The doors to the lab made a deep grating noise as they slid open to admit the doctor's entry. Rinoa could hear the sharp, measured clicking of his footsteps on the metal floor as he walked over to the monitors in the middle of the room. She watched him as he scanned across the bank of displays that were arrayed there, angled away from her so that she could not see their contents. Even so, Rinoa had no doubt that it she was the sole focus of their — and the doctor's — attention.
Almost absently, the doctor brought up an electronic clipboard which he held in his left hand, tapping on it with some sort of pen. "Subject continues to show remarkable resilience to any damaging agents," he intoned. "Readings also show a direct relation between the amount of radiated magic energy and rate of healing, which fits with previous evidence suggesting magically enhanced body performance. Naturally, subject demonstrates this trait to a heretofore undocumented degree."
Rinoa wanted to speak to the man; she hated being treated like some lab rat who wasn't even worthy of a name. But her throat was incredibly dry, and her voice caught before it could form into words, emerging only as a strangled croak. The doctor spared a brief glance at her, before tapping something else onto his clipboard as if he had not even noticed.
"Subject's magical emanations appear related to activity in the subconscious areas of the brain, rather than the memory centers as is typical with a junctioned Guardian Force. This raises the possibility that varying levels of magical intensity may impact subject's behavioral patterns, or vise versa."
He keyed a command onto one of the keyboards hooked up to the displays before him, and Rinoa felt a cold, stabbing pain at the base of her skull. At first, the pain from the implant was enough to set her to tears; but she was becoming used to many of the torturous devices which the doctor would employ. Unfortunately, she was also all too aware of what came next.
"Please." She forced the words through her parched throat; the voice that emerged was barely recognizable to her. "Don't do this."
His gaze flicked back to her; cool, completely detached, and utterly unemotional. "The probes won't induce a response if you're unconscious," he said matter-of-factly. "We have tried. We're not sure why it is, but we're left without alternatives for the time being."
The stinging cold was spreading, bringing with it a numbness that claimed the entire back of her head. "Please stop," she croaked again. "Stop doing this to me."
An eyebrow arched, so slightly that Rinoa was uncertain that it had not been a trick of her vision, which was becoming ever harder to focus. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said; and Rinoa almost believed she heard a faint trace of regret, the first emotion she had ever detected in the man's voice. "This research is necessary. You, and those like you, pose too great a threat."
He paused a moment, regarding her with the same detached expression she could always observe in him; although this one seemed just a little more pained than usual. Then, he tapped another command onto his clipboard. "Twenty-third June, six thirty-four. Data for direct area stimulation, series four." And he tapped another button on the keyboard before him.
Although Rinoa had steeled herself for the pain that she had known was coming, as usual the burning sensation that flooded through her consciousness could easily overload all her defenses; she was quickly lost in the sea of pain, and any coherent thought quickly became impossible.
The nine SeeDs stood atop a wide plateau high in the Balamb mountains. The weather was pleasant, and the air for once stood perfectly still. The stillness did well to symbolize the pervasive boredom which hung over the group; their car had long since headed back to Garden, and they had been waiting for the promised Galbadian transport for over an hour now.
Quistis was pacing aimlessly around the group, doing her best to look more concerned with how the others were doing than simply bored. Selphie and Paige were playing cards, and had established that neither of them had any particular skill. Zell had been shadowboxing and performing acrobatics for at least half an hour, Irvine was cleaning his gun for the third time, and Squall, true to form, had found the only spot on the plateau suitable to leaning against, and put it to use; he stood with his back against it, arms folded, staring at his boots.
"Man, how long are they gonna keep us here?" demanded Jeck. "I mean, we're SeeD, the best of the elite and all that! They should count themselves lucky we're even taking their stupid mission."
"Considering they never really gave us a choice in the matter," Quistis replied, "I'm not so sure."
"I have to say, though," said Nida, "this really isn't heightening my enthusiasm for the mission at all."
"I bet it's some kind of psychological thing," said Paige. "They want us to know that they're the ones with the power here."
"Oh yeah?" Jeck scoffed. "Well, SeeD will just have to teach those jerks a thing or two."
Quistis sighed. "Don't do anything stupid, Jeck."
He shrugged off the warning. "Relax, Quisty. This is me we're talking about."
Zell rolled his eyes, either at Jeck's proclamation or his use of Quistis' childhood nickname, it wasn't clear.
"That's what we're worried about," Nida said dryly.
Jeck scowled at him.
Squall was witness to this conversation by reason of the rather close proximity and absolute lack of any other distracting sound. He was experiencing a milestone of sorts; his boredom had reached such an advanced stage that it had actually interrupted his brooding. This was exceptional because generally boredom was the catalyst for him to start thinking in the first place.
Not that he particularly minded the departure from thought. Often when he started thinking, bad things happened.
Naturally, he had been thinking about Rinoa. Whatever Galbadia had in store for them on this mission, he could be sure that any attempt to save her would be out of the question for its unknown duration. Furthermore, his responsibilities to Garden made it all but impossible for him to run off and jeopardize relations between the academy and its biggest donor. And finally, he had absolutely no idea where to look. That last concern was probably the only thing that was preventing the desire to go off and rescue her from overriding all logic in his brain and sending him off to his — and Garden's — near-certain doom.
And he was thinking again. He sighed. He especially hated times like this, when his mind would simply run around in circles, getting nowhere and helping nothing. Glancing over at Irvine, he wished he had brought along the proper tools to sharpen his gunblade.
His mind seemed to ignore his own interruption, and shifted right back to Rinoa. Now he found himself going back over the past year, searching for any opportunity during which he could have slipped away, gone to visit her in Timber or even help her in her cause. Once, shortly before Cid had died, Squall had proposed to him that he go to collect Garden's money for his, Selphie's and Zell's deployment with the Forest Owls; the resistance group had never paid. Cid had dissuaded him of the plan, but now Squall wondered what would have happened if he had pushed just a little harder...
"Hey."
He blinked, looking up at the unexpected intrusion. Karenna was leaning against the rock beside him, regarding him with a slightly amused expression. Squall wasn't terribly surprised that he hadn't noticed her approach, but he did hope that she would leave again soon. As much as he disliked thinking, he wanted company even less.
No such luck. "So this is my first mission. Are all my team leaders going to be this inspiring?"
"..." Squall very much hoped she would go away.
"Seriously, everyone in Garden really looks up to you. I guess it's one of those things where you're a lot more impressive from a distance."
I never asked to be a role model. "..."
"People are starting to wonder, though. When the Fearless Leader never talks to anyone and spends all his time locked up in his room, people get worried that he's going to start surrounding himself with Moombas, or wearing a big foil sash and hat, or whatever crazy stuff mad dictators do."
Squall realized that his regular deterrence methods were proving completely ineffective. This girl is way too persistent, he thought. In a way, her tenacity reminded him a bit of Rinoa.
He shook his head vigorously. He didn't need to be making that connection.
Karenna's eyes narrowed at his action. "You're off in your own little world right now, aren't you? I'm starting to think you spend more time in that one than out here with the rest of us."
"What did you do on your field exam?" Squall asked, deciding that she would never shut up unless he did something.
Her eyebrows shot up. "You can talk. I thought you could; I remembered you saying something at the briefing..."
Squall looked away. Would this never end?
"Anyway, we were supposed to clean those monsters out of Fishermans Horizon, right? My team had to check all the ships at the dock. Real boring, most of the time; but then this low-level Torama tried to slip past us..." She shrugged. "Ever tried to put a Torama in a safety cage? That was fun."
"You know what it's like to assassinate someone?" Squall asked. "Or kidnapping? Ever been undercover, where the enemy's likely to kill you if they find out who you are?"
Karenna smiled. "This is where you give me the rookie speech, right? You tell me that I'm about to witness horrors that I can't begin to imagine, so I shouldn't judge you for how they've landed you with the conversational skills of an uncharged Blitz?"
Squall glared at her; and he knew, in that moment, that this girl would cause him a great deal of annoyance in his future.
"I don't want friends," he said; and was momentarily surprised by himself. He'd meant to say, Don't try to be my friend.
Karenna shrugged. "Your loss."
She was silent for a bit after that. Squall was all ready to fall back into his brooding state, but a faint sound off to the east caught his attention. Frowning, he looked over to see the unmistakable form of a Galbadian airship cruising towards them. As he made this determination, the sound of its turbines seemed to magnify as the ship closed in on their plateau.
"Well, there's our ride," Zell said, picking up his pack.
"Rats," Nida said. "I was kind of hoping they wouldn't show."
Silently, Squall went over to join the other SeeDs as the massive ship settled to a rest above them, casting down a ladder which they were clearly expected to ascend.