Chapter 16: A Woman Alone
Jessie Wallace stood at the construction site. A new hotel was coming up near the station to Gold Saucer, for those who didn't feel like paying the ridiculous prices on site.
She stood in her hard hat, plaid button-down and jeans, supervising each and every worker. For she was the foreman.
She could have chosen a white-collar desk job, but she said that would be "boring;" she preferred the loudness and explosions.
Lately, however, her reputation began to suffer, and it was no mystery why. Word had gotten around about her drunken blackout on Christmas night in 0008; the same night Sephiroth mysteriously escaped his cell. Everyone knew she had access to it, and was one of only six people who did. Everyone on site put two and two together.
They listened to her, but they gave her quite a few dirty looks. Jessie could feel the unpleasant vibe.
Then, someone had the balls to test her by relieving himself on a concrete frame.
"Hey you!" Jessie called. "Somebody's going to stay there!"
He zipped up his jeans and turned to face her.
"Sorry," he said sarcastically.
"Wash you hands," Jessie commanded. "Now."
"What'll I get for it?" the worker taunted. "Free pizza? Free ice cream? Free Sephiroth?"
"I'm innocent until proven guilty," sighed Jessie.
"Everyone knows you did it," the worker continued. "They all feel the same way as I do. I'm only saying it."
"That's it," Jessie snapped. "I'm sending you home without pay!"
"Fine, whatever," he grunted. "You don't even belong here."
That hit home.
"Where do I belong?" she asked. "The kitchen? Jail? Sephiroth's lap?"
"Dead," he replied. "As of my understanding."
Jessie's mouth dried.
She hated it when someone brought up the fact that she was only alive because of the timeline change.
She was well aware she was supposed to have been crushed by the Sector Seven Plate.
And then, her phone buzzed.
It was the project manager.
The text read: "Meet me in my office ASAP."
MINUTES LATER…
Carl, the project manager, sat across from Jessie in his office.
Jessie sat there patiently, wondering what the meeting was about.
"Do you know why I called you in here?" Carl began.
Jessie shook her head.
"I've come in receipt of some videos," he began. "They star you. Paying a visit to Sephiroth when he was petrified."
"We haven't even proven the person who freed Sephiroth was from our group," Jessie insisted.
"Who said this had anything to do with freeing Sephiroth?" Carl asked, both sarcastically and suspiciously.
Jessie felt her stomach tighten; she had seemingly cooked her own goose.
Carl then played the video on his phone. It featured Jessie there, sitting by the petrified Sephiroth. It was surveillance footage retrieved from the Nibelheim Reactor.
"Why were you always going to see him?" Carl naturally pressed.
"It's kind of hard to explain," Jessie replied sheepishly.
"You mean you planned to unpetrify him?"
"I have no memory of freeing him!" Jessie defended. "We haven't even confirmed it was one of the six. And even if we did, there's still been no trial."
"The six?" inquired Carl.
"Six of us had keycards to Sephiroth's cell," Jessie explained. "Reeve, Red XIII, Cid, Shera, my husband, and I."
"Ironically, you're all criminals," Carl said.
"Excuse me?" the offended Jessie began.
"You and Barret blew up mako reactors. You also rebelled against the Shinra. Barret trespassed in the Shinra Building. He hitched a ride on the transcontinental barge without a ticket."
"Are you done bad mouthing my husband?" Jessie demanded.
"Cid assaulted Palmer, a Shinra employee," Carl continued. "He also freed Tifa Lockhart from prison. He refused a lawful order to surrender the Tiny Bronco. And he smokes marijuana!"
"Please stop," Jessie requested.
"Red XIII hitched a ride on the transcontinental barge without a ticket," Carl rambled. "He assaulted Hojo, a Shinra employee. He assaulted the president. He refused to comply with the science department."
"This is nothing I don't already know!" Jessie insisted.
"Reeve committed treason by helping you. He also used his avatar to free the aforementioned Tifa Lockhart from-"
"Can we just get to the point?" Jessie pleaded.
"I'm going to have to suspend you without pay," Carl informed her. "I'm sorry. But this comes from the top."
MEANWHILE…
Shelke suddenly entered the room and immediately threatened Vincent with her weapon.
Vincent pointed Cerberus at her, loaded with the tranquilizer bullets.
"End it now," Lucrecia commanded.
Shelke immediately charged Vincent, who immediately jumped back.
He aimed Cerberus at her, but she quickly dodged out of the way.
"Damn, she's slick!" Vincent muttered.
He then aimed for her forehead, and fired.
He did not miss this time.
Shelke collapsed and fell to her knees, then backward to the floor.
"Shelke!" cried Shalua as she ran to her fallen sister.
Deciding to give the sisters some privacy, Reeve, Vincent, and Lucrecia turned and left the room.
They found themselves mindlessly meandering through corridors for a few minutes.
Suddenly, the ceiling collapsed, and down came a familiar face.
"We meet again," Azul announced as he rose to his feet and began to advance on him. "Answer me this. Do you know why you even exist?"
Vincent elected not to dignify that with response.
"Just as I thought," Azul continued. "Ignorant to your own destiny."
"His destiny is me!" Lucrecia snapped.
"Very well," sighed Azul. "I'll show you what you really are."
Vincent aimed Cerberus and pulled the trigger.
Suddenly, the bullet exploded, and a blinding force field appeared around Azul.
"You think that toy can penetrate my armor?" the monster taunted. "Enough of the games, Vincent. Give me the Protomateria!"
"Vincent!" called Reeve from behind. "Over here!"
Vincent fired Cerberus, again fruitlessly, at Azul several more times before he turned and followed Reeve.
"You can't run!" hollered Azul.
The chase was on.
Vincent, Lucrecia, and Reeve ran through the corridors, with Azul less than two yards behind them.
"Vincent!"
"What?" asked Lucrecia.
"You'll know when you'll see it!" Reeve answered.
They ran into a larger room, and right in the middle of it was a bazooka.
With no time to speak or think, Vincent grabbed the bazooka, spun one hundred and eighty degrees, and fired on Azul.
The resulting explosion was so powerful that it sent Vincent, Reeve, and Lucrecia to the ground.
"You shouldn't leave those things lying around," Vincent quipped as he rose to his feet.
When the dust settled, an unpleasant surprise presented itself.
Azul was standing there, alive and well, and he had seized the bazooka.
"Well done," he cackled. "You have broken through my barrier."
"This ends here," Vincent announced. "Leave him to me."
"Long has it been since I faced a worthy opponent!" Azul declared.
"Oh for fuck's sake!" shouted Lucrecia as she aimed the Hanging Judge. "Stop hogging the heroics for yourself!"
She fired directly into the barrel of the bazooka.
Suddenly the bazooka turned red, and grew hot.
So hot that even the mighty Azul had to drop it.
Vincent and Lucrecia, meanwhile, knew what exactly was going to happen.
Azul realized it was well-too late.
The bazooka exploded, sending Azul flying across the room.
He struggled to his feet, and glared at Vincent and Lucrecia.
"You may think this is the end, but-"
Unable to finish, he fell hard, face forward.
Vincent ran to him and checked his pulse.
"Is-is he….?" asked Lucrecia.
"No," Vincent replied. "But he won't be in commission for some time."
LATER…
"Lucrecia," Reeve said. "Are there any digital copies of your thesis? I think we need it to fix this situation."
He, Vincent, and Lucrecia were making their way through the halls, figuring out where to go from there.
"My thesis only exists in the hard copy," Lucrecia replied. "And it's in the laboratory under the Presidential Residence in Nibelheim."
"What else can you remember?" Reeve asked.
"Not much," Lucrecia answered.
Reeve sighed.
"Hey!" Lucrecia defended. "That's why I printed it out on paper. Otherwise it would defeat the purpose."
"I suppose we'll have to retrieve it from the lab ourselves," Vincent suggested.
"Well," Reeve began as he pulled out his cell phone, "you can't just walk in there, for obvious reasons."
Lucrecia turned to Vincent.
"Looks like we have to get to Nibelheim," she said. "I know Tifa won't have a problem with us looking for it."
"And then," Vincent replied, "I suggest we make a digital copy."
"I suppose that would be wise," Lucrecia agreed.
She then turned to see Reeve put his phone in his pocket.
"Strange," he muttered. "I can't reach the president."
"The government adjourned," Vincent reminded him. "Could she have gone on vacation?"
"I heard she went sailing," Reeve answered. "You won't be able to get into the former Shinra Manor as long as she's gone. And even if you did, you couldn't get to the basement. Cloud and Tifa had it walled off three years ago."
Vincent sighed.
"Never mind," he groaned. "Lucrecia, you'll have to try to remember."
"I have no idea," she said. "That's why I wrote it down. It would be superhuman to remember it all."
Vincent was silent; it did make sense, and there was really no sense in blaming her.
"That might not be the only way in," Lucrecia added. "There was an escape route to the sewer system, just in case something went wrong down there."
"I heard about that, too," Reeve said. "If you wish to enter the manor in one piece, I suggest you use the sewer system extending from the old mako reactor."
"Sewer?" sighed Vincent. "How appropriate is that?"
Around the corner, Reeve could see Cait Sith sitting next to Parker.
"Now, as for me and my feline companion," Reeve began, "It is time we found out what Deepground is truly up to."
He then noticed who wasn't there.
So he turned to his husband.
"And where the hell is Sage?"
"She's headed for Midgar," Parker said. "And I'm quite certain I know the specific location she's going."
"Zack's," Reeve muttered.
THAT NIGHT…
Barret had come home from his job as director of mining operations to find Jessie home already.
"You're home early," he observed.
"Yeah," she sighed. "I got furloughed indefinitely."
"Furloughed indefinitely?" he inquired.
"I was suspended without pay," she clarified.
Barret ran his hand over his beard.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I'm under investigation for freeing Sephiroth, that's why," Jessie sighed. "Everyone's totally convinced that I did it." She paused. "Including me."
"Including you?"
"I remember being at Cid and Shera's," Jessie recalled. "I blacked out, and the next thing I remember is that you woke me up. I was in a ditch."
"And you think you freed him while drunk?" Barret asked. "Just because?"
"Well," she replied, "I never told anyone this, but when I woke up, my key card was out of my wallet. In my pocket, but out of my wallet."
"It could've just slipped out," he suggested.
"Fat chance," she dismissed.
"And you have no memory," Barret pressed, "of what happened in between?"
Jessie shook her head.
"We got a couple of invitations," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "One of them's to Cid and Shera's wedding."
"So they're inviting me, too," Jessie said in a monotone.
"They're still your friends," Barret pointed out. "And Shera invited you to her bachelorette party."
Jessie laughed and put her hands in her face.
"No thanks," she replied. "I may have freed Sephiroth, but cheating on my husband is where I draw the line."
Barret shook his head.
"That's not cheating," he assured her.
"Using tentacled dildos in front of your girlfriends isn't cheating?" Jessie asked skeptically.
"So long as you ain't kissin' nobody," Barret assured her.
Jessie sighed.
"We'll see," she said. "I am a wife and mother. On the other hand, I'm about to go to jail for the rest of my life, so…"
She couldn't finish.
She was doing her best to hide it, but she felt sick inside. She had gotten drunk that Christmas, and had no memory of what happened until she awoke, hungover, in a ditch.
The most reasonable explanation was that she had freed Sephiroth while drunk, and she was beginning to accept it.
"Maybe if I can prove I did it in a drunken stupor, they can reduce it to several decades," she suggested.
Barret was silent.
He knew he was about to lose his wife.
And he knew he was about to raise their son alone.
Still, Jessie needed to enjoy whatever was left of the life she wasn't supposed to have.
"I have an idea," Barret began. "I have to work tomorrow, but why don't you announce on social media you're going to Gold Saucer tomorrow?"
"I don't know," Jessie replied skeptically.
"Announce it," Barret commanded. "And say whoever wants to join you can. And watch the friends show up."
Jessie sighed.
She pulled out her cell phone and updated her status.
"I'll be at Gold Saucer tomorrow. Come out if you want to hang out."
She then put her phone away.