It is a bronze bullet cutting through the night, throwing up swirls of newspapers on empty streets where dinging alarms and lowered safety arms cut off the flow of traffic that is not there, while the train blows through much busier neighborhoods with streets that have no safety systems at all, forcing drivers to slam on their brakes or punch the gas lest they be hit by a hundred tons of steel moving with all the tremendous fury of a cannonball. The train, bound for Sector 1's North Gate Station does not slow; like all mammoth forces, it does not yield. It charges through the city, causing vagrant mutts to howl and bark; causing the windows of the buildings it passes to rattle; causing some of the buildings themselves to rattle; causing terrible clouds of dust and grime to rise and be pushed out from the tracks. The last train out of Sector 2 Station thunders along the upper plate of Midgar, scattering all in its path to the four winds. From its windows, Midgar is a blur of neon signs and blinking lights over a backdrop of blended copper and steel.
On a usual night, it arrives at North Gate at 11:30, for the pick-up and loading of raw materials to be transported from reactor 01 to reactor 02, which usually occurs anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes after it has arrived. On a usual night, it also sits in the Sector 1 station to wait for the latest shift of reactor employees out of Sector 2 to board for their nightly commutes home.
This is no usual night.
When the train began to pull out of the Sector 2 station five minutes ahead of schedule, before all of the shipping orders could be signed and confirmed, the conductor received an urgent phone call from the station manager, who— in as coherent terms as one who is screaming at the top of his lungs could put together— informed the conductor he had left behind an important delivery sheet and that the head of the railroad commission was going to hear of this, and that he could kiss his job with Shinra Transit good-bye. At this juncture, the conductor, in his most austere yet polite tone, notified the manager that everything that was needed was already on board, and that he could roll up the delivery sheet and shove it, or have the head of the railroad commission do it for him if he was so inclined, before cutting the line of communication from the train to the station.
Of course, it was not the conductor of the Sector 2 train the manager had been speaking to, but a man named Barret Wallace. Impersonating the conductor had been a lie— the conductor was unconscious, tied up and gagged in the back of the train. Most of what he had said was true, though— everything he needed was on board. Besides, Barret Wallace had something of his own to deliver.
Something bigger. Soon, they'd all know what it was.
One—Recruitment I
But first, they would have to get past the station. Due to its strange construction, Midgar has been built upon itself year after year, giving it many stacked layers, placing buildings and streets on levels that seem to rise and fall at random. North Gate Station itself is set in one of these areas, sunken just below street-level— all nearby roads have been built around it, boxing it in, turning the lane in front of the station into a cul-de-sac. A single Y-shaped street lamp stands just beyond the track's end, to mark the large iron doors leading into a tunnel under the upper-level street running across the path of the train.
In front of the station, a pair of Midgar policemen stand watch, expecting very little and ready for even less.
All his life, Pez Argo worried about the future. That's why, when he joined the Midgar police force, it seemed like the most uncharacteristic job choice he could have made. His family and the people he grew up with knew him as the guy who never scraped his knees; he was too afraid to climb trees. But something happened to him that changed all that; Pez Argo grew up. Besides, being a constable was an easy enough job. All that was required were sharp eyes and sharp wits, and he was definitely up to snuff on both counts.
Decked out in the red and gray uniform of Midgar's finest, complete with a boxy hat with long ear-flaps, he finally felt like he could stop worrying about the future and be somebody. In his uniform, he felt important, and he felt like for once in his life, that he could stop worrying about himself if he was thinking about everyone else.
Standing across from him was Hector Borgan, another of Midgar's finest on duty at North Gate station. Hector had ways of describing this job, too, though none of his terms had such a noble shine. If you had asked him if he was protecting the citizens of Midgar, he would have told you straight-up that none of them ever came to this end of Midgar except early in the morning and late at night, when the train would let off and let on employees going to and from the number one reactor. If you asked him if he liked being on duty at the station, he would have told you it was boring as rocks but beat having to deal with street punks or sector truants, and that it sure as Hell was better than the best job a policeman working in the lower level of Midgar could get. If you asked him if he took pride in his work, he would have told you that, yes, he did. Otherwise, why would he put his life on the line? Besides, anyone put on mid-evening station detail was too much of a screw-up to work any dangerous city beats.
At the moment, Borgan and Argo had little to say to one another. Most times, they could pass hour after hour making small-talk about nothing too important. Still, time and numerous conversations had formed a strange friendship between the two. Neither really knew how the other one really felt about the job, but that didn't seem to matter when it was just two guys, a lot of empty track, and the lights of Midgar.
Tonight, the boarding paddock is particularly calm. They didn't have any reason to believe it wouldn't be a night unlike any other night, and in hindsight, while neither one of them would show up for work the next day— they would both be fired by then— they would not feel bad, because they were still alive; after the 11:30 train pulled in that night, few of the people working in the North Gate Mako facility were. A cool breeze swept up the tracks, carrying the bitter fluoride stink of small-Mako engines, the trademark odor of exhaust omitted from Shinra vehicles. On the distant turnpike, they could hear the sounds of cars whizzing past one another, and the occasional blat of horns as people shared angry critiques on one another's driving.
It was 11:28.
The bullhorn on the wall gave a dull hum and a soft, modulated female voice announced that the 11:30 train had just crossed the last sensor and would be arriving soon. "Please step away from the red tiles, to ensure your safety upon the train's arrival," that soft robotic lady-voice commanded with calm authority. "This is Shinra Incorporated's friendly-station early-warning system. Please step away from the red tiles, to ensure your safety upon the train's arrival. This is Shinra Incorporated's—" it droned on and on. It would repeat the same message for the next two minutes, until the train had finally arrived. Both men had learned, on some levels, to filter out that voice after one repetition. Borgan was annoyed with the pushy, useless recording, and so was Pez. It had reminded Argo of his mother every night up until the time Hector said he'd like to get nasty with the owner of the voice on the recording.
Roaring. Screeching. The groaning, teeth-chattering wail of strained metal. The 11:30 was right on time, its huge phosphorescent headlight the eye of an enraged cyclops awakened from a deep sleep. Everything about the train seemed angry, even at a distance. The two guards felt it, but said nothing, each man dismissing it as one of those funny feelings you sometimes got while working any kind of night-job. When the brakes didn't lock up until it was five lengths farther down the track— and closer to them— than it should have been, they exchanged nervous glances. The train's wheels spewed sparks in twin wakes, sending orange, crackling waves well over the red protective tiles; thanks, Shinra Inc., for your friendly-station early-warning system. Thanks a whole damn heap. Argo and Borgan knew damn well to stay further back, and that they did, but this time both of them were ready to run. The train was still coming on too fast, but in the end they were wrong about just how fast it was going. Squealing and groaning, the train came to a rough stop just five feet clear of the track's end. Not much farther beyond that was a brick wall laying around the outside of a wall of steel three feet thick, and the beginnings of Mako-01's outer station, and the street running along North Gate.
Maybe if it had smashed into that wall like a missile, it would have been a good thing.
Pez saw the intruders before Hector did. After all, his eyes had always been sharp. The door on the conductor's engine had come open slowly, and all the lights were off. He could tell in an instant that something was amiss. When Biggs jumped from the opened cabin to the red tiles at the track's edge, he knew everything had gone terribly wrong.
"Halt!" Argo cried, charging the muscle-bound fighter who leapt from the conductor's cabin. Pez could tell by the man's mottled green outfit and red headband that he was no Shinra employee.
The fighter did just the opposite of the guard's command. He barreled at Pez Argo head on, his face marked by a small grin, his eyes hard and playful, yet full of violent intent and underscored by black lines of war-paint. The tails of his scarlet headband flipped out behind him, caught in the wake of his motion. Pez made a grab for Biggs and found his arm captured and wrenched forward. A moment later, he saw his own feet leave the ground, saw the large 1-0b printed on the archway column beside the gated ticket-office, saw the muddy gray sky, and then saw nothing but the inside of his eyelids as he landed on his head and shoulders and went unconscious.
Hector witnessed this and charged at Biggs, hoping to take him down before he was finished with Pez. He might have well succeeded, had not a second person interposed herself between him and the first intruder. Chambering on one leg just like Tifa had shown her, Jessie snapped her other leg out like a piston. Borgan ran into it gut-first, and was lifted off his feet and sent sailing backwards, into the metal covering atop the train's wheels before falling into a boneless heap across the red tiles. He was out cold.
Confidently, Barret hopped off the train. Wedge, the roly-poly guy leapt out behind him, the rifle slung over one shoulder, a red bandanna wrapped around his head. Biggs and Jessie were already going through the pockets of the downed police. From each man they gleaned a single potion, but they knew better than to celebrate about it. If Biggs, Wedge, and Jess had one thing in common, it was that they were able to game-up when it was time to play.
Barret looked up at the second car's roof, and though he saw no one, he knew Cloud could see him; after watching his own back for so long, he had a sense about when someone was eyeballing him. With a beckoning 'come-on' wave of his right arm, he gave Cloud the signal to jump.
Cloud flipped over the railing along the top of the boxcar and landed neatly in front of the big man. The Buster Sword was strapped to Cloud's back, but that didn't seem to matter; his landing had been perfect. Their eyes met for a moment, and Cloud's had that cold, restrained look that Barret was coming to hate more by the minute. At the moment, though, he could care less. There were bigger problems at hand.
"Newcomer, this way. Follow!"
Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie had already dashed off down the street when Wallace turned and chased after them, rounding a corner and taking a flight of three steps up beneath an archway all in one leap. Just behind the leader, two Shinra MPs in full military regalia, holding light sub machine guns in their hands, filed out of an alley and made to follow. Cloud stepped up behind them, took their shoulders in his hands and drove their heads together with such force that both of them went out like a pair of doused candles. Their helmets did nothing to protect them— Cloud was too damn strong.
Remembering the leader's repeated warnings against causing a ruckus, Cloud tossed the unconscious men back into the alley they'd sprung from and kept going. He never even missed a step.
Jessie knelt before North Gate, huddled over a rectangular box marked with a keypad and a digital strip that was reading out dull orange numbers and letters in lines faster than the eye could follow. She didn't have to follow them. Wires running from the back of the box were spliced into the couplings that kept the gate locked. From her splicing box, a coiled wire attached to a simple telephone handset fed her the most important numbers and letters in slow bloops and beeps. She worked the pad accordingly, feeding it the numbers it wanted. Sweat gathered on her brow. Her heart was pounding out a jittery up-tempo beat. There were so many things to consider; opening North Gate, she knew, was like a point of no return. Beyond this gate was nothing but death, only it would be up to luck and fate whose death would come, and it could very well be hers.
Pushing aside her fears, she continued to work on getting the code entered. Despite the fact that this mission was the largest, most important and most dangerous she had ever embarked on, and that opening the gates would only ensure that she could not turn back, there was something about falling into her work that made it easier. Following the tones of the code running through the electrical system of the North Gate couplings, Jessie felt blessed peace descend upon her. It made her job much easier.
Wedge stood to her left, paying no particular attention to what she was doing. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, and his considerable bulk swayed with the motion, giving him the look of Humpty-Dumpty teetering on the brink. It was a habit that would have driven Jessie to distraction on any normal day. This was no normal day. All of them were nervous and scared— downright terrified, in fact— but they knew this was what they'd shed their blood, sweat, and tears for. This was their night. They would fight for the planet. They might die. If they didn't fight, the planet would die, and they with it. Desperation was the rule of the day. They would give their best reply to desperation tonight, in colors bold enough to light up the whole sky.
Biggs crossed his bare, muscular arms in front of his chest and watched Jessie's fingers keying in the code. He could easily imagine a Shinra MP rounding the far corner. In his hands, he would be holding a pair of leashes, and at the ends of those leashes, a pair of metallic blue guard hounds— cybernetic attack dogs with steel teeth— would be pulling ahead, dragging the MP along. He would see the intruders at the gate. The dogs, who had been pulling his arms off for the last ten minutes would see them too, and they would begin barking and wrenching violently at their fetters. The MP would be very happy to let them go.
Biggs shuddered visibly. The sweat glistening on his skin was a cold one. He thought of the way the jaws of one of those guard hounds could snap down, how the neck could jerk wildly while the taloned blue paws pushed at the victim, giving the jaws more leverage and pull. He squinted his eyes shut tightly, and forced the image away. He remembered what Barret had told all of them on more than one occasion before this raid: If you get caught, don't be carryin' no weapons. Throw up your arms and surrender. Play stupid. You're less likely to get wheeled out in a bag that way. The fact was, all three of them had been silently harboring that last fail-safe directive harder than almost all the other orders the leader had given them. Biggs personally gleaned some comfort from the mantra, and opened his eyes.
When they opened, Biggs could see Cloud on the farthest edge of his periphery. The ex-Soldier was standing there, just outside of their meager congregation, with his right arm cocked back over his shoulder, fingers clutching the hilt of the Buster Sword on his back, body tilted at a ready yet immobile angle that spoke in the silent language of impatience.
Instead of a guard coming 'round the corner with the hounds of Hell in his grasp, Barret emerged and ran toward them from up the street. Apparently, he had finished his quick inspection of the outer wall and was closing in on them fast. Wedge ceased his nervous rocking immediately. Biggs turned toward Wallace. Cloud gave the leader a brief glance, but made no humble or attentive gestures beyond that. From a distance, they could see Barret's brow was creased with aggravation. A usual look for the big man, but this time as Wallace thundered up to them breathing heavily, the storm clouds in his eyes and the way his jaw was set portrayed true anger. They all looked up, expecting a call to retreat or a call to arms. Instead, they got a reprimand.
"T'Hell you all doin'? I thought I told you never to move in a group?" He barked hotly. No replies came. Because he did not press them, they figured he must not have been too badly bothered by their mistake. All of them were well acquainted with just how angry Barret tended to get in the vicinity of Mako Reactors or anything Shinra related. His tone cooled quickly as he looked down at the sole female member of Avalanche...at least the only one present on this job. "Jessie, how's that code comin', girl?"
"I've almost got it, Barret. Just two more figures—"
Barret nodded, and continued to address the group. "You all known this was our target for months, and now we're here. Don't blow it. No...I take that back. We are going to blow it! Our target's the North Mako Reactor. We'll meet on the bridge in front of it."
Biggs and Wedge both nodded. Cloud switched feet, changing the angle of his lean from right to left. Barret ignored him and looked up at the looming face of Mako-01, whose bold white numbers were so prominent over every other feature on the reactor's silvery surface.
Then Barret finally said something that caught Cloud's attention, at least briefly. It was what he did after saying it that kept the former Soldier from returning his concentration to something, anything else. "Shinra's a monster."
Barret had muttered it, and it had been enough to get Cloud to look at him. Now Cloud watched as Barret took hold of his wrapped, injured wrist with his left hand and hoisted his right arm up at a forty-five degree angle, pointing the bandaged nub at the imposing furnace.
A monster we all created. God help us.
It was something Strife had seen dozens of times before, in situations of serious battlefield tension; the human mind could shut down, or transport the shell-shocked individual away from the terror. The eyes of the zoner would assume a vacant, dull look, while the person might continue to move, maybe even to speak, as he would re-enact the memories he was experiencing with such clarity. That was the way Barret appeared now. His upraised arm was trembling, and Cloud could see beads of sweat forming on the big man's forehead. He could tell by the distant look in Wallace's eyes, that the leader was no longer with them. He was somewhere far off, now, in a place of memories and thoughts none-too pleasant. The demon on the mountain. What did we do, when we fought those wars? This is forged with the blood of people from Corel. From Wutai. From all over the whole damn world! Shinra is a demon born, a dark god... and we gotta put a stop to it, right here. Right now— before it destroys everything.
Cloud's eyes narrowed. As he watched the way Barret gestured with his taped-up hand, his suspicions that the man was packing more than just a memory under the gauze was confirmed. He need only wait and see what Wallace was really hiding there. He suspected further that he would, and soon.
"Got it!" Jessie exclaimed. The sound of steel couplings unlocking was a terribly loud metal bang. It sent a cringe through all of them, including Cloud, who took his eyes away from Barret and put them forward. Barret heard the jarring sound as well, and it was enough to bring him out of his reverie. Now North Gate's hydraulic pistons groaned and shot twin jets of white steam onto the street as the doors slid open.
"Remember," Barret commanded, "we meet at the bridge. Keep it low and quiet. Go!" Biggs and Wedge dashed through the gate. As soon as Jessie had her splicing box back inside the leather pouch on her belt, she followed them.
Cloud, who had waited so impatiently for them to get the gates open, stood still, staring off after the others, who soon disappeared into the dark, twisted metal jungle. He felt Barret's eyes on him and glanced toward the leader, who had a sour look on his face.
"Gonna keep my eye on you, newcomer. Don't trust ya."
"Be my guest," Cloud replied. Barret was already halfway through North Gate before the words were half-formed. Cloud spared one last glance up at Mako-01, and underneath the controlled calm that was his charisma, he felt the roll of thunder and the surge of lightning. He gave chase.
The street through the interior of North Gate was paved with long blue-green bricks. It was a narrow, curving path that wound its way through a field of iron and steel mish-mash, so much of it that it defied the eye to pick out any one detail. Here, choked with steel frames, transformers sat in rows, humming an electrical chorus. Iron housings enclosed many cable-boxes on either side of the road, and many boxy, metal buildings that might have been storage sheds but could have been anything at all sat amongst a sea of frames and fencing.
Some of these structures sported slowly turning turbines on their roofs. Many of them had wires strung from one to the next, few of which gave out the occasional crackle followed by a shower of sparks. But more prominent than anything else were the numerous pipes that stretched and curled through, over, and around every possible space. Pipes ran along walls, snaked through bare spaces between generators and housings, and ultimately joined the grand-daddy of all pipes, a massive, rust-colored conduit that ran along the eastern border of the interior yard before bending low and plunging into the Earth.
As the intrepid crew of Avalanche raced through the streets, they could hear the sound of condensed energy rushing through the giant metal vein, and they could feel the fearsome rumble of its passing in the tiles that sat trembling underfoot. Every other second, a powerful thump went through the pipe, thudding against the street, sending vibrations up their legs. It sounded like a heartbeat. The planet's heartbeat. It was a sound that simultaneously filled Barret's veins with ice and his head with fire.
They rounded a corner, and high above them, a pair of towers rose. Between them was set a series of metal railings, and on it, a warning board flashed an easy green. Cloud did not think as much as he knew there would be Soldiers in the towers, and when he made a dash for darker places, he could see that he was right. One of them— an MP wearing the blue uniform with gray trim and the unmistakable face-covering blue helmet that was the trademark of all Shinra Soldiers— paced from one tower to the next, a rifle in clenched in both hands.
The others had seen the guards, too. Cloud watched from between a pair of large metal casings, as the others scurried for cover just as the white globe of a searchlight passed down the center of the street. Cloud could tell by the slow sweep that they didn't actually suspect anyone was down there. It eased his heart little. Straight ahead, he could see the giant tunnel leading out onto the bridge in front of the reactor. There were two Soldiers coming through the darkness, and before them, deadly guard hounds jerked wildly at their leashes.
Barret had slipped into the shadows under the left tower, while Wedge had dropped down at the base of the right one. Jessie and Biggs huddled together between a pair of engine housings. They could feel the stuff inside the housings moving, gears and steel-sinew and pumps and cables— then two MPs stepped out of the tunnel, each lead by a pair of hounds.
Biggs's heart stopped pounding. Jessie's eyes widened. Barret uttered a silent oath. Wedge swallowed hard. Cloud...Cloud watched, and waited.
For an instant, the dog on the far outside turned its blue-plated head to the right. One of the blood-red orbs that sat deep in the hollow cleft of its eye-socket fell on Biggs' hiding place. One knife's blade ear ticked back. The razor-edged segmented tail that rolled from between the beast's front shoulder-blades twitched in the air. Then the dog beside it lifted its head straight up and peered over its partner at the place where it thought it might be sensing something tasty.
"Eh?" The right guard said to the man on his left. "Buddy, take a look at this."
"I see em," Buddy answered. Now his dogs were pulling to the right to join the other two. In the shadows and the junk, Jessie made to crawl deeper into the webwork of steel, but Biggs caught her by the arm. Another of the predatory canines brought its head up in full alert. Its ears pricked forward. Biggs, who had caught Jessie's arm and attention, did not shake his head no— that would have been too much movement— instead he let his eyes roll from side to side, and hoped she got the picture. She did. Together they were frozen in place. Biggs, no religious man, began to say a silent and clumsy prayer.
Now the guards in the tower were paying attention. One of them called down to the patrol unit. "Whatcha got cornered in there?"
"Don't know. Why don't you boys have em shine the spotlight down for us?"
All Shinra parties involved were reluctant to let the guard hounds go tearing into a field of cables and electrical machinery. If it turned out that there were human intruders in there, they might be able to get around the damages or possible loss of dogs due to shock-death, but if the only thing hiding back there was four-legged and answered meow to every question, they could kiss their asses good-bye, and they knew it. The spotlight came down, and began to snake across the pilings.
Cloud Strife used the distraction to climb behind the heavy pipe. He could feel the lifestream surging through it hard enough to make his teeth click. He ignored that, pressed his thumb and middle finger together, and put his hand to his mouth.
Without warning, the dogs' heads swung to the left, and then they launched themselves down the street. Buddy was pulled off his feet before he let go of the leashes. The other Soldier shouted after the dogs, but they would not come. They were barking madly, running with their ears cocked back, as if they could see their target and did not need to hear it. Biggs and Jessie, meanwhile, scrambled on their hands and knees to escape the damning light. The spotlight didn't come that far in any case; instead it made an immediate turn for the place where the dogs had gone, behind the big pipe.
Wedge made his way quickly through the shadows, to where he'd seen his partners. "Biggs? Jess?" Wedge called, daring to raise his voice higher than a whisper. They crawled out from under a rolling ramp leaning against the closed door of a shed of some sort.
"We gotta get through the tunnel quick, while they're distracted!" Wedge cried.
"What about Barret?" Biggs asked, gathering himself up.
"What about Cloud?" Jessie asked, her voice full of fear. Neither of them knew where the dogs had gone, or what they'd gone after, and that made it all the worse.
"Barret said he'd be right behind us. No time to wait, we gotta go now!" In that, Wedge had somehow achieved a shouted whisper. He stepped back into the clear of the street, and dashed toward the tunnel. Biggs and Jessie had no trouble passing him.
"We are dead-men if they break something back there," the MP who wasn't Buddy said, watching one of Buddy's hounds and one of his own trot up and down the length of the great pipe, sniffing with purpose at the rusty metal surface, while another one, far more indifferent than its allies, scratched at the metal plating on its shoulder with its taloned hind leg, each brush of its claws leaving thin white scratches on the shining blue hub while occasionally throwing up sparks.
The last one had leapt behind the pipe. Cloud was eye to eye with it. It sat in the ready position, waiting for a command. Cloud raised his hand, hoping he remembered the proper command for 'git', and blew another silent whistle through his fingers and into his palm, sinking a little lower behind the pipe at the same time. He could see the shadows of the Soldiers growing longer on the wall that was pressing against his left side. Immediately the hound leapt to its feet and flew over the pipe, toward its original charges.
"Man, I hate walking these damn things," the guard who was not Buddy said, as he assumed the leashes of his dogs. From the shadows Barret Wallace watched in disbelief, his face drawn into a scowl that was trying hard to deny the fear he was feeling in favor of his substantial anger, but portrayed them both evenly. He crept back one more step, his taped arm leveled at the backs of the guards and their dogs, and then he flew down the street and into the tunnel. They'd had Cloud dead to rights. How had the kid gotten out of that one?
That wasn't important. If nothing else, the ex-Soldier had bought them their chance to sneak out onto the T-shaped bridge in front of Mako-01. Now the party could begin.
Wallace met his crew at the axis of the T, and gave himself the opportunity to look down. Lower Midgar spun out beneath him, affording him a better, wider view of anything he could have seen on the upper level. Lower Midgar was just as massive as upper Midgar, only it lacked the skyscrapers and the highways. Lower Midgar was the slums, and down there, nothing was as good as up top...but from the top looking down, it was breathtaking, even wreathed in smog and fifty meters down.
"We're really gonna blow this huge furnace up?" Wedge asked. His voice was toneless and full. He was as awestruck by the view as Barret, but instead of looking down, he was looking down and up, starting at the foot of Mako-01's base, which started way down in the slums, and then trailing up to Mako-01's smoking crown, which stood another good fifty meters above them.
"You damn right," Barret said. His fist curled into the inside of Wedge's collar, and he pulled the fat-man in close, while pointing sidelong with the taped hand. "You go down there and hold the exit. If anyone tries to block it, use the gun."
Wedge nodded quickly, and Barret let him go. He dashed down to the end of the T-bridge, to wait in the tunnel on the other side. Biggs, Jessie, and Barret all ran down the foot of the T, toward the yawning mouth of the reactor.
"What happened back there? I thought we were goners for sure," Biggs said to Barret, as they ran side-by-side.
"Don't know, but I think maybe Cloud Strife gave himself up so we could get this far, so don't let him be wasted."
"Barret, are you sure?" Jessie asked, as she worked to catch up to them.
"Can't be sure of nothin', 'cept there ain't no time for dwelling. Hustle!"
The three of them passed through the gigantic frame of the doorway. It was made of metal and painted in black and yellow stripes. As they passed through it, all the cold of the outside seem to get sucked off of them, held out behind them by an unseen force. As soon as they were inside the reactor, it got warmer. Barret knew it was only going to get hotter from here, in more ways than one. Each of them realized that they had barely gotten to the first coded gate and were already missing someone, but before the loss could settle on them, their footsteps came to mingle with a fourth pair. Had he been a Shinra, they would have been dead. He closed up behind them without them even knowing it.
"If you think I'm going to miss out on my cut of the money you're nuts," Cloud said.
The trio came to an abrupt halt and turned to Cloud in one motion. He stood before them with his right arm back, his hand at the hilt of his sword. There was silence and blank faces all around. Barret shook his head vigorously, as if the physical act could force concentration.
"What're you two waitin' for? Get the damn door!"
Jessie and Biggs snapped out of their momentary daze and ran to the security door. It was gate actually, though not as one as large as North Gate, and it was made of full iron. In simpler terms, it was a wall set on a sliding track. Jessie pulled out her splicing box and began to plug the wires into a panel on the wall to the right of the gate. While she worked with the box, Biggs began to punch in keys on a board built into the wall.
Barret looked nervous and edgier than usual, and his gaze was boring a hole in Cloud's chest.
"You act like you're seeing a ghost. Cut it out," Cloud said.
"Maybe I am," Barret replied. "Listen. You ever been in a Mako Reactor before?"
"I did work for Shinra, you know," Cloud said candidly, but his voice was dry, as if he were speaking to a total moron.
Barret let that one go. "The planet's full of Mako energy. The people here use it every day."
Cloud shrugged, and Barret's temper crept up a notch.
"It's the life blood of this planet, but those Shinra-vampires keep suckin' it out with these weird machines!"
"I'm not here for a lecture," Cloud replied. "We're here to do a job. Let's do it."
The door rolled open with a sudden bang. Jessie quickly gathered her gear and followed Biggs inside. They began to work on the next gate as an irate Barret followed Cloud up to where they were standing. "We have to be careful past here," Cloud said.
"Code deciphered," Jessie said, hitting a key on her splicing box while Biggs pressed one on the wall-mounted keypad. The second door crashed open. Spread before them was a wide lobby. To the right, the lobby opened into a smaller room, where the light from static monitors threw flickering shadows across the floor. Straight on, the doors of an elevator stood closed. It was time to go down into the guts of this monster and shut it down.
"Biggs," Barret turned to the musclehead. They both knew this was one of the most dangerous parts, especially for the unarmed fighter. It would be Biggs' job to draw off any fire that might be waiting for them when they came back up. "You know what to do."
Biggs nodded. "I've got it covered," he said bravely. "Good luck."
"Bye, Biggs!" Jessie said ruefully. She went quickly to the elevator doors. There was no time for getting emotional, only the job. Her splicing kit came out, and she plunged headlong into her work. Ding! The doors came open. Cloud, Barret, and Jessie stepped inside. The doors slid shut, leaving them with nothing but the scant panel lights in the darkness.
The elevator's descent was quick and smooth enough that the ride was comfortable, but the undeniable sense of falling was there. They could feel their stomachs pushing up into their throats. Barret was still angry at Cloud's flippant attitude, and looking for a way to get through to him.
Wallace turned to the ex-Soldier, who was leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed. "With enough time, the reactors will drain out all the life, and then that'll be that."
Cloud shook his head slowly. "It's not my problem."
Barret shook his head in disbelief. "The planet's dyin' Cloud!"
"The only thing I care about," Cloud replied, "is finishing this job before security and the roboguards come."
Barret shook his head fully, turning away from Cloud in anger and disgust. The elevator came to a halt, which was probably fortuitous for all inside. The doors opened, and a muggy heat rolled in on them. Barret stepped out cautiously, and stood in the door. Set before them was a massive boiler, poking up through the deck of the elevator landing.
"Move!" Cloud said between his teeth. "There's going to be Soldiers crawling all over that."
Barret let his eyes trail over the boiler, and saw a rail wrapping its middle like a belt. He could see a human shadow slowly trailing down the far-end of the boiler's wall and took it as a sign to run. Cloud let Jessie follow him before picking up the backtrail. They rounded a corner and their footsteps sounded painfully loud on the descending metal stairs that wrapped the landing's upper deck and coiled around the base of the boiler. They took the middle flight so fast they might as well have jumped the rail. Their adrenaline was carrying them faster than their legs ever could, as they swept down the final steps and raced into yet another tunnel. The light at the end of this one was green; on the other side, the core sat waiting for them, letting out an occasional burst of steam from its steel temples.
Outside, Wedge crouched in the shadows of the tunnel exit, watching the bridge and the tunnel at the other end through the scope of his sniper rifle. He knew he wasn't cut out for killing, but now that the time had come where he might have to choose between fighting or dying, he felt like he might be able to kill a man. His hands, nevertheless, trembled as he searched the magnified world with a single eye. As he swept back toward the tunnel they'd come through to get here, he caught sight of something. It was nothing more than a fuzzy blur when he'd moved past it, but he pulled the scope back to the left quickly, trying to find it again. On one more pass, he caught it for an instant, and it had grown in size, which only could have meant that it was coming closer. Swallowing his fear, he pulled back the focus of the scope by twisting a knob at the end, and his view of the world expanded. There, about thirty yards ahead, lollygagging along the rail, a floating red orb with drooping metal tendrils bobbed slowly toward him.
It was a Mono Drive, a small Shinra droid that was designed chiefly for security; it had internal sensors that could distinguish intruder from authorized personnel, and it could sound an alarm if it needed to. Wedge did not know if it was deadly by itself, and he did not give himself the chance to find out. He pulled a silencer from his belt, remembering what Barret had said: If you gonna be stupid enough to bring that pop-gun, you better plug it up so it don't give us away.
Wedge snapped the silencer onto the end of the barrel and raised the rifle. It was ten yards down and closing. It did not sense him yet, and for that he was lucky. His shot was even luckier. The Mono Drive's orb shattered, and the droid was knocked out over the rail by the force of the bullet that drove into its side. The broken droid plummeted to the city below, trailing a black, curving line of smoke behind it.
---
It was more than Barret or Jessie could have imagined, even in their wildest dreams. The lower ventricle of the Mako Reactor was a colossal cylinder falling into the depths of the planet. Laying beneath them, exposed to their naked eyes, was the source of all power on Earth; the Lifestream. More than two hundred feet below them, it churned and frothed, and the emerald glow from it was filled with the very stuff of life itself. They could feel the raw power hitting them in waves, even high up on the catwalks above the core. Ghastly pumps and giant pipes rolled from the mouth of the generator to dip into that vast power and drink it up. Barret saw that his comparison to a vampire was not so far fetched, and that made him madder than Hell.
"We have to stop it," Jessie said softly.
Barret lifted his eyes, and realized she was holding something out to him. He turned his head and saw that it was the bomb, encased in an olive-green and gray plastic case with a few buttons along the face. It looked like an over-sized answering machine, with a plastic readout screen along the top, similar more to the face of a digital alarm clock than Jessie's splicing box. Barret took it in his left hand and nodded. This was Jessie's stop. From here on, it would be Barret and the ex-Soldier.
Barret turned to Cloud, and found the mercenary's eyes fixed and staring, but the rich shine of the Lifestream held no apparent interest for him.
Cloud was scouting the system of rails and walkways below them, leading all the way to the core. Many of the bridges were nothing more than heavy I-beams welded together. Some slatted rails, whether they were meant to or not, were going to do service as ladders. In some places, genuine ladders were bolted to pipes and dropped down to snaking catwalks that rose and fell as if they had been pinched or bent by giant fingers. His eyes tracked down. A maintenance ladder leading down to a coolant valve, which was nothing more than a large metal wheel sticking out of the wall, would do nicely to get them down. They would have a clear jump from the platform to the next walkway over, which extended from some kind of train tunnel, judging by the tracks laid out before it. The tunnel looked too small to accommodate a train, but it made little difference to Cloud. The important thing was finding out if Barret could make the jump. If he tried to make the jump and couldn't, he'd be getting far more acquainted with the planet than any one man should be. Along that vein of thought, a surge of memory went through his brain so fast he could not see what it was. It moved like a white bolt chasing through the darkness, gone so fast it was hardly there. He ignored the feeling of déjà vu and pointed.
"Do you think you can jump from that walkway to that one," Cloud said, pointing as he spoke.
"What are you, a wise ass?" Barret asked. The gulf had to have been at least eight feet, if not more.
Cloud shook his head slowly and pointed. "If you can't, you'll have to sneak across that pipe that bends along the outside of that main bridge, and go down the ladder bolted up there."
Barret shook his head. "No problem."
"Wrong," Cloud disagreed. He directed Barret's gaze to the catwalk. Set across its length, several engines of some sort belched occasional black smoke— coal smoke, Barret thought to himself— into the air. "Those are sweepers. They look like junk until they raise up on legs and extend their miniguns."
"Mechs?" Jessie said, leaning in for a better look. There were four by her count, but the myriad ramps and rails obscured her view of the walkway in question.
"Shit," Barret said flatly.
Cloud nodded. "I'll see what I can do about them." He stepped forward.
"Yo, wait up!" Barret said, stepping forward, reaching for Cloud's arm but missing it by inches. "Whachoo gonna do? We can't be wakin' those damn things up."
"You look like a working man," Cloud said matter-of-factly.
"So what?" Barret replied. No denial or acceptance of the charge, but more acceptance than denial nonetheless.
"So, you must've heard the saying," Cloud answered. "You take the high road and I'll take the low road." Cloud jumped from one rafter to the next, and then he grabbed onto a ladder against the wall and began his climb to an I-beam that ran along the outside of the wall. Beyond that, the maintenance ladder was waiting for him.
Barret stood exasperated for a moment, but it took him no time at all to follow suit. He'd be damned if the ex-Soldier was going to make it down there first. The big man leapt to the next rafter and dropped down a tilted, slatted railing, using it almost like a ladder. He let himself slide down most of the way, grabbing hold every few feet to slow himself; a considerable feat for a man with only one hand to work with. Then again, the man it belonged to was extremely considerable in his own right.
Barret dropped onto the curving pipe and shimmied across it, ignoring the dizzying heights and the unhindered view of the green ocean below. He found the next ladder and treated it much the same way he did the makeshift rail, sliding and catching, sliding and catching until his feet touched down. He moved down the path so quickly that he hadn't even noticed that he had beaten Cloud to the bottom, and imminent danger. He dropped off the ladder and turned just in time to come face-to-face with a sweeper, as its steel legs unfolded from underneath it. The boxy brown metal body of the robot had a chrome grate on the front, and deep within, beyond the bars of the grill, Barret could see the faint green glow of a small Mako engine.
To the left, another sweeper rose. Beyond it, up the middle, yet another found its legs. The sound of the sweepers rising was a combination of hissing and clanking. The sounds of their engines starting up was almost like a car turning over, except deeper, touched by the roar of a predatory cat. From their grills, they belched white smoke as they began to burn raw energy in their boxy hulls. As each mech rumbled to life, they assumed a shifty, shuddering stance, as if they could not contain the energy that had animated them. The sweeper in front of Barret brought its arms up, and there were no hands there, only a pair of vulcan-style miniguns.
Barret brought his wrapped hand up, but the gesture was worthless, because at that precise moment, there was no more question as to whether or not the ex-Soldier could wield the massive Buster Sword. Cloud Strife came down on the sweeper like the wrath of God, the Buster Sword held out to his left side by one hand. He passed through the sweeper like it wasn't even there, and it was not a sweet, clean cut, but instead, it tore through the metal guts of the robot and ripped its hull completely in half. The machine, which must have weighed a ton, fell in two, belching up smoke and trailing metal joints that were nothing more than twisted scrap.
Dashing deliberately past the next sweeper, which turned away from Barret to follow this new threat, Cloud switched the Buster Sword over to his right side and passed the sweeper up the middle, delivering to it a sidelong slash that had the same results as it did on the first sweeper. The sound of the Buster Sword ripping through iron was high and grating, like the sound of a buzzsaw being turned on briefly against a girder. The next sweeper down actually managed a few shots from each gun, but Cloud ran right up the middle before it could adjust its range, and he came to a clean stop, letting his blade travel forward in a piercing stab that went forward and then down. The sword crushed the sweeper in like a beer can and punched through the metal catwalk beneath it.
Barret watched. His gut instincts screamed at him to warn Cloud that there were still two sweepers left, and that they were training their guns on him, but he didn't; something told him Cloud knew.
Leaving the Buster Sword buried in the ruined mech before him, the ex-Soldier did a backflip in between the two remaining robots. Moving like the wind, he then executed an immediate flip forward. Twin bursts of artillery bit through the space where his body once was, and both sweepers scored hits— on one another's small Mako engines. Cloud pulled the Buster Sword from the decimated pile of scrap metal and whirled it over his head in a flashy, continuous victory spin. Behind him, even as he posed, a deep orange glow bled from the grates on the robots that had shot one another. Before the sword finished its revolutions over his head, that light turned bright white, and then the engines exploded, leaving the sweepers burnt out and gutted, standing on unharmed robotic legs.
Cloud brought the sword down and looked over at Barret. Barret did his best to glower at the showboat. Demonstratively, he put a boot to one of the standing pairs of legs as he passed by, and cursed mightily to himself at the terrible pain that brought him, even as the legs toppled. Just the legs had been heavy enough to damn near break his toe, but Cloud had torn them apart like they were made of tin.
Wallace forced himself not to be impressed. "Took you long enough!" Barret dashed down the tracks, toward the lone bridge that crossed over it. That bridge would lead them straight to the heart of the matter, he knew. It gave him a kind of dark joy to know he was about to put it to the Shinra. The realization was so sudden and huge that he found his head growing lighter with every step. That pissed him off enough to snap him out of it. There wasn't going to be any failure caused by premature celebration, not after he'd come this far. No damn way.
When they reached the final bridge, Barret stopped running and paused to look his enemy in the eyes, or at least where he imagined its eyes would be, down near the base of the core. The core was placed in a hewn-out section of a wall covered from top to bottom in cables. It stood like an idol in that space, and the vents up and down its sides gave out huge jets of steam.
"That's right, sucka," Barret spoke lowly. "You breathe your last, cuz you're about to go up, and tomorrow you ain't gonna be nothin' but a memory!" Barret glanced down, as something on the ground a few steps ahead of him caught his eye. He knelt down and came up with a shining green marble-sized stone in his hand. He closed his fist around it, turned to Cloud. "When we blow this place, it ain't gonna be nothin' more than a hunka junk. You set the bomb."
Outside, Wedge cowered in the shadows, halfway hidden behind the frame of the giant tunnel. He watched through the scope as six troops and a seventh— their captain— rounded the corner of the bridge and marched in two rows toward the entrance of Mako-01. His hands trembled. The captain was out in front, and Wedge's sights were jumping all over him as they got closer to the reactor, and farther away. If he shot when they were farther down, they would be confused. He could take one, maybe two of them down before they figured out what was happening. Maybe the rest would go inside. He might be able to pick off the rest as they closed in on him.
Wedge watched as they disappeared into the reactor, and prayed Biggs would forgive him.
---
"Shouldn't you set it?" Cloud asked.
"Jus' do it! I gotta watch to make sure you don't pull nothin'," Barret replied, pushing the bomb into his hands.
"Fine." Cloud stepped closer to the core. They'd all been trained to set the bomb, because if only one of them knew how, and that person got killed...
Another mystery memory flashed through Cloud's brain. The last unidentified flying flashback had been a shot in the dark. This one was a comet. A high-pitched whine filled his ears. His legs gave out. He cradled the bomb protectively in one arm, even as he fell to his knees and caught himself with his other hand. His vision went red, and through the haze, a muddled voice he had and had never heard previously spoke to him from across what he knew must've been some great void— a breach of time and distance he could no longer recall.
It seemed to bear with it a warning:
"Watch out! This isn't just a reactor!!"
With the message delivered, the whine subsided, and his red-toned world returned to its normal colors, only in this place, it was like trading one hue for the next; down here, everything was a shade of green.
"What's wrong?"
Cloud gathered himself up. "Huh?"
"You jus' tripped out. What the Hell is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. Sorry."
"Hurry it up!"
Cloud gathered his resolve and stepped up to the core. He set the bomb on the core's control panel, in a neat indentation that fit the bomb so perfectly it seemed almost like an altar. He popped open the frame around the buttons on the console and began to wire the bomb up the way Jessie had shown him. A few seconds later, he dropped the hood and hit a button on the front of the bomb's cartridge, and waited. It blooped and bleeped, and then clicked. The numbers on the dial flashed on. First, four zeroes 00:00. Then they flashed again, and read 10:00.
The bomb began to count down.
Just as soon as the bomb began to tick out its death sentence, klaxons filled the air with a howl of alarm. In every part of the reactor's perimeter, warning lights flashed, sirens screamed, and the plant went into red alert. The calm, modulated female recording was the sole voice of reason. It spoke above the sirens and the panic, borne out by the many bullhorns within the vicinity of the reactor, at workstations and guard stations. "Warning! Warning! This is a code red call for evacuation. Please remain calm. At this time, you are directed to shut down any Shinra, Inc. machinery or equipment you have manned, making sure to remove any hazardous plugs from the outlets, and carefully walk to the nearest exit."
Of course, everyone ignored her. The ordered structure of the Shinra work-horse fell apart as employees in hardhats and labcoats ran for all exits, choking hallways and crowding elevators. A Shinra officer pulled a pistol from the holster on his hip and pointed it skyward, as he came upon two groups of people converging on a single door. He fired it into the air, and that was briefly enough to stop the riot.
"Go through it single-file," he shouted, keeping his composure as well as he could. "You are in no danger, except of crushing one another." The workers, halted by his shot and his words, were looking around incredulously. The klaxons were still going off, the warning lights still flashing at every turn, but they followed his instructions regardless, and began to scurry through the door one at a time.
Another Shinra Soldier came down a metal stairwell from a box-office control room. "God above man, someone's set a bomb in the core and we can't disarm it," he cried. The last half of the two groups broke out of single file and immediately clogged the door. This time, the Shinra officer considered turning his pistol on his comrade.
---
As soon as the alarms began to go off, Barret ran back the way he'd came. Cloud stood looking around, as if bewildered, perhaps even gone into the place Barret had been earlier, shell-shocked by the tension. Whether or not that was the case, the six-ton, eight-legged scorpion that came scuttling down the wall behind him was enough to bring him back to the here and now.
The twin vulcans that held the place of the scorpion's claws were even more of a reason to move. A rain of hot lead came down on him and he leapt forward, barely avoiding the drilling shots as they cut into the bridge. Instead of running away, Cloud came to a stop and turned to face the menacing robot. This was no sputtering, jerky, smoke-belching lummox. It was a red-plated titanium job, probably running on a small Mako furnace with no need for burners to keep the generator cycling.
It stopped firing as its front two legs touched down on the bridge, and leg-by-leg it came off the wall, crawling forward on the bridge and down the wall at the same time. Its hooked tail bobbed and curled behind it, and Cloud saw that it was easily the size of a small crane. Once the mech was standing on the bridge, it raised its vulcans and unleashed Hell. The world became a flicker frame of white and yellow flashes.
Barret was halfway down the connecting bridge— the one with the tracks down its length— when he realized Cloud wasn't with him. He grabbed onto the ladder he'd come down, and looked up. Damn Shinra bugs gonna be crawlin' all over this place. A sudden burst of heavy gunfire turned his attention back to Cloud. He saw the giant robot built into the likeness of a scorpion, its legs segmented red cylinders with silver, pointed lower segments that had well-disguised hydraulic pumps built through every moving joint. Every step the eight-legged menace took had the bang of metal on metal, and sounded like a terrible kind of finger-tapping, as if the mindless killing machine was thirsty for blood and very impatient.
For the second time tonight, he'd considered Cloud a goner. He had hoped the kid had enough sense to run from that thing. He might've been able to handle sweepers but—
A shadow fell over him. Barret rolled to the side just as the sweeper came down and landed where he was. The force of its touch-down caused its whole body to sink, nearly swallowing its legs up into its underside. They hissed as it slowly rose, its guns out. Behind him, Barret heard the horrifying sound of metal fingers rapping impatiently, then Cloud rounded the corner.
"DOWN!" The ex-Soldier shouted.
Barret went down as quickly as any well-trained Soldier could have, and as he did, the vulcans of the Guard Scorpion raked from side to side. The heavy bullets tore into the sweeper and threw it back against the ladder. Its guns went to both sides and spurted several rounds into the air before the mech died out completely.
Barret looked back and saw Cloud had the point of the Buster Sword against the nose of the metal arachnid. The robot turned to and fro, its guns blazing, but Cloud's feet worked as gracefully as a well-trained dancer, and he moved with the robot. Even when it went left twice in a crude attempt by its crude AI to trick the ex-Soldier, Cloud did not falter. Finally the guns stopped firing, though they continued to spin, and Cloud looked up. The tail reared back, and he flipped backwards, ten feet through the air, the Buster Sword following him as the tail came down and punched straight through the bridge.
The sword was less mobile in the air than was Cloud, who seemed to move around it in the air, flipping from the sword's left side to its right like a skydiver performing an aerial stunt on some stationary, falling object. Gravity took hold once more, and the Buster Sword came back down on the head of the Guard Scorpion, piercing deeply into the casing. The robot dragged Cloud and his sword back five steps, and then jerked wildly from side to side. Cloud held onto the hilt and almost went flying over the rail. Behind him, Barret leapt onto the downed sweeper and began to climb the ladder. He had been staring in disbelief at the battle, but only a madman could stay much longer. Guard Scorpion or no, there was a bomb about to detonate in less than ten minutes.
07:59 to be precise.
Outside, Wedge was sure he was going to be caught. Two Shinra MPs on a jeep out of Sector 8 came racing through the tunnel behind him. If he hadn't heard the squeal of their tires, he might've been caught red-handed, but he had time to turn and put the rifle behind him. The jeep pulled to a stop, and the passenger stood from his seat, leaning over the windshield of the roofless vehicle.
"Are you a Shinra employee?" The standing MP asked.
"I'm a janitor," Wedge replied, hoping the panic in his voice wouldn't debunk his lie.
"Well what the Hell are you still doing here? This tunnel is about to seal off."
"Seal off?" Wedge asked aloud. He instantly realized he'd made a mistake.
"Alright buddy, let me see your ID," the standing MP said. Wedge's heart sank.
Then, around the corner on the bridge ahead, a wave of evacuees rushed toward the opposite tunnel. A few laggers turned and saw the jeep and came running, flashing their Shinra identification cards. Soon they were swarming onto the jeep.
"We have to get these people out of here," the driver said, looking first at his partner, then at Wedge. "Get on."
Wedge nodded, hoping the shadows would be enough to disguise his rifle. He went around to the back of the jeep, taking his sweet time. At the wheel, he paused to hike up his pants. Deadly glares from the escaping employees became shouted curses. He leapt onto the back and stuck one leg over into the bed, but found it crowded with people already. They were none to eager to be there, and even less eager to move for him.
"Go go go!" One of them shouted again and again.
"Move your fat ass," another cried.
"Oh please oh please oh no I don't want to die," another was murmuring.
Wedge came face to face with a tight-laced older woman in a hairnet and feigned falling forward as the jeep began to move. His face went into her chest. She gaped at him, and then punched him in the eye. He fell off the back of the jeep and rolled twice, coming to a stop on his side. The former mechanic watched it speed away, thanking his bad luck. He scrambled back to his gun.
---
After being bounced off both rails twice, Cloud gritted his teeth and fought against the pain, shutting it out with pure willpower. He thrust his legs out and caught them against the front of the Guard Scorpion, and gave a hard tug at the Buster Sword, but it was jammed in. He saw the tail raise, and swung on the sword's hilt, dodging the downward-thrusting stab of the deadly appendage. His legs came up on the other side of the mech, and he gritted his teeth, putting all his might into one hard pull, using his powerful legs to thrust himself upward. The sword ripped loose, and both Cloud and the Buster Sword went upside down and airborne. Cloud corrected his descent as the scorpion bulled forward to ram him. It was too slow to catch him, but its tail was not. He dipped to the left, but it didn't come all the way down. It rose halfway, corrected its aim, and tried to catch him mid-dodge. He was too fast. Throwing his blade forward, his body followed right under the arc of the stab. Cloud felt the tail thump down into the bridge behind him.
Unleashing a primal battle cry, he ran ahead of his massive sword and then jerked it forward, slamming its sharp edge into the side of the mech's head, hoping his attack would destroy the computer brain. It did not; the robot monster reared its front legs menacingly and speakers under the beastly machine gave a sudden hiss. Cloud kicked off the robot, wrenching his weapon from its side. The Buster Sword trailed wires and metal minutia twisted and torn like scraps of paper.
Cloud suddenly recognized the stance of the mech, as the tail rose up and a blue sphere of gathering energy formed at its tip. Cloud rolled backward, his sword turning over and over as the Guard Scorpion swept from left to right with the tail's mint-blue laser beam. The bridge moaned audibly. The beam had cut it in half. The side the scorpion was on faltered several feet, but the robot showed surprising agility, leaping toward Cloud with a sudden burst of strength, its front end hitting him in the chest, knocking him down.
The Guard Scorpion came forward as Cloud scrambled backward. Grasping out behind him, his hand found the comforting grip of the Buster Sword, and he brought it up just as one metal leg came down to spear him through the chest. The heavy, thick blade of his sword blocked the strike, but he found himself pinned beneath it. He pushed up with all his strength, in an attempt to keep from being crushed, but not even his tremendous power could compete with the weight of the machine that was trying to kill him. He could feel his ribs about to give way. In another moment, they would crack. Then they would snap. Cloud instinctively twisted under the sword. The tail came in for the kill and missed yet again. Cloud cried out in pain, his eyes blazing with defiance. Left with no other alternative, he abandoned dependence on his sword for what was inside it.
Concentrating on the power within himself, he felt the din melt away as his training took control. The power traveling through his blood became as natural to him as the blood itself. From somewhere high above, a bolt from the blue pierced through the air and struck the Guard Scorpion's tail. Electrical ripples coiled down the robot's metal spine and trickled down his legs. Cloud felt the voltage burn into the skin on his forearms, but the shock fizzled there and came no closer to him. For a moment, the Guard Scorpion quit pressing down. Instead, it brought both front legs up. The tail laser fired wildly, at no target in particular. It sheered open a pipe, which blew a gout of Mako against a catwalk. It cut through a railing and sheered a ladder in half, then it came down and turned a wide circle in the bridge's side. Immediately, the world went out from beneath them.
At 04:42 remaining, Cloud's world fell into slow motion. The bridge was falling. The Guard Scorpion was now beneath him, so he kicked off of it and vaulted into the air, trailing the sword behind him. He did a full turn, and saw the blaze of gunfire. He brought his sword between himself and the bullets. They bounced off the Buster Sword harmlessly. He hung suspended midair, and began to fall. Speed returned to his world. He rocketed downward at the device that had tried so hard to kill him and failed; it was clinging to the bridge, which was in turn, hanging by little more than a steel thread. His sword drove once more, deep into the face of the beast, crossing into the first two metal gashes. The once-striking red paintjob was nothing more than a gnarled gray twist of smoking scrap. Yet the Guard Scorpion was not dead. It began to shudder like a sweeper now. Its guns ceased fire. Its tail twitched in the air, but its legs held the dangling bridge with a tenacious grip. Cloud wrenched the Buster Sword from the face of the beast and leapt once more. This time, he landed safely on what was left of the bridge, a five foot ramp sticking out of the wall. He turned, and with a swoop of his mighty blade, he cut the Guard Scorpion's lifeline. It, and the middle of the bridge went plummeting into the Lifestream below. Cloud watched it disappear, and felt another hidden memory— just another stranger passing in the night— slip through his head, just behind his eyes. Remembering the bomb, he stepped away from the edge. A half-second later, he began to run.
Shinra workers and Soldiers rushed back and forth as Barret made it back into the lower boiler room. Miraculously, none of the Soldiers saw him as he ran behind a small group of scientists. They passed the stairs, but he did not. Up he went, flying around the winding path. He came to the middle level, a flat deck along the boiler's midsection, held up by several columns of steel. He hid behind one as a group of MPs ran past, and watched as they charged down the stairs he'd just come up. He ascended the last flight in a blind rush, hoping his luck would hold. It didn't. He slowed as he came up the last step. Ten Shinra MPs were standing in a line. In front of them, Biggs was standing with his back facing them and his hands in the air.
They saw Barret immediately, and Wallace raised his hands in surrender, lowering his head and shaking it. He wore the look of discomfiture well, but his eyes played no part in the role. They were trained on Biggs, hard, angry. It could have been that Barret meant to kill Biggs, but when the black man mouthed the words get down Biggs knew his leader had someone else's death in mind. A whole lot of someone else's.
Biggs dropped, painfully aware of the guns that might be pointed at his back, ready to fire if he made any sudden moves. A Shinra wouldn't be the first to fire, this time. Barret brought his taped hand down level and grabbed his wrist with his left hand. The Shinra were all in a neat little row. Like nine-pins, Barret Wallace knocked them down. The gunfire from beneath his wrap of tape cut the line to ribbons. As bullets thudded into the chests of the Soldiers, they had no idea what was happening until it was too late. The last ones managed to level their guns on the Avalanche leader, but he raked them and left them bleeding.
"Get up boy," Barret shouted.
Biggs got to his feet slowly. "I tried to hang back but they caught me anyway. I think they were about to shoot me."
Barret turned to him. "Where's Jessie?"
"Oh man...Jessie hasn't come back yet. Watch out!" Biggs dove as a downpour of bullets came from the railing around the belt section of the boiler. Remembering Cloud's warning, Barret cursed himself and spun, letting his gunarm answer the sniper's shot. He heard a brief scream, and then saw the gunman's rifle fall over the rail, and a bright splotch of red on the boiler's wall. Though he never saw the Soldier who he'd just torn in half, he had no doubts the man was dead. The elevator dinged. Barret whirled. A pair of one-legged droids that were nothing more than bottle-shaped laser cannons with balancing fins jutting out at diagonals and a single blue roboguard emerged. Barret opened up on them. The humanoid roboguard went down first, holes punching into its chest and face. Electricity rippled down from its head and washed over its torso as it fell against the far well of the elevator, smoking. The 1ST Rays— those one legged wonders— took aim, but Barret was already gunning for them. He took their legs out and then raked them as they fell to the ground. As the bullets punched through the cloth wrap on his hand, it burnt and tore, shredding into yellow ribbons of smoke and flame. Soon the gun that was built where his hand once resided was fully exposed, and spitting spent shells in a curving arc.
There was 02:00 left on the clock.
"We can't wait, Biggs. We gotta go."
"Barret!" Biggs protested.
"No time. If we get held up on the way back, we're dead suckas!" Barret shoved Biggs into the elevator and stepped in after him, then he turned and punched the button.
The doors began to close. Biggs caught them. "Barret, look!"
Jessie was running toward them from the stairs. A few steps behind her was Cloud, that impossibly large sword back over his left shoulder, swinging side to side with each step. Biggs and Barret pulled the doors open. Jessie slipped in. It took Cloud a little more doing to get through the door with his sword, but time and necessity made Strife more efficient, unlike some who tended to panic under the gun, and he got himself and the Buster Sword inside safely.
"I thought you two were goners for sure," Biggs declared.
"I would have been. My foot got caught but Cloud found me and helped me out," Jessie replied, her voice softening with admiration toward the end of her statement.
"We might still be goners yet," Barret said, banging on the elevator wall with his gunarm. "Shinra piece of shit, you jus' too damn SLOW!"
The elevator rose too slowly for anyone's taste. Barret's fit had attracted Cloud's attention to the cybernetic fixture that had held the ex-Soldier's curiosity before. Cloud found that ascertaining what it truly was drained all his interest out of the subject. The elevator slowed. Barret stepped forward, his gun raised. Cloud held the Buster Sword point-down like a shield. Ding! The doors opened, and Wallace came out with guns blazing. Shinra troopers answered with shots of their own. There was little more than a minute left.
Upper Midgar/Shinra Tower — a presidential suite.
The Vice President of Shinra, Incorporated stood gazing out across the foggy reaches of Midgar from behind the glass of the wide, panoramic window his father so dearly loved to stand and watch the city from years ago, before he'd lost his vision and his youth, and by the Vice President's standards, his intestinal fortitude. Knowing that his father was the President of Shinra, Inc. didn't help his image of the old man. Rufus Shinra had never looked up to him even though he'd always seen him as the one thing higher than the highest mountain; his father, President Shinra, was the man on top of that mountain.
It had always been Rufus Shinra's goal to reach that holy summit, look the old man in the eyes, and then push the old man over the edge...then he supposed, he would sprout wings and fly even higher, never to be touched again...but that would have to wait. At the moment, he was still climbing that mountain, and his old man was not so far gone that it was beyond him to roll a boulder over the edge for his one and only son to deal with.
"Sorry m'boy," the President said, his tone fuller because of the two-hundred Gil cigar clenched between his teeth. "Oh, excuse me, you like to be called Vice President now that you're all grown up," he taunted, a smile on his face. He was chest-deep in the heated, bubbling waters of the suite's jacuzzi, which he had ordered built as close to the window as it could possibly get. Rufus was wrong; his old man still liked the view, but why stand when you could sit— or soak? "I can't agree to your newest policy. The Midgar boys do a fine job of policing."
"But it isn't enough to simply lower the crime rate, because criminals grow more and more brazen. Meanwhile, our key Shinra facilities go on with an unacceptable shortage of guards."
"That's what we've got our Soldiers at those facilities for, Vice President," his father answered, spreading his arms back along the rim of the tub. A pair of barely-dressed young ladies crowded in toward his open arms. He blew a jet of smoke from the corner of his mouth. "Your suggestion to fire and demote most of the Midgar police to station guards is ridiculous. Midgar's already overrun with the scum of the earth. We don't need a war-zone—"
"Midgar already is a war-zone," Rufus interrupted hotly. "What goes on down there is far beyond the capacity of the 'boys in red' to control. Meanwhile, the legions of Shinra grow slow and weak, with no wars to wage."
"What you're suggesting is a Military Police," the President said flatly.
"That's what I'm demanding," Rufus replied.
"Our Soldiers are where they need to be, in the fields. Spending money to bring them back here to do what the Midgar police can do indefinitely would be a waste. Crime never goes away, but Soldiers die. We can put them to better uses."
"It's a waste of money to payroll the Midgar police, and as far as your imaginary uses for the Shinra Military, they should not include anything but the use of Military force if we are to keep a standing army without the cost of keeping it running being totally wasted."
"A tremendous speech, son, but I'm afraid I like things just the way they are— ladies, excuse me." The President rose from the water and stood in nothing but a pair of blue briefs. The water rolled off his layers of fat and glistened on his abundant reddish blonde chest hair. "Do your old man a favor and bring me my robe? And don't give me that look, either. Trust me, Vice President. I take no one's advice closer to heart than yours, except for my own, of course."
"Yes, President," Rufus said tonelessly. He walked over to the hook where the President's robe was hanging. He gave the room a perfunctory glance and saw what he'd ignored on his way in— he'd been too intent on business to care when he entered— the suite was just as lavish as ever, with a minibar taking up a full corner of the room and a giant flat TV screen hanging from the ceiling behind the jacuzzi. There were antique paintings on the walls and plush carpeting on the floor. Even the cigars his old man smoked were obscenely expensive. He pulled the robe from the hook. No terrycloth here; it was all silk, red with gold trim. Rufus absently wondered why the old man surrounded himself with such rich pleasures but trifled with such ratty whores. He thought about voicing his question, but in the end he kept it for himself. He knew well how to choose his battles. There would be times when his policies would not be denied, and as far as he was concerned, this was not the last the old man would hear of his plan to develop a military police in Midgar.
He would just have to wait until the next opportunity to push for it presented itself. Rufus tossed his old man the robe, and despite the fact that he was still knee deep in water and mostly soaked, President Shinra put the robe on. The tail end floated on the surface. What went onto his body clung to the moisture there. The President took a drag from the cigar and plucked it from his teeth for a brief moment.
"I can tell you're already looking for a way to get past me. That's how I know you're my boy," the President said. "You'll fail, but you just keep trying. Hahaha!" He stuck the cigar back between his teeth, as Rufus turned his expressionless face back toward the window.
Down below, a group called Avalanche ran for their lives down the T-junction bridge toward the Sector 8 tunnel. The girl called Jessie tripped, and the ex-Soldier named Cloud picked her up and carried her through the mouth of the tunnel, just as the front of Mako-01 blew out, tearing the bridge to shreds behind them.
The flash colored the panoramic window bright white. The cigar dropped out of President Shinra's mouth and into the water. His ladies screamed in surprise. Rufus coolly ran a hand through his short blonde hair. "I'm not looking for a way to get past you, President. It's plain to see you have everything under control."