2.
Cade was lazily treading the bridge of the Shera, looking with anticipation at the special forces crews sitting at their stations, dancing with their fingers on the keyboards and combing the network trying to find elements useful for the planning of the rescue of his uncle Reeve. But apparently, up to now, the search had given no results yet.
Since they had took off from Gongaga, the urgency of his mission had became more and more evident to him. His initial optimism was sometime hindered by the thought that Reeve could have been seriously injured or, far worse, killed by now.
He had tried to keep this front of unyielding enthusiasm and stoicism he had built throughout the entirety of the course of the events from crumbling. He had been keeping a positive and uplift stance from the briefing held in the Mythril Desert when it was first revealed that Gaia was about to suffer a lethal blow from an otherworldly menace, and he had kept his smile even when on the bed of the hospital in Gongaga he had realized how close to death he had been, for the sake of the heartbroken ninja princess who stood next to him. All for the sake of the ones next to him.
But the toll of trying to save the world (literally) almost on his own was beginning to erode his psyche. The loss of Kayla had been the last straw, and although he did not shown it to anybody deep in his heart he had still to come to term with the recurring scene of that blonde, angelic human being dying in his arms that flashed before his eyes every now and then. If he had not managed to save Yuffie's life as well, he would have let himself die in the glacier, slowly but inevitably.
Moreover, the effects of Mako poisoning, were beginning to cause bouts of fever in the most inappropriate moments. He was beginning to feel wrecked, both inside and outside him
'How can I?' he wondered to himself, standing in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by personnel shuffling from one side of the deck to the other 'How can I even think I can do something like this if I can't look after myself?'
You are not alone, a voice echoed in his mind. The same voice that haunted his dreams and that happened to spoke to him while he closed his eyes for a nap or just to let the sea of thoughts in his mind to come to a calm. A voice which still raised a lot of question in his mind but with which he did not feel upset at all, oddly.
'I know' he said in his mind, as a reply 'And I will drag everyone with me when it will be the time to fall…'
Oh, gosh the voice complained When did you become such a pessimist? My grandfather used to be more cheerful than that, even when he was drunk…
'Since when my uncle had been locked somewhere we still have to find out, I nearly passed away in a glacier and after being branded as a treacherous subversive by the same organization I work for?'
Whoa! That's quite an achievement I did not expect from you the voice giggled You outperform me, when it comes to fighting the power. You should have joined AVALACHE yourself…
But remember, there's people who gave their life for the sake of something greater than themselves!
'And I am supposed to follow suit?'
That's up to you. Sacrificing themselves can be heroic or futile. It depends on how you compare the two arms of the scale
'For instance?'
You nearly died to save her. Tell me how much you were happy to see her alive on a scale from one to ten
'One hundred' he mentally replied, at once
You should start form there, the voice concluded disappearing in the vortex of his thoughts.
Cade immediately thought it would have been a good idea not to miss his daily appointment with the prescribed painkillers, as he swallowed a pill he kept in an aluminium blister inside his pocket. He wondered if those voices and incoherent dialogues he had with them were side effects of the Mako poisoning as well. As far as he was concerned, they were
"Sir, are you with us?" a voice dragged him away from the land of dreams and distant voices.
He had been introduced earlier to Captain Alistair Ruding, the intelligence specialist of the SISF., a guy in his late twenties with short, reddish hair and glasses. Far from being the stereotypical geekish guy in the classroom, Ruding ran his intelligence crew in a very swift and efficient manner, keeping a lively spirit as he asked for updates and reports every now and then
"Oh, sorry!" Cade told him, awakening from his momentarily lapse of consciousness "I was just busy… you know, guesstimating the chances we had to find a valid piece of information"
"Sir, if there's the tiniest bit of information in the web that could serve us, no matter where it is hiding, I'll… we'll find it!" he had assured Cade
"How can you be so sure?" Cade asked him
"I know my trade pretty well" Ruding shrugged with nonchalance
"There are plenty of people who knows their own trade pretty well around the world, Captain" Cade pointed out "What makes you stand amongst all of them?"
Ruding grinned, letting out a small chuckle as he adjusted his glasses on the nose "Browsing the network is like wandering through the alleys and streets of a town. You either get a map, you hire a guide or, better off, you get the one who build the town itself…"
Cade stared at him, eyes wide with surprise "You are actually telling me that…"
Ruding smiled "After the Deepground Conflict, the network had to be cleaned up by whatever viruses and malwares had ridden it. At some point we realized that it would have been less costly and time consuming just closing it down and re-build it from scratch. And guess who lead the team?"
Cade felt like he could use some provoking "Not you…?"
Ruding raised a finger. He stood there speechless for a while, before sighing "Touché" he said, shaking his head "My bluff did not work well, didn't it?"
Cade laughed "Don't take it personal Captain, but I sincerely doubt someone as young as yours could have been the architect behind the brand new version of the network"
"Well, I was not the architect" Ruding told him, grabbing a chair and sitting in front of a computer "But I closely worked with Shelke. I may not have been the architect, but surely I was the architect's best student…"
"I did not mean to offend you, Captain…" Cade excused himself "I know you are doing a great job"
"Don't worry, Sir" Ruding replied "I like to work with a boss that has some sense of humour every now and then"
Cade quickly tilted his head with a lopsided grin on his face, unable to read past Ruding's line. He glanced at the computer where the IT specialist had began scrolling a list of directories "Have you found anything interesting, yet?" Cade asked him
"I'm afraid not, not yet" Ruding shook his head "Unfortunately, many sections of the WRO intranet are closed down. Maybe is a safety measure the General Staff has taken to ensure no hackings would occur"
"Like the one we are attempting at right now?" Cade asked
"Precisely" Ruding chuckled "Unfortunately for them, and luckily for us, there's more than one way to skin a cat"
"What do you mean?"
"They locked the doors, but they don't know we have the keys. A whole bundle of that" Ruding winked
"You sure are fond of metaphors, aren't you?" Cade smiled
"I'm a communicator by nature" Ruding joked "But, not to clip your enthusiasm, this is not like picking up a key once you get back home from work. This is more fumbling through the keys when you are back home from a tour of the dirtiest pubs in Corel. With the lights out, as a final touch…" he added
"I see" Cade nodded "You are telling me that this is a matter of 'when', rather than 'if'"
Ruding nodded as well in response "Just that. I'm sure the 'when' will soon turn into a 'now' in a matter of seconds"
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything fun" a voice came from behind them. It was Evan
"Hi there Evan" Cade waived "No, nothing fun at all. Not even the slightest hyperlink to a porn site. Damn it feels so lonely out here…" he jokingly moaned
"Will you ever change, Cade?" Evan marvelled with a scold on his face "I guess Specialist Ruding is reporting with you with the latest development of their search"
"Yes, Sir" Ruding stood to attention
"Absolutely, Evan" Cade lazily nodded, standing sat on his chair instead "They are a bunch of brilliant brains, I reckon that. You picked them up wisely"
"I did, in fact" Evan proudly boasted "Listen, do you mind if we exchange some words in private?" he whispered to him, then
Cade's eyes widened in surprise "Oh, well of course" he agreed. He turned to Ruding for one last time, patting his shoulder "Thanks a lot Specialist Ruding. Keep up the good job"
"I… I mean we'll do, Sir!" Ruding replied
"And one last thing, if I can ask it of you" Cade added
Ruding nodded, waiting for the request
"Please, call me Cade" he begged "Everyone calls me like that by now"
"I'll do then, Sir… I mean, Cade" he corrected himself
Cade smiled, satisfied at Ruding's compliance with that last request, as Evan lead him to a more secluded division of the main deck
"Hardworking, focused and competent" Cade pondered, as he made his way to an alcove behind the deck, with Evan alongside him "Quite the opposite of me!" he joked
"You are pretty hardworking yourself" Evan pointed out
"If you say so" Cade shrugged, as they reached a convenient spot "So, what did you want me to talk about?" he asked
"How are you doing? I mean, apart from the wounds and all the rest…" Evan asked
"Me? How am I doing?" Cade replied, caught by surprise by that seemingly innocent question "Fine, I suppose. Just as fine as I can be doing given the circumstances…"
Evan nodded, thoughtfully. Cade grew a bit alarmed by his mate's reaction "What?" he pressed Evan "Is there something bothering you?"
"Well" Evan began "Since the day you came in contact with that chunk of Mako in the desert, and since I've been reading the medical records, the only" he sternly remarked that word "medical record ever produced, I've been keeping wondering if you haven't been suffering from excessive Mako exposure, since then"
"So, that was your question?" Cade enquired. As far as he was concerned, up to that moment he owed the Mako exposure his own life. If it had not been for that, he would not have stood a single chance against the countless strains his body had been put through during the events that took place from the mission in the Mythril Desert onward
"I know what are you thinking" Evan guessed "I bet that you suppose that having been exposed to Mako has accelerated the healing rate of your cells. And that would explain how come you are standing on your own after a two-day coma, when even the head of the reanimation and intensive care ward had told us we would have to wait at least a month"
"Is there something wrong with that?" Cade replied "Thanks to that, our schedule is virtually unaffected, I made you save quite a lot of time" he laughed
"Cade, I insist you have your condition checked by the time this will be all over" Evan replied, without even taking Cade's pun into account
"Provided I came out of this alive"
"You will" Evan told him "And you will have you visited by a specialist, will you?"
"Evan, is there something you are trying to tell me?" Cade questioned him, not without concern
Evan sighed "Cade, body and mind are two different things, but are part of the same thing" he explained carefully "One cannot exist, or at least function properly without the other. Maybe your body has gained a small advantage by having all that Mako seeping through your bones, but I doubt the same can be said about the mind"
"Are you afraid I'll go insane and start a rampage, is that so?" Cad smiled. Evan did not. In fact, he did not move a muscle on his face.
The rope that kept the curtain pulled on the stage of Cade's almost comical play snapped. For the first time Cade was pushed to admit that things were quite not working well inside him. He bowed his head, as he rubbed both eyes with the thumb and index of the right hand
"I saw you before" Evan told him "Right there on the deck. You blacked out for almost a minute. Why don't you tell me what's happening to you?"
Cade squinted his eyes behind his fingers, which were almost pinching the nose
"You have visions and stuff, haven't you?" Evan kept asking, as he tried to keep eye contact with Cade, who finally let loose the hold on his eyes and raised his head
"I think, I have" he answered "I'm sorry Evan, but I can't control what happens in my mind. God, I feel so tired…" he complained, almost breaking down in tears.
Evan reached for him, giving Cade a sympathetic hug
"Cade, you are worrying about a lot of thing all at the same time: your uncle, the world, each and every one of us. And then you rescued Yuffie in a way no one else would have thought, you went into a coma for two days… and then you had Kayla dying in your arms. Do you really think you can carry on forever?" he asked
"I don't think so…" Cade replied, as he gained again distance back from his friend
"Then why do you keep acting like it's yourself against the whole world? You're not alone, you know?"
"I know" Cade nodded, as he regained composure. Strangely enough, that last line sounded very much like what the voice inside his head had told him just before "I guess I'm the last action hero in town" he grinned
Evan laughed "You are the last dickhead in town" he joked, patting him on the back "What good is a hero for if he can't see the results of his action?"
"That's a good question…" Cade pondered
"Look" Evan suggested him "Go get some coffee in the canteen. And by the way, put some sleep on the tab too"
"But I'm not tired at all…" Cade complained
"Gentleman!" a voice erupted from the main deck, immediately followed by the thumping sound of Ruding's steps rushing toward the station of the operator who had just announced his discovery "I think we have something interesting in our hands!"
"See?" Cade smiled, returning one of the countless pats Evan had given him during the day "Nap time can wait!"
A huddle of people formed around a computer
"Did you find him?" Cade frantically asked
"No, it's not about Director Tuesti" the operator at the station shook his head "But something quite as important I think"
"What makes you think it's important if it isn't about Reeve?" Cade bitterly objected
"Cade, cut him some slack!" Evan intervened. He then addressed the operator "Tell us what did you find, please"
"Somebody just sent us a data stream, right at the network point address of this ship" the operator explained
"Whops! Sorry for being late!" Ruding announced himself, as he had momentarily left the desk where everybody was at "Did someone say 'data stream'?"
"Yes, Sir" the operator nodded "It's a hefty pack of data, moreover"
"Can you tell who did send it to us?" Evan enquired
"I'm afraid not" the operator shook his head "There's a physical address of the terminal used to uplink these data but no network credentials"
"I bet fifty Gil it was sent by a maintenance terminal…" Ruding guessed, excited
"Hey, what's up with all that ruckus?" a chirping voice came form behind. It was Yuffie.
Cade instinctively tuned to the ninja, and almost dropped his jaw in surprise: the princess of Wutai had donned herself in the same attire worn by the other S.F.I.S. members. A black, tight t-shirt which had the (rather pleasant, for the record) side effect of exalting her slender figure, grey-camouflaged baggy trousers, all wrapped with holsters, pouches, knee paddles and finally combat boots, matching the shade of black from the upper body garments. She had added her personal touch by tying her trademark ultramarine-blue hair-band, with the White Rose motif pressed on it
"What were you up to?" Cade asked her, trying to conceal his sense of admiration for a girl who could look sharp and pretty no matter what she put on herself "Playing hide and seek with all the special forces stuff along with it?"
"Oh, you!" Yuffie sighed, without helping herself but to smile upon noticing Cade's cheek turning a more saturated shade of pink. It was cool to have a man's eyes upon herself, amongst all that rat race to save the world
'Wow, Yuffie! Where did that came from?' a voice bawled in her mind. Even Yuffie herself was briefly startled by that nasty thought. She immediately proceeded towards the group of people assembled behind the operator and the computer
"Someone cares to tell me why are you all excited about?" she asked again, laying over Cade's back
"Do you even have to ask?" Cade mischievously replied
"Holy fuck!" Evan rolled his eyes upwards. Ruding laughed out loud.
"Somebody has tried to communicate with us" he explained, pointing at the cascade of letters and digits that were appearing on the screen before them.
Yuffie tried to take a closer look at the screen "Is that pack of non-sense meant to mean something, actually?" she enquired
"Of course" Ruding nodded, slamming his hand on the operator's back "Warrant Officer Chipperfield will locate the source of the stream, and will gladly translate it for us"
"Of course, Sir" Chipperfield nodded, recovering from the impact of Ruding's hand on his back "The algorithm is converting the hexadecimal strings into intelligible data. Meanwhile…" he said, while launching another application "… we should have the result of the search of the terminal where it has been sent from"
Everyone stared at the screen in anticipation. A ping from the machine announced them the computer was ready to read out the result
"Kalm?" Evan read out the four letters out loud
"A maintenance terminal from a secondary radio antenna" Ruding marvelled as well "And by somebody unable to tell a computer from a blender!" he laughed
"Why?" Evan asked
"Half of the data has been corrupted by a security protocol" Chipperfield explained "Nobody can use maintenance terminals for their own convenience or personal purposes. When it happens, a bot in the network corrupts the data sent by the user, so the party is over!"
"But we can still retrieve them, right?" Yuffie questioned him
"Of course" Chipperfield replied "It will take…"
"Time" Evan anticipated him "I know. It all comes down to that"
"But why would someone had to send something to us using a maintenance terminal? I mean, if they knew the data would have been corrupted…" Yuffie wondered
"Maybe they did not know…" Evan guessed
"Or maybe they did it on purpose" Ruding knocked on the screen "Maintenance terminals are not that heavily monitored like any other computers with access to the WRO intranet. The corruption bot is the only line of defence"
"Not the best insurance against crackers" Cade noted
"I made a reclaim about that two months ago" Ruding pointed out "It still lies in some closet in an office in Edge" he grumped
Cade stared at the screen of the computer, where digits and letters where appearing at a steadfast rhythm
"How long will it take to decipher that stuff?" he finally asked
"From five to ten minutes" Chipeprfield announced, before his attention was caught by a flashing pop-up on the desktop "And what the hell is this thing?" he asked, before clicking on it
A window opened. The logo of the newsfeed service appeared shortly before images of the Kalm skyline appeared, marred by two solid smoke plumes emerging from opposite sides of the town. The voice of a newscaster could be heard over
"…authorities in Kalm have put the town in lockdown, after a bomb exploded in the vehicle depot of the local WRO garrison in the Vogel Park district. There are no victims confirmed yet. Shortly after, a WRO spokesperson had announced that the perpetrators have been tracked down near an antenna building at the other side of town in the Luton Projects Quarters. The ensuing fire-fight had caused extensive damage to the building. Suspects are still at large and are to be considered armed and dangerous…"
Their attention, though, had to shift again. An alarm rang in the main deck. Three tones played one next to the other, grouped and separated by a pause
"Ah, damn it Cid!" Cade shouted, visibly annoyed by the chime "Put it out! Or I'll do it my way!" he threatened, trying to be heard and sound menacing. Cid's reply swiftly came from the loudspeakers
"Why is that you do not crap in your pants like all the other times you've heard an alarm?" the mechanic asked
"Because this is an urgent cable from the WRO Headquarters!" Evan instantly replied
"Oh, fuck!" Yuffie swore
"Don' t worry!" Evan raised his hand "Let's see what they have in mind for us…"
He got near the console under the main screen of the deck. He tapped a couple of keys and a message appeared on the giant display
"Ha!" Cade laughed "This is better than an invitation to a wedding party!"
"Head to Kalm immediately" Evan read out loud "Contact local authorities and proceed to the designated targets. SISF. intervention required"
"If the SISF. is requested, we are tagging along. I'd say we have something to work on, for now!" Yuffie exclaimed, brimming with excitement.
Cade watched at the screen with the same degree of enthusiasm. All his thoughts, nightmares and bad vibes had been swept away by the rush that kicked in as soon as the orders had appeared on the screen.
Evan had rushed downstairs to summon Lieutenant Farron. Cade turned towards Yuffie
"Ok" he said, clenching his fists "Let's if I look as sharp as you in that dress!"