CHAPTER 15: BY HELICOPTER TO MODEOHEIM
In which Tseng reflects on Zack and Angeal, and a lengthy flashback reveals the truth about his complicated association with Aerith.
[This chapter incorporates the revised version of 'Tseng's backstory'.]
Veld thought, and Tseng agreed with him, that Zack Fair's relationship with Aerith Gainsborough did not pose any immediate danger to the company. His relationship with Angeal Hewley, however, was another matter.
Though publicly pronounced killed in action, Angeal was still very much alive. The Board knew this. The Turks knew it. Sephiroth and Lazard knew it. Even the fanclub girls suspected something. And Zack knew it. He had seen Angeal with his own eyes, and his conscience was troubled.
To Tseng's mind, the Science Department was barking up the wrong tree with their research into Ancients and Jenova Cells and clones and superwarriors. What they really needed to invent was a drug to silence that small inner voice whispering the knowledge of good and evil. Training could only do so much. Alcohol, tobacco, materia, drugs, sex: all were tried, in various combinations. None were permanent solutions.
Zack believed Angeal had the answers. In reality, though, Angeal was part of the problem – perhaps, thought Tseng, the most dangerous part. The Second and Third classes had never loved Genesis. They did not really love Sephiroth, that coldly remote and lonely figure, and they did not really want to be like him, though they went in awe of him. But they loved Angeal, because he had loved them, and they wanted to be Angeal, because he had given so much of himself to them. To put it another way, none of them would have been entirely surprised to learn that Genesis was a monster in disguise; a monster of vanity, one might say. But Angeal? Easier to believe that they themselves were the monsters...
Tseng's necessarily pragmatic view of Zack Fair – namely, that he was to be encouraged and protected as long as he was of service to the company and liquidated if he became a threat – was tempered by a degree of fellow feeling. Like Zack, he knew how it felt to have been singled out for favour: for harder training, more punishing missions, greater demands, and no excuses. He too had been lucky enough to have as a mentor a man he could admire and seek to emulate: a man with clear principles and strength of character; a man who excelled at his work. A decent human being. Such men were rare in Shinra. Or, indeed, anywhere.
According to Cissnei, Zack believed that Angeal intended to return to SOLDIER once the crisis with Genesis had been resolved. She said Angeal had told Zack so himself. This was one of the few useful pieces of information to have emerged from the debacle of her mission to SOLDIER. Tseng wondered, though, whether Angeal could really be so naïve. He bore upon his body the outward manifestation of the secret experiment that had made him; this manifestation, the wing, could not be hidden or removed. According to Hojo, to whom Veld had gone for advice, if the wing was amputated it would regrow. Angeal must know that Shinra would never allow their SOLDIERs to see this. It was bad enough that Zack had seen it, that single great white wing like a swan's wing unfurling from Angeal's shoulderblade. Anyone who saw it would be forced to start asking themselves questions about how Angeal had got that way, and what exactly Shinra had done to him; and from there it was only a small step to wonder, What is Shinra doing to us? To me?
Angeal would have to be eliminated. Tseng had been ordered to do it. Angeal trusted nobody but Zack, and therefore Tseng would have to use Zack to get close enough to Angeal to kill him. Zack could not be told, of course; he must think that they were on a mission to find the home base of the Genesis copies. Tseng intended to fulfil his mission quickly, out of respect for what remained of Angeal's humanity. If at all possible he hoped to avoid, for Aerith sake, for Shinra's sake, the need to kill Zack too.
They would go by helicopter to Modeoheim.
*
Zack was not in the building, but Tseng could guess where he had gone. He told the helicopter pilot to put him down at the Church. Sure enough, he hadn't been waiting many minutes before Zack showed up.
"Let's go," said Tseng. "I need you in Modeoheim."
Zack pushed past him, making for the church door. "I know. Just give me a minute."
"Aerith isn't there."
That brought him up sharply. He folded his arms and gave Tseng a long look. Probably he thought he looked intimidating.
"Problem?" asked Tseng.
"How is it that you know Aerith?"
"It's…. complicated."
For if he were to tell the Zack the whole story – which he had no intention of doing, ever – he would have to go back to the very beginning….
Tseng had been, by Veld's reckoning, perhaps nine years old when Aerith came into his life. He had been living in the Shinra building for as long as he could remember, a polite little savage in a school uniform, a wild thing tamed to no hand but the Commander's and already steeped in the ways of secretiveness. The cafeteria ladies and the receptionists at the front desk had long given up trying to tease a smile from the boy. Tseng's smile was the baring of teeth.
He slept in a corner of Veld's back office, took his showers in the staff lockers, ate his meals in the canteen…. Not a normal life for a child, by any stretch of the imagination. Not the kind of upbringing that Zack, with his mom and pop back on the family farm, would understand. But Tseng could imagine no other; nor would he have wished for a normal childhood even if he'd known what it was. A life without the Commander did not bear thinking of.
It's complicated….
Because everything connected with Commander Veld was complicated. A spider's-web of connections; labyrinthine intricacies. And there was an irony in that, when one considered that Veld was a man who had striven to simplify his life by dividing it into compartments: Midgar; Kalm. Shinra; family. Love; duty.
Where do I fit in? the child Tseng had often wondered.
He had never met Mrs Veld or the girl Felicia, or seen a photograph of them. Veld's desk and his walls were bare. As an adult Tseng could look back and wonder about this. Knox, the only other family man whom he knew at all well, put pictures of his children up everywhere. Veld never spoke of his family, not when he had them, and not after he lost them. Had he ever mentioned to his wife and daughter that he was raising in his office in Midgar a boy whom he'd picked up off the streets? The answer, Tseng guessed, was probably no.
A man's loved ones are his hostages to fortune. That was what Veld used to say, when discussing the best way to put pressure on a target. So perhaps the reason he had kept his family private – fenced them in, boxed them in, no trespassing – was to keep them safe. If nobody knew what his wife and child looked like, they could not be easily identified or kidnapped. As far as Tseng had been able to discover, no one in Shinra had ever been invited to Veld's home in Kalm, old Kalm, Kalm before the firestorm. Not even Reeve Tuesti, or that comrade of Veld's youth, Vincent Valentine, whose battered and faded ID card Tseng had found years ago in the archives. Dead now, long dead, the Commander had said, putting the card into his breast pocket.
Thus, the first time Tseng met Aerith and her mother, he jumped immediately to the conclusion that they were Mrs Veld and Felicia, even though he knew that Felicia was not a baby. He knew this because he had once, just once, happened to overhear the Commander on the phone to his wife, and mention had been made of Felicia's twelfth birthday. But Tseng's jealousy was stronger than his reason.
He had come home from school that day with the usual bruises and scrapes, same old story; he did not complain, and the Commander only said "I hope the other fellow looks worse", and since the other fellow did indeed look worse (had lost two teeth, in fact) Tseng nodded, and the Commander ruffled his hair and said, "Come along with me, there's someone I want you to meet."
In those days the Shinra building was still in the process of being constructed; the President's office and the boardroom were on the twenty-second floor, and the Department of Administrative Research was on the twenty-third. Together Tseng and the Commander rode the elevator up to the twenty-eighth floor, where Tseng had thought there was nothing but store-rooms. Stepping out of the elevator, he saw three infantrymen standing guard outside a door. The Commander knocked, and the door was opened by a slight, brown-haired woman holding a tiny baby in her arms.
It's them, thought Tseng with a pang of dismay.
The woman ushered them inside, and the Commander told him to sit. The sofa was Shinra blue, like the banquettes in the rest areas, and the floor tiles were standard Shinra issue. This apartment was a storeroom, Tseng realized, and it's been fixed up for them. Fixed up in a hurry.
On the windowsill stood a row of potted plants – herbs of some kind. Tseng knew they were real and not plastic because he could smell them.
"Coffee?" asked the woman. "Tea for us both," said the Commander, "With milk and sugar."
The woman said to Tseng, "Hold Aerith for me," and put the baby in his arms.
Her name was Aerith? Not Felicia? Relief, sudden and complete, washed over him. Of course! Felicia was a big girl. This wasn't the Commander's family; that woman wasn't Mrs Veld. How could he have been so stupid? Allowing his feelings to get the upper hand, making unfounded assumptions; when would he break himself of those bad habits? The Commander would give him a good clip round the ear, or worse, if he knew what Tseng had been thinking.
But he didn't know, so everything was all right. Tseng could relax. He didn't have to be afraid, not right now. He didn't have to brace himself for the worst. He could even let his guard down a little, and take a look at this strange object, this baby, this hot little squirming bundle that had been dumped unceremoniously in the clumsy crook of his elbow.
Tseng had never held a baby before. He had never seen a baby before, not up close. Somehow he'd imagined it would be bigger. This baby's whole head fit into the cup of his hand. He could enclose her tiny fist in his. A strong pulse could be seen beating under the skin at the top of her skull, and over it her dark hair was fine as thistledown. How could something so small be so complete in every detail? Intricate ears – thick eyelashes – sharp pink nails. He turned over one of her hands to look closely at the pads of her fingers, marveling at the minute, clearly-etched, whorling fingerprints.
The baby's hand closed round his thumb and held on tight.
He whispered to the Commander, "She has such old eyes."
"All babies look like that," Veld replied softly. "As if they're born knowing everything. And then, we forget."
Tseng's mouth twitched in an attempt at a smile.
Aerith smiled a gummy smile in return, delighted and fearless. Tseng's heart gave a painful throb, as if it had suddenly grown too big for the cage of its ribs.
"She seems to have taken a shine to you," said the Commander, putting his hand on Tseng's shoulder.
The woman was still busy in the kitchen. "Who are they?" Tseng asked in an undertone.
"The woman is Mrs Gast. Ifalna Gast. Aerith is her daughter. She's about two months old."
"What are they doing here?"
At that moment the woman returned with a tray of tea, and so the Commander never answered Tseng's question. Hearing her mother's voice, the baby began to fuss. Tseng felt alarmed, thinking he must have mishandled her in some way.
"It's all right," said Mrs Gast. "She's just hungry. Give her to me."
Mrs Gast unbuttoned her blouse and put the baby to suck on her breast. Deeply embarrassed, Tseng's face reddened; he shifted uneasily in his seat. Seeing his discomfort, Mrs Gast said, "You can turn on the television if you like."
The television was on the other side of the room. Tseng found a children's cartoon. He pitched the sound at a volume loud enough to deceive the adults, but low enough to enable him to eavesdrop, then settled himself on the floor and pretended to be absorbed by the show.
As he expected, it wasn't long before the adults began to talk about him. Mrs Gast was curious. Strangers always were. She wanted to know where Tseng lived (on the executive floor, the twenty-first: he had a bed and a cupboard all to himself behind a row of filing cabinets. He had his own keycard, too, and he had never once lost it). But then where, she asked, did he go to school? (Midgar Junior Military Academy, Sector Seven. Motto: survival of the fittest.)
She said, "So do you mean to make a Turk of him, Piet?"
"He's bright," said the Commander. "He has potential. And he's tough, my God."
"He would need to be," said Mrs Gast. "It can't be easy for him."
Tseng knew exactly what she was referring to. Though he tried his best to avoid ever catching sight of his own reflection, occasionally he fell victim to an ambush, his features leaping out at him from a lamplit windowpane, or someone's mirrored sunglasses, to take him by surprise with a forcible reminder that he looked nothing like the Commander – or anyone else in Shinra, for that matter. Everything about his appearance was alien, wrong. The white skin - the high cheekbones - the slanted black eyes and the delicate mouth - the silky dark hair growing back from a widow's peak, all suggested allegiances Tseng did not feel, a language he could not speak, a history he wanted no part of.
"What happened to his parents?" asked Mrs Gast.
Veld shrugged.
"How did he end up in Midgar?"
"I don't know," said Veld, in a tone that implied, does it matter?
"And this?" she asked. From the corner of his eye Tseng could see Mrs Gast pointing at her own forehead.
"A tattoo?" suggested Veld. "I don't know its significance."
Tseng didn't know either. All he knew was that no amount of soap could scrub it off. It seemed to be made of indelible ink, pressed into his skin by someone's smudgey little finger. Whose? The woman who bore him? And why? To mark him? To claim him? No – he refused to be claimed. At school they accused him of being from Wutai but it was not true. He was from Midgar. Shinra was his home. He belonged to the Commander.
"When I found him," said Veld, "All he knew was his name. He was living rough on the streets."
How old had he been? Four, perhaps. That was the Commander's guess. There was no way of knowing for sure.
Mrs Gast said softly, "And he is only one of so many. Poor boy."
"He doesn't need your pity, Ifalna."
"Then what does he need? Why have you brought him here, Piet?"
At this point both the adults suddenly realized that the object of their discussion was listening intently. The Commander therefore leaned forward to whisper his answer in Mrs Gast's ear. She gazed meditatively into space; her eyes came to rest on Tseng for a moment, and he saw, or imagined he saw, such a terrible sadness there, which he supposed was for his sake. Then she closed her eyes, and when she opened them again and looked down at her daughter, the sadness was gone. Aerith had fallen asleep at her mother's breast. Mrs Gast laid the baby on her lap and made herself decent, buttoning the blouse with one hand.
"It's time for Aerith's nap," she said. "You'd better go. But come again – come and see us, Tseng, whenever you like."
He did not believe she meant it. Most grown-ups, with the exception of the Commander and his men, said things they did not mean and made promises they had no intention of keeping. And when had he, Tseng, with his alien face, ever been welcomed anywhere, except among Veld's Turks? They were his friends. They understood him, just as they understood a lot of other things without needing to be told. The Turks didn't try to play with him. They didn't waste his time telling him stupid jokes and then looking annoyed when he failed to laugh. They didn't even deliberately try to teach him anything. They simply let him be. When he came into their office (hey there, squirt), they allowed him to sit beside their desks and watch what they were doing. It might be hacking into a website, or priming a bomb's timer. If he asked, they let him try it for himself. They didn't criticize him when he failed or praise him when he succeeded. A quiet, "You're all right," was as much as they would offer. If one of them was going to the shooting range or the gym, Tseng was invited along (wanna come, kid?), and if Tseng felt like watching, he could watch. If he felt like shooting or punching, the Turk would show him how to do it, and then leave him alone.
In those days, Knox and Natalya were the rookies.
Sometimes one of the Commander's Turks failed to come back from a mission. Then they would drink even more than they normally did (the crate of empties in the kitchen was always full) and talk more and laugh more loudly for a day or two. Tseng had realized early on that it was important not to allow himself to get too attached to any of them. One hostage to fortune was enough.
So it wasn't that Tseng was lonely, exactly. All the same, there came a day, a week or two after he first met Aerith, when the Commander was away on business, and all the Turks were out on missions, and he had finished his homework, when he began to think about the baby and feel that he would like to hold her again. So he got in the elevator and rode up to the 28th floor, and knocked shyly, and Mrs Gast smiled when she saw him and said, "I'm glad you came. Aerith's just woken up. We're going to have supper. Do you want to join us? Why don't you take her while I set the table?"
He held Aerith up against his shoulder, supporting her head with one hand as Mrs Gast had showed him. Her warm breath tickled his neck. He breathed deeply, inhaling her scent.
"She smells spicey," he observed.
He thought she smelled marvelous, heavenly, but he was careful to keep emotion out of his voice.
"I know," said Mrs Gast. "Like gingerbread. Aren't babies wonderful?"
She served him a casserole made of cheese, vegetables, and noodles, more delicious than anything he had ever tasted. Afterwards, he helped clear the table without being asked, and dried the dishes while she washed. When everything was tidied away, she let him sit cross-legged on the sofa and hold the sleeping baby, while she sat in the armchair under the blue light, knitting a tiny sweater and telling him legends from the days when the planet was young. The magic of her words brought the past to life in his imagination; it was almost as if she'd been there, seen the events she was describing with her own eyes.
Never in all the cold hard world, which was all he knew, had he imagined a peace like the peace he found there, that night, in Mrs Gast's apartment. He wished the evening could go on forever: Mrs Gast weaving her spells in the low lamplight, the good food warm in his belly, Aerith sleeping against his chest, her breath soft and regular, his own eyelids drooping…
A cool hand on his forehead woke Tseng up. Mrs Gast was stroking the hair back from his brow. "Time to go to bed, little one," she said. "Come again tomorrow."
Over the weeks and months that followed, Ifalna Gast, with her cooking and her gentleness, tamed Piet Veld's fierce orphan. Looking back, the adult Tseng often wondered if this was what the Commander had whispered into her ear the day they first met. What the boy needs is a mother. Or perhaps it was simply this: he needs something soft to love.
Mrs Gast was very different from the Commander. She never raised her voice; she never grew impatient or struck Aerith. Yet in some ways, it seemed to Tseng, they were alike. She was small, and Veld was tall, but they had the same strong physical presence. She was comfortable with silences. When Tseng asked her a question, she gave it careful consideration before she answered. She did not lie or make false promises. And when she looked at Tseng with those reddish-brown eyes, those earth-coloured eyes of hers, he felt that she saw through to his core just as the Commander did – that she knew everything about him, and mostly approved of what she saw, though there was always room for improvement.
Tseng would willingly have lain down his life for either of them. He loved them unreservedly, without any expectation of return. He knew perfectly well that Mrs Gast was not his mother, just as Commander Veld was not really his father; indeed, he would never allow himself to forget this. If they were good to him, it was because goodness was their nature. They saw something in him worth their trouble.
But he did think that Aerith loved him, a little.
He held her hand when she learned to walk. He picked her up when she fell down. He taught her to throw and catch a ball. He gave her piggyback rides. He drew pictures of monsters for her to colour, and cartoons of stick men riding stick chocobos. Sometimes Mrs. Gast let him take Aerith out of the suite. They went to the cafeteria for ice cream, then rode up and down the elevators together, Aerith sitting on his hip to press all the buttons.
Mrs. Gast herself did not leave the apartment.
How and when did he learn that Aerith's father was dead? As a grown man, he couldn't recall. Did the Commander tell him? Or was it simply the only conclusion to be drawn from the fact of Mr. Gast's non-existence? Who Mr. Gast was, or had been, Tseng didn't know and didn't think to ask.
Three armed infantrymen were always on duty outside Mrs. Gast's door, but never the same ones for more than a month or two. Were they guarding her, or protecting her? Tseng never asked about this either; yet, looking back, it seemed to him he must have known, even when he was ten or eleven years old, that she was a prisoner - or if not a prisoner, then something similar: someone whose importance had cost her her freedom. Yet she seemed content. Happy, even.
*
When Tseng was thirteen years old, the Commander's wife and daughter died.
Tseng would never have known if Natalya hadn't told him. She took him aside and whispered the news. "How?" he asked. She said their house had caught fire. The Commander had lost an arm trying to save them.
(It was only years later, when he was a fully-fledged Turk, that Tseng learned the truth. Kalm had been burnt to the ground by Shinra, on Veld's orders. Veld had meant to order the bombing of an illegal arms cache fifty kilometers east of Kalm, but the coordinates had become garbled in transmission. Hundreds of innocent people had died as a result. Knowing Veld as well as he did, the adult Tseng understood that there was a sense in which his guilt had helped him to bear his grief, and his grief had enabled him to transcend the guilt: the death of his family was the punishment for his mistake.)
The Commander was gone for a month. When he came back, wearing a prosthetic arm, he looked ten years older. Grey streaked his hair. He sat at his desk with his shoulders hunched, grimly ploughing through the paperwork that had piled up in his absence, while the Turks came and went on their soft-soled shoes, asking short questions to which they received short answers. They understood what Tseng was also in time to learn, that work is the best cure for sorrow. To the thirteen year old boy, though, the silence felt absolute. He was afraid it might be like this forever. How could he break it? What could he say?
I'm sorry your wife and daughter are dead.
But was he?
Are you angry with me for being alive? Do you wish it was me who had died?
For almost a year Tseng had kept out of trouble at school – or perhaps it would be truer to say that trouble had steered well clear of him. The other boys, having learnt to fear him, gave him a wide berth. But on the day after the Commander came back to Midgar, he exploded. What the trigger was, he never could say. A word in the wrong place? A squint of the eyes? Did he even need a reason? The pleasure was all that mattered: the joy of kicking his enemy's legs neatly out from under him, executing to perfection the maneuver he had learnt from Knox in the gym; the satisfaction of pinning his enemy to the floor by kneeling on the softest part of the upper arms and then grinding his knees until he could feel the hardness of bone inside flesh. Grabbing a handful of his enemy's hair, Tseng smashed the boy's head against the floor. Once he started, he couldn't stop; slam, slam, slam, though he could hear the bone cracking, could taste the flecks of blood that spattered his lips. The boy's head had become the Commander's grief, and Tseng was pummeling it into oblivion: screams were what was needed to break the silence.
It took four teachers to peel Tseng from his unconscious victim. "Holy shit," exclaimed one, "The gook's killed him!" which was going too far, even for the Junior Military Academy. Tseng was hauled to the Principal's office, and Veld was summoned.
When he arrived, the first thing the Commander did was order the Principal to leave the room. Once they were alone, he turned to Tseng, who was standing at attention in the center of the carpet, and simply looked at him, his expression unreadable, for a long time.
Then he said, "I thought you'd grown out of this kind of thing."
Tseng had expected to get the buckle end of Veld's belt. He could have borne that, because he deserved it. But this – to see the Commander looking so tired, to hear him sounding so flat, unable to summon the energy to punish a miscreant; unable, perhaps, to care – this hurt more than anything.
Veld went on, "Your teachers say it was an unprovoked attack."
Tseng hung his head. "I'm sorry, sir."
Veld lowered himself into the Principal's chair. For a few moments he merely sat there, elbows braced on knees, resting his forehead against his knuckles. Then he began to speak. "Listen, my boy. I'm not going to lie to you. I've hurt people. As you know. Sometimes I've hurt innocent people. I'm not proud of that, but I'm not ashamed of it either. I do what's necessary. It's my job. I don't do it for fun. What I want you to understand is that when you start to enjoy someone else's pain, then you've crossed the line. There's enough monsters in Midgar already. We need to remember we're men. Look, why don't you sit down?"
Veld gestured at a chair with his prosthesis. For a moment Tseng felt sick. He had been avoiding the sight of that arm. It was, to be sure, a splendid example of Shinra technology. Spliced to the raw ends of Veld's living nerves, the fingers moved almost like real fingers. There was a materia slot in the wrist. The silicon skin was life-coloured, thought its texture was rubbery, poreless, and cold. It looked real, but it wasn't real. It was second best. A fake arm could never be a real arm. It could never replace flesh and blood.
Seeing the look on Tseng's face, Veld lifted the prosthetic arm and stretched its hand out towards the boy. "Does this bother you? Get over it, my boy. I like my new arm. In some ways it's better than the old one. And it…." He hesitated. A spasm of pain contorted his features.
"It hurts," said Tseng.
The Commander nodded. "Yes. A lot. But it's all right. It'll get better. Don't be afraid of pain, Tseng. If we couldn't feel pain, how would we know we were alive? And this arm… it's heavier than my old one. Feels like a damn dead weight, sometimes. But it helps to remind me how much of me is still human. Now, go clean out your locker and we'll go home."
Tseng's victim did not die, though it was touch and go for a while. The payment of an undisclosed sum of money, combined with Veld's position in Shinra and the fear inspired by the Turks, persuaded the boys' parents to drop the lawsuit they had been contemplating, and so that particular trouble was averted. The Junior Military Academy expelled Tseng nevertheless, a consummation they had long desired. His departure brought the percentage of Wuteng in that elite school down to zero.
"Looks like you've completed your education," said the Commander. "So you might as well get to work."
A suit was made for him, a tie purchased in the company store. For the first time in his life Tseng liked what he saw in the mirror. He went to show himself off to Mrs Gast and Aerith. Aerith was charmed by the tie and immediately climbed into his lap to try to undo the knot. Mrs Gast looked long and hard into his face, until he felt uncomfortable and had to turn away.
"You're so young," she said. "Is this really what you want?"
"It's what I've always wanted," he replied.
The first living thing he killed was a Chuse Tank. Down in the sewers beneath Sector 8, he took it out with a single clean shot through the eye, and he was so proud he dragged it all the way back to the office to show to the others, who clapped him on the back and suggested having it stuffed.
Aerith wanted to see it, too. He asked Mrs Gast if he could show it to her. She replied, "I'm sorry, Tseng, but no."
Her coolness, her lack of enthusiasm, hurt him deeply. Clearly she was in some obscure way disappointed in him, but why? She had always known he was destined to be a Turk. It was the one of the first things the Commander had told her. Among the ignorant masses the Turks had a bad reputation; he knew that. He had assumed Mrs Gast was not ignorant, that she realized the Turks were essentially practical people who did difficult, necessary things, getting their hands dirty so that others would not need to. No Turk expected gratitude. Yet he had truly believed Mrs Gast would understand and be glad for him, knowing him as she did and having been his friend for so long.
But then, how well could one person ever know another, really?
Now that Tseng was in the office during working hours, he was coming to realize there were many things he did not know about Mrs Gast. For example, he had never known that the Commander also paid regular visits to her apartment, which, now that the building had been completed, had been moved to the 63rd floor. One day during his lunch break Tseng went up to give Aerith a purple lollipop he'd bought while patrolling Loveless Avenue, only to find the Commander ensconced on the sofa, balancing a delicate china cup on his blue serge knee. "Come in," Veld and Mrs Gast said together, apparently pleased to see him. For one awful moment he wondered if he had surprised them in some kind of old folks' romantic assignation (he was at the age when such images easily sprang to mind) - but there was Mrs Gast sitting up at the table, and the Commander on the sofa, and Aerith playing on the floor between them, and the whole atmosphere was one of easy friendliness. Tseng took a cup of tea and sat down on the carpet beside Aerith, helping her to build a castle out of bricks while the adults resumed their conversation.
They were discussing the possibility of war with Wutai. That backward kingdom, all that remained of the world outside Shinra's empire, was rich in mako, but refused to accept the necessity of reactors on its sovereign soil.
"And what about you, Tseng?" asked Mrs Gast. "How would you feel if there was a war against Wutai?"
He threw up his head and glared at her fiercely. "I'm Shinra."
Again the sad smile, the shadow of disappointment in her eyes. "I know that," she said.
She turned back to Veld. "More war. Always war. Brother against brother."
"If this war happens," said the Commander, "We'll win, and that'll be it. There will be no more wars after."
"I think you really believe that. But this is too harsh a world you've made, Piet – you, and Shinra, and Heidegger, and the others."
The Commander said, "It was worse before."
There's so much I don't know, thought Tseng.
That evening, when they were eating supper together in the staff canteen, Tseng said to Veld, "Tell me about before, sir."
"Before what?"
"Before Shinra."
So Veld told him, and it was pretty much what he had learned in school. Centuries of warfare – the Great Continental War, the Gi Invasions, the Mideelian War of the Funeral Urn, the Grasslands Nomads' War, the Fifteen Years' War, the Wars of the Three Queens… The history of their world had been one long struggle for power and control of resources, which had only ended when a small arms manufacturer, grown rich on the wars of others, had discovered a way of providing seemingly inexhaustible energy for all. You could call it empire building, or you could call it imposing peace. Either way, the weary world had been mostly glad to see Shinra take control. As the Commander had said to Mrs Gast, it had been worse before.
Then the Director pushed aside their plates, and taking hold of Tseng's wrists, leaned forward. Looking around to make sure there was nobody within earshot, he said in a low, forceful voice, "Listen. You're old enough now to know. What I'm about to tell you are company secrets. You don't talk about them with anybody outside the Turks. You understand?"
Heart beating fast, Tseng nodded.
Then the Director told him the things they didn't teach in school.
Mako energy was a finite resource. One day it would run out.
Mako extraction killed the soil around the reactors. And the dead zones were spreading.
Reactor activity bred monsters. Midgar had so many monsters because it had so many reactors.
Shinra scientists did not know the answers to these problems. But there was somebody who might.
Humans brings were not the only intelligent life form on the planet. Once there had been another race, an ancient race possessed of a wealth of knowledge about the planet. They were a long-lived people, but not vigorous, and several thousand years ago an unknown calamity had befallen them, possibly a disease of some sort, which had reduced their numbers below what a species needed to survive. Over the centuries they had continued to die out. Mrs Gast was the last one left. To safeguard her, Shinra had taken her into protective custody.
"You see, Tseng, Mrs Gast – Ifalna – knows something that could be of vital importance for our future. Her people called it the Promised Land. It's a source of unlimited mako that won't drain the planet. If she would tell us where it is, all the world's problems could be solved."
Tseng's mind was reeling. He couldn't take everything in. One point stood out for him. "Do you mean, sir, that Aerith's mother…. That she's not - a human being?"
"That's a good question. I'm no scientist, but obviously she has to be human enough to have had a child with Gast. I suppose the answer is that she's partly human. Or maybe she's a different kind of human. She's certainly much older than she looks. She knows so much about this planet. If only we could get her to talk."
"But Aerith?" said Tseng. "What about Aerith?"
"If Ifalna were to confide what she knows to anyone, it would be her daughter. And her husband. I've always regretted his death."
"You killed him?" exclaimed Tseng.
"No. Professor Hojo killed him. But I led Hojo to them. Faremis Gast used to run the Science Department. Hojo was one of his subordinates. Gast was working with Ifalna, trying to get her to share her knowledge. Then they fell in love. The thing is, Tseng, we're not unreasonable. They could have lived here together and continued to work together and everybody would have been happy. But they were seduced by the illusion of freedom. They ran away. My orders were to bring them back. It took me two years to track them down. Eventually I found them at Icicle Inn. They'd had to stop running. Aerith had just been born."
"I offered them the chance to return together. We needed them both. But they refused. I hadn't realized I was being followed, so I left them to think it over. After I left, Hojo showed up with some of Heidgger's men and ordered them to shoot Faremis. He said the Gasts were trying to escape. He was lying, of course. He had his own reasons for not wanting to see his old boss come back. But I want us to be absolutely clear about this, Tseng. I liked Faremis, but if I'd had to kill him in order to secure Ifalna, I would have done it. She's too valuable to lose."
"But – " Tseng stammered, "I don't understand. You seem – like friends – "
"She neither blames me nor forgives me," the Director replied. "That probably makes no sense to you. But you can see why she doesn't trust me. Or Shinra. She never has. And I don't blame her either. Personal feelings don't come into it. She has information that we need. We have to convince her to share it with us, for her own sake as much as anyone else's. And by we I mean you and me. The President is growing impatient. There is a limit to how long he will wait before he decides to turn them both over to Hojo, who has his own ways of getting what he wants out of people. You know what I mean."
Tseng did know: he had heard the stories. He had seen the victims of the failed experiments, carried out under white sheets to be disposed of in the incinerators. It would be better to die than to fall into Hojo's hands.
"No," he said, "Not Aerith."
"You're very fond of that little girl, aren't you? And she adores you. You've done well there, Tseng. I think Ifalna trusts you. I know she likes you. Build on that. Don't tackle her head on, don't ask her to tell. That'll shut her down more surely than anything, because she'll know it comes from me. Go on being what you've always been to them. Eventually, god willing, she'll see sense."
But Tseng could not bring himself to do it. He was afraid to go and see them now. How could he look Mrs Gast in the eyes and pretend to be innocent of the things the Commander had told him? What did it mean, anyway, to be a 'different kind of human'? Was Aerith different too? Half different, since she was half human? How could you tell? In what ways were they different? What things did they know? What powers did they have? Now that he knew the truth, what would he see when he looked at them? What small details, gone unnoticed up till now, would give their alien nature away? Those pots full of flowers, for one thing – where else did flowers grow in Midgar? How did she do that? And what if she caught him watching her? What if she could sense his suspicions? What if she could read his mind? He had always had the feeling with her that she knew more about him than he had willingly let on.
But Aerith… she was just an innocent child. That's all she was. A little girl.
It was wrong. It was unfair. He couldn't do it.
A fortnight passed. His longing for Aerith tugged at his heartstrings. But his fear, and his anger at having been deceived, were stronger.
Then a morning came when Veld strode into the office, took hold of him by the ear, and dragged him into the corridor. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?" he growled. "Ifalna's been asking me if you're sick. She says the girl's been crying every day because you don't visit. Do you want to undo all our hard work? Get up there, now, and apologise."
Aerith opened the door. "Tseng!" she cried joyfully, throwing her arms around his waist. "Mummy! It's Tseng! He's better!"
Mrs Gast came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron. "It's good to see you," she smiled. "We were worried."
He could not meet her eyes.
She laid a hand on his head. This was something she often did in passing. It always felt to Tseng a bit like a blessing, though he would have been far too embarrassed to say so. This time, though, her touch bore an unaccustomed weight. His head tilted under its pressure.
"Tseng," she said, "Look at me."
He was fourteen years old, and as tall as she was. When he meet her gaze, his eyes were on a level with hers. She looked younger than the Commander; one might have guessed she was the same age as Natalya. A long-lived race. How old was she, really? The Commander had never said.
She saw all this in his eyes, just as he had known she would. "Piet told you, didn't he?"
After a moment, Tseng nodded.
"And that's why you stayed away?"
He blurted out, "Why did you lie to me?"
"Lie to you?" She sounded astonished. "How did I lie to you, Tseng?"
It was hard to find the words for what he felt. But he knew he had been deceived. He had been led to believe one thing, when all the time the truth was something else.
"You never told me. You let me think you were just ordinary… Normal -"
"Normal?" She stepped away from him as if she had been stung. "Normal?" Her coppery eyes blazed. "You, a Turk – you think you know what is normal? Is it normal to bring children up in an office building? Never seeing sunlight? Is it normal to put a gun in the hands of a thirteen year old? Is that normal in your world, Tseng? To teach a child to kill?"
Around his wrist he felt the pressure of Aerith's fingers. She, too, had never seen her mother angry before. He lifted the frightened girl into his arms. "It's all right," he murmured into her ear. To Mrs Gast he said, "I'm here to protect you. Why don't you understand?"
Ifalna pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. The quick blaze of anger had already faded. Her eyes were soft and brown and sad again. "Oh, Tseng. I understand – "
"I do what's necessary. But I would never hurt Aerith. I would never hurt either of you."
"I know," she said gently. "Oh, Tseng, I do know that. My dear child, let's not fight with each other. Aerith and I don't have so many friends that we can afford to drive one away. I understand why you feel I deceived you. But if I didn't mention it, it was because I never felt it mattered. The differences between people are not important. I am still the same woman I've always been. Aerith is still Aerith. And we have missed you. "
"I missed you so much," said Aerith, hugging his neck and kissing his check. "Don't be mad at us."
She's imitating her mother, he realized. She doesn't really understand any of what just passed. It's not her fault; she's only a little girl.
From that day forward things were never quite easy again between Veld's youngest Turk and the last remaining Cetra. Both of them felt the estrangement, yet neither knew how to undo it. Tseng was not someone who gave his trust easily. Still, he visited their apartment almost as often as he had done before, because it was his job.
Because of Aerith.
Months passed.
The year turned, and Aerith was seven. She could read and write, cook simple dishes, and sew a straight seam; she could form her own opinions, and she wasn't shy about expressing them. She wanted Tseng to teach her how to shoot a gun. She wanted a kitten. Chocobo racing was cruel: she'd seen it on the TV. One of the birds fell and broke its leg and had to be put down. That wasn't right. Had it asked to run in races? And why couldn't she go to school? Other kids went to school. She had seen them on TV. And why couldn't they go for one of those holidays she'd seen advertised, in Costa del Sol? She wanted to see the ocean. If she could be any animal in the world, she would be a dolphin. Dolphins were the most intelligent mammals. Eating meat was cruel: it was mean to kill a living thing just to eat it. She was going to be vegetarian. When she grew up, she was going to be a doctor. Or maybe a materia hunter. Or maybe a Turk.
Rufus Shinra first appeared in their lives around this time. He simply materialized at Mrs Gast's door one day, a small, blond, pretty child in a sailor suit, pulled to that spot by whatever mysterious force it is that draws children together. A flurry of phone calls ensued, and in short order a starched nanny arrived to escort him back to the penthouse. He went kicking and struggling, and the next day he returned. This time, the powers that be allowed him to stay. It was the shape of things to come. Even at five years old, when Rufus wanted something, Rufus got it.
"He is an annoying baby," said Aerith. She resented having to share Tseng's attention. But Rufus wiled himself into her good graces: he submitted to being her doll, allowing her to dress him up in her old clothes and to brush his long, curly hair; he played 'going shopping' and 'tea party' as if he enjoyed it. He was the tonberry felled by her Turk, the naughty class dunce to her ruler-wielding schoolmarm. His reward for putting up with all this girl play was to be allowed to look at, and sometimes even touch, Tseng's gun.
"Must you bring it here?" Mrs Gast asked him.
"I forget I'm wearing it," he told her truthfully in his new, deep voice. He was fifteen by Veld's reckoning, and a head taller than she. He'd been wearing that gun under his suit for almost three years now. Without it he felt vulnerable. Naked.
He'd long ago stopped keeping count of the monsters he'd killed.
The long-anticipated war with Wutai had finally broken out. Commander Veld was visiting Mrs Gast more often these days – two, sometimes three times a week. When he arrived, Mrs Gast asked Tseng to take the children out. Veld protested, "I have nothing to say to you that he can't hear," but she was firm. "It's my daughter I'm thinking of."
There was something ominous about the frequency of these visits. The shadow Hojo cast over Ifalna and her child was growing longer. Tseng sensed they were living on borrowed time.
Finally the day came when the Commander walked into Ifalna's apartment without knocking. "Tseng," he said, "Take Rufus back to the penthouse. Leave Aerith here." His tone was clipped and urgent. Ifalna, too, sensed that something was wrong. Instantly she stood up, forgetting the plate of cookies balanced on her knee. They fell to the floor: the plate shattered, and the cookies rolled away under the sofa. Tseng got down on his hands and knees to pick up the jagged shards of plate before the children could cut themselves.
"Leave that," Veld snapped. "Just go."
Rufus went willingly enough, pleased to have Tseng to himself for the duration of the elevator ride. Tseng handed him over to his nanny and hurried back down. As soon as the elevator doors opened on the Gasts' floor he could hear raised voices and the sound of Aerith crying. Ifalna's door was ajar: the three infantrymen stood on guard outside, their faces hidden by their helmets.
Ifalna was shouting, "You're the one who refuses to listen, Piet. How many times do I have to say it?"
Tseng slipped through the door and shut it. Aerith ran to him. "Stop them," she begged. "Stop them, stop them."
"You're throwing dust in our eyes," Veld shouted back. "Seven years I've protected you and all you can give me is this Lifestream bullshit. Dead is dead. Gast is dead. My wife is dead. Felicia is dead. You can't talk to them and you can't bring them back. We will never see them again. Accept it. They're gone."
Ifalna gasped. "How can you believe that? It's too cruel – "
"Cruel? Cruel? I'll tell you what's cruel. To fob me off with fairy tales and try to buy time by talking me into believing that my daughter's essence, her soul – " he spat out the word – "Still exists in some form, somewhere – that's what's cruel. That is an evil thing to do."
"That's not what I said. You are deliberately twisting – "
"Why don't you prove it to me, then? Go on. Talk to her. Tell me something only she and I would know. Do that, and I'll believe you."
"I can't do that."
"No?" The Commander snorted sarcastically. "My, there's a surprise. You know, Ifalna, I used to think you were just pig-headed, but now I think you actually take pleasure inthe pain you inflict on me."
"Oh!" cried Ifalna, "You hypocrite – "
He hit her, slapping her open-handed across the mouth. She fell back against the wall, hands raised to ward him off.
Aerith screamed.
"Shut up," said Veld.
For a few moments he continued to stand there, fists clenched, breathing heavily, glaring at Mrs Gast. Tseng recognized the look in his eyes. He was itching to beat her into submission. Ifalna seemed to know what that look meant, too. She returned his stare defiantly, daring him to try.
The Commander was the first to drop his gaze. "I can't help you any more," he said, sounding suddenly exhausted. "If you won't meet me halfway, then there's nothing more I can do. Just remember, Ifalna, this was your choice."
He turned to go.
"Piet," said Ifalna. "Wait."
He stopped, though he did not turn round.
She said, "You can't find what you seek because you don't believe in what you're looking for. But it will find you, where you least expect it."
"Stuff your riddles," Veld snarled. He went out, slamming the door behind him.
Aerith ran to her mother and clung to her, shaking with fear. Ifalna kissed her daughter over and over. Then she looked up at Tseng. Her lip was bleeding. A bruise had formed on her cheek. The Commander must have hit her earlier, when Tseng was out of the room. Why did she have to be so obstinate?
"How can you do this to Aerith?" he cried. "Why can't you just tell him?"
"You have to help us," said Ifalna, pulling herself upright. "We have to get out of here, now."
"I can't help you to escape. You can't ask me to do that."
"The President's giving us to Hojo. He signed the order today. Is that what you want for Aerith, Tseng? To be a sample in his labs? An experiment?"
"Of course not!"
"I'll kill her myself before I let that beast have her." Ifalna looked round wildly. Her gaze found a knife lying on the table. Tseng saw it at the same time and moved to grab it, but desperation lent Ifalna speed. In one swift motion she snatched up the knife and held it against her daughter's throat.
He drew his gun and leveled it at her face.
Ifalna laughed. "Are you going to shoot me, Turk? Will that save her, if you kill me?"
Aerith stood motionless, the pressure of the knife's blade creasing the skin under her chin. "Please," she said in a small voice, "Please, please, Tseng, don't hurt mummy. Please."
Tseng himself was on the brink of panic. What could he do? What should he do?
Don't feel, think.
If he shot Ifalna, Hojo would take Aerith. If he did not let her go, Ifalna would kill Aerith. There was no other choice. He was out of options.
Lowering the gun, he said, "What do you want me to do?"
"Go to your materia room. Get me something – Sleep, or Stop, either will do. I don't want to hurt anyone. All I want is to keep Aerith safe. Be as fast as you can. We don't have much time."
All the way to the materia room his mind was working furiously, trying to find some other solution. He desperately hoped he would run into somebody – Natalya or Knox, or best of all, the Commander – who would stop him, ask him what he thought he was doing, and take the matter out of his hands. But the office was empty. He selected four materia and rode the elevator back up to the apartment, dreading, hoping, that he would find them dead or gone. But the three infantrymen were still on guard, and when he went inside Ifalna was still crouched against the wall, one arm round Aerith's neck, the other hand clutching the knife.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Put them on the table. Keep one. Now – go out, but leave the door open so I can see what you're doing. Go to the elevator and press the call button. Then cast the materia on my guards. That will give us time to get away. You should leave before they wake up. And please - don't follow us."
He did as she asked. The three guards slumped to the ground, dazed and helpless. Ifalna lowered the knife. Aerith jumped into her mother's arms, wrapping her legs tightly around Ifalna's waist. Ifalna scooped the materia from the table into her pocket. The elevator pinged. Clutching her child to her heart, Ifalna poised to run. The elevator doors slid open.
Another infantryman stepped out.
A moment was enough for him to take in the scene: his unconscious comrades, the prisoner's open door, the prisoner herself caught red-handed in the act of escaping with her child, and the boy Turk with a gun in his hand –
Tseng shot him.
At point-blank range the bullet pierced the bridge of his nose and blasted a hole in the back of his skull, spraying brain and bone and blood across the company logo on the wall behind.
Ifalna thrust her fist into her mouth to keep from crying out. Aerith was too shocked to make a sound.
Tseng had never killed a man before. Only monsters.
In the aftermath of the gun's report, a silence fell that seemed to last for hours.
Then Tseng woke up to the realization that the elevator doors were closing. He wedged them open with one foot. "Quick," he said to Ifalna.
She and Aerith had to step over the infantryman's body to reach the elevator. His foot holding the door open, Tseng leaned inside, flipped open a panel, and entered a code on the numbered keypad. "It's an override," he explained. "Now it won't stop till you reach the mezzanine. Mingle with the crowds. It's safest. You'll need money – "
He gave her all the gil he had. He wanted to give her the gun too, but she wouldn't take it.
"But thank you," she said, and kissed him. Tears were running down her cheeks. Aerith wouldn't look at him. Her face was pressed against her mother's shoulder.
He moved his foot. The doors closed.
They were gone.
Tseng walked down the stairs to the Turks' floor. The office was still empty. He sat in the lounge and watched the small hand of the clock judder forward, slow second by second, until ten minutes had passed. Then he opened his phone and called the Commander.
*
For more than three hours he waited as he had been told to, until eventually Veld returned to the office and told him that Mrs Gast was dead, shot by one of Heidegger's trigger-happy grunts. Though mortally wounded, she'd managed to escape them by throwing the materia. Her dead body had been found at the Sector 7 train station.
My fault, thought Tseng, my fault, my fault.
He would have cried if he could, but his eyes were so dry they burned.
"Aerith," he said. "Where is she?"
"No sign of her. We'll keep looking, of course, but a little girl like that, alone in the slums…. It's unlikely she'll survive for very long. And then there's Sergeant Mehta, dead for doing his job. So. Are you proud of your day's work, Tseng?"
What do you think? Tseng wanted to shout back. I tried to save them and now Mrs Gast is dead and Aerith is lost because of me. I didn't mean to kill the sergeant. He took me surprise; it just happened. I didn't know what else to do. Why did you go away and leave me?
"She was bluffing," said the Commander. "No mother would ever harm her child. She lied. She used you. Do you see that now? It was her plan all along, I think. "
No, thought Tseng, that's not true. She was my friend.
But how he could be sure of anything any more?
"After I left you," the Commander went on, "I went to talk to the President again, to try to get him to overturn the order. To give me a little more time. I was managing to make some headway – and then, you called. He wants your skin, my boy. And I've a mind to let him have it."
By the time the Commander was finished with him, Tseng's back was in shreds and two of his bones were broken and all he could think about was the pain, which was, he realized afterwards, Veld's kindness. It was less a punishment than an absolution: the pain was like a fire that swept through his soul, burning up and cleaning away the dead wood of self-recrimination, and, when it had passed, leaving him light-headed and detached on the other side of the scorched earth.
If souls even existed. The Commander didn't think so. But what, then, was Tseng to call this thing inside him that had been beaten in the forge and come out harder, colder, resilient, like steel?
Life went on. One year succeeded another, years of warfare, profit, and incremental victories. Tseng rose through the ranks, moved out of the Shinra building, found his own apartment, took lovers of both sexes, sometimes for work and occasionally for pleasure. Old Turks died or were transferred to branch offices. New Turks replaced them: Mozo, Charlie, Rosalind; Rude, Cissnei, Reno.
Five years went by; and then, one day, Tseng heard a rumour of flowers growing in the old church in the Sector 5 slums. He knew at once who was responsible; he'd never really been able to believe she was dead. So he took the train down to the market and picked his way along the rubble in the streets until he came to the door of the church, opened it, and went in. She was up at the far end, standing beside a bed of yellow and white flowers that appeared to be giving off some kind of light – though that, surely, must be his eyes playing tricks in the gloom.
How old was she now? Twelve? Dressed in boy's shorts and a grey sleeveless pullover, she was taller and skinnier, and her hair was longer, but otherwise she was unchanged. She, too, recognised him straight away. But this time there was no joyous shout of greeting, no jumping into his arms. It was not fear in her eyes, exactly, or hatred, but it was something close. She took a step backwards.
He stayed where he was and said, "Don't be afraid."
"I'm not going back. You can't make me." Her declaration echoed boldly round the nave.
"I haven't come to take you back. I wanted to be sure it was you. Are you all right?"
She took another step. If he moved, if he startled her in anyway, she would run.
"Go away!" she shouted. "Leave me alone!"
"Is this where you live? Are you on your own? Is anyone looking after you?"
"I'm not going to tell you, Turk!"
"All right. That's fine. You don't have to. Listen - Do you need money? Look, here's money." Very slowly, like a man disarming himself, he took a wad of gil from his inside pocket and laid it down on the nearest pew.
"I don't want your money!"
"That's OK. Maybe you know somebody who needs it. Aerith – " After so many years, it was sweet to taste her name on his tongue once more. He said it again, "Aerith, I haven't come to hurt you or to take you back. My job is to keep you safe. Do you understand that?"
"Why did you have to come here? Why couldn't you stay away?"
"I have to know that you're all right. Just tell me that, Aerith. Tell me you're all right. Please."
Was it his imagination, or did her expression soften just a little?
"I'm fine. Now stop asking questions and go away."
She was right. He mustn't rush her.
"Whatever you want," he said. "Look, I'm going now. But I will come back, just to check on you. You don't have to worry. You'll be safe. I promise you."
She never took her eyes off him the whole time he was backing out of the church. And yet he couldn't help feeling that some part of her, some little part, had been glad to see him. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Back at the office he went straight to the Commander.
Veld was rarely surprised by anything, but on this occasion it took him a few moments to assimilate what his lieutenant was trying to tell him. When he finally, fully understood that Ifalna's daughter was alive and well and growing flowers in the slums beneath his feet, he laughed out loud, punched the air, and enfolded Tseng in a bear hug.
Rejoicing done, they got down to business. Veld thought, and Tseng agreed with him, that this time around they should handle the primary objective differently. Since certain executives on the board advocated methods that were bound to be counter-productive, it was in the company's best interests to keep Aerith's existence a secret known only to the Turks. They would watch her, protect her, and ensure her survival. Tseng would continue to cultivate her friendship and try to win back her trust. There was no guarantee that she would ever tell them what she knew - if, indeed, she knew anything at all about the mystery her mother had died to protect. But it was the only way. In this, as in so many things, Tseng found that he and the Commander were of one mind.
What he didn't share with Veld was the decision he had made, on the way back from the church, that if he were ever ordered to bring Aerith in, he would shoot her. Two bullets: one bullet in the base of her skull, where it wouldn't hurt and she would never know what hit her. A second bullet for himself. Strange that it should be such a comforting thought, to know that death was the worst thing that could happen…
"Complicated?"
Zack's voice brought Tseng back to the present moment: church, slums, SOLDIER, helicopter hovering above, the necessity of travelling to Modeoheim.
"Really?" Zack added.
Was it Tseng's imagination, or did Zack sound a little – suspicious?
Zack Fair, thought Tseng, what a simple soul you are.
He asked, "Has she said anything to you?"
"Not a thing," Zack admitted.
Tseng shrugged. "Then I won't either."
The noise generated by the helicopter's descent rendered further conversation impossible.