Chapter 70: Return to the Warehouse
The motorcycle convoy moved quickly through the fields of the Western Continent.
Tifa was at the head. Cloud was a couple of yards behind her. Tobin was third, and I was bringing up the rear.
I had never in my life seen Tifa so determined at anything. I knew her as Tifa the friend, Tifa the fighter, and Tifa the president. But this was a Tifa I was still getting used to.
This was Tifa the mother.
At 7:37, the warehouse appeared in the background. We all pulled out motorcycles to a stop and scanned the entrance. This was the first time I had seen it myself; it was covered with a brick tower with three arches at the bottom and a window above each arch. It really didn't look much like a warehouse.
To the left of the arches, it read "Boomda," all in lower case, though it appeared that there were letters missing.
"This is a relic from the Old World," Tifa began. "Brought here, piece by piece, when this world was settled long ago."
Of course, we had little time. We dismounted our motorcycles.
"Cloud," Tifa began. "I need you to lead the way. You've been here before."
"Two years ago," he replied. "But I'll remember what I can."
We then entered the warehouse.
You wouldn't know this place, unless you read Chapters 9 and 10 of this memoir. That was, of course, when Cloud came here back in 0008 with Barret and Shera. Now, if you remember, the first room they entered was a dark and musty one, full of boxes and cobwebs, and that was exactly what we saw there.
The condition of the place didn't bother Tifa in the least. She marched with direction through the room, and up the stairwell at the end of it.
We followed her up the stairs and through the doorway. Then, we beheld the hallway with four doors on each side and one at the end.
"Where to, now?" Tifa asked.
"All of these rooms are dead ends," Cloud replied.
He then pointed to the third door on the left.
"Except for this one," he added.
We all entered that room.
Do you remember what was in there?
There was a stairwell with orange carpeting. It seemed to lead up to the next level.
"Let's go," Tifa announced.
Cloud immediately grabbed her arm.
"Cloud!" Tifa exclaimed angrily. "Our daughter-"
The stairs began to move.
The guns started firing.
Tifa quickly jumped away from the stairs.
So, yeah, in case you forgot, those stairs were the potentially deadly booby-trap Barret had nearly fallen victims to in Chapter 10. You probably didn't think this warehouse would come back later, did you?
"There has to be another way up," Tifa said.
"Everything else is a dead end," Cloud replied. "And every other entrance to this warehouse is sealed. Those stairs are the only way."
For a few moments, all four of us stared at the moving staircase.
"So how do we get past them?" I asked aloud.
And then, Aerith appeared again.
"There's a control room upstairs," she announced. "If one of you can make it up there, they can shut off the guns."
"Aerith just said there's a control room upstairs," Tifa explained to Cloud and Tobin. "One of us can get up there and shut the guns off."
"But how can that person get past the guns in the first place?" Tobin asked skeptically.
"The first room had a copier in it," Cloud recalled. "The gun turrets are only on the left hand side of the stairs. If someone can ride the stairs up, hiding behind the copier, they might stand a chance."
"We don't even know if that copier's bulletproof," Tobin said.
Tifa then cracked her knuckles.
"But there's only one way to find out," she said.
She and Cloud moved the copier from the first room to the bottom of the stairs.
"Who gets to ride the stairs?" I asked.
"I do," Tifa replied in less than a second.
Cloud and Tobin pushed the copier onto the stairs with Tifa behind it.
Both the copier and Tifa began to ascend the moving stairs in unison.
Cloud, Tobin, and I stood nervously at the bottom as we watched, worried that Tifa could fall down dead at any moment.
But, fortunately, she made it to the top.
"I'll be back!" she called to us.
We stood there for several minutes.
Then, we saw the stairs stop moving, and the turrets stop firing.
"I guess that means we're safe," Cloud said.
A moment later, he darted up the stairs.
Tobin and I followed.
MEANWHILE...
"Dammit," muttered Sumner.
"What's wrong?" Jack Balen inquired.
"They got past the shooting stairs," Sumner replied.
They were in their hiding place, with surveillance screens in front of them.
Fourteen-month-old Ada Strife was seated in a chair behind them, completely oblivious to her predicament.
"Relax," Jack assured him. "It's a little nothing. Do you think they have any idea what kind of a place they're in?"
Sumner shook his head.
"I rest my case," Jack declared.
He then eyed Tifa on the security screen.
"Good luck finding your daughter in time, bitch," he said.
MEANWHILE...
Cloud, Tobin, and I met Tifa at the top of the stairs.
I scanned the area. All I saw were mattresses and furniture.
"Black and white tiles everywhere," Tobin observed. "What was this place?!"
"My guess is a store," Cloud replied.
Tifa, as you'd probably expect, was ahead of us, looking for her baby girl.
Just then, Tobin spotted a paper bag on the counter. He dusted it off and scanned it.
"What does it say?" I asked.
"It says 'big brown bag,'" Tobin replied.
"Let the record show we found a big brown bag," I sighed.
Meanwhile, Tifa was walking toward a light we could all see around the corner.
We followed her, and none of us could believe what we saw.
A long tunnel beheld us. There were pillars lining it up, and there was stores on each side. Long, thin fluorescent lights decorated the tops of each pillar.
There were two levels below us.
"What the fuck!" I exclaimed.
I don't swear that often, but I couldn't help myself. I had never seen anything like this in my life.
Meanwhile, Tifa began to tense up, and we all knew why.
This was a big place; much bigger than we thought.
Ada could be anywhere.
And we had less than four hours to find her.