradle," Hojo says. "Birthplace of Shinra's most advanced bio-engineered specimen. Tell me, can you sense the power birthed within these walls?"
He can. It's like toxic gas, invading his lungs and pressing into his pores. Worse, he feels like he's been here before. He concentrates on keeping his face blank and neutral.
"Feels restless." He shrugs. Hojo looks annoyed, but doesn't slow his pace.
They reach a matching door at the end of the catwalk, and Hojo once more scans them through. The other side is bleak.
Crates and dog kennels are stacked in the corners, and a series of surgical stations take up the longest wall. Each has a human-shaped platform with metal manacles, surrounded by instruments and dusty machinery.
It doesn't look state-of-the-art. It looks like field medicine, the stations trashed and curtains askew.
Not for the first time, he wonders why they're here. By his own admission, Hojo has better facilities at Headquarters. This place is small, and dirty, and crammed to the brim. Each tunnel they enter looks like it was designed to be the last, the doors tucked into odd alcoves or hidden behind bookshelves.
Green tinges the edge of his vision, so he lets the thought pass. There's one final door ahead, and it pulls at his skin like a magnet.
Subject Z is in there. He knows. He knows. And Hojo knows it too.
Narrow eyes dissect him from ten feet away, and he doesn't school his face fast enough.
It's another tell, but he couldn't have hidden the way his heart jump-started or how his trembling hands curled into fists.
"Sensing anything now?" Hojo asks.
C glares at him long enough to scare the guards. Their grips tighten on their guns, fingers creeping up to the triggers.
"Go on," the professor circles a beckoning hand. "Ask me nicely."
It's just words. It should be easy, but it feels like putting a knife through his own hand. With great effort, he unfurls his fists and smooths the glare off of his face.
"Please," he says, a strained note in his voice, "may I see him, Professor?"
Hojo lifts his chin, grin crooked and mean. He dismisses the guards with a wave.
"Good boy. Play nice while I'm gone. We'll begin our experiment shortly."
C doesn't care about the repercussions or the ground he's given. He only sees light and a doorway to salvation.
The moment the path is clear, he runs through it.