CHAPTER 19: BENEATH THE ICE
In which Reno and Zack become partners on an unforeseen mission, and Reno remembers something he forgot
The thermometer read twenty-seven degrees below zero. Despite their ichthyornis-down jackets and fur-lined boots, the troopers were freezing. The SOLDIERs had too much mako in their veins, and the Turks had taken too much materia, to feel the cold, but that didn't mean they couldn't get frostbite like everyone else. The essential thing was to keep moving.
"Where the hell is Zack?" demanded Reno.
They found him asleep in the back of a truck. He woke up laughing, and not at all apologetic.
But when he walked out in front of the troopers and the Second and Third classes, a change took place. The men stood up straighter, looked more alert. A positive energy charged the atmosphere. They were ready to follow where Zack led; they were ready and willing to fight.
Knox turned to Reno and said, "There's a man Shinra can't afford to lose." He got a grunt in reply.
They moved out in a convoy of trucks. The danger point would be the bridge ten kilometers ahead, a bottleneck over a steep crevasse. About a kilometer before the bridge, the convoy came under attack from guard hounds. Zack leapt from the truck and killed the first wave of animals, wielding Angeal's impossibly huge sword as easily if it were made of balsa wood. More hounds appeared. The two Second Classes and the Turks joined the fight, and gradually it came about that Knox, Essai and Sebastian cleared the way in front of the convoy, while Zack and Reno guarded it from behind. In this manner they battled their way to the bridge. The trucks crossed safely, and Zack and Reno were bringing up the rear, when, without warning, the uprights splintered and gave way. The bridge came apart beneath their feet, and they fell, SOLDIER and Turk, into the depths of the crevasse.
.
"We've lost contact," said Veld to the President.
"With Zack?"
"With everyone."
"Not looking good," said Rufus.
.
What a strange light, thought Reno dreamily as he opened his eyes. Kind of dusky blue, almost night, with flickering shadows and spots of brightness. Like being deep beneath the sea. But I'm not. Am I?
Far, far above him a crack of sunshine glittered. The air that filled his lungs was chilly and damp. Sheer rock walls, encrusted with black ice, loomed over him on every side. Reno realized that his clothes felt wet, and after another moment saw that he was lying in a deep pile of snow. Rubbing his head, he sat up and looked around.
So. Now it was starting to come back to him: Northern Continent. Avalanche attack. Broken bridge. Long fall into deep canyon, and no way out… except, maybe, that cave there -
"You OK?" said a voice.
Oh no, thought Reno, no, no, no….
Zack's face swooped into focus, peering intently at Reno with every appearance of concern. The effect was like having a bright blue flashlight shone into his eyes at point blank range. It hurt. Reno rolled away from the SOLDIER's inquisitive gaze and got to his feet, blinking. Spots danced across his field of vision.
"Shit," he muttered, rubbing his hand over the back of his head and feeling an egg-sized bump coming up.
This couldn't be happening. Maybe he was having a hallucination. Yeah – that must be it. He'd hit his head and now he was dreaming he was trapped in an icy crevasse on the Northern Continent with Zack Fair, of all people. It was like the worst kind of materia-induced nightmare. Reno screwed his eyes shut and willed himself to wake up.
"That was some fall," said Zack. "You must be pretty tough, huh?"
Reno cracked open one eye and glared at him. "Yeah, you think?"
"Hey!" Zack threw his hands in the air. "Don't look at me. I didn't do anything. The trucks must have weakened the bridge. It was probably pretty old. At least there's no bones broken."
Reno dug into his pocket and took out his phone.
"What are you doing?" asked Zack.
"Calling HQ."
Zack laughed. "No signal down here, man."
By sheer effort of will Reno managed to hide his dismay as he put the useless phone away. He'd never been out of contact with HQ before, never been unable to ask the Chief or Tseng what he ought to do next. It felt like his umbilical cord had been cut. To calm himself, he went through the routine of checking his weapons. Both his guns were intact. Good. God only knew what monsters they might encounter down in these uncharted regions. He still had all his materia. Good. The mag-rod had not been broken in the fall. Good. If they couldn't find a route out of here, he could use the materia and the rod to melt a path through the ice. Though there was always the danger of a cave-in if he tried that -
"You're a walking arsenal, aren't you?" said Zack, in a tone of mingled admiration and surprise. "I never knew. For a long time I thought you guys were just the dirty tricks brigade. But you can really fight, can't you?"
Just let it roll off you, Reno told himself. The priority was to complete the mission. By whatever means necessary. Even if it meant partnering up with Zack Fair.
Meanwhile, Zack had turned round and walked a little way into the mouth of the cave. "Hey, Reno," he called out, sounding excited. "Come look at this."
Reno was following anyway; he had no choice. Oh God, he thought, what's the hick getting so amped about now? - but when he came up behind Zack's shoulder, and was able to see into the cave, he could not help catching his breath. The place was like the inside of a crystal ball, a bubble of glass blown into the glacier and shot through with shimmering rainbows. Beneath their feet the ice was clear blue, smooth as glass; the fractures in the ice shone like frozen lightning bolts, reflecting and magnifying what light there was. Thousands, or even tens of thousands of icicles hung from the ceiling; Reno couldn't begin to count them all. A low-pitched groaning came and went all around them, combined with a crackling, tinkling sound like chandeliers rustling in the breeze. So beautiful; so eerie.
To himself Zack murmured, "Wish I could show this to her – " then turned to Reno with a big grin on his face. "Man," he said, "It's times like these I remember why being in SOLDIER is the best job in the world. Isn't this place awesome? I've never seen anything like it. It's so unspoilt. I wonder – are we the first human beings ever to set eyes on it?"
"Yeah, we're lucky bunnies," Reno replied. "Now let's go."
"Which way?"
"That way," Reno jerked his head.
"Are you sure? How do you know?"
"Fresh air. Colder air. Smell it? It comes from the surface."
Zack sniffed. His heightened SOLDIER senses picked up the scent of a way out. He smiled and nodded. "You lead. I'll follow."
They had gone perhaps a dozen steps, when Reno heard, high above his head, a sharp grating sound like the neck of a wine-glass snapping. He stepped aside, and a split-second later the falling icicle hit the spot where he had been standing. It was so sharp and so hard that it landed without breaking and buried itself six inches deep in the ice.
"Close one," said Zack; adding, perhaps unnecessarily, "If that had hit you, it would've killed you."
The vibrations from his voice broke loose the icicle above his own head. Snatching Angeal's sword from his back, he shattered the icicle with a single blow. Reno ducked to avoid the flying fragments. Shards of ice struck other icicles, triggering a chain reaction; all around them the glassy spears showered down, smashing and crashing with a noise like a ten-car pile up. Reno crouched low, protecting his head with his arms.
Silence fell. He looked up. Zack's head and shoulders were covered with a layer of snow and ice chips. Reno supposed he must look the same. Cold meltwater was beginning to trickle down his neck. For about ten meters in every direction, every single icicle had fallen from the ceiling - but beyond, there were hundreds and hundreds more, hanging on a hair's trigger, ready to drop at the slightest sound.
He and Zack looked questioningly at each other.
Run? mouthed Zack.
Reno hesitated, then nodded.
They sprinted across the slippery floor, with Reno in the lead zig-zagging around the icicles as they fell, and Zack following behind, slashing and hacking. Their mad breathless dash took less than a minute, and then they were safe on the other side of the cave.
"Oh yeah!" Zack crowed, twirling his sword, as the final echoes of breaking ice died away. "It sure is fun out here in snow country!"
Reno too felt pumped, exhilarated – alive! – but he'd be damned if he'd share this feeling, or any, with Zack Fair. So he mentally stamped on the flames of his delight, and turned away to seek along the wall for the source of the fresh air.
He found a tunnel slanting upwards, slippery and smooth.
"Big enough?" asked Zack.
"Seems to be."
"Looks like we're getting out of here, then. Good thing these boots have traction. How about you? No wait, don't tell me. You've got special Turk boots, right? Bet you can walk upside down on ceilings. The human fly!"
If we don't escape before we run out of food, thought Reno, I guess I can always eat him.
The tunnel was steep, and the climb was hard work. In several places the shaft became almost vertical, and the two men were forced to brace against each other's backs, elbows locked together, to walk up the walls slow step by step. Finally they heaved themselves over the lip of the tunnel, and found they were in another, smaller cave.
"Good teamwork," said Zack. "Thanks. I couldn't have made it on my own." He leant back against the ice wall, folding his arms behind his head. "How about we take a breather, OK?"
Reno looked at his PHS. "It's been over an hour. We should keep moving."
"There's no hurry. Essai and Sebastian'll be fine on their own. They can handle just about anything."
"They friends of yours?"
"I've been on a couple of missions with them. But that's all it takes to becomes friends with someone, isn't it? And they've got my hometown boy Knox with them. He's pretty tough, too - I mean, for a Turk," Zack laughed. Reno, seeing nothing to laugh about, did not. Zack grinned and pointed a finger at him. "Oh, come on, Reno, lighten up. You know I'm just pulling your leg. Those three'll have everything under control, so stop worrying. Relax. Take a load off."
Realising that they were going to take a break whether he wanted one or not, Reno sat down on an outcropping of ice and lit a cigarette.
"Hey, Reno – are you hungry? All this work is giving me an appetite. Let's see what I've got." Zack rummaged through the pockets of his baggy trousers and eventually produced some hard SOLDIER tack wrapped in a ziploc bag. "If you suck it slowly, it won't break your teeth. Want some?"
"No. Thanks."
"Suit yourself." Zack broke off a piece and put it in his mouth. Almost immediately he began talking again. "So… how long have you been a Turk, Reno?"
God, thought Reno, please, anything but small talk.
"Well?" Zack prodded.
"Seven years," Reno admitted.
"Seven years, huh? You must have started young. And it's good? You like it?"
This felt like a strange question to Reno, though he couldn't put his finger on why, precisely. It was a bit like asking him if he enjoyed breathing; if it felt nice to have a skin. So he replied, "I'm good at it."
"That's what I've heard. Seph told me what you did at Junon last year. But -" Zack shifted his weight, leaned forward. "Here's one thing I can't figure out. There seems to be a lot of overlap between Turks and SOLDIER. I mean in duties and stuff. Seems kind of inefficient. So what is it you guys do, exactly? What's your job description?"
Reno gave him the stock answer: "We protect company secrets."
"Company secrets?" Zack frowned. "There's a lot of those, aren't there?"
Reno said nothing, but his heavy-lidded eyes never shifted their focus away from the SOLDIER's face.
After a moment or two, Zack laughed. "OK. I get the message. Still. I bet your job is never boring."
"Don't put your shirt on it."
"Yeah? I guess it's the same no matter what job you do. I get so bored sometimes. Being in SOLDIER isn't always what I thought it would be. When I joined up, I thought it'd be non-stop action. But I pretty much missed the war in Wutai. Angeal took me on a couple of clean-up missions, but those were just training, really. The thing I hate most is sitting around in Midgar doing nothing. If it weren't for…. Well, sometimes I feel I could go stir-crazy, waiting. Midgar kind of weighs down on you, don't you feel that? Those clouds and that sick light. I can't stay there for too long. I have to get back out where the sky is blue."
Reno blew a smoke ring. Why was Zack telling him this? Did he honestly think Reno was interested? What was he trying to do? Find some common ground between them? Make friends?
"Cissnei says you like to fly helicopters, so I guess you crave the blue too."
No accidental slip, that: Zack had mentioned her deliberately. And so casually, as if they'd been no more than friends; as if he hadn't first won her and taken her, and then dumped her and seen her exiled to a remote and unnamed loneliness.
Zack went on, "She told me you grew up in the slums. So you probably never saw the sky as a kid, did you?"
The thought that they had made him the subject of their pillow talk was almost beyond bearing. Reno couldn't look at Zack's face another moment. He turned his head away.
"I mean, I get a thrill whenever I see it and I grew up taking it for granted, so I can't imagine what it must feel like seeing the sky for the first time. Someone – some people who grow up in the slums find the sky pretty scary. And then to go from that to flying in it! Amazing. Man, I wish I could fly a chopper. It's one thing SOLDIER doesn't do."
"They don't fucking shut up, either, do they?" said Reno, goaded into speaking at last.
The silence that followed went on, and on.
Fuck it, thought Reno, what's with this guy? He knows I don't like him. He must have some idea why I don't like him. And now he's acting like I hurt his feelings or something. Well, he'll just have to be satisfied with being loved by the rest of the whole goddamn friggin' world, because I'm not buying it.
Finally, Zack nodded, a curt, businesslike inclination of the head, and stood up, brushing the snow from his backside. "OK, then," he said. "I guess we better get moving."
On they trudged through the ice caves, Zack in front, Reno behind. Neither spoke now. The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the snow. One cavern led to another, always upwards. As the air grew fresher, colder, drier, their breath made clouds in front of their faces. Each man was lost in his own thoughts.
Reno's thoughts were not pleasant ones. He was struggling against a kaleidoscope of images: imagined scenes of Zack and Cissnei getting creative in the sack, which refused to leave him no matter how hard he pushed them away; the memory of Cissnei's face glowing with happiness as she danced in Zack's arms; that same face blotchy with tears and contorted in fury, turning on him, Reno, to cry, I've just lost the love of my life….
And who was he thinking of, the black-haired SOLDIER striding on ahead? It didn't take a genius to guess.
Hey, Zack - you want to know a company secret? How about this? We watched you screw the primary objective. That's right. You popped her petal. You crushed her dear little flowers. It's all in the files, man. We can read it any time. Dates, times, places. But you don't know she's an endangered species, do you? You don't know how fucking lucky you are that the Boss hasn't broken your neck, messing with stuff you know nothing about –
These ugly reflections were shattered by the sound of growling, loud and too close behind them. Reno whirled round. Four guard hounds stood in the mouth of the cavern from which he and Zack had just emerged. Blue fur bristling, tails lashing, the four beasts snapped their long fangs together, working up the courage to charge.
"Out of the way!" Zack cried.
"Back off!" Reno warned him. His EMR was already in his hand, and with a flick of the switch he cast a bolt over all four of the creatures.
It wasn't a quick or pretty way to die. The electricity fizzed, and the animals writhed painfully, sparks of fire running through their fur and bursting out of their ears, their mouths, their anuses. Eyes popped; bones shattered; hides shriveled and peeled away from burnt flesh; and then, at last, they vaporized, and nothing was left of them but the stink of burnt hair and a little blackish sludge, pooling in the hole that had been melted into the cave's icy floor.
Zack did not bother to hide his disgust. "That's your weapon of choice?"
Reno laid the rod across his shoulder. "They're just monsters. And there's probably more of them coming, so let's keep moving."
They set off again, Reno in the lead. From behind his back he could hear Zack mutter, "Just what I'd have expected from a Turk…." Which was fine by Reno; more than fine. Better than pretending to be friends, for sure.
They had not been walking ten minutes when two more guard hounds came upon them, from the front this time. "Mine!" cried Zack, pushing Reno aside and dashing forward. He drew Angeal's sword. The animals held their ground, snarling.
"Go on, then," said Reno.
Still Zack hesitated.
One of the guard hounds coiled back on its haunches and sprang, teeth bared, at Zack's throat. Reno just had time to think, if I let that valuable corporate asset die down here the Chief will kill me! – before Zack let out a shout that nearly split his eardrums.
In fact it was less of a shout than a roar, a burst of pure noise ululating from Zack's throat. Reno dropped the EMR and covered his ears. The two guard hounds instantly fell onto their sides, tails tucked tightly between their legs, exposing themselves to Zack in abject submission.
"What the hell was that?" Reno demanded. His ears were still ringing.
"My dad's old trick. I'm a farm boy, remember?" Zack knelt down beside the hounds and scratched their freckled bellies. They thumped their tails in thanks. One licked his hand. "Hey, fellas, hey," Zack soothed them. "Good dogs. Go on now. Go home. Good boys. Go home."
Obediently, the two hounds got to their feet and trotted off in the direction they had come.
"Nice job," said Reno. "They can snack on us later, yo."
"There's been enough killing for one day," said Zack. "I'm not going to kill anything unless I have to."
Reno was beginning to feel he'd had about as much as he could take from this SOLDIER. It was on the tip of his tongue to snap out a sarcastic reply, to pick a quarrel, and maybe even a fight – but suddenly, unbidden, a memory of Cissnei flashed into his mind's eye. In the dim light of the train graveyard her face was smeared with blood and dirt, and there were tears gathering in her eyes.
I hate wasting life for no reason, Reno. I hate it!
He'd saved a little cat that day. Just because he could.
He'd done it to make her happy.
Such a small life, a cat's life. But he'd felt good about it, too. Good about himself –
"We're nearly there," said Zack. "See the light? Come on, let's hurry."
When they came out into the daylight, snow was softly falling. The world was completely soundless. Looking around, they saw that they were not far along the road from the broken bridge. The convoy had passed this way, leaving the trail of its tires in the snow on the road. The two men turned their eyes northwards, where an ominous column of smoke could be seen rising beyond a line of rocky hills. Without a word, Zack and Reno began to run towards it.
.
PHS Transcript, 15th January 2002
Veld: Reno? Are you all right? What's happening?
Reno: There's been an ambush, sir. The troopers here have all been knocked out. Knox is unconscious.
Veld: What? What about SOLDIER?
Reno: The second classes aren't here. Looks like they've been abducted. Again.
Veld: But what about Zack?
Reno: He's gone after them, sir.
static
Veld: Follow him, Reno. Whatever happens, they mustn't get their hands on him.
Reno: Understood. Reno out.
Veld sat on, deep in thought, the phone lying open in his hand. He would have liked to close his eyes, to lay his head down on the desk and sleep, sleep, sleep as he hadn't slept in days. He was being outmaneuvered, and there seemed to be nothing he could do to stop it.
Through every step of this failed operation, someone had been passing information to AVALANCHE. That someone, it was abundantly clear, was a member of the Board. But who? Heidegger? Scarlett? Unlikely. They'd spent their lives building Shinra. Surely they'd never sell it out to its enemies. Hojo? Some of the evidence pointed in his direction, but what could he possibly stand to gain from destroying Shinra? Lazard? He was almost too patently a suspect, and yet not, for that reason, to be dismissed out of hand….
People were dying because he, Veld, couldn't find the answer. Who would be next? His own boys and girls? Tseng? The Turks' second-in-command would be an obvious target…
There was no point in deferring the inevitable any longer. Rising to his feet, Veld headed for the elevator. The President was waiting to be informed.
Author's note: this is episode 7 of Before Crisis and takes place between Chapters 6 and 7 of Crisis Core.
If any of you nice people reading this (and I know there's lots of you, I've seen my stats) would like to leave a comment, please feel free. Seriously. Please. Just imagine Zack doing that cute thing with his hands together and his head on one side. Or I may have to consider sending Tseng to persuade you! No, but really, concrit would be especially welcome.