CHAPTER 24: JUST SAY THE WORD
In which Reno discovers the answer to a question that has been bothering him for some time.
[note: this chapter rated M for sex, violence, and language]
They were halfway across the Inland Sea, with no land in sight in any direction, before Reno could get a word out of Cissnei beyond what was strictly necessary. She sat in the co-pilot's seat with her body curved away from him, staring out the window at the crinkled surface of the ocean far below.
"C'mon, Ciss, quit sulking."
Her only response was to hunch her shoulders up a little higher.
He tried again. "I didn't ask to come on this goddamn mission, you know."
"It should have been Roz," she muttered.
God, Roz. Splinted, bandaged and dazed in an infirmary bed, unaware that something worse than a grenade was going to hit her as soon as she came round. He was glad he didn't have to be the one to tell her.
"Fucking AVALANCHE," Cissnei snarled.
"We'll get them."
She glanced over at him, and the look in her eyes softened to something slightly less glowering. "Damn right," she said; then, folding her arms, she turned back and continued staring out the window.
They've been gone for nearly three hours now, thought Aviva back at the office, and I still can't make up my mind. Or maybe it's too late. I should have said something straight away. But what?
Why couldn't Mr Tseng, who saw so much, and always knew the right thing to do, not see what was under his nose? Was it because he had none of those feelings himself? A person who'd never been in love wouldn't know what it looked like, would he? Reno said Mr Tseng was in love with their Sector Five surveillance target; he said that was why they had to stake out the church and keep an eye on her all the time, but Aviva knew he was just joking.
I don't want to get them into trouble, she told herself. I want to keep them out of trouble. What I feel isn't important right now. I have to do what's right.
Reno refused to dwell on thoughts of Rosalind, or the chain of events that had brought him here, to the cockpit of this helicopter, with Cissnei so close he could put out a hand and touch her. He refused to think about Lazard, or AVALANCHE, or Tseng, or Genesis, or Shinra. The only thing that mattered was happening here, now.
The afternoon sunlight poured through the windscreen and lit up each mote of dust. It was as if he was breathing stars.
Cissnei's hair shone gold. All he could see of her face was the curve of her cheekbone. The cockpit was warm with the heat of the sun and their own bodies. The scent of Cissnei, her skin, her hair, filled his senses.
The air between them was charged with anticipation, like the sky over the Grasslands before an electrical storm. All the little hairs down his arms were standing on end.
She was staring out the window like she couldn't feel it. Who did she think she was kidding?
Why should I have to be the one to say something? Aviva thought almost angrily. What if he found out it was me? He'd never forgive me. I can't do it, I can't. What about Rude? Why doesn't he speak up?
Rude had been hurt in the action last night, but he'd been Cured and he was fine. Now he was sitting at his desk with his head down, and though Aviva kept trying to catch his eye, she couldn't. He was doing it deliberately, she could tell.
Finally she came to a decision. Getting to her feet, she walked over to Rude's desk and stood there waiting, hands on hips. Eventually he was forced to look up. She saw at once that he was thinking what she was thinking; she was getting quite adept at seeing past the defense of his purple lenses. A small crease had appeared between his eyebrows, and his mouth curved downwards.
He gave her a hard look. Then he shook his head, very slightly. A piece of advice; a warning.
Don't get involved.
They had left the golden beaches and red tiled roofs of Costa del Sol far behind them, and were passing over the spine of the mountain range that ran down the length of the Western Continent, when Reno decided that Cissnei had been silent long enough. With any girl, in his experience, the crucial thing was to keep them talking. So he said, "Explain to me again why we're going to Nibelheim."
Cissnei glanced at him from the corner of her eye – warily? Wearily? Hard to tell – and shifted in her seat so that he could now see her profile. "We've known for months that Hollander was working with Genesis, and now we've got evidence Lazard's been funding them. Since we've no leads on where Lazard has gone, we start by checking out the places connected to Genesis. Roz ran a stats analysis a couple of days ago, and Nibelheim's the place with the largest number of clone sightings."
"Anyone talk to Hollander?"
"Yeah." For the first time, Cissnei smiled. "Tseng did."
Reno chuckled. After his brush with death on the runaway elevator, the thought of Hollander in the Boss' hands was something to savour.
The sound of his laughter seemed to please her. She gave him another quick glance, another little smile. "Yeah. But turns out Hollander knows nothing that we didn't know already. The Chief thinks Lazard will lie low until the fuss dies down and then try to make contact with Hollander. Nibelheim's an obvious choice for a hideout. It's remote, and there's all those caves in the mountains beyond the town. Somebody could hide there for years and never be found."
"And there's the mansion," said Reno. "God knows what stuff's still in there. Isn't there an old lab in the basement, from when the reactor was first built? How long's that place been shut up?"
"I dunno. Longer than we've been working for Shinra, anyhow."
"So where d'you want to start?"
"The reactor?" she suggested. "Might as well talk to our own people first. Where can you land?"
"I can set it down behind the mansion. Then we'll have to walk."
"What about the cable car?"
"Down for routine maintenance, Tseng told me."
"Screw that," said Cissnei. "Let's see if we can get some chocobos."
.
There were no chocobos.
The man at the inn thought that if they drove south for an hour or so they might come to a farm where the farmer sometimes had chocobos for hire. Maybe just one. Or it might have been sold. He wasn't sure.
"They've got mountain chocobos up at the reactor," said Reno. "I could call them and ask them to bring a couple down for us."
Cissnei shook her head. "It'll be dark in an hour, anyway. Let's just check in. We can use the time until dinner to talk to the townspeople, find out what they know. We'll go up the mountain tomorrow."
"This is on the Shinra account, right?" said the innkeeper. "Two singles?"
"Yes, please," said Cissnei.
.
They met again for dinner in the little dining room at the back of the inn. There were no other guests. The room had a pleasant atmosphere: colourful rugs brightened the cedarwood floor, and the walls were half-timbered, dark beams angling through rough white plaster. A red and white checked cloth covered the table where Cissnei and Reno sat. In the big stone fireplace a pyramid of logs was burning brightly: the heat from the fire warmed Reno's back and Cissnei's face. The only other light in the room came from half a dozen yellow candles, jammed into old wine bottles set out on the tables.
"Rustic," was Reno's comment.
The menu comprised a single item: rabbit stew with potatoes.
"And two cold beers," Reno ordered. He lit a cigarette, turned to Cissnei, and asked her, "So, what did you find out?"
"I found out that this inn is haunted. And the mansion. And the mountain paths. The reactor's haunted too, go figure. A weird kid told me. He was hard to shake off."
"I met a weird kid," said Reno. "But mine was a girl. Some jailbait loli in a cowboy costume. She said she was a guide but she looked simple-minded to me."
"This place is full of weird kids. Maybe it's all the mako in the water."
"Nah," said Reno. "They're just inbred. Did you talk to any of the adults?"
They were interrupted by the arrival of their beer, so deliciously cold that a film of water had condensed on the glasses. Cissnei took a long sip, wiped the foam from her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, "Nobody's seen anything suspicious. Or if they have, they're not talking. But I think they would tell us. Shinra's not unpopular here. The whole economy of this town depends on the reactor. Before Shinra came here, this place was nothing but a few huts clinging to the side of the mountain, and now look what they've got. Power, running water, phones, TV..."
But Reno had stopped listening to her long before, at the moment when she'd wiped the foam from her mouth, leaving her lips slightly reddened and moist, glistening in the candlelight. The way those lips moved, the shapes they formed, mesmerized him. The soft line of an 'm' – the kiss-pursed 'p' – the round, surprised 'o'… A little triangle of pink, the tip of her tongue, darted out to lick a stray drop of beer from the corner of her mouth, then shyly hid itself again behind her small white teeth -
"… So what might seem to a kid to be a ghost could actually be someone who's doing their best to avoid being seen. I think it might be worth looking into. Don't you? Reno? Reno! Have you heard a word I said?"
Slowly he blinked his heavy eyelids. His teeth parted in a suggestive smile. "I love it when you talk shop," he breathed.
Cissnei frowned at him. "Cut it out, Red. Look, here's our food."
The stew was bland. He toyed with it for a minute, then pushed it away.
"C'mon, you have to eat," said Cissnei.
"Not hungry."
"You need to look after yourself."
"Stop nagging me."
Cissnei put her fork down. "All right. I didn't want to say this, but I'm going to. You don't look good, Reno. You've lost weight – a lot of weight. Hasn't anybody said anything? There's hollows under your cheeks and your collarbones are sticking out. And your hair, it's – it used to be so glossy. Now it's like a sick animal. To tell the truth, you look kind of… seedy. Like you've been living on booze and cigarettes ever since I went away…."
She tailed off, realizing what she'd said: what she'd acknowledged.
Reno took a long drag on a fresh cigarette. The smoke curled from his nostrils. "Yeah. Since then."
"You know what?" said Cissnei. "I'm really not hungry either. I think I'll go to my room – "
She started to push back her chair, but perhaps she had forgotten just how fast he could move; a split second later his hand was around her arm, pinning it to the table. For someone so thin, he was very strong. Cissnei froze.
"Let go of me," she said quietly.
"Make me."
"You want me to fight you?"
His grin stretched. "Maybe. Why not? Getting physical. Better'n nothing."
"Reno," she squirmed in his grip. "Stop it."
"I just want you to talk to me. We started this conversation almost a year ago. We need to finish it."
"I told you – "
"I remember. And I remember what you wrote to me on those postcards. And all I want to know is – do you ever think about it?"
She hesitated.
He was so close to her that he could see himself reflected in her eyes. The tattoos on his cheekbones look like scars carved into his face.
Cissnei turned her head. "No," she said.
But she was lying. He had seen it in the way her own eyes had grown a little sleepy, the pupils dilating, just before she looked away. She'd been thinking about it, all right. She was imagining it right now. She'd been dreaming about it for months. That's why she had been fighting so hard to keep the distance between them: she'd been afraid of what would happen if she let her guard down.
She wanted him. Or she wanted what he was offering, if only she would allow herself to take it.
He loosened his grip, though he did not take his hand off her arm. If she had really wanted to she could have broken free. She did not move.
Holding his breath, he gently stroked his thumb against the smoothness of her inner wrist.
"Don't do that," she said without much conviction. "I thought you - wanted to talk to me."
Beneath the skin of her wrist he could feel the pulse of a quickening heartbeat. She did not try to take her hand away, though it remained clenched. Still moving his thumb in a slow caress, he said, "How long's it been?"
Cissnei closed her eyes. "Since Zack, nobody," she admitted.
"Mmm. Long time. And you never think of it? Doesn't it drive you crazy sometimes – "
"Oh, don't," she said huskily.
Her hand had lost a little of its tension. It softened and opened. He stroked its palm with his fingertips. Cissnei shivered.
He said, "You know it would be good between us."
"It would be insane. The Chief would skin us alive and hang us out to dry."
"Might be worth it," he said. "We won't know until we try."
With one finger he traced the thin blue line of the vein that ran up her forearm. Cissnei held herself motionless. He pushed back her sleeve. Bending his head, he pressed a kiss into the soft crook of her elbow. Cissnei made a noise deep inside her throat. He licked her skin, tasted its faint saltiness, its musk. Cissnei trembled and swallowed hard.
Her voice quivered a little when she spoke. "I'll admit I am – attracted to you. But I don't…"
He lifted his head, leaned in closer. "What don't you?" he whispered in her ear.
"I don't – love you like that. I'd just – be using you…"
He put his mouth to her ear. "What are friends for?"
"No," she said; but she didn't try to move or push him away. He put out his tongue, touched its tip to the shell of her ear.
"Oh god," she groaned, "This is crazy."
"It's OK,' he said, forcing himself to sound calmer than he felt. His own pulse was drumming; his longing for her was in danger of escaping his control. He didn't want to frighten her off now, not when she was so close to giving in. By a triumph of self-will he kept his touch light as he kissed his way along her jawline, her ear, and down the nape of her neck where the short, soft hairs sprang. Cissnei sat very still and allowed him to do it. Her skin was growing flushed and hot.
"Mmm," he whispered in her ear. "You taste good."
She was breathing in sharp little gasps. He ran his hand over her collarbone and down the front of her shirt to close around her breast. She wasn't wearing a bra. Against the palm of his hand her breast felt heavier than he had imagined, solid yet softly yielding, with a stiff little nipple swollen like the erection now pressing with painful insistence against his fly. It was all he could do to resist the urge to bite her.
"Don't…" she murmured.
"What?"
"Unh – don't stop – "
He ran his tongue along the intricate folds of her ear, then took the fleshy pierced lobe between his lips and suckled on it, gently moving the small stud with his tongue. Cissnei sighed and shivered.
"I don't love you either," he said in her ear, sliding two fingers under the waistband of her trousers. He felt the hard muscles of her abdomen tighten with desire. "I just want to fuck you."
That little word, so often bandied about carelessly between them, seemed to be all that was needed to push Cissnei over the edge. She groaned and arched her hips against his hand.
"Say yes," he breathed unsteadily, "You know you want to."
"Yes," she gasped.
"C'mon," he said.
"Where?"
"I don't care. Your room?"
"Yes."
Holding onto each other, they somehow made their way out of the dining room and through the empty lobby, and half-fell, half-stumbled up the stairs. Reno began unbuckling Cissnei's belt as she felt in her pocket for the key. "Quick," he said. "I'm trying," she snapped. Twice she dropped it. "God," he groaned, "Let me." Finally they got the door unlocked, and pushed and pulled each other inside, pawing at one another's trousers. "Shut the door," Cissnei panted. He slammed it shut with his foot, and they fell together onto the floor.
It was over in less than a minute. Cissnei thrashed in his arms and yelled obscenities he would have sworn even she did not know. His own orgasm was so violent that he blacked out for a second and collapsed on top of her, coming to when his forehead struck the floor with a sharp crack. Spent, dazed, they lay tangled together for several minutes, trying to catch their breaths.
Cissnei was the first to move. Turning her head away from him, she folded her arm over her eyes. "Oh, shit," she exclaimed, half laughing, half-groaning. "Now we've fucking done it."
Reno sat up, struggling with the suit trousers tangled around his ankles. "I've still got my boots on," he laughed, and pulled them off; the knife fell out of his left boot and spun under the bed. Kicking his legs free of the trousers, it took him only a few moment to strip off his socks and his jacket, unbuckle his two shoulder holsters, and pull his shirt inside out over his head. Last of all he took off his goggles and laid them to one side. Naked, he sat cross-legged on the floor, and reached across to touch Cissnei's shoulder.
"Hey," he said.
She rolled her head towards him, looked up and down his lithe paleness, all bone and sinew and hard, slender muscle. Eyes like a drowsy cat's. Hair like a crazy firework. A small smile touched her lips. "Hey, yourself," she murmured. "You're kind of hot, you know that? For a skinny-ass guy."
"You look ridiculous in that suit," he said tenderly. "Come here."
She crawled over to him on her hands and knees and sat herself in his lap, face to face, her long legs straddling his waist. With one hand he tugged at the knot of her tie. "It's a long time since I've done this," he laughed, pulling it loose and looping it over her head. His other hand slipped the jacket from her shoulders, balled it up, and threw it into a corner. Cissnei's own hands were busy unbuttoning her shirt. She was having a little trouble with the task; her fingers were beginning to tremble again.
"That's better," he said, when she too was naked. Her auburn hair fell to her shoulders in a mess of tangles. She was smooth and lean and strong, with small high breasts and a belly like the curve of an ivory spoon. "You're pretty hot yourself," he told her, "For a chick with no ass at all."
Taking her face between his hands, he kissed her on the mouth for the first time, long and deep and hard, until they were both breathless and broke away gasping for air.
"Now, this time," he said hoarsely, running a hand down her quivering flank., "Don't rush me."
.
Next day Reno was the first to wake. Late afternoon sunlight was slanting through the drawn curtains. Cissnei lay pressed tightly against him in the narrow bed, her head burrowed into his armpit, her curls tickling his nose. A smile curved her lips.
Last night I dreamed of you…
For a while he lay there quietly, watching her breathe. A strand of hair was caught in the corner of her mouth. He pulled it loose. She sighed, and snuggled down more deeply into sleep.
…I was sorry to wake up.
He was only twenty-two years old, but he had been a Turk long enough to know that no kind of happiness was permanent. You had to take what you could get, while you could get it. Live in the moment, and all that. For now the thing was to keep the office off their backs. Planting a kiss on Cissnei's messy parting, he eased himself out from under her and searched around the room until he found his suit trousers. Three missed calls – they'd slept right through them – and a dozen text messages, all from Tseng. Reno was pondering whether he could get away with texting Tseng back, when the phone rang loudly in his hand, making him jump.
Tseng got straight to the point. "Why haven't you returned my calls?"
"I – uh – I left my phone in my room –" Reno kept his voice down, not wanting to wake her. "Sorry, Boss."
"I called the Manager at the reactor. He seems to be unaware of your presence in Nibelheim. Then I had to call the innkeeper." Tseng's tone dropped ten degrees, from merely cold to frostbitten. "He told me you've been sleeping all day."
Shit, shit. Think fast, Reno. "Not me, Boss. Ciss. She, uh – she got food poisoning. Rabbit stew. Awful crap. I didn't touch it. I had to stay up all night looking after her. Man, you should have seen her hurl. I thought she was going to chuck up her own kidneys – "
"All right, thank you, Reno. I get the picture. How is she now?"
"Oh, she's fine. She's, uh, sleeping. I'll see if I can get her to eat something later, and then we should be good to go tomorrow."
"All right. Call me in the morning. And remember time is of the essence. If Nibelheim's a dead end, we need to know that as soon as possible."
"Understood, Boss. Will do."
Tseng hung up. Reno turned back to the bed and saw that Cissnei was awake, smothering her laughter behind her hands. Her eyes danced. "Food poisoning, huh? Did he believe you?"
"Ciss, when it comes to lying, you are looking at a certified genius."
"Tseng's no fool, you know."
"Yeah, but he kind of assumes we're all like him. He's never broken a rule in his life, and the only thing that would keep him from his mission would be if he was too sick to move. So, yeah, I think he bought it."
"Good," Cissnei smiled.
The tense aggression that had filled her these last few days was gone. Her eyes had lost their edginess. She looked happy and at peace. I did that, thought Reno. I put that smile on her face….
"Oh, Reno, just look at you," she chided. "I can count every one of your ribs. What am I going to do with you?" She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. He made a move towards her, but she laughed and shook her head. "First things first. Let's get you something to eat. I'm not having you faint on me. And after all that food poisoning, I'm starving."
She took a fresh suit and shirt out of her suitcase. Reno put on the clothes he'd been wearing yesterday. Barefoot, they went down the stairs to the front desk, and rang the bell for the innkeeper.
"So, you're up at last," said the man, coming in from the back room. "Are you two here on holiday, then? Nice romantic getaway. By the way, someone called asking about you – "
"I know," Reno interrupted. "Unfortunately, my colleague here was very sick last night and neither of us got much sleep. If anyone asks, you can tell them that. And if anyone else calls for us, tell them we're out." Reaching into his jacket, Reno took out his wallet, counted off five hundred-gil notes, and laid them on the counter. "Out working," he added.
"No problem," nodded the innkeeper. It wasn't often that Turks came prowling round these parts, but he'd heard enough about them to know he'd just struck it lucky: a bribe was infinitely preferable to a threat.
"Have someone bring us up some sandwiches on a tray," said Reno.
"And a bottle of your best wine," added Cissnei.
"You can leave it outside the door," Reno told him. "Just knock."
.
Halfway through the following day Reno was sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette, and Cissnei was dozing, her head pillowed against his bare thigh, when she suddenly opened her eyes and said, "You know, we really should go to the reactor tomorrow."
"OK," he said. "We'll get up early and walk there."
The next day they got up some time after noon, and set off at around four o'clock. Although they told each other they were heading for the reactor, both knew they had no intention of going there. They did not even bother to wear their guns. Their feet found a path which took them around the side of the old Shinra mansion, through a walled herb garden run to seed and weeds, and into a hillside forest of pine trees, where the fallen needles made a carpet under their feet. Cissnei picked an armful of mushrooms; Reno made a fire. They baked her mushrooms on hot stones and ate them, burning their tongues, taking bites between kisses, until the kisses grew hotter and the mushrooms were forgotten.
"Do you think anyone saw us?" Cissnei giggled, as they wandered slowly back to the inn in the moonlight.
"Don't know," Reno grinned, his teeth a flash of white. "And don't really care."
.
On the evening of the fourth day, Cissnei said, "We can't stall Tseng forever. He'll get suspicious soon. We need to do something that looks like work. Why don't we go check out the old mansion tomorrow?"
"Whatever you want," he replied, running his finger down the delicate undulations of her spine.
She twisted under his hand. "You know what I want," she smiled, pulling his mouth down to hers.
.
Mid-morning of the fifth day found them standing fully dressed and armed outside the iron-bound doors of the mansion. "Is it locked?" she asked.
Reno gave the door a push. It swung open, squealing on rusty hinges. They stepped over the threshold into the stone-flagged hall. The first thing Reno noticed was the light – white, dusty light, falling down on them through smeared panes of leaded glass. A wide wooden staircase curved upwards in front of them, rising to a landing that stretched the width of the hall. More stairs went up from the landing to a second-floor hallway bridging the east and west wings. Reno's gaze kept travelling upwards until it reached the ceiling, three stories over his head, and the cobwebbed chandelier that hung there.
"Haunted house, huh?" said Cissnei. "Come on, Red, let's see if we can find any ghosts."
Their crepe soled Turk boots made no sound as they trod across the flagstones. But when Reno put his foot on the lowest step of the stairs, it creaked, and at once four curious creatures, like pallid, skirted pumpkins with blank, dorky faces, flew from under the stairs and hovered in the air above them. Cissnei nearly jumped out of her skin. "Ghosts!" she screamed.
Reno had already pulled out his gun. "They're monsters," he said. "Just shoot them."
Four bullets dispatched the creatures. Cissnei holstered her gun and asked, "Do you think there's any more?"
"What? 'Ooo, ghosts'?" he teased.
She punched his arm. "You – shut up."
Over by the window she found a letter. "What's it say?" asked Reno. "It's hard to read," she answered. "It must be decades old. The paper's so dry it's crumbling, and the ink's faded. Something about a nosy Turk in the basement?"
"Hey, maybe it means the Chief. He probably worked here when he was young. When the lab was still up and running."
"And something about a game, I think."
"Hide and seek," Reno grimaced, looking around at the flyblown windows, the peeling wallpaper, the balding carpet.
Cissnei let the paper fall from her hand. "No one's hiding here now," she said. "This house is…. dead. Don't you feel it? I think we're on a wild goose chase."
"Still, we'd better look around now we're here. You take that corridor on the left, and I'll check out the rooms on the right. Meet me back here in twenty minutes."
"Roger."
The first door took him along a corridor to a parlour over-furnished in the style of half a century ago: big table, armchairs, a thick rug on the floor, and tall dark bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. One of the books lay open on the table, next to a teacup in a saucer. Dust covered everything.
Behind the second door he found two more pumpkin monsters floating in the middle of an old-fashioned kitchen. He shot them, had a look at the pot-bellied coal range, tried the tap in the deep porcelain sink (it rattled, but no water came out), and went through a further door into a larder stacked with crates. Here, too, the layers of dust had lain undisturbed for years.
He went round the walls, tapping them with the butt of his EMR, but they were solid. No secret passageways. He paused for a second when he heard three gunshots, then realised that Cissnei had probably come across more of the monsters.
Well, his side of the house had drawn a blank: there was no sign of any human activity, and nowhere for any human to hide. He went back to the hall. From a far doorway the sound of an out-of-tune piano being played very badly reached his ears. He followed the music, and came into a sunlit ballroom, its windows draped with yellowing muslin curtains. A black grand piano stood in the right corner. Cissnei was poking at its keys with two fingers, playing chopsticks.
To his left was a round table. Reno sat down in one of the chairs, put his feet up on the white tablecloth, and lit a cigarette.
"Why'd they build this mansion here anyway?" he wondered. "Is this, like, the Shinra ancestral pile? How old do you reckon it is, Ciss?"
"Centuries," she said. "I'm guessing they bought it when they built the reactor. It was probably company housing for the scientists."
"Yeah," said Reno, thinking of the books piled everywhere. "That stands to reason. Hey, Ciss?"
"Uh-huh?" she replied, making a chord with middle C, E and G.
"You must have got to know Lazard pretty well, all that time you worked with him."
"Uh-huh," she said guardedly, in a tone that clearly wondered, where is this leading?
"Why d'you think he did it? Why'd he turn on Shinra? I know SOLDIER's in a mess, but it's not like he was ever going to have to take the rap for it, being the Old Man's son and everything. I would have thought he had a pretty cushy number. Why'd he throw it all away?"
"He hates his father," she said, fingering another chord, black notes mixed with white, a minor key.
"That makes two of them. And Rufus hates Lazard."
"And Lazard hates Rufus," Cissnei finished. "Happy families."
"So what's his plan, him and Hollander?"
"I have no idea," she said, closing the piano.
"Where do you think he is, really?"
"I can't even begin to guess. Lazard plays his cards very close to his chest. He was always… uncomfortable with his position. Did you ever read any of those emails he used to send round? The ones about the – " her fingers made air-quotes – "dark shadows of Shinra? I couldn't help poking fun of them. They were just begging to be spoofed…." She trailed off. A faraway look came into her eyes. In a different tone of voice, she added, " Zack would get so annoyed. He took them so seriously… "
Reno wasn't having any of that. Crushing the half-smoked cigarette underfoot, he loped across to the piano, bent down, and kissed her long and hard, stroking her neck and her breasts until she put her arms around him with a sigh and began to return his kiss with equal enthusiasm.
Later, as they were putting their clothes back on, he said, "I don't want to hear about the past, OK, Ciss? To me it doesn't matter."
"You brought the subject up."
"Yeah, well…. You're here with me now. That's all I care about."
"Yes," she said, "I am. Let's go take a look around upstairs."
.
Room with a locked safe. Reno spent fifteen minutes trying to crack the combination. "Forget it," said Cissnei at last. "If he's hiding in there, he'll have suffocated by now."
Reno gave the safe a parting kick, and they went back to the corridor.
.
Round greenhouse room. Some of the pots contained nothing but earth; others held flourishing overgrown cacti in danger of snapping under the weight of their own top-heaviness. Leaf skeletons and mice droppings lay scattered across the floor.
"This room smells of death," said Cissnei. "Let's leave."
.
Room with a wardrobe, three carved wooden beds, and a thin carpet patterned in cream and brown. Reno opened the wardrobe and found a black SOLDIER uniform. Hastily he pushed it out of sight and closed the door. "Nothing in here," he said.
She was standing by the window with her arms crossed, looking down at the pine woods. He came over and put his hands up under her shirt, nuzzling her hair. "Three beds," he murmured in her ear. "Which one d'you want to try first?"
.
Several hours later, they stood in a small back room containing a table, a chair, and more bookcases. Reno did his routine, going round each wall and tapping it. "Nothing."
"Wild goose chase, I'm telling you," said Cissnei.
They passed through some sort of antechamber into what was clearly the master bedroom, with a big double bed pushed under the windows. Sunset filled the room with a burning light. Reno threw himself onto the bed's green and red checked coverlet, folding his arms behind his head.
"You know what we should do, Ciss?" he said. "We should make love in every room in this house."
"Is that what we've been doing?" she murmured, as if to herself.
He heard her; she probably meant that he should. But he wasn't ready to have this conversation yet. So he pretended he'd heard nothing, and held out his hand for her to join him.
Cissnei shook her head and laughed. "You are indefatigable."
"What's that mean?"
She came to sit beside him. "Don't you ever wear out?"
"Dunno," he grinned, unzipping her trousers, "But it's fun trying."
.
"There's a door here," she said later, standing by the curved stone wall at the other end of the room. "Damn. It's locked."
"I can pick that. Got a hairpin?"
"Reno. Do I look like the kind of girl who wears hairpins?"
"Ah," he laughed. "Good point." Taking his army knife from his back pocket, he inserted the pick in the lock and worried it gently from side to side until he felt the pins lift. The door slid back, revealing a stone staircase spiralling down into a well of darkness.
The sun had set; the colours of day were fading fast. They took out their flashlights and began the steep descent, keeping their right hands on the wall to stay oriented. Halfway down, Cissnei looked over her shoulder at him and said, "Are we being incredibly stupid, climbing down to a secret crypt in a haunted house just as night falls?"
"The old lab's down here. We have to check it out."
At the bottom of the staircase was a cellar, with a ladder disappearing into a hole. The two Turks climbed down the ladder and found themselves in a tunnel roughly carved from the living rock, just tall enough to stand up in. Dangling lengths of chains had been riveted to the rock face. Several broken skeletons lay scattered along the tunnel floor. Reno tripped over a yellowed thigh bone and kicked it aside.
"Well," he said, "These guys aren't Shinra."
"They lived centuries ago," Cissnei opined. "Another age."
To their left they found an arched wooden door. Reno tapped on it, then pushed it open a crack, shining his flashlight inside. Cissnei craned her neck to see. It was a small room like a wine cellar, musty and cold. Heaps of skulls had been piled in the corners. In the centre of the room were five coffins.
"I don't care if Lazard is hiding in one of those things," Cissnei shuddered. "I am not going in there. Shut the door, Reno, quick. Let's finish searching the facility and then let's get the hell out of here."
They passed through an octagonal room where piles of books had been left stacked carelessly on the floor. All sorts of scientific equipment - bunsen burners, retorts, flasks, rubber tubes, petrie dishes – were gathering dust on shelves. From here the passage led to a library, and on from the library to a room that felt jarringly modern after so much dust and lace and antiquity. It had a stone floor and bare brick walls, several examination tables, a bank of outdated computers, various mystery machines, and six specimen tanks of the kind Reno recognised all too well. Hojo had the same tanks in his labs on the 67th floor; AVALANCHE had had them at their base near Icicle Inn.
He and Cissnei made a careful search, but found nothing.
"Total waste of time," said Cissnei. "Still, I suppose we had to tick it off our list. But Lazard's really too smart to come here. It was bound to be the first place we'd look."
She took out her phone.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm calling the manager at the reactor, asking him to send us down some chocobos tomorrow. We have to go there sooner or later. And Reno, listen," she put a hand on his arm. "Don't take this the wrong way, but while we're there, could you please, please, please keep your hands off me? It's not that I don't like it," she added quickly. "But we need to try to be a bit more discrete. You don't want to ruin everything, do you?"
.
In the evening of the following day, they had a fight.
They'd gone up to the reactor, talked to the staff, and discovered nothing of any use. Constrained by the classified nature of their investigation, they were unable to refer to Lazard by name or show his photo to the people they questioned, and so had to confine themselves to a general inquiry. They were told that monster sightings had gone up significantly since the previous year (the Manager showed them his bar charts) and that the creatures were becoming bolder, but as for any suggestion that unauthorized human personnel might have gained entrance to the facility – absolutely not. The rest of the workers told the same story.
Tired at the end of this long, unproductive day, they rode back to the inn without talking much. Reno was just stepping out of the bath and wrapping a towel around his waist when Cissnei's phone rang.
"Hey, Boss, how are you?" she said. "Yes, I'm fine now, thank you. Yes we did. Today. No, nothing, just a dead end. That's what we think. Yes, if anything comes to me, I'll tell you. Yes, Reno's fine. Well, you know him, sir. He doesn't account to me for his movements. Actually, between you and me," she lowered her voice to a fake whisper, "I think he might have a girl."
"What?" cried Reno. "What are you doing?"
Cissnei shushed him with a frown. "Yes, that's him, sir. He just came in. Tomorrow. I'll tell him. Understood. See you then. Bye, Boss."
She clicked the phone shut, and turned to Reno. "He wants us back in Midgar tomorrow."
"Fuck," he snarled, balling his fists. "Fuck. Shit."
"It's been a week. We've been lucky to have that much."
He grabbed her hand. "Fuck them. Let's run away."
"What?"
"If AVALANCHE can hide, so can we."
She snatched her hand back. "Don't be so stupid. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in hiding. I like my job. And what about you, what else could you do? Come on, don't say such idiotic things. We have to be sensible."
"You don't care," he accused her.
"Of course I care! How would flapping my hands and acting like I've just been shot in the head show I care? We need a plan, fuckwit. I'm trying to think, is all."
He ran his hands through his hair. "And what the hell was that shit to Tseng? 'Oh, you know Reno. Oh, I think he has a girl.' Is that part of your plan?"
"Yeah, actually, it is."
"We're just going to walk in and tell him? Suicide mission?"
"No. We can't go back together. I'll go back. You'll have to stay here."
"Oh yeah, brilliant. 'You know Reno, he's such an idiot he got lost on his way from the inn to the chopper'. Tseng'll buy that. Love it already."
Cissnei was also beginning to get angry. "Look, shut up," she snapped. "We can't go back together. I can't walk into that office with you tomorrow like nothing's happened. I can't do it. One of us has to stay behind and it makes more sense if it's you. That's why I told him you've got a girl. I'll say you stayed behind to take some leave and be with her. He'll believe that."
Reno shook his head. "Why me and not you? You don't trust me not to do something stupid, is that it?"
"No! - But I've set you up for it now, so it has to be you."
"Fucking hell," he breathed. "You've got the whole thing planned out, haven't you? How long have those little wheels in your mind been turning?"
"One of us had to come up with something to cover our butts. And I guess it had to be the one who doesn't think with their dick," she spat.
"I didn't hear you complaining earlier." He folded his arms. "I'm not doing it, Ciss. I'm not letting you go back there on your own. No way. Whatever we do, we do it together."
"Just back the fuck off, Reno, can't you?" she exclaimed. "Just – stop crowding me! Listen! Listen to me! Ever since I came home you've been acting like you own me. You don't own me. Nobody owns me. How can we go back to the office together when you can't keep your hands off me? How long would it be before everyone knows? Before the Chief finds out? You've got to back off a little. Sometimes you make me feel like I can't breathe. Please – try to understand. I just – I just need some space. I need to be alone for a while. I've been alone so much this last year, I…. "
He was trying to listen to her, he really was. He was trying as hard as he could to understand what she was saying. But it came down to this one thing: she wanted to go, and she didn't want him to go with her.
"… Being with you is so intense," she went on. "I'm getting worn out. I need some time alone. I need to go back to Midgar and have some space to think, so I can work out how to manage this. There might be a way, if we take it slowly…"
He couldn't force her to stay. It wasn't his style. And she'd fight him if he tried: she'd claw her way loose.
"Please," she said softly, coming from behind to put her arms around his waist. She laid her head between his shoulder-blades and held him tight. "Please, please, believe that I know best. Let me do this the way I want. Please."
He had to let her go, and hope.
"Please, Reno," she kissed his jaw. "Please," she kissed his ear, "Please," she murmured, nibbling his neck. "You have to trust me. It'll all be OK. Just trust me." She ran her hands along the hard flatness of his stomach, and slid them down under his towel, her teeth gently biting his shoulder.
He would have done anything for her then. Killed. Died. Anything.
.
In the moonlight her skin had a pearly sheen. He walked his fingers up her right arm, along the line of her shoulder, and down her slim back to the two little dimples, like thumbprints in cream, denting the flesh just above each buttock.
"You're so beautiful," he said.
"I know I am," she replied, a note of something like sadness, or wryness, or perhaps simply tiredness, in her voice. "It's my job."
"Hey, big head," he slapped her bottom. "Don't get me wrong. It's not like you're the most gorgeous chick I've ever had."
"Oh really?" she smiled. "So who was she, then?"
"Her name was, uh, Amanda. Yeah. Amanda. Whoa! She had legs that went up to her armpits and tits like melons."
"Mmm," Cissnei giggled. "She sounds…well-proportioned."
He laughed at that, throwing himself down beside her, and pushed her hair away to look closely into her face. Huge golden eyes fringed with dark lashes; full-lipped mouth; narrow delicate nose; her face itself a serene oval, the loveliest thing on the planet. When he was with her, nothing else mattered. Without her, life was empty.
So this is what it means, he realized in astonishment. It means everything.
"Cissnei," he said slowly, "I have to tell you something."
"What?" she murmured. She was nearly asleep.
"What I said before, that I didn't love you? It was a lie. I do love you."
"I know." Stretching out a languid arm, she took hold of his hand, brought it to her mouth and kissed it. "I love you too, Red. Whatever happens, remember that."
.
They rose at dawn, showered, dressed, checked out, and carried their luggage to the helicopter. Cissnei said, "Are you sure you want me to take you to Rocket Town?"
"I don't want to stay here without you. It'll be easy to get a plane or something from Rocket Town. And nobody'll know me. I've never been there."
"I have," she said. "I was there for a while earlier this year. You should look up my friend, Cid Highwind."
"The fighter pilot?"
"He's an astronaut in training now. I think you two would have a lot in common."
The rocket itself was visible from miles away; they saw it as soon as they came over the mountain ridge, thrusting up into the sky like a –
"Big bloody dick," said Cissnei. "Man penetrates space. The ultimate orgasm."
"Hey, cool it," said Reno. "A guy's allowed to dream."
She set him down in a field outside the town. "I'll call you!" she shouted over the rotors. "It'll just be a couple of days! Don't fret!"
The helicopter leapt back into the air and whoop-whooped away, leaving Reno feeling more at a loss – more lost – than he could ever remember being. He had no chopper…he had no partner…he was wearing civvies…. All he had to remind him of himself were the guns under his armpits and the goggles on his brow. The mag-rod was stowed in his suitcase. He and Cissnei had agreed that he should lie low until she told him it was safe to return to Midgar…
If that day ever came. He'd done a lot of things in his time to wind Tseng up, but he'd never pulled a stunt like this before, refusing a direct order to return to HQ. That was right up there in Charlie's league. Unfortunately, unlike Charlie, he, Reno, wasn't a legend in his own time.
He lugged his suitcase into town and checked in at the inn. The bar seemed quiet. He went across the road and wasted time in the gun shop for a while, then took a stroll through the town to see what it had to offer. The old town itself was not much more than a few buildings gathered around a square; the real business of Rocket Town took place in the fields beyond, where rows of temporary staff housing had sprung up around the launch site, looking like cardboard boxes mushrooming in the grass. The action was probably livelier over there, and a month ago Reno would have hurried to check it out. Now he just wasn't interested. Bored, he scuffed his way back to the inn, and settled down in the TV lounge to watch re-runs of old comedies.
Round about five pm, pretty much bang on the time Reno had predicted, Tseng called.
"Just where the hell are you, Reno?"
"Taking a holiday. Ciss get back OK?"
"You have no more holiday entitlement."
"What about last year's – "
"It doesn't roll over. I'm warning you, I can't overlook this. You are exposing yourself to the most severe disciplinary measures – "
"Oh, no, the signal's going – You're breaking up – "
Reno turned his phone off. Then, feeling stupid, he turned it back on. How could Ciss call him if his phone was off? It started ringing again, but caller ID showed it was Tseng. The Boss didn't give up easily. He kept on calling every five minutes for about an hour, and Reno kept on resisting the urge to answer. Finally, his phone fell silent.
Soon afterwards, Cissnei called. "How are you, Reno? Are you OK?" Her voice was a whisper.
"Where are you, Ciss?"
"In the girls' toilet. Tseng's so angry. He thinks I'm in cahoots with you."
"Like you said, he's no fool."
"It's skin of our teeth time. Listen, I wouldn't put it past him to trace my calls, so I'm not going to call you for a couple of days."
"Ciss, no – "
"You should disable your phone, too. Pull the battery out."
"But what if – "
"I've got to go. Reno, please don't worry. It'll all work out. Just look after yourself. Eat."
"But Ciss – "
She hesitated. "Be strong, OK? For me." And she hung up.
That night he missed her so badly he couldn't sleep. In the middle of the night he went down to the bar. It was locked, so he broke in. Bourbon had lost some of its potency for him, but vodka would still do the trick. He helped himself to a bottle from under the counter and went back to his room. Eventually, as dawn was breaking, he fell into a restless doze.
When the theft was discovered he had to pay double just to get them off his case, but he didn't really care.
By the third day he was so bored that he wandered back to the rocket site and lay down in the meadow to watch the crew work. He'd been there for a couple of hours when he saw a tall man come striding across the grass, his ragged crew-cut of blond hair held back by a pair of goggles very like Reno's own. As the man came closer Reno could see he was in his late thirties, with a lean, weather-beaten face, and hawk eyes.
"Hey, you," the man shouted. "Your name Reno, by any chance?"
Reno sat up. "No."
"Are you sure? 'Coz I just got a call from HQ asking if I'd seen some skinny red-head dude with tattoos on his cheeks and goggles, and you kind of fit the bill."
"I know who you mean," said Reno. "That one's my twin brother."
The man was standing over him now, and he was not amused. "Don't fuck with me. D'you take me for a fool?"
"No." Reno got to his feet, brushing the grass from his jeans. "You're Cid Highwind, aren't you? I'm a friend of Cissnei's."
Cid's stubbled cheeks broke into a smile. "That livin' doll! How is she?"
"She – she's good. She says hi."
"Man, she sure set this place on fire. Had half the base crazy about her. Wasn't interested in any of them, though. I reckon she was pining away for some sweetheart back in Midgar. Good thing too. She's the kind of broad guys'll kill each other over, and I need more trouble here like I need a hole in my fucking head. So, anyway, you a Turk too, not-Reno?"
"I'm on holiday."
"Oh, I get it. Office chasing you to cut your leave short? Fuckin' slave-drivers, ain't they? Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Any friend of Cissnei's is a friend of mine. Hey – " he gestured at the goggles. "You a pilot?"
"Helicopters."
"The Shinra mule," Cid spat into the grass. "No offense, but if you want to see a real classy thoroughbred you need to come take a look at the airship I'm building out back…."
Cissnei was right: Cid was an easy guy to get along with. He showed Reno all over the Highwind, and then took him on a tour of the rocket site, and by the end of the day Reno was happily at work in the bowels of the boosters, wiring fuses and testing connections. It felt good to be busy. The aching longing for Cissnei that threatened to consume him could be held at bay as long as he had something, anything, to keep his mind occupied. But at night the emptiness of his arms, the coldness of the sheets, the craving he felt for the smell of her hair and the touch of her skin, made him fear he was losing his mind.
He had to trust her.
He understood why she couldn't call. Not on her own phone. But she could have borrowed a friend's phone and called the inn. She could have borrowed Rude's phone, or Rosalind's.
He needed to stop thinking like that.
He tried calling her on the inn's phone, but her phone was out of order.
He had to trust her, or he would go insane.
On the fifth day Cid came and squatted down beside him where he was working on the back-up ignition motors. "Everything OK, not-Reno?" he asked.
"Sure. Why?"
"You look… kinda wild-eyed, sometimes. Here, I got somethin' for you. Came in the internal mailbag." Cid reached into his back pocket and took out a postcard of the Shinra Tower.
Reno began to shake.
"Thing is," said Cid, "I think your name is Reno, because this is addressed to Reno, care of me, and this here sure looks like you, don't it?" Holding the card between forefinger and thumb Cid turned it round to show Reno the cartoon chibi she had drawn in red ink: tattoos, goggles, spikes of hair sprouting every which way, heavy-lidded almond eyes.
Under it she'd written, I never lied to you.
He couldn't breathe. No – he was going to throw up. Pushing Cid out of the way, he staggered blindly from the rocket into the dazzle of daylight, and vomited onto the grass. Then he fell to his knees, gasping.
Cid had come after him, followed by a couple of the technicians. "Get him some water, goddamit," he heard Cid snap at one of them.
What was he going to do? He felt like he was flying apart in a hundred different directions. I never lied to you. She must have said something, something that would make sense of everything, if only he could remember it. What was it, then? What had he missed? What truth had he failed to hear?
Don't feel. Feeling hurts. Think. Think.
Call Tseng.
He sat back on his heels, pulled out his phone, and kept hitting the menu button, unable to grasp why it wouldn't work.
Cid took it out of his hands. "Battery's gone. Use mine. What's the number?"
"HQ. Extension 481."
He could hear the phone ringing in Cid's hands, and then Tseng's voice, tinny with distance. "Hullo, who is – "
"Got someone for you," said Cid before passing the phone over.
"Boss – "
"Reno? Reno, is that you? Whose number is this? Reno? Are you all right?"
Reno sucked air deep into his lungs. His head cleared, just a little bit. He said, "Where's Cissnei?"
"You've got some nerve, calling to ask me that. Where are you, is more to the point -"
"Rocket Town. Boss, you have to tell me, where is she?"
"What? Cid Highwind told me he hadn't seen you – "
"Please, Boss, just tell me – "
"What the hell are you doing in Rocket Town? No – don't even bother to answer that, you'll only spin me some ludicrous farrago of nonsense. Just get yourself back here – "
"For fuck's sake, Tseng," Reno exploded, "Just fucking answer my fucking question for fucking once. Where the fuck is she? Is she with Zack Fair?"
For a moment it seemed as if the other end of the line had gone dead.
"I'm not going to discuss this over the phone," said Tseng. "You get back here, and then you can tell me exactly what's been going on and what you know. And if I'm not looking at you with my own two eyes before this day is over, I can promise you, Reno, you will wish you had never been born."
The hour was closer to dawn than midnight when the plane carrying Reno touched down at the airstrip outside Midgar. Tseng was waiting for him on the runway with a company car. His hard fingers took Reno by the elbow. "Where's your suit?"
"I forgot – "
"You are so far over the line, I don't know where to start." He shoved Reno into the passenger seat. "Get in. And shut up. I'm too angry to talk to you right now."
"Just tell me, where's Cissnei?"
"I said no talking."
"You don't understand. This can't wait. " Reno pressed both hands to his head. "Zack's not in Midgar right now, is he? I remember now. He's gone on furlough. Is that where she is? She's with him, isn't she?"
"I'm warning you - "
"Do you even know where she is?"
"You have no right to question me."
In desperation, barely realizing what he was doing, Reno pulled out his gun and pointed it at Tseng's head. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't hold it steady. Tseng merely glanced at him, gave his brief bark of a laugh, and returned his attention to the highway unfurling in their headlights. After a moment he said, "Put it away, Reno. Before you have an accident. "
Reno let the gun fall into his lap. Had he really just threatened to shoot the Boss? He must be out of his mind. That must be why he felt so dizzy. All the familiar things around him looked strange, wrong: the road, the gun, Tseng's face, his own hands. They appeared at once painfully sharp and far away, as if he was looking at them through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.
"All right," said Tseng, in a tone of voice suggesting a sudden and decisive change of mind, "To stop you doing anything else so stupid, I can tell you that yes, Zack Fair is on furlough in Costa, and yes, she's with him. I sent her there to keep an eye on him, in case Lazard tries to make contact. Now, you tell me why that's a problem."
"God," Reno breathed out, "You don't know?"
Was it possible? Yet Tseng was sitting there so calmly, one hand on the steering wheel, as if nothing Reno might say could surprise him. "What exactly is it that you think I don't know?" he asked.
Reno opened his mouth. The words wouldn't come. Tensing his muscles, he dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands as hard as he could. The pain helped a little. He tried again. "Cissnei's in love with Zack. She's gone to try to get him back."
This must have been what Tseng had been expecting him to say, because he didn't miss a beat as he replied, "I'm afraid you've allowed your jealousy to cloud your judgement. You are wrong. On both counts."
He sounded so sure.
Reno wasn't sure of anything any more. Except this one thing, the thing he'd seen with his own eyes. The truth he'd had from her mouth. "I'm not wrong. Fuck it, Tseng, you know I'm not wrong - you and the Chief are the ones who set her up for it in the first place. You sent her off to SOLDIER to get inside Zack's pants so he'd tell her what he knew about Angeal and Genesis. You know she fell in love with him. That's why the Chief pulled her from the mission."
"Who told you that?" asked Tseng.
"Nobody told me. It was obvious."
"You know, Reno, I've warned you before not to speculate about other Turks' missions. I told you it would get you into trouble. I wish you had listened to me."
"I'm not wrong," Reno almost shouted.
"Listen to me. Cissnei was never in a relationship with Zack Fair. And we weren't the ones who pulled her from the mission. Lazard asked us to take her away."
"What? Why? Wasn't he the one who wanted her in the first place?"
"Well, naturally. She is very beautiful."
At these words, it seemed to Reno as if the world took a great lurch sideways.
His dizziness intensified. "What - what do you mean?"
"Well…. I suppose there's no harm in telling you now. The Commander started having suspicions about Director Lazard several years ago, even before Genesis and Angeal defected. But Lazard's very cautious. Very good at hiding things. Including himself, it would now appear. So we needed to get someone inside his guard. The Commander came up with the idea of the Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer. We did, in fact, need someone in that position. Our intention was to let Lazard choose whomever he wanted. He chose Cissnei. He was the one who put her on to Zack."
"Wait – what?" Reno's hands clenched. "I don't understand what you're saying."
"A simple double-bluff. Lazard wanted to keep his private life hidden from the Old Man. He encouraged Cissnei to develop the appearance of a relationship with Zack as a smokescreen to conceal her relationship with him."
Momentarily robbed of speech, Reno could only stare at his boss in disbelief. Did Tseng actually think that this claptrap he was spewing with such confidence was true?
Was it true?
"She was acting under our instructions," Tseng went on. "We told her to cooperate with whatever Lazard wanted. For a while it seemed to be working. But he trusted nobody, and he knew where her true loyalties lay. In the end, he couldn't bring himself to open up to her. She wasn't making any progress, and she pushed a little too… clumsily. He asked us to take her away."
Reno's skull hurt. Like it was cracking apart. He clutched his head. "Wait," he said. His guts had started churning again, making it hard for him to think clearly. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying – she was screwing both of them?"
Tseng shook his head. "No. Only Lazard. Not Zack – "
"Are you blind, Tseng? Of course she was screwing Zack. She was in love with Zack. She still is. God. No wonder Director Lazard didn't find her performance convincing."
Reno's vehemence gave Tseng pause. When he next spoke, a note of uncertainty had come into his voice. "How do you know this?"
"Because she told me. She said he was the love of her life. He broke her heart when he dumped her for Aerith Gainsborough. And now she's alone with him in Costa. And you sent her there. Boss, you are a fucking idiot."
For a few moments the only sounds in the car were the smooth hum of the engine and the hiss of the tires on the tarmac.
"Both of them," said Reno, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.
He couldn't stop picturing their hands. The white gloves. The black gloves. Her pearly skin.
"Oh God. Stop the car. I think I'm going to be sick."
Tseng pulled over. At this dark hour, the highway was empty. Reno flung open the door, fell into the roadway, and retched. His empty stomach brought up nothing but strings of bile: bitterness filled his mouth.
Tseng got out of the car and walked around to stand beside him. The mako streetlamp above their heads bathed them both in its shadowless glare.
"You two… weren't working in Nibelheim," Tseng stated.
Reno hawked, spat, sat back on his heels. "You just worked that out?"
"Your feelings are obvious, of course. I was remiss not to see it before. But I hadn't realized she – reciprocated."
"She used me," Reno gasped, his stomach heaving again.
Tseng went to the car, got a bottle of water, opened it, and gave it to Reno. Reno swilled his mouth out, then drank in noisy gulps.
Tseng said, cruelly, "Are you losing your touch, Reno?"
"Don't – "
"She screwed you over, eh?"
"Shut up."
"I believed her, you know, when she told me you'd stayed behind with a girl. I even sent Rude to Nibelheim to get you. That was probably foolish of me, too. He knows, doesn't he?"
After a moment's hesitation, Reno nodded.
"How long has this been going on?" But Tseng was thinking aloud rather than asking a question, and without waiting for an answer that Reno would not, in any case, have given, he went on, "It can't have been long. And if what you say about Zack is true…. Yes, I see. It makes sense now. Before you went to Nibelheim, I told her to make sure she came back by the end of the week, because we wanted her to go to Costa with Zack Fair. It must have seemed to her like a golden opportunity. But you were in the way, weren't you? You knew too much. And you were too involved. She had to figure out a way to neutralize you before you interfered. And with Roz suddenly out of action, and the Chief assigning you to the Nibelheim mission, everything fell into place. And she actually persuaded you to go and wait for her in Rocket Town." Tseng barked a laugh. "She's a resourceful girl, I'll give her that."
Holding on to the car door, Reno pulled himself to his feet. "You're enjoying this, you bastard."
"Less than you'd think," Tseng replied. "But you brought it on yourself. You know the rules. You chose to ignore them. Get in the car. I'll take you home. You'll be seeing the Commander tomorrow morning."
Reno didn't move. He said, "But Cissnei's still in Costa with Zack Fair."
"Yes. We'll have to bring her back now, but I see no immediate cause for alarm. I trust Zack. What's the worst that could happen? She throws herself at him, and possibly humiliates herself in the process… Which will be painful for her, but hardly a threat to the company."
Reno realized that Tseng still wasn't seeing it.
He could have kept silent. But the desire for revenge had lodged like a hot coal in his throat. He had to spit it out, and he hoped – god, he hoped – it would burn her:
"Don't you get it, Boss? She's gone to Costa to tell him the truth about Aerith Gainsborough."
Tseng froze. In the cold lamplight Reno saw the blood drain from his face. The possibility that Cissnei might do such a thing had obviously never crossed his mind.
"No," said Tseng, "She wouldn't."
"What other ammo's she got? She's probably told him already."
"But - but she knows that would be putting Aerith's life in danger."
"D'you think she gives a fuck? Shit, Tseng, don't you know anything about women?"
Tseng threw his head back and ran a hand over his hair, his eyes searching through the sky as if he might find there something to contradict Reno's certainty that Cissnei had betrayed them both. To the east dawn was a seam of pale light between the clouds and the broken horizon. When Tseng looked back at Reno, he had come to a decision.
"You drive," he said, putting the keys in Reno's hand. "And try to keep your mind on what you're doing."
As soon as they were moving again he took out his phone and made a call. It rang and rang. Nobody answered.
"Cissnei?" said Reno.
"Just drive. And hurry." Tseng dialed another number. "Knox, it's me. I need you to fly with me to Costa. Get up to the pad. I'm calling them now."
Reno said, "I'll fly you."
Tseng ignored him. He called the helipad and ordered them to have a chopper ready to take off in ten minutes.
"I'm going with you," said Reno.
"Put your foot down."
The tires burnt a trail of rubber onto the tarmac as they sped down the ramp into the Shinra building's basement car park. Tseng leapt from the car while it was still moving and sprinted for the stairway that led to the lobby. Reno jumped out, leaving the engine running, and ran after him. The reception area was empty except for a couple of guards. Reno caught up with his boss at the foot of the mezzanine stairs and grabbed his arm. "I said I'm going with you."
"No," said Tseng.
"Yes – "
"Don't make this worse for yourself – "
Reno did not want to fight Tseng. His one thought was to get to Cissnei. Tseng was in his way. He tried to shove him aside. Tseng fell backwards against the wall; his right leg lashed out, kicking Reno in the knees. Reno grabbed onto the banister to steady himself. Coiling back his fist, he aimed for Tseng's nose – but he was wrung out and he'd had nothing to eat all day. He was too slow. Tseng blocked the move with his right forearm and punched Reno hard on the cheekbone. Reno crumpled.
Dazed by the blow, he was only dimly aware of Tseng bending over him. Next thing he knew his face was being turned from side to side, Tseng's ungentle fingers probing for any broken bones.
"You'll be all right," Tseng told him. "You need some food. You need some rest. Go home."
"Home?"
"The Commander expects you in his office at ten. You should clean up first. Get changed."
Get changed? wondered Reno. That's a good one. Wish I could. Change out of this skin I'm in. It's barely holding me together. Can't he see?
Perhaps Tseng did see. He lingered another moment at Reno's side, rested a gloved hand on his shoulder. When he spoke again, his tone was different, warmer. Almost – compassionate? "Just wait here. I'll send someone down for you."
"No…."
But Tseng was already gone, running up the stairs towards the elevator.
Reno remained slumped where he had fallen. A bruise was forming on his cheek. His face hurt, and he knew it, but he couldn't feel it enough to care. He was hungry and exhausted. Did it matter? Why? Sleep, food, pain: these things were only skin-deep.
Some far away part of his mind registered the sound of the guard's voice saying, "Hey, you there – "
He felt numbed. Punch-drunk.
Stupid. Stupid. How could he have been so stupid?
She had used him. And he'd allowed her to. He'd given his fucking permission. Hey, what are friends for?
"How did you get in here?" The guard's voice was growing louder.
I dreamed of you. Yes. I wanted you. I never lied. I love you too.
Then why did you do this to me?
"What are you doing? " exclaimed the guard, "Don't touch that – "
But I told you, I don't love you like that. Not like – him.
A gun fired.
Reno's head jerked up, eyes snapping into focus.
The sound of a revving engine came from the showroom behind the reception. By its tone he knew at once it was the Hardy-Daytona. Next instant, the bike itself burst through the showroom doors and skidded in a circle across the marble floor, slamming against the side of the stairs. There it rested for a moment, shuddering from the vibrations of its weapons-grade engine. Reno got a clear look at the rider – the thief: a whey-faced boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, with a hard mouth and stoned eyes, dressed in zippered black jeans and an old army great-coat.
The guard was leaning against the showroom doorpost, clutching his bleeding gut. "You! Turk! Reno!" he gasped. "He's stealing the bike! Stop him!"
The thief tossed his hair from his eyes, hauled the bike upright, and gunned the engine. It began to move, but not as fast as Reno could move: he calculated the trajectory, crossed the floor, and jumped onto the back of the bike just before it shot through the front door of the Shinra Building, carrying thief and Turk outside into the dawn light.
The thief kicked back with one foot. "Get the fuck off," he snarled. "It's mine."
"I don't think so," said Reno, trying to reach under the kid's arms to grab hold of the controls. The bike careered madly down the road, veering from side to side. They crashed through some garbage cans, caught the edge of one of the lids and bounced into the air.
"You fucker!" screamed the boy. "You'll kill us!"
"Who cares?" said Reno.
Tires squealing, the bike took the corner into Fountain Square at top speed and spun out of control. A few early risers, out for their morning stroll, shrieked and scattered for cover. The boy fell off first; Reno threw himself forward, yanked the wheel around, and hit the brakes. But the bike was going too fast. Reno bailed, landing on his feet just as the bike hit the edge of the fountain. It turned over and crashed into the water, hissing and sparking. Reno was drenched with the spray.
A bullet smacked into the wall behind him. He looked round. The kid had pulled a semi-automatic from his greatcoat and was pointing it, not very accurately, at Reno's head. Again he fired; again, he missed. Reno walked over to him, broke his wrist with a blow, and took the gun. "Did you just try to kill me, bitch?"
The boy's mouth twisted in pain. "Fuck off and die," he wheezed.
"No," said Reno. "You."
He flipped the gun round in his hand, and with its butt cracked the kid a blow to the back of his skull that knocked him to his knees. A second blow laid him flat on the pavement. Too easy. "C'mon," Reno muttered, toeing him in the ribs. "Fight me." The kid groaned and tried to push up on his good arm. "C'mon, bitch," Reno urged him. The boy flailed a fist in Reno's direction, then flopped again, gasping. Reno laughed. "Don't be so weak, bitch."
Turning the boy over, Reno took hold of his coat lapels and dragged him towards the fountain, leaving a thin trail of blood in their wake. He pushed the boy's head into the cold water. The boy's eyes and mouth flew open and he struggled to break free of Reno's grip. Reno took hold of him by the hair and yanked his head up. The boy gagged, spitting out water. His eyes were dark with pain and fear and anger. "Bitch," said Reno again, almost conversationally. "Where'd you get the idea you could fuck with Shinra?
From somewhere the thief found the strength to break loose from Reno's grip long enough to lunge forward and head-butt him. Reno's head snapped back on his spine; his jaws clashed together, and he felt a molar crack. Lithely he jumped up, straddling the boy's body, and with both hands dug his fingers deep into the roots of the boy's thick reddish-brown hair. "Bitch," he hissed, shoving the boy's head under the water with such force that it cracked against the bottom of the fountain. Then he pulled him out, and pushed him in again, and pulled him out, and pushed him in again, and he no longer knew that he was shouting out loud as he did so "Bitch! Bitch!"
Suddenly people were swarming all over him – blue uniforms pulling his prey from his hands; a strong pair of arms wrapping round him, pinning his own to his sides. He tried to fight them off. "Stop it!" a woman's voice cried. "It's me – Mink! Stop it, Reno – you're killing him! He's just a kid!"
For another moment or two he struggled against her, but she was as strong as he was, and she was fresh, while he…. Why was he fighting, when he had already lost?
"We don't do this," Mink exclaimed passionately. "We don't kill like this. This is not what we do."
It was over, anyway. The grunts had put the body, alive or dead, on a stretcher and were carrying it away. The water in the fountain had turned pink. Reno's trousers, his shirt, even his socks, were sticky with blood. Clumps of hair and scalp had wedged under his fingernails.
"Let's go," said Mink.
Go? What was she talking about? Go where? Nowhere, anywhere: it was all the same. Here or there, this fountain or the office, Midgar or Rocket Town, life or death… What difference did it make, when Cissnei was not waiting for him in any of these places?
She was never coming back. He would never see her again. He knew it, in his bones, in his gut, in his heart. She was gone.
He sat down on the edge of the fountain, put his bruised head in his bloody hands, and cried.
Mink had no idea why he was crying, or what had filled him with such rage; yet the sight of him made her own eyes burn. Of all of them, he was the last one she would have expected to see break down like this. Seating herself beside him, she only hesitated for a moment. Then she put her arms around his shoulders, and to comfort him murmured the nonsense everyone utters at times like these: it's OK, don't worry, everything will be all right.