CHAPTER THREE: AVALANCHE
The carriage was filled with the constant roar of the moving train as it hurtled across its tracks. Light flittered through a small window casting great looming shadows throughout the space. The carriage filled with large crates of who the hell cared what, was a strange place at this bleak hour. There seemed to be a strange serenity in the consistency of the ongoing sound and that strange equilibrium of light and dark which swept across the unmoving boxes strangely fit the setting. These were the thoughts which passed through the head of Barret Wallace, leader of AVALANCHE. Although he would have never have been able to put it that way, would never want to put it that way or feel slightly inclined to if he could. But he felt calmer and he knew that this shadowed box was moving away from the trouble of the night, the trouble which had been keeping him awake for weeks. But now he was calmer. Yet he still shook his head, silently cursing into the depths of his minds confrontation.
The four members of AVALANCHE sat around the carriage, slumped against the boxes, totally exhausted. Biggs leaned his head against the box staring at the dusty roof breathing deep calming breaths; stress falling away with every exhale. Wedge looked as if asleep, eyes shut and mouth open. Jessie was equally exhausted but her eyes were open and she steadily stared into the shadows. The job had been a success and as of yet they were free, they would have been happy but for one problem, a problem which Barrets animated features made the group all too well aware of.
"Cloud never came" Jessie spoke to no one in particular. The hard edge of which filled the woman's voice earlier was now gone, replaced instead with the softer sounds of humanity.
Wedge brought his head down deliberately "Think he's dead?" The roar of the tracks seemed to get louder for a moment. "I mean, why wouldn't he be here?"
"Cloud..."
"I tell y'all now, he ain't dead" The boss spoke and they were reassured. "Did you guys see him move? I almost felt sorry for them Shinra pigs" They smiled at this. A series of thuds suddenly rang from the roof of the carriage in quick succession making the four fighters start. It stopped as soon as it had begun and there was silence. "Jus something loose"
"So boss, do we think he'll fight for the cause?" Wedge looked awake now.
"We could sure use an EX-SOLDIER" Biggs smiled again at the thought, his mind alight with violence.
"The hell would I know, do I look like a mind reader?" He scowled around at his crew "If y'all weren't such screw ups..." A loud thud suddenly sounded against the carriage door making Barret jump to his feet, the door slowly slid open. "The hell?"
The roar of the train outside grew to a crescendo; the lights of Midgar which could be seen in the breach disappeared as the familiar figure of Cloud swung into the carriage, wiping a dislodged piece of his usually immaculate hair away from his eyes.
"CLOUD!" Jessie, Biggs and Wedge cried.
The SLODIER gave a wan smile "Sorry everyone, looks like I'm a little late" His voice was cool and clear, like it usually was.
"You damn right you're late, what were you playin at eh?" He ran his giant paw like hand across his bald head "Come waltzin in ere makin a big scene! What's that about?"
"It's no big deal"
"Man! You done good. But then we're all ere worryin about you, an you don't give a damn bout no one but yourself"
"And you were worried about me?"
Barret stared unblinking at the mercenary, he was livid. He spat onto the floor "Wake up you guys we're moving" He turned his back and walked out of the carriage down to the passenger area of the train slowly followed by the other members of AVALANCHE.
Wedge slapped Cloud on the back who stood unmoving "You were great back there"
Biggs flashed one of his now familiar grins. Jessie waited until the others left and stood facing Cloud, the two of them swaying with the movement of the machine "Oh your face is covered in muck" she cleaned his face with her sleeve "There, and Cloud I just wanted to say thank you for earlier, you err saved my life" she smiled and then turned to leave but remembering said one more thing "And don't forget to close the door" The carriage was wide open and the noise still filled the place.
The passenger cars at half past midnight on route to the lower city, the slums, were mostly filled with just the sort of people you might expect. A strong smell of urine filled the air and the ripped seats which exposed the stuffing beneath looked none too inviting. Barret waded down the narrow isle and lounged back on the seats, taking up two. He stared fixedly at the man opposite, a rake like thing in an immaculate suite. The man soon stood up and stumbled to the next carriage cursing the rule of the street which had forced him to remain impotent. The rest of the crew entered the room and soon it was only them who occupied it. An announcement rang throughout the train "Last train out of Sector Eight. Last stop is Sector Seven, train graveyard. Expected time of arrival is 12:45 AM, Midgar standard time."
The cool feminine voice ended and she gave way to the dull voice of a bored newsman. He spoke about the explosion of the Sector One reactor, the government controlled media was revealing little so soon after. "Someday soon we are all going to be famous" Biggs spoke aloud seriously. "I'm going to be famous" Cloud thought that the day the actions of AVALANCHE became famous would be very distant from now. Now infamous, there was a very different word. "This train is pretty dead, from tomorrow the security will be much tougher, Shinra have been slow"
"Hey Cloud, take a look at this with me" The redhead stood over a touch screen consol. "This is a map of the Midgar rail system" Touching the press here button, the screen flashed into life showing a green representation of the great city. "I love gadgets, bombs and computers. You know flashy stuff". The city was huge, the scale in the corner read 1/10000, the under city below completely covered by the plate above. A huge pizza like structure with the Shinra tower protruding from its heart. Small dots began appearing on the screen spiralling down the circumference of the central pillar on the underside of the tower. "O.K this is the pillar which the plate is connected too, the dots are the rail line down which we are descending. The pillars are what the Sectors are built into but they're mostly supported by an outer pillars which holds up each Sector, the reactors are self supporting see" He did, the machine fascinated him, the information which could be gleaned from such a display was unbelievable. "You know that each Sector once upon a time used to be separate towns. And I mean the lower city now, forget that floating monstrosity. No one uses the names now though, they were replaced with numbers, it kind of tells you a lot about Shinra doesn't it?" He thought this statement was profound. "Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you about is this" A red light suddenly pulsed through the cabin and then was gone. Jessie smiled, marvelling at her timing "That's an I.D monitor device, scans the cards we all have, the fake ones I made for us all will throw the Shinra right off our tail, if we didn't have them we'd be picked up at the next stop"
"Cloud, come here and take a look" Barret sat with his knees on the chairs looking out over the Mako lit Slums below. "Look at the surface, you can never tell if it's day or night, hell it don't have one. If that plate wasn't there the people could see the sky"
Cloud bent close to the window, the lights of lower Midgar seemed to stretch out forever, and then he looked to the vast plate above and shook his head slightly "Still unbelievable, unsettling"
Barret looked sideways at the mercenary with a strange look "Yer just full o surprises." He looked back at the sight "It's all cause of that plate that the people are suffering, it's all because of the Shinra: the pollution, the Mako reactors, the oppression and that damn plate" The leaders eyes shone as he spoke "But you know Cloud, them same people won't ever leave, I guess it's their land and no matter how polluted it gets they will always love it, damn this isn't just about the planet, the Shinra are wrong in so many ways"
"About the people, I know they don't live in the Slums through choice. It's like this train, it can't run anywhere except where its rails take it".
The time was 12:45 and the dregs of people left on the final Sector 7 train of the night began to idly file out into the perpetual gloominess of the lower sector. Lights from the underside of the plate shone dimly through the smog filled air which gave everything in sight a slight orangey glow. In daytime the intensity of the lights would be increased but the nights held this queer glow which Cloud had always found even more unsettling than the floating city above. The platform began to empty as the small gathering of people began to slink away into the gloom; one man dressed in only rags lay down on the platform where he ascended out of the despair of his life into the emptiness of sleep.
The members of AVALANCHE went their separate ways at the station; Barret had briefed them before the train came to a halt, telling them that they should meet the next day at their rendezvous point. This would throw off those who might be on their trail he said. In a daze of tiredness Cloud meandered through the rubbish strewn paths of Sector 7, avoiding the scrap metal strewn paths and the odd shady figure that stood shaded in the smog filled gloom. He came eventually to the shanty town, or rather the shanty city which dominated the Sector. In the gloom the large rickety buildings which made up the centre of town rose as high as their weak materials would allow. Here and there stood the odd building of good workmanship but for the most part the town was one of tarpaulin and corrugated steel. The mercenary was familiar with this place and soon found himself at the door of a local inn. Paying ten Gill for the night got him a stained mattress in a large dormitory, the silence of the night punctuated with the moans of the lost and dispossessed that had been given sanctuary. Sleep was long in the waiting for the EX-SOLDIER that night; the fear of arrest was low in his mind although still there, more so were the endless thoughts of the screams he heard in the fire of Sector 8. In that state of mind between sleep and wakefulness the fire rose up around him into an inferno, the embers being flung high into the air, trailing off into nothingness. Around him the buildings burnt and ahead of him Cloud fancied he spied the tall figure of a nearly familiar face, a black cape and long silver hair gave off their own dim light in the flames. As quickly as the figure was there it was again gone in a blink of an eye. Cloud remained surrounded by the flames hearing the cries and wails of all the people he had killed and maimed. Why?
He awoke with a start, the electric light of the morning poured into the room through a window. A clock mounted crookedly on a wall read 10:20. It was time to wake up. Quickly dressing and fitting his sword to his back Cloud was ready and left the creaky building. In the artificial light of day everything was much clearer, the dirt streets were strewn with filth of every kind and the few people in the streets shuffled around as if lost. Cloud ate at a small store served by an old toothless woman and made his way to the rendezvous point passing a shabby assortment of shops and stalls selling everything from clothes to small weapons. In the short distance loomed a great pillar, towering over the under city. It was one of the eight outer supporting pillars which Jessie had mentioned the night before, a thin fragile looking steel staircase spiralled around the tower until it reached the top. Presently Cloud was standing outside of one of the few well built structures in the Sector. A narrow wooden set of steps led to a porch and beyond that a set of swinging doors, their glass panes cracked slightly. Above the doorway blazed the sign SEVENTH HEAVEN. Taking a deep breath, Cloud walked in.
The SEAVENTH HEAVEN was by far the most popular place in the Sector, it managed to retain a small sense of class which the other dives had lost long ago. It was also very far from anyone's but an alcoholic's vision of any type of heaven. A simple wooden interior with chairs and round tables should conjure up the image of a typical watering hole in any number of films of the Wild West dear reader; it even had a badly tuned piano which the owner often played, bringing back the memories of her childhood. The simple bar against the back wall stood flanked by a great array of spirits lined against the wall. The only thing which stood out here was a pinball machine, its body erratically flashing off and on as if it suddenly decided that it was time to work. A note was scrawled onto its face Out of order. Regulars would say that the machine had never worked. The bar was tended by the lovely Tifa Lockhart; a young lady who many said had no place in the bars of the Slums. She was athletic and her long brown hair made her an instant hit with the locals, bringing them in night after night. But more than that we shall discover in the course of the story.
Tifa stood behind the bar alone when Cloud walked into the room. She had spent the morning totalling up the bars takings while Barret and the rest sat at a table discussing the previous nights work. Tifa had heard it all off Barret in the early hours of the morning, now she just waited to see Cloud. Sat at the bar opposite was Marlene; the four year old was Barrets daughter and spent most of her time within the relative safety of the bar. She sat on a high stool with her small legs dangling over the edge of the seat; her small hands were barely clasped around a steaming mug of hot chocolate. There were a few other customers in the bar, most of them were a bunch of leather wearing youths, a local gang wasting their time in the absence of a job. They sat around and laughed together. The room was filled with the strong stench of alcohol mixed with tobacco smoke and the fan on the ceiling just seemed to spin the stale air around in circles, reminding the occupants of just how stagnant the air really was.
Barret was the first to notice Cloud. Jumping out of his seat he rushed around the bar like a lunatic clearing the place. The occupants by now wise in the ways of the giant man cleared out without a fuss. One of the youths refused to leave before he had finished his drink even though his friends had abandoned him. Barred picked up the man by his hair and flung the screaming man from the premises. From outside the man shouted "You ain't so tough you big bastard" Barret ran out into the street after the offender.
Tifa ran from behind the bar to Cloud and hugged him. She was followed by Marlene who stood behind her as if trying to listen but stay hidden from Cloud "Welcome home, looks like everything went well?" He nodded, lowering her voice she muttered "Did you fight with Barret?"
"Only slightly"
"I thought you would. He is always pushing people around, and you've always been in fights since you were little" She shook her head at the memory "I was worried" She turned her head slightly to see Marlene "Hey, aren't you going to say anything to Cloud" The little girl shifted slightly to stay out of view "She is just shy"
Cloud peered around Tifa, forcing the girl to shimmy across even more. From under the bangle on his arm Cloud drew the flower he brought off the lady in the upper city and handed it to Marlene. Her eyes widened at the beauty of it and a small smile appeared on her face. She took the flower and then retreated out of sight once again. Cloud straightened and faced Tifa.
Barret burst back into the bar breathing heavily. "Some people just have no respect" Cloud could just imagine the leader's eyes on his back
Marlene shot from behind Tifa and jumped into Barrets arms "Papa!" He carried her over to where she had sat.
"Hey baby, where did you find the flower, it's beautiful?"
The girls voice was small and innocent "Cloud gave it to me"
The man was silent for a long moment "Did you thank him"
Marlene's voice drifted across the room "Thank you Cloud. We'll take care of you"
Barret turned to everyone in the room "Right you fools put your drinks down, the meetings about to start" He strode over to the pinball machine and pressed the start button. The machine was the control for a hidden lift which the small floor space around the machine actually was, with a whirl of lights from the lift control that section of floor began to descend with a low screech. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge followed on, jumping down the narrow hole to the room beneath. This was the AVALANCHE hideout.
It left Cloud and Tifa alone "Come to the bar, it looks like a drink would do you good" At the bar Tifa went about mixing a small cocktail of spirits together. "You don't know how relieved I am that you made it back safely"
"It was nothing major"
"I guess not, you were in SOLDIER" She turned to face Cloud and set a dark concoction before him. He brought the glass up and downed the contents his face remaining impassive. It burnt his throat and a slight feeling of numbness entered his mind. It was good.
"That was a long time ago" He stood up
"Don't you forget to collect your pay from Barret"
"Once I've got it I'm out of here" Behind Cloud Tifa looked downcast. The mercenary walked over to the lift shaft and climbed down into the hideout below.