Two Letters and a Number

Sinking into the chair at his desk, Cloud reached out to gather up the various bits of papers scattered across his desk, and started organizing them into neat piles. It wasn’t that he was angry at Barrett, who had let his temper control his mouth, but it still hurt to hear the old prejudices come to light once more. Especially since he still felt like he had ‘Property of Shinra’ tattooed across his forehead to accent the glowing mako eyes that marked him as the SOLDIER he never had been.

Keen ears picked up the soft tread of heavy boots, the footsteps not belonging to any of Cloud’s friends, all of whom were probably still downstairs chewing Barrett out. “Can I help you?” he asked, keeping his voice calm as he looked up to find the slender man with glasses standing there. What was his name? Dr. Daniel Jackson, one of the explorers.

“I was hoping you could answer some questions for me,” Jackson stated, standing in the doorway as if unsure of his welcome, and Cloud noticed the notebook in his hand.

“What sort of questions?” inquired Cloud, warily. Losing five years of his life to another doctor had made the blond skittish with anyone bearing that title, and now this one showed up wanting to ask questions.

Jackson shrugged. “Just some clarification on some things,” he replied. “We know the story that President Shinra told us, but I was hoping to get the other side of the story as well.”

Brilliant mako blue eyes studied bright human blue eyes partially hidden behind glasses. “Why me? Anyone downstairs would be more than happy to tell you all about Shinra.”

A determined look crossed Jackson’s face. “Because I would hear more about the prejudices against Shinra than learn anything I didn’t already know,” he said before shrugging. “Besides, you apparently have seen both sides of the argument.”

Instead of disputing that point of logic, Cloud waved Jackson to a nearby chair, and the bespeckled man pulled it closer to the desk. He opened his mouth, apparently to ask his first question, when he stopped, staring at something on the desk. The blond followed the gaze to find Jackson staring at the two pictures he kept on his desk, the older one of him, Tifa, and the kids after he had contracted Geostigma but before Denzel had, and the newer one with the entire team gathered around the camera.

“Not much of a social person are you?” inquired Jackson, a small smile on his face as if laughing at a private joke. Before Cloud could say anything about that, Jackson waved the question away and glanced at his notebook. “What’s a SOLDIER?”

“A SOLDIER is... was the elite branch of Shinra’s military,” began Cloud, an ironic smile twisting one corner of his mouth. “They went through a special treatment to become enhanced, what the full process is I don’t know. They were stronger, tougher, and more resilient than the normal troops, and had three ranks, or classes. Third Class were the bottom of the SOLDIERs and were the grunts. They didn’t get as much of the treatment as the other classes. Second Class had more privilege and responsibilities as well as the second round of treatment. First Class were the best, the officers in a way, of the SOLDIER Program.”

Jackson nodded his understanding even as a small frown formed on his face. “That guy who wanted to pick a fight said that you were a SOLDIER. How did he know?”

Cloud snorted, and turned his chair to face Jackson, stretching his legs out in front of him. “A mark of a SOLDIER is their eyes,” he quoted the old saying as he gestured to his own eyes. “Anyone who has gone through any of the process has glowing eyes. Third class has a faint sheen of color over their natural color while First Class have eyes that glow like materia.” The memory of glowing violet eyes that somehow seemed to sparkle with laughter and mischief rose in his mind, and his gaze turned to the pictures on his desk, eyes caught by a pair of burning red staring out from behind black hair.

“How long were you a SOLDIER?”

The question startled a laugh out of Cloud before he fully registered the words. “I wasn’t,” he confessed, his eyes dancing to the various pictures pinned to his message board. There were dozens of landscapes, pretty scenes that he had snapped while traveling, but the only one with people were the two on his desk. He didn’t have any pictures of Zack or Aeris, but he *had* at one time, in the bottom of his Shinra-issued military footlocker, right next to the picture of his mother. Maybe he should ask one of the Turks for his footlocker and Zack’s as well...

A throat being cleared brought Cloud back from his thoughts, and he blinked, having forgotten Jackson when his thoughts had wandered. “Sorry,” he apologized, shaking his head before focusing on the other man. “You had other questions?”

“What did Shinra do to earn the ire of the people?” The question hung in the air, and Cloud let a bitter smile twist his lips again.

“You don’t ask the easy questions do you?” Cloud relaxed back in his chair and laced his hands across his stomach. “Okay, let me start all the way at the beginning. Several years ago, a young man by the name of Jacob Shinra discovers a new and plentiful source of energy in mako. This lead to people living more comfortably and the Shinra Electric Company grew. Then, monsters started appearing, and in answer, Shinra created an army to fight them while staffing scientists to help make the military work better. The rich and wealthy grew richer, while those less fortunate started scraping by, and anyone working for Shinra seemed to have a free ride. Then, for whatever reason, Shinra decided to build a plate on top of the city of Midgar, which had been built in a valley anyway, and thus divided the city into the Plate and the Slums. The Slums were where the poor lived and it was a dangerous place, never getting sunlight and full of rough crowds.”

“Then, a Shinra scientist named Hojo made a break through about thirty years ago and the perfect SOLDIER was born. Literally.” Cloud shifted slightly in his chair and held Jackson’s startled gaze. “His name was Sephiroth and he quickly rose to the position of ‘General’ in the military. When he was fifteen, Shinra decided that he wanted the mako and materia possessed by Wutai, a peaceful nation, and sent General Sephiroth and his army to conquer them. Once Sephiroth did so, Shinra started conquering other nations for their mako, but unlike Wutai, he only had to make a general mention of their mako and they willingly surrendered it to him. Boys started flocking to Shinra to enlist in the military, hoping to make SOLDIER and be as great as General Sephiroth.”

“Yet, there were others who believed that Shinra was stealing the life from the planet with his mako reactors and the monsters were the planet’s way of fighting back. So they started making a nuisance of themselves, and their ire at Shinra spoke to those who had always found themselves living in darkness, scraping for a few Gil to live leading to various people quietly joining AVALANCHE. Not many, because even regular people dissatisfied with they way they’re living didn’t want to go against the military might of Shira, but enough to keep AVALANCHE alive.”

‘All that *before* Sephiroth went insane and destroyed Nibelheim and I lost five years of my life and Zack,’ mused Cloud, running an irritated hand through his hair.

Jackson nodded. “So the anger people still have towards Shinra is directed towards anyone that they can associate with them,” he said, an absent look on his face as he talked. “Turks for being the President’s guards and the military for just being part of Shinra.” Blue eyes sharpened behind glasses as they focused on Cloud with the intensity of a Summons. “What happened to Midgar to create those ruins? And what cut through five feet of steel and concrete?”

“Sephiroth happened to Midgar.” Those four words hung in the air, making the distant noise of the bar seem even farther away, and Cloud sighed. “About seven years ago, a small group of troops was assigned to go to a small place called Nibelheim with Sephiroth on a routine inspection of their reactor. Only, something happened to Sephiroth and he went mad. Burned the town and slaughtered the people living there before he was stopped. And he was stopped for a time, but then two years ago, he managed to resurface with a plan that, if it had gone right, involved merging with the Lifestream and taking over the planet Herself.”

Brilliant blue eyes grew distant as once more, Cloud saw Aeris kneeling as she tried to activate her Holy materia, a beam of sunlight adding an ethereal glow to her chestnut hair. “There was one remaining Ancient, one of Gaia’s children who had survived, that was hunted by Old Man Shinra because he believed she knew where the Promised Land was, a land rich in mako. Aeris figured out Sephiroth’s plan to summon Meteor, and we tried to stop him.”

He closed his eyes, battling back the feeling of helplessness that surged up at the memory of watching that long blade pierce Aeris while he fought the alien compulsion to end her life himself, and of watching behind the cold as his body moved on its own, holding out the very thing that could destroy the planet to a smirking Sephiroth. “Sephiroth killed her, but she managed in the end to help us all by convincing Gaia to help destroy Meteor after Sephiroth had been defeated for the last time. Unfortunately, Midgar was one of the casualties of Meteor.”

Forcing the memories back, Cloud opened his eyes. “As for your second question, it was either the First Ken or the Masamune.”

“The what?” Jackson frowned in puzzled confusion and a small laugh slipped out of Cloud.

“The First Ken is my sword while the Masamune was Sephiroth’s,” he started to explain only for Jackson to hold up a hand, politely cutting him off.

“But I thought you killed Sephiroth two years ago,” he protested. “There’s no way that those cuts were two years old.”

“They’re about a week old,” agreed Cloud, absently rubbing his left arm to try and sooth the phantom ache of the now cured Geostigma sore. “Dr. Hojo had decided to clone Sephiroth for whatever reason, and three of these clones escaped the fate of the others, becoming their own people. They had one goal, to find ‘Mother’ and resurrect Sephiroth. They managed to do it too.”

Those blue eyes were watching him carefully. “If they managed to resurrect this Sephiroth, aren’t you worried that it could happen again?”

Shaking his head, Cloud leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The one thing they needed to resurrect Sephiroth was Jenova, or at least a large quantity of her cells,” he stated. “Kadaj absorbed the cells into his body and became Sephiroth, but when Sephiroth was defeated, it was Kadaj who died, taking with him the last of Jenova.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat at the memory of Sephiroth hanging in the air, silver hair shining in the sun and a single ebony wing fluttering behind him, mako-green eyes glowing with the promise he purred at Cloud.

‘I will never be just a memory.’

A shiver slid down his spine before he could stop it, and Cloud firmly shoved the memory aside. Great Odin, he had been forced to kill Sephiroth twice now, almost three times if the Fates wanted to count when Cloud ran the insane general through in the Nibelheim reactor. But considering Sephiroth turned around and put a couple more holes in Cloud’s body, the blond didn’t really consider that a defeat of Sephiroth.

“Sephiroth’s not coming back,” Cloud stated in a firm voice. “There’s no way for him to come back.” he refused to let him believe anything other than that, because if Sephiroth managed to come back *again*, Cloud was going to take his sword and talk with Rufus Shinra about keeping secrets that can be decidedly unhealthy for the young president.

“Interesting that President Shinra didn’t mention any of this,” remarked Jackson and a small laugh slipped out of Cloud before he could stop it.

“When dealing with Shinra, always remember to count your fingers after shaking hands.” The saying that appeared when Old Man Shinra was in charge rose to his lips with a small smile. “Old Man Shinra wanted to rule the world through power and money. Rufus, before his office was blown up with him in it, stated that he wanted to rule the world through power and fear, because to do so through money was a waste of money.”

Cloud straightened up to fix Jackson with an unwavering gaze. “Rufus Shinra’s changed, but he’s not above manipulating people to get his way. He’s tried it with me and deliberately withheld information. Had I known that Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz were remnants of Sephiroth, I might have done things a bit differently.” He shrugged a shoulder. “It still would have been nice to know that the ‘Mother’ they were so desperate to get was Jenova.”

Serious blue eyes fixed on Cloud with an intensity he had only ever seen in materia-green or glowing violet before Jackson closed his notebook and tucked it away. “Let me tell you a bit about what I do and have seen...”

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Daniel was silent on the trip back to Healin as he thought over everything Cloud had told him. He didn’t miss the concerned looks Jack was tossing him, but didn’t say anything until they were back into their rooms without any of the Turks around. Teal’c, Jack and Sam sat on the chairs scattered around the room while Daniel paced, trying to work things out in his head, but after a few minutes, he repeated everything that Cloud had told him about Shinra and what had been happening.

“Are you sure Cloud Strife did not lie to you, Daniel Jackson?’ clarified Teal’c, a faint frown on his face, and Daniel snorted.

“He had no reason to,” he countered, pushing his glasses up on his nose as he tried to sort through the bits of information they had been told. Rufus Shinra had never mentioned that it had been one of his people who had tried to end the world, but logically, that would put his company in a less than pleasant light....

Daniel froze in mid stride and stared at the far wall, his mind whirling at that last thought. Shinra was a *corporation* that had ruled the planet, not a true government like a dictatorship or a democracy. Corporations were run with different rules than a government which is why it was often easier to take over a corporation than a government.

“We’ve been looking at this all wrong.” The words hung in the air as Daniel turned to look at his companions. “We’ve approached this as if it were any other planet with a government in place that we are use to, like a monarchy or democracy, but it’s not. *This* planet was ruled by a corporation, which is a hell of a lot easier to topple than a government.” He smirked at them, folding his arms across his chest. “There’s a reason why ‘hostile take-over’ is a business phrase instead of a governmental one.”

Jack and Sam blinked and exchanged confused glances at this new revelation. “Okay so now what do we do?” Jack asked, running a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “About the only thing we can give the General is a report that the corporation that ran this place toppled and doesn’t like painting itself in a bad light.” He shook his head. “Not much to go on.”

Daniel shrugged a shoulder. “One of us has to go out and talk to the general population to get a better idea of what’s going on around here before we can sit down at the negotiation table for *anything*.”

“That’s not a good idea, yo,” remarked a new voice, and the three sitting leaped to their feet as Daniel whirled around to find Reno leaning against the open door. The redhead didn’t look any less rumpled than he had before, but there was a nice bruise on his jaw where the drunk in the bar had clocked him.

“Why is it a bad idea to go talk to the general population?” inquired Jack in a tone that stated Reno had better have a good reason before they decided to take their chances elsewhere.

Reno shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t against the door. “Because someone would take it the wrong way and you’d be in even deeper shit,” he stated, straightening up and walking towards them, his folded arms falling to his sides. “Or some monster might decide you’re an easy target and then we’d really have a problem on our hands when you general starts asking where his people are.”

“So what do you suggest, Reno?” inquired Daniel before anyone else could talk. Out of the Turks he had met, Reno was the one that seemed the most cocky and cunning when needed. Tseng was the Boss and radiated calm control, Elena was the tough girl like Sam, and Rude was the perfect bodyguard and corporate thug. Reno was more like the street punk he resembled and could be considered a loose cannon, but definitely one that would get the job done no matter what.

A smirk stretched across the young face. “You need a guide to watch your back at least,” he announced. “Plus a reason to go to the various cities other than just wanting to talk ‘cause most people are still a bit twitchy when it comes to Shinra.”

A thoughtful frown crossed the archaeologist’s face. “Why are you helping us? Isn’t it part of your job to hide the bodies created by the company?”

“Because the Boss said to help you with whatever you needed,” replied Reno, the smirk being replaced with a serious expression that made him look older than he truly was. “And the only way you’re gonna form an honest opinion of Shinra and this world is if you talk to people who weren’t involved. Let me run this past the Boss and we’ll have a course of action in the morning.”

With a careless wave, the Turk left them alone as he closed the door behind him, but Daniel had seen the calculation in the blue eyes and knew that a plan was already being developed.

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