8. Delirium
Rude found Cissnei in the kitchen. She sat at the table with her head in her hands.
"You all right?"
"Fine," she muttered, rubbing her temples. "This damn job is giving me a headache, that's all."
"Job," Rude said, "or Reno?"
She snorted out an odd kind of laugh. Rude couldn't place the sentiment, but it had very little to do with amusement.
His shoulder protested as he leaned down to pull out a chair. His back had been knotted up for days; ever since the first night in the manor, in fact.
It was just a week's assignment, and more than halfway through. It already felt like a month.
"So... Have you figured out how the son of a bitch did it all yet?"
Cissnei didn't look at him as she spoke. She stared down at the tablecloth and traced the edges of the red and white squares with a fingertip. The warm light of the old-fashioned lightbulb above made her wavy hair glow golden and cast her face in shadow.
It took Rude a moment to register that she had switched to Costan.
"The PHS in the stewpot was easy enough, I suppose," she mused. "A bit of well-timed pickpocketing, playing along when you noticed it missing..." She smiled, only it was too bitter to be a real smile. "Same with moving stuff around in your room. Picking locks and skulking about, classic Reno."
Rude scoffed. It must have been child's play. And once Reno had gotten Rude wound tight enough, his imagination had run away from him, creating its own threats in the shadows.
"The chair on the landing..." The sound she made was more like a sigh than a snort this time. "Well, if anyone can move silently in a place like this, it's Reno. Must have been easy for him to keep track of us with all these rickety steps and creaky floorboards."
The look on her face was familiar. He'd seen it before, the first time that damned chair appeared on the landing.
"You suspected him."
Cissnei stopped drawing squares on the tablecloth. She tapped her finger on the table; slowly at first, then faster and faster until she finally clasped her hands together.
"I suspect everyone in this damn house."
"Why?"
She sighed deeply, and looked up at him through her bangs.
"How much of this mission do you think is bullshit?"
Rude raised his eyebrows. With another one of those non-smiles, Cissnei straightened up and faced him fully.
"Reno could have done all this as a joke... but maybe someone put him up to it."
"Who?"
"Well, he's obviously all cozy with the professor, and each time she's been awfully quick with a rational explanation to point the finger away from him." She glanced up the ceiling. "Come to think of it, she hasn't seemed worried at all, about any of this. Maybe it's all part of some test of hers."
Rude blinked. For a moment he wasn't just choosing to stay quiet; he honestly couldn't think of anything to say.
"Think about it," she urged, hunching forward. "She's supposed to be assessing if this building could be converted into temporary labs. How is she going to assess a damn thing from her room? She's barely left the main suite at all."
"Are you serious?"
"They already think we're treading the line of 'unfit for duty'. Maybe this is some kind of screwed-up stress test, to see if we can still keep it together."
Rude stared at her. She didn't so much as bat an eye.
"Or maybe it's like one of those team-building exercises," she continued. "You know, dropping us in some dire situation that forces us to work together to make it out."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it? Shinra was grooming me for this job long before I'd ever heard of the Turks. If you ask me, it'd just be more of the same."
She no longer made the effort to hide her bitterness behind her smiles. She breathed it into every word. Rude didn't know what to think. There was a certain amount of creepy sense in what she was saying, yet the way she spat it out was hardly a rational presentation of facts.
"The mirror," he tried. "She shot him down quick that time."
"Of course she did," Cissnei scoffed. "What better way to draw attention away from their collaboration, huh? Maybe earn a bit of trust from us at the same time?"
If SOLDIER was the exhibition of Shinra's brute strength, Turks were the manipulators behind the scenes. It wasn't a stretch to imagine a Turk using their underhanded skills against another.
There were unwritten rules, though. Lines none of the Turks were willing to cross. Not one of them would willingly leave another Turk in the clutches of the Science Department. They may not have been privy to every detail of Hojo's work, but what they knew was enough. The thought of handing over one of their own as a lab rat for the science team made Rude's skin crawl. The idea of Reno doing such a thing was... unthinkable.
Yet when Rude thought about what Reno had admitted to... It made him seethe. Whether or not Reno was working with the professor didn't matter. What he'd done on his own was bad enough.
Was it any wonder Cissnei was jumping at shadows? Reno had made Rude do so for days.
"You know what? I need a drink." She pushed back her chair and got up. "Another raid of the wine cabinet?"
Rude grunted his agreement, and Cissnei headed for the storage room in the back. He watched her until she slipped out of view, noting the easy grace of her gait and the tidy creases on her uniform trousers. The mission had one upside, he mused as he waited for her return. It was unlikely that he would have gotten the chance to work with Cissnei while she was assigned to Zack Fair.
She returned with a bottle in hand and set it down on the counter. Thin streaks of dust still clung to the dark glass above the label, which had yellowed with age.
"Oh, I forgot the glasses. Get a couple, will, you? They're in the back. Big cabinet on the right."
Rude nodded and pushed himself to his feet. Before he reached the back door, she spoke up again.
"You know," she began, hesitantly. "There's one thing that still bothers me. Something that doesn't fit."
He paused by the door, one hand on the handle, and looked back. She was staring at the bottle, twirling the corkscrew in her hands.
"Before he started pointing the finger at us, Reno was pretty freaked out about those tracks in the dirt. He was relieved when it occurred to him it could be us."
"You don't think it was the kid?"
"You guys found him empty-handed, and he sure isn't faking that coma. Something happened to him the night those tracks appeared." She turned her head and took a moment to study Rude's face. "I knew Reno pretty well once… but that was a long while ago. You've spent more time with him lately. Think his reaction was just an act? Him trying to mess with us?"
Rude had seen him fake fear. Rare as it was, he'd also seen the real deal. A chill crept into his gut as he slowly shook his head.
"Those tracks didn't just appear out of thin air," she continued, "and if he didn't make them..."
A wailing cry sounded upstairs. As they looked up at the ceiling, Rude heard a slam so loud it made them both flinch.
"Okay, that was so not the floor settling," Cissnei said, dropping the Costan language.
"Not a rat either."
They shot toward the kitchen door at the same time and hurried into the foyer. As they bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time, Cissnei brought her PHS to her ear. Rude stopped at the top of the stairs and pricked his ears, but all he could hear was the faint ringing from her phone.
"Reno isn't answering," she hissed.
He looked over to their left, then to their right. Everything was still.
"Know where it came from?"
"That way." Cissnei pointed toward the north wing, confirming his impression. "It sounded like it was toward the rear of the house."
"I'll scout ahead. Try him again."
"Shouldn't we stick together?"
The manor was disorienting enough in daylight. At night, it would only be a matter of time before one of them got lost.
"I won't leave your sight."
Rude crept up the steps to the north wing and along the wall until he reached the T junction. The right side was lit; down the left he could see the hallway gradually dim into total darkness. As he strained his ears, he picked up on a faint noise emanating from within. Just as he began to make out a melody, it stopped.
"He isn't answering," Cissnei called softly.
"Try again. I think I heard it ringing."
She didn't reply, but a few seconds later, Rude heard the melody again.
"He's in the dark zone. Get the flashlights."
Rude returned to the landing as she skipped down the stairs. He took up station by the entrance to the north wing; here he could keep an eye on the junction while staying in Cissnei's sight, as she fetched the flashlights he and Reno had left by the front doors.
In less than a minute, she was back by his side. Flashlights in hand, they advanced, crossing over from the inhabited side of the house into the dust-covered dereliction beyond; the once-clear boundary was now smudged by many pairs of footprints. Soon, they reached the broken hallway lamp that marked the threshold of the dark zone.
"You know, it could just be another one of his pranks," Cissnei whispered. "We already searched this part of the house, and I don't see any of those weird tracks. Isn't this the only way in?"
Rude stared into the blackness as he thought it over. It seemed absolute: a living, breathing thing, that slid away from the beam of his flashlight as it patiently waited for the chance to swallow them whole.
Reno was in that darkness.
"Maybe. Maybe not. We can't risk it." He unzipped his jacket and quietly undid the clasp of his shoulder holster.
Cissnei sighed, and followed his example.
"I'll call him again. We can follow the sound."
The melody sounded once more; a thin, frail little sound that echoed through the empty rooms before them. Rude couldn't pinpoint it for sure, but Cissnei took point and led them to the right, along the route she had searched with Mrs. Gubbins.
Shimmering dust danced in the beams of their flashlight. Rude's skin crawled. He could have sworn that the dust had coated every uncovered part of his body, like a second layer of skin, after just a few steps into this cursed place. Still, better to be swarmed by specks of dust than by–
Rude gritted his teeth. He was not thinking about that. He was not. He kept his eyes fixed on Cissnei's slim silhouette, outlined in the light of her torch. He tried his best to keep his mind from straying as well, but by the time they reached their first left turn, his top lip was damp with cold sweat.
The layout was very different on this side of the manor. The corridor ran along the northern wall, with tall, empty windows at even intervals. The doors on the left side passed by less regularly. The ringtone he and Cissnei were following grew stronger with each one. It felt so out place, haunting the stale air of these shadowy rooms with its cheery, tinny melody.
Never follow the music. How many times had Rude heard some variation along those lines, whispered in the same hushed tones? It wasn't just Teo's stories, either. His uncle had a few of his own to tell, too. So did his mother, and his grandparents.
Never follow the music you hear at night. You won't like what you find.
Their own cautionary tales were worse than Teo's, because they would never dare tell him exactly what was out there, waiting for him at the source.
The jaunty tune was close to full volume. A bead of sweat trickled down Rude's spine. Had he not recognized Reno's ringtone, he might just have taken off running in the other direction.
"These are bedrooms," Cissnei muttered under her breath, panning her flashlight over a cluster of doors at the end of the corridor. "His PHS must be in one of them."
His PHS. Not him. The implication chilled Rude's neck like an icy breath.
The first door was unlocked. It groaned quietly on its hinges as Cissnei pushed it open. Rude leaned around her and followed its arc with his flashlight until he'd scanned the whole room. Nothing. Not even tracks in the dust.
The second room wasn't empty; white sheets were draped over a bulk in the far corner. They didn't bother to check what it was. The dust was undisturbed.
Cissnei tried the third door. As soon as she cracked it open, she went still. So did Rude. Light was coming from the room.
She glanced back at him. Rude padded silently to the other side of the door and pulled out his gun. He nodded. Slowly, Cissnei pushed the door open.
The light came from a flashlight, Rude realized as he peeked into the room. It lay next to another door and cast its long beam across the hardwood floor. The dust was scored by uneven streaks that led to a pair of scuffed, dust-caked boots. Reno's boots. Reno's feet.
Cissnei's torch swung over his seated figure, flooded him in bright light. She lowered it right away, and left Rude's retinas imprinted with the hasty impression of a pale, drawn face. Eyes open, no blood. Her flashlight glinted off something in Reno's lap; his switchblade, held loosely in his hands, opened, blade clean.
Rude released the breath he'd been holding.
He lowered his pistol, and kept it down as he swept his flashlight across the room. Save for Reno, the room was empty. He pointed his flashlight toward Reno, careful not to shine it straight in his eyes, and panned the light over the white shape beneath him. It was a bed, Rude realized, covered by a dusty sheet.
The cheerful melody cut off abruptly, and left Rude's ears ringing with its absence.
"Reno?" Cissnei kept her voice down, but it echoed in the silence like a slap.
He didn't move.
"Why aren't you answering your phone?"
He didn't even bother to glance at them.
"Didn't hear it," he mumbled.
"I heard it ring. We both did, out in the bloody hallway!"
In slow-motion, he folded the blade away.
Cissnei cursed and marched across the room. She stopped right in front of Reno and bent forward until she'd leveled her face with his.
"Give it a rest, Reno! We've had enough of your fucking games!"
She yelled it straight into his face, yet he didn't flinch. As far as Rude could tell, Reno's face didn't so much as twitch.
The click of the switchblade pierced the silence.
As Cissnei stared into Reno's slack face, her scowl ebbed away.
"Red?"
She waved a hand in front of his eyes. He didn't even blink.
"My ma died when I was fourteen. You know that, right?" Using only his left hand, he folded up the switchblade.
Reno's words drained out of his mouth in a voice as flat as a line. Goosebumps prickled at the back of Rude's neck.
Cissnei glanced at Rude, but all he could offer was a shrug. It was the first time he'd heard Reno mention family.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I know."
The blade caught the lamplight as it flicked out again.
"She offed herself. I ever mention that lil' detail before?"
Rude had precious few words for the everyday situations of his life. For this one, he had none.
Slowly, deliberately, Cissnei took a seat on the bed next to Reno.
"No," she said. "You never told me that."
"She'd asked the landlord to come by with some bullshit excuse that day. Didn't want me to find her, I guess. Maybe she figured it was bad enough that I'd found El bleedin' out on the bed."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Reno raised his other hand and pressed his index finger against the tip of the blade. He absently rolled the knife back and forth, still staring straight ahead. Straight at a door, Rude realized as he glanced that way; the door next to the flashlight Reno had dropped.
"Fat load of good that did, tho'. They'd taken her away when I got home, but they didn't have time to clean up. Or they just didn't bother."
A red dot appeared at the tip of the blade and swelled rapidly until it slid down in a thin, crimson trail along Reno's finger. Rude tensed, torn between the urge to intervene and the fear that he would only make it worse.
"Reno." Cissnei's voice was soft and soothing. "That's enough."
Reno watched his blood trickle down his hand, his face as impassive as before. Once the droplet had disappeared into his sleeve, he brought his hand closer to his face and flipped the blade into an overhand grip.
Cissnei closed her hand over Reno's, stilling the knife. He flinched and whipped his head around, and Rude felt a chill go straight through. Reno's eyes were wide as he stared at her. So wide... and so empty. He wasn't looking at them at all.
"Let me take this off your hands," Cissnei said, speaking with a calm that erased whatever doubts still lingered in Rude's mind about her place among the Turks.
Reno's grip on the knife didn't falter, but he blinked several times, and to Rude's relief the dazed look wore off. Confusion crept onto his face, and only grew stronger as he looked between her and Rude.
"Reno, let go of the knife," she tried again. "I'll hold on to it for a while, okay?"
He looked down and gave a start when he saw his bloody hands. Rude felt a lurch in his gut. His partner may have been a talented actor, but not even he could fake shock like that.
"I didn't... I wasn't gonna–" Reno trailed off and stared at the other door. "Fuck," he breathed, in something that was far too close to a sob.
Cissnei plucked the knife from Reno's trembling fingers. She folded it up and slipped it into her pocket, then took his hand again. A greenish glow enveloped their hands, and made their faces dance with eerie shadows.
"Now come on," she said once she'd finished the Cure. "Let's get out of here."
She got up and pulled gently on his hand, but Reno shook his head.
"No, wait." He paused and licked his lips. "Check the bathroom first, will ya?"
Cissnei glanced up at Rude and nodded. He blanched.
Reno refused to meet his eyes. He didn't even look up; he just sat there, meekly, wringing his bloody hands. Bile rose in Rude's throat. Since when did Reno back down from anything? Rude had seen him mouth off to Tseng, to executives, even to the Shinra heir. He'd seen Reno take on a freaking deathclaw with nothing but his mag rod. What could possibly be worse?
Maybe nothing.
Maybe he's having you on. Again.
It's what he does, isn't it?
Each intrusive thought pulled Rude's muscles a little tauter. He couldn't dismiss them as the paranoia of an over-stressed mind. Not anymore.
Cissnei inclined her head toward the door and urged him on with her eyes. Rude's fists were painfully tight – but he complied with her wordless plea.
He had no choice, not as a Turk. Threats demanded investigation.
Reno's harsh breaths had quieted now. Rude couldn't even hear his own footsteps, muffled by the blanket of dust, as he crossed the room. He stopped right in front of the bathroom door, stared at it. His throat was painfully dry.
Reno must have opened that door. He had opened the door, and whatever he'd seen in that room had wrecked him.
Or had it?
That little voice in the back of Rude's head refused to be quiet. What if all this was just one big, elaborate joke after all?
Rude looked back over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes.
"Just do it," Reno snapped, still staring at his feet. "I gotta know!"
Rude's irritation flared. He grabbed the handle, and with a sharp tug the door flew open, hinges shrieking in protest. The bottom of the door struck Reno's discarded flashlight and sent it swiveling, beam pinwheeling madly in the dark. It hit the wall with a sharp crack and went dark.
In the deafening silence that followed, Rude stared in through the door he'd yanked open. The room was less than half the size of the bedroom. The mirror over the sink had blurred with age, its surface sprinkled with tiny dark spots. Beneath a thin layer of dust, he could make out square white tiles, separated by blackened seams. In the far corner, an old-fashioned bathtub stood on four golden paws.
"Nothing."
"Nothin' at all?"
"It's just a bathroom."
Slowly, Reno raised his head. He stared into the bathroom for several heartbeats, then got up and shuffled to the door. He grabbed hold of the doorframe and leaned in, craning his neck to see every corner of the room without setting a foot inside. Up close like this, Rude could see little beads of perspiration trickling down Reno's temple.
"What did you see?" Cissnei asked quietly.
"When I opened that door, there was blood all over. The floor, the walls..." Reno's eyes darted back and forth as he mumbled the words. "Fuckin' everywhere, and... I could've sworn there was someone..."
His fingers dug into the doorframe like a claw, spreading red smears on the once-white paint. As he spoke, Cissnei came up to him and placed her hand over his again.
"Come on. Let's get some fresh air."
She held his hand until they were out of the room. Rude followed, and picked up Reno's flashlight on the way.
"Do you remember how you got here?" she asked once Rude had closed the door behind them.
Reno looked around, frowning.
"Sorta... I got no clue why, tho'. Why the hell would I come all the way out here in the dark?" With a choked kind of snort he raked his hands through his hair. "Look, can we just get the fuck outta here?"
"Okay. Follow me."
Cissnei took up the lead. Reno hovered behind her like a baby chocobo scampering after its mother. He kept his eyes firmly on her, and only her. Rude brought up the rear.
They had found Reno in one piece, yet Rude felt no relief. His mind – no, his whole body was a cauldron, simmering with half-repressed fears and the pent-up strain of muscles locked too tight, for too long. Seeing Reno cower between them only strengthened the fear coiling in the pit of Rude's stomach. He huffed out a breath and fumbled for the power button on Reno's flashlight. Maybe the guy would feel better with a light source of his own. Maybe he would make himself useful for a change.
He clicked the button, several times. Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened.
Rude screwed the head on tighter, jostled the batteries. Still nothing. It must have broken when it hit the wall. Of course it had.
With a grunt of frustration, Rude threw it to the ground. It bounced and clattered across the floor, rolling into the darkness. Reno yelped and flinched; Cissnei spun around, gun in hand.
"What the fuck, man?" Reno snapped.
Rude said nothing. His chest heaved as he took in lungful after lungful of stale air, while the echo of Reno's voice slowly petered out. Cissnei remained silent, too, and studied Rude. Her brow wasn't creased in anger. It looked more like... concern.
Rude struggled to contain his sudden urge to throw his own flashlight at something. Someone.
"Come on, guys," she said. "Let's just pick up the pace, okay?"
Reno gave him another sullen glare, then followed her. Of course he did. Petulant brat.
Petulant, filthy brat. Rude's flashlight played across the backs of Reno's and Cissnei's legs as they walked on. Their trousers were plastered in dust. Streaks of it down the sides of their thighs. Tiny gray specks mottling the creases at the back of their knees. How could they not have noticed the state of their uniforms? Rude's fingers were itching to wipe it off them – smack it off them, as quickly as possible.
A practical matter. Easy to fix. Unlike everything else in this forsaken place.
That damned bathroom had been empty. Reno's terrors had been all inside his head. Just like Rude's.
Did that make them... real?
No. No. There was another explanation. A simpler one. A safer one. Reno had watched him go off the rails with panic – and the guy was a natural mimic. He was faking it. He was trying to make them pity him, make them feel obliged to forgive the stupid shit he'd pulled on them. The conniving little shit was using Rude's own fears against him.
The darkness was no longer around him, breathing down his neck. It was inside him, welling up in an inky deluge that was at once both foreign and familiar. Rude welcomed it. Better to be angry than afraid.
Cissnei stopped. She raised the beam of her flashlight off the floor and surveyed the chamber they'd ended up in.
"Do you guys remember this room?"
Rude let his own flashlight roam along the walls. It was an empty room like all the others. Larger, perhaps, with more doors than a typical lounge; he counted four as he slowly made a full circle.
"Hell if I know," Reno mumbled, casting furtive glances into the darkness. "Everything in this fuckin' place looks the same to me."
Cissnei gasped and went still. Rude looked where she was looking, and once he realized what it was, his face went cold. In the middle of her cone of light lay a flashlight; a clunky and old-fashioned thing made of black rubber. Just like theirs. Just like the one he'd thrown away.
Cissnei swept her flashlight back and forth, lighting up each of the four exits in turn.
"Guys? I think we're lost."