23: Theoretical Race

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Vincent guarded one side of the underpass leading to WRO headquarters. Silently, he watched the closed off area opposite the giant elevator doors. Memory served him well; through that one area numerous complexes meandered below Junon, leading to the abandoned undersea reactor. Ever since Meteorfall and the gradual renouncement of reactors the world over, the area had been shut off from the rest of the city. Yet, still the rogue band of scientists had managed to rule it as their likely base of operations. Either they entered by sea or through an inside job. Either way, they were pegged as an attendant problem in Junon.

The catcalls of monsters echoed in the distance, some followed by sad screeches and gun and laser fire. Nearby lay the steaming corpses of newly dead beasts, and Tifa and Cid conversing with the lieutenant and an overly professional looking Reeve. He'd been pointing in the direction of the closed off passage. Plans were underway for reopening the path underground but apparently, there had been yet another matter delaying immediate action.

"Another voicemail," Reeve announced. "It seems we've got a militia to deal with, as well. Problem is we don't know where they are, much less who they are, especially on such short notice. Troops are divided all over town, hunting down monsters and our team here preparing to open the underground. I'm not sure if our current numbers are sufficient to fend them off should they come full force. You know what they say, divided we fall…"

"I wonder if it's a bluff, or a lie," Tifa remarked. "Should we really trust this mystery informant of yours, Reeve? Something's fishy. Been fishy for a long time now..."

Though no one was looking his way, Vincent nodded in agreement. These blessings of information that Reeve received were more than a little suspicious, no matter if they needed it or not. They clung blindly, all gathered there in Junon, expecting to find Saristis Noah holed up beneath the city. In a way, it felt all too easy to be true. Just a few steps away from his goal. But…

"I don't like this anymore than you do, but it's worth a shot," the commissioner said, lightly planting a fist into his palm. "And I have a city to keep safe, so I'll be prepared for any and all threats."

"That reminds me," Tifa uttered, turning to Vincent as she thumbed her chin. "... where's Sephiroth? I don't think we should have left him alone. Situation might have changed but... he's still just another monster."

The gunman tried to pull on words for assurance, but even he felt uneasy. He knew better than to just run off and leave the man wandering about, unleashed and hungry for blood. Thankfully shielded by his cape, his body sunk in shame of his carelessness. To get swept up in the moment the way he did. He had more control than that. Or had that been as just a Chaos-infused rag doll?

"Our goal remains the same. He'll show up. With any luck."

"Luck, as usual, is right," the woman huffed. She twisted around towards Reeve with a shrug of her small shoulders. "So, when do we start this operation?"

"When the number of monsters in town has subsided and I'm able to call some troops back to watch for opposing forces."

"I hope that's soon because I'm almost itching for a fight."

----

"Sar, I think you should hear this, I'm almost in stitches," Aridale tittered, entering the quiet lab in which Saristis was hard at work on the computers stationed about him. He glanced up at the woman and carefully smiled before turning his eyes back to the multiple monitors. The woman scholar jabbed a phone over the station into his face, her own face creased in amusement. "There's activity topside. I think our location has been compromised, and so quickly, too. I'm just hysterical. You'd think we were covert enough."

"Really?" he said, his voice distant. "Hmm. That is a problem. I'd hate to pack up and leave when we just got here but... Do we have a choice?"

"Should I alert the personnel?"

"Please do," Saristis said, feigning distress. "I didn't actually think we'd have to use our hired muscle, but they have to stretch their legs sooner or later."

He rose from his chair, tapped a few more keys at this computer and that one, then marched over to the printer at the end of one side of the station. He leaned against its separate table, watching each sheet of paper file out in steady succession. Aridale minced over to her superior's side, arms folded and lips still grinning while waiting for him to look up.

"So, where do we go from here?" she asked.

"Choices seem rather few and far in between, don't they?" he said in all thoughtfulness. "We could go and send some people ahead to Midgar and dig out one of the old labs there."

"And in the meantime… ?" Aridale cocked her head questioningly.

"We'll just have to hide out. Have everyone pack up what they can and ready the sub. We'll have to move fast. We don't know how long we have until this place is breached."

His colleague tossed her head back and giggled vibrantly for a woman in her forties. She kept firm control over her awfully normal bosom, leaning haphazard on Saristis before regaining her composure. She ignored his dubious smirk, leaving his side to head for the door.

"I knew Shinra wasn't the safest company to work with but this is too much," she sang, wiping at her eyes. "I'm getting chills. If I weren't the calm and collected career woman I am, who knows... You might be getting some, Sar. You know, in the face of danger and all that."

"Jenna, you know-"

"Business first. Yes, yes, yes, but a girl can have her fantasies."

"Hmm. Call Kit and Alex in, won't you?"

----

"All right, I haven't got word yet on the monster infestation but I can't wait any longer," Reeve said, tapping his loafered foot impatiently. "Let's open up the passageway. Tifa, Vincent, Cid, are you ready?"

"Shit, open the door already," Cid barked, shaking his spear at the commissioner. "No time like the present."

Reeve gestured for a pair of soldiers to approach the sealed portal. One carried a blowtorch and the other an apparatus that looked like a giant vice grip. The blowtorcher slapped a square metal mask over his face and lit up with a smaller torch before starting to work. He eased around the door with the slight blue flame, cutting through metal bars that extended out over it, screwed threefold into the surrounding wall. Once he completed his painstaking job, the one with the giant vice grip moved into place, lifting it high onto the circular lock still screwed tightly within the door. Heaving it over the centerpiece, pushing and twisting until clicks were heard, the youth started twisting the grip counterclockwise. The lock spun out of the door more and more until it was loose enough to nearly fall on the poor boy. The blowtorcher and the lieutenant both helped move the heavy piece of metal out of the way in rhythmic grunts and heaves.

"Obviously, these guys don't use the front door," Tifa noted.

"Then they had to have come in through the reactor," Reeve muttered to no one in particular. "I think we should hurry."

With the door pulled open in a peal of wails from un-oiled hinges and metal on concrete, the WRO lieutenant shouldered his weapon and peered warily into the darkened shaft ahead of him. His hard face looked back, and he nodded decisively after a moment.

"The way's clear."

"Someone give me a gun," Reeve said. Hesitantly, a flanking soldier handed him an assault rifle. For one that looked as humble as he, the gun seemed like a burden. But, in fact, he held it quite effortlessly. Back when he was a Shinra official, it had been part of the training, handling firearms. Dangerous jobs always called for dangerous measures. And the WRO was simply no different.

The passageway was mostly dark, save for an irregular light flickering weakly on auxiliary power supplied by the city. With the reactor dead, this place was as much a waste of space as any useless thing. Cobwebs decorated the ceiling and blocked old doorways to rooms that once stood for ground level security. Dark, ominous elevators stood with their doors gaping halfway. Mold, damp, and dust hung on the air like beads fit for choking.

Vincent and the lieutenant led the way, followed closely by Tifa, Reeve, and Cid, backed by several WRO youths. Not a sound indicated life in the passageway beyond the group, other than the squeaks of vermin. Of course they were still on the first level. They all had a ways to go to be sure if anyone was actually here or not.

"The last time we were down here, this place was going crazy with Shinra and SOLDIER everywhere," Tifa voiced softly, her eyes arcing ever so slightly above her companions' heads. "Now, it's as if nothing ever happened…"

"Better left to the past," Vincent said, resting the barrel of his gun against his shoulder.

"Shit, I'm glad SOLDIER's gone. Buncha freaks," Cid spat, snatching a cigarette from the box tucked in the strap of the goggles on his head.

"Cid, don't say that, Cloud used to... Oh no, wait. Um, never mind." Tifa giggled nervously and cleared her throat.

"A bad time for jokes," Vincent hissed from the head of the group.

The dimly lit silhouette of a stairwell beckoned them from a corner at the corridor's end. There was no other way down with the elevators out of commission, so Vincent and the lieutenant stalked about the stairwell before signaling that it was safe. The two men descended first, guns pointed cautiously over the railing.

"Wait," Vincent whispered sharply.

"What, do you hear something?"

"Yes." The gunman glanced up to Reeve who was uncomfortably sandwiched between Tifa and his soldiers. "Backup's coming?"

"Let me find out." Reeve slipped his gun under his arm and pulled his phone out, punching a number and muttering quietly to whoever answered after half a ring.

"I can't tell how many are down there. Maybe these are the militiamen... Shit."

"What's wrong?"

"Hey!"

A sudden stream of laser fire sprang up through the stairwell, hitting the ceiling and causing dust and sparks to rain down. Alarmed, everyone but Vincent who crouched low on the stairs like a black and red ghost, leapt back, preparing for combat. Amused that the men below shot first and asked questions later, the gunman loaded some materia into the chamber of his rifle and shot a volley of yellow light down the stairwell.

Cries of surprise rose and fell below, followed by shouts of anger and thundering footfalls coming up towards them. Uncertain of the opposition's numbers, the group fell back to the entrance for any advantage they could muster.

"What'd you shoot at 'em, Vince?" Cid cried in their mad dash back for the outside.

"Just a hint of confusion."

"That oughta buy us some time to get ready for 'em."

----

Lucrecia timidly retreated as the orderlies tied and wrapped me up snug on a gurney. The little blond-haired man and his twitchy twig of a counterpart oversaw their actions, also gathering up binders, tools, and so on into boxes. It was obvious we were all getting ready to move. But where to? I thought curiously. Then, fuming out of fear, I struggled with my restraints. I couldn't leave yet, not with Sephiroth still searching for me. He was so near, yet so far, I just knew it.

"Calm down, woman," said Number Two, binding my ankles by strapping a piece of padded leather over them.

"Let me go," I gasped. "You can't keep me like this!"

"Sorry, orders are orders."

Gruff looking men with weapons slung over their backs and around their waists came and went from the lab, towing the boxes away on dollies. For each one I anxiously gazed at, shot back were soft glints of a weird light in their eyes. What was it? Curiosity? Pity? Fear? Tied securely to this gurney, I had all the time in the world to think. But I didn't want the time.

Lucrecia shook her head. Her soft voice came slow and worrisome. "There's something happening up above. It's not Sephiroth but... I'm sorry, Drana."

"Lucrecia, I think it's time you really proved your worth," said another.

My entire body brightened at the sound of Aerith's voice coming out of nowhere. Then rapidly fading into existence, she stepped to my side, hands cupping my shoulder. Glowing as usual in her pink dress, her oval face showed eerie determination. The umbra besides us began to pale in comparison to the great ghost herself. Lucrecia took a step back, wisps of gray swirling about her in sheepishness.

"You... What do you mean?"

"I mean, lend a helping hand," Aerith chimed. "Our friend here needs us. Sure, we can't do much like this but we still manage to exist this way for a reason."

"I…"

"What I'm about to ask may seem radical but... I think it's time you walked a little with your son."

Lucrecia's umbra wobbled and visibly shrank. "I, I…couldn't. Not without Drana."

"She's with us all. You don't have to worry. And it'd help get her out of this mess. The sooner, the better. You've got to give to get a little, right?"

Lucrecia's shadowy center started to spin like a mini-whirlpool. Her head fell forward, as if to see her own churning was a surprise in itself. Steadily, she retreated farther away from us, until her back touched the wall besides the open door where bodies were still shuttling in and out with boxes. The umbra bobbed her head once then melted through the wall. Gone.

--

From Sixth: I need...a lot of things.