Scarlet lay in bed, her hair disarranged, her perfect body rendered shapeless under the light green hospital sheets. She was the ward's sole occupant; there were five other beds, but the staff knew better than to disturb the presence of Shinra's Director of Weapons Development. She clenched and unclenched one fist, and breathed through set teeth.
The doctor, a bald man in his late fifties, entered timidly, holding a paper bag to his chest.
"Hey sawbones," hissed Scarlet. "Can I get out of here or what?"
"It's my opinion…" He adjusted his glasses. "You were exposed to a severe dose of mako, ma'am, and your constitution is…pardon me, less robust than the other victims. I recommend another night's rest, and we'll run tests in the morning."
"Fine, nevermind. Did you bring what I asked for?"
"Yes, ma'am."
He opened the bag, extracted two fresh slices of cucumber, and placed them carefully on Scarlet's eyes.
She sighed with bitter relief. "That's better."
The doctor, too, looked relieved, now that her eyes were hidden from view. He ventured: "You know, at controlled levels, mako radiation is quite beneficial to the complexion. I'm…told it's the latest rage."
"Yeah, thanks, sweetie-pie, I'll look into it. Those levels baked me like a goddamned potato. I'm going to peel. Ick. At least tell me somebody died."
He laughed nervously. "Oh, dear me, no. Everyone is recovering splendidly, even that poor little girl, who had the worst of it. As a matter of fact, that healthy-looking Wu-Tai gentleman left here this morning. But I take it he's not unused to such…extreme situations. We found fragments of eighteen bullets in his body."
"I'm so glad," drawled Scarlet. "I can't wait to deliver my congratulations in person."
"Oh!" The doctor touched his forehead. "I nearly forgot! The gentleman had something that he said belongs to you. He wanted you to have it."
Scarlet shot upright. "I'll say he does!" She pried one cucumber slice off her eye, which gleamed greedily. "Where is it? Give it here."
He reached into his pocket, and took out something that fit completely into his closed fist. Scarlet looked baffled; still more so when he opened his fingers, revealing something that looked like a bullet.
"A memento of some sort?" the doctor guessed. "There seem to be letters scratched into it. Mar…lene? Is that perhaps your middle name? I don't mean to pry…"
"Get out of here."
"Terribly sorry…"
"Out! Out!"
The doctor fled, shoes squeaking on the tile floor.
Scarlet clenched the bullet in her fist, until her red nails began to draw blood. Then she gave a shriek of rage and hurled it against the wall.
In a darkened room, Reno sat on a chair, a single lamp covering him in a pool of white light. A black blindfold was lashed tight around his face, and his hands, resting on his knees, trembled slightly.
A voice came out of the darkness on his left:
"What is your name?"
He hesitated, and licked his lips before replying, in a firm voice:
"I have no name."
The voice asked:
"What are you?"
"A thief," he said, "a liar, a cheat, and a murderer."
"Where do you come from?"
"A bitch dog dropped me in the alley behind a brothel."
"Who was your father?"
"I had no father."
"Who are your brothers and sisters?"
"I have no brothers or sisters."
"Who is to be your mother, and your father, and your brother and sister?"
He hesitated slightly longer. A bead of sweat hung underneath the blindfold, and worked its way slowly down his cheek, along his neck, into the crevice of his open collar.
The voice repeated: "Who is to be your mother, and your father, and your brother and sister?"
"The Turks," he answered. "The Turks are my mother, and my father, and my brothers and sisters."
"Rise."
Reno stood up, steadied himself against the chair.
"Approach the table."
He walked forward, step by step, holding out one hand. Another perfect pool of light shone on a long wooden table ahead of him, and when his hand brushed it, he stopped. Three objects sat on the table: a hand mirror, a shallow silver plate, and a long, curved dagger.
"Take the object on your right."
Reno's fingers found the dagger, closed around the hilt, and lifted it.
"Hold your hands out in front of you."
He did so, and they were over the plate.
"Take a drop of blood from your small finger."
Wincing, he did so. The red pearl fell straight down and plinked on the silver.
"Well done, Reno. Now remove the veil, and place it over your wound."
Slowly, his hands trembling less now, he did so, winding the blindfold carefully around the bleeding finger. He looked up into the darkness.
"Now take the object on your left."
He lifted the mirror.
"Look at yourself."
He did.
"What do you see?"
"A dead man."
The lights switched on, revealing Conference Room 2-B on the thirteenth floor of Shinra Headquarters. There was a loud pop. Rude, holding the uncorked, frothing bottle of champagne, crept up behind Reno and poured it over his head. He coughed and sputtered.
"Congratulations!" yelled the some twenty assembled members of the Department of Administrative Research, breaking out in applause. More corks popped, and the room was full of the sound of fizzing champagne, whoops, and more cheers.
"Aw, fug! Right up my dose!" Reno moaned.
Rude pounded him on the back, threw an arm around him, and guzzled down what was left in the bottle.
"Come on. There's a cake."
"Well it better not be chocolate, I'm allergic."
"You should have said so before."
"I didn't know there was gonna be cake!"
The other staff were singing: "For he's a jolly good fe-llow, for he's a jolly good fe-llow…" Then an argument broke out over whether the second line went, and so say all of we, or which nobody can deny.
"Alright, alright," said Rude, pouring a glass, "it's so say all of we, cause we know it, and that's what matters.-Here."
He pressed the glass into Reno's hand. They looked at each other. Reno wiped his face with his tie.
"How do I look?"
"You look ready."
They lifted their glasses.
"Here's to us," said Rude.
"Aw, yeah. That's the good stuff."
"Congratulations!" Elena walked up, holding a glass. Her cheeks were already pink.
"Elena," said Rude. "I heard you were putting in for a transfer."
"Aw, say it aint so! Somebody needs to break up this sausage-fest."
"I'm…not sure," she said, brushing hair from her eyes. "I have a lot to think about."
"Well, think hard."
"Yeah. Someday you could be standing where I am now."
"That's the part I'm not sure about," she said, slyly eyeing his sopping-wet hair. "How do you feel?"
Reno considered. He took another sip of champagne.
"Like a Turk," he said. "Like a motherfucking Turk."
"Hmm. Hmm. Hmm." Heidegger shuffled the papers in front of him. He seemed to think, with sufficient effort, he might reassemble them into something that told a different story. Tseng sat across from him, arms at his sides, waiting patiently. At last, Heidegger looked up. His eyes looked especially beady behind his horn-framed reading glasses.
"You will have to remind me, Tseng, of your mission objective."
Crisply, Tseng answered: "To recover all four shards of the Heaven Stone, repair it, and return with it to Shinra Headquarters."
"And the stone is…?"
"Destroyed. As per my original recommendation. Purely coincidental…I assure you."
"And forty men were killed?"
"Forty-one, to be precise, sir. All known violent criminals."
"Also one innocent civilian, and one of your own department…"
"Unfortunate causalities, but within acceptable parameters."
"A charge has been laid against you for conspiring with enemies of Shinra…"
"Wholly unsubstantiated, the which I will prove before a commission, if necessary."
"Then there's the matter of the complete destruction of our Gongaga reactor, the flagship of our new design, and the source of power for over three thousand homes…five people dead of mako poisoning in Gongaga, many more sick, the whole town evacuated…may be uninhabitable for months…the damage to the local ecosystem…incalculable…"
Tseng nodded.
Heidegger shook his head back and forth, clicking his tongue.
"Tseng, my boy. Tseng, Tseng, Tseng. This is a disaster of unmitigated proportions…" he paused, then his cheeks blew out and he shrieked: "For which Scarlet was responsible! Gya, hah, hah! Ha-haa, ha, ha, ha! Horselaugh on Scarlet! Gya-ha!"
Leaning over the desk, he patted Tseng's shoulder and added gleefully: "I got a peek at the numbers. Her funding is down twenty percent next quarter, and ours is up twelve! I don't know how many handjobs she'll have to give out just to keep her job, but I want to be in line! Gya-ha-ha! Hoo, heh. Now I'm putting you all up for the Combat Cross, the highest honor Shinra can bestow, and your annual bonus is doubled. Personally, you understand. You know what? Take a month's vacation. Take the boys down to Mideel. I hear you got a new man, too? This just couldn't get any better!"
Tseng's face was even harder to read than usual. It showed traces of caution, relief, surprise, and disgust. But no emotion was strong enough to form those features into any definite expression.
"Come on, Tseng, laugh with me! Those poor souls in Gongaga might be dead, but we're still alive. Laugh and grow fat! Gyah, hah, hah!"
Tseng smiled. Then, dredging very deep, managed one chuckle, like a bubble of crude oil breaking the surface. Another followed. Then he was laughing too, loud but hollow, and Heidegger laughed louder, until the trophies and various gilded knick-knacks on his shelves trembled. Finally breathless, the general brushed at his eyes.
"Woo, hoo. Cigar, Tseng?"
"Certainly. Thank you, sir."
He accepted his, and lit the general's first.
"Shrimp cocktail?"
"Why not."
"I just can't get enough of that stuff. It's the sauce. It's so tangy. I wonder how they do it."
As Heidegger lifted the phone to dial the cafeteria, Tseng leaned back in a cloud of smoke. The cigar filled his body with a rush of pleasure, artificial, but no less powerful for that. When was the last time he had felt real pleasure? Could he tell the difference? When was the last time he had felt anything at all? How would he know if he did? There had been a time, so long ago he hardly remembered, when feelings had been more important than anything; a pretty girl's face, the sun rising in the morning. Now feelings seemed like vaguely unpleasant byproducts of events. But he could, when he really thought about it, remember what they were. He recognized them when he saw them. Like the light in that young girl's face when she honestly believed she could resurrect the gods of her homeland. He would probably never feel like that again. But he knew it when he saw it, and the small ache it caused him reminded him he was still alive. I am still alive. Red Bird had been wrong, Godo had been wrong. His soul wasn't dead, not yet. But almost. Almost.