On Silver Wings

CHAPTER 3

A swift rushing current of thought, silver flashes quick as light. He followed her presence, her voice, and felt himself surface, as if from a dream. Around him he could hear the torrent of her will, a maelstrom of emotion, conflicting flashes of the past and present. He realized her voice was slowly getting dimmer, and she was angry.

He felt warmth and flickering flames around him; this was a recurring dream, a nightmare he knew well. He traveled through it, let himself live through the flash of the sword, the slick slice of blade hitting flesh. He remembered guilt, afterwards. But for that moment there was nothing but the warmth of flame on his skin, and the wet stickiness of blood on his armor. He felt the dream pass, as it usually did. The warmth slowly seeped away into the creeping green.

But on the edge of his vision the green was frayed; it was slowly unraveling, like cloth pulled apart from a single loose strand. Through it he felt a breeze of sorts, a cool, new air which brought promises of things forbidden. It was white and silver, cold and metallic.

Out of boredom, more than anything else, he reached for it.

* * *

The disk sat on the edge of the broad mahogany table, exactly where Tifa had left it after she had walked out after Zack. Cid walked over and picked it up a thin film of mako-enhanced transducer plastic in an aluminum case. It was Neo-ShinRa’s most recent technological advancement. Yet, for all the money Reeve had siphoned into its development, it had turned as useful an invention as a toast-less toaster. They were, however, a lot more secure than simple over-the-air data transmission.

Cid frowned. Anything you wanted to transfer to someone these days, you only had to send via PMSmail. A disk like this could only be accessed through one of Neo-ShinRa’s proprietary computers. Which meant someone had given Zack the disk, because the man knew next to nothing about technology.

Which meant whatever was on it came from Reeve, and the man wanted it kept secure.

He glanced up at Vincent, who shot him a dark look and raised an eyebrow. Barrett was also staring at him for all he was worth. “Well? What are we all waitin’ for, then?” The dark man’s rumble was surprisingly loud in the quiet board room.

Yuffie shook her head from her spot near the door. “I think we should wait for Tifa, guys.” She shrugged as the rest of them turned to her. “I mean, Zack gave her the disk and everything.” She indicated the door behind her with a casual wave of her hand and shrugged. “I’m going after her, I want to know what’s going on. I want to speak with Zack, too.”

Vincent stood up and walked to the door. “I’ll go with you.”

“Fine.”, Cid stared back at Barrett, who was still sitting in his seat. The man still looked a little dazed, although he was sure he himself wasn’t much better off at this point. He reached over and pocketed the disk. “I’m heading back to my office. I’ll wait for you guys, but if you ain’t there in an hour, I’m popping this thing in, right?”

* * *

The actual machine had been built by Hojo, years before, and had never been dismantled; it had sat, forgotten and collecting dust, in one of ShinRa’s old hangars. It was huge, and the massive swinging doors that led to this closed off section of the science wings had to be torn out because the machine couldn’t be taken apart; no one had any idea even how to start putting it back together, so they hadn’t tried.

The room itself had been renamed Area 0, sectioned off, wiped off the maps of the wing and totally closed to any personnel without clearance. Reeve had had a field day trying to pass it off as a mako reactor core experiment leak. Eventually, though, they would have to reopen the doors to the section, and explain to everyone why 17 million gil’s worth of equipment had suddenly appeared in what what supposed to be a mako leak zone. They would also have to explain what the machine was for.

Reeve sighed as he rounded the corner of the corridor that led to the second security check. The guards posted on either side of the doors nodded at him, took his key card and his signature and waved him through with a nod. He adjusted his necktie and stepped through the doors.

To be greeted by utter chaos.

The enormous room was abuzz with activity and people rushing about looking harried. Reeve frowned. He hadn’t taken two steps before he was surrounded by several nervous employees.

“Mr. President, sir!”

“Thank the gods you’re here, Mr. President.”

“Damnit, Reeve, where the hell have you been?”

This last had been uttered by the woman he had put in charge of the whole technical side of Cloud’s project. She had a mean temper on her, and an even scarier habit of bypassing the chain of command and going straight to the top. Reeve felt, against all reason, intimidated by the woman.

She was small and compact, hard as nails and had a habit of exploding at the slightest hint of provocation. She was also, without a doubt, the smartest scientist ShinRa had produced in years. In her capable hands, the project had been going a lot faster than expected. Cloud avoided her like the plague, claiming she made him uncomfortable; Reeve couldn’t bring himself to blame the man.

“Diane. Please don’t tell me.”

She huffed at him, clearly not amused. “Don’t be absurd Reeve, we haven’t got time for kidding around. Something’s happened; something important. My office, now.” She promptly turned and briskly walked down the adjoining corridor into the open door of her office. Reeve could see the entire floor was in a panic. He started turning to Dr. Hollcomb’s office when his PHS rang.

“Don’t bother,” she called out. “Trust me, I can tell you exactly what’s going on. Whoever’s calling you to tell you about the power shortage doesn’t know the half of it.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, quickly pressed the silent button on his PHS and glared. “Power shortage?”

“Yes. Remember when I told you we’d need a good few weeks to figure out how to anchor Sephiroth’s soul properly when we were ready to wake him up? That’s not an option anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s bypassed every single security redundancy protocol we had jerry-rigged on Hojo’s contraption. We have a pulse Reeve, he’s no longer in the Lifestream. He’s here. And he’s managed to blow the entire grid and half of our backups in the process.”

He must’ve blanched, because Diane motioned him inside her office with slightly more tact than was her usual way. She reached her desk and picked up a file folder from the top of a dangerously looming pile.

“Get in, because right now, I need you to tell me what I’m supposed to do about this.”

Reeve caught the folder as it came sailing at him. He was reeling. “I’m supposed to know?” He stared at the files he held. Rows of numbers and chemical names he barely recognized stared back. “What the hell is this, Diane?”

“The surge happened about three and a half hours ago. I’ve been trying to contact you since then.” There was a barely concealed barb there which he ignored. Diane walked around him to close the door to her office; two of her aides were already staring.

“I was busy. Cloud wanted me there when he told Avalanche.”

“They’re medication logs, Reeve. If I hadn’t started him on sedatives almost immediately, he would’ve woken up hours ago.” She ran a hand through her short hair.

Reeve stared at her. He hadn’t realized before, but the woman looked exhausted. “I’ve been throwing the book at this, Reeve. Every time I find a drug that seems to work, his heart-rate starts to climb steadily back up. I’m running out of safe drugs to try. I just can’t keep him under without risking some major organ failure at this point. That log is long enough to have brought down an entire platoon, let alone one man.”

“I...” Reeve sighed, ran a hand over his eyes and sat heavily down in Dr. Hollcomb’s chair. She didn’t seem to care. “I need to call Cloud.”

* * *

The blond glanced up as the door opened and managed a small smile. He’d recognized Zack even before the man had opened the door. He heard the guard and secretary outside exchange their greetings, the one respectful, the other just a touch breathless.

His friend sighed as he entered and closed the door behind him.

“Damn, Spike, you look like the walking dead. You okay?”

“Yeah. Just, you know, trouble sleeping.”

He almost felt Zack’s stare burning into the back of his neck as he went back to the documents on the desk. This part of the science wing had once been conference and board rooms. He’d requested the use of one because they felt more informal than all the other rooms, which were all decorated in shades of off-white and medical stainless. This was the only place he felt comfortable in this section; the rest of the rooms reminded him too much of the labs.

He sighed as he heard Zack sit beside him. “I don’t want to talk about it, if it’s all the same.”

“Cloud...”

He pushed the documents over to his friend to change the subject. “Here. Nanaki sent me back his comments and I made a few changes. He was right, it actually was too confrontational.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “And now it’s not? How do you tell someone they were almost single-handedly responsible for destroying the world and not be confrontational about it?”

Cloud shrugged. “I don’t know, ask Nanaki.” He paused. “Do you really think he won’t remember any of it?”

“I have no idea Cloud. If that’s what Hollcomb believes then I suppose it’s as good a guess as any. I wasn’t actually listening when she gave us that genetics lecture, but it seemed to make sense at the time.” He shrugged, smiling. “You know, as much sense as the rest of it, really.”

Cloud smiled back. “She said that since the sample came from before Nibelheim, he wouldn’t have any genetic memory of anything after that unless we pushed him.” Which was a slim consolation, since Cloud fully intended to jog the man’s memory. “If we force him to remember, then the memories resurface from his mind, which has technically been in the lifestream, where he’s had access to the planet’s memory of the events.”

“I know when I came back from the lifestream, I wasn’t sure which way was up. I suppose it’s possible.”

“Anyway, I’m sick of rewording that stuff. It’s not going to be an easy tale anyway, so I might as well--” His PHS rang, interrupting him. “Sorry. It’s probably Reeve.”

“Hey, don’t mind little old me, Spike.”

Cloud snapped his PHS open. “Reeve. Everything okay?”

* * *

When they got to main floor of the sectioned off wing, they found their way barred by an entire Neo-ShinRa trooper division, armed to the teeth and jittery as hell. An unlucky young officer tried to forcefully bar Zack’s way and ended up with a bloody nose and a gushed apology.

Zack pushed his way through the men and reached the main doors, which were standing ajar and bustled with scientists and medical personnel. He rubbed his elbow, grimacing, and gestured to Cloud, who walked to his side.

The blond was paler than he’d ever seen him. The past couple of weeks had taken their toll on him and Zack knew he’d been avoiding this place, putting off coming here until he had no other choice. This wasn’t a good time for his friend to have to face his fears, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He’d been an idiot; all he could do now was help the blonde cope. He tried to swallow his own apprehension and grinned at his friend.

“C’mon Spike, it can’t be that bad.” Before the blond could react, Zack had grabbed his shoulder and pulled him through the double doors into the room beyond.

* * *

The room was hell.

Hojo’s device stood in the very middle, reaching almost all the way to the ceiling. Up there, the great tubes and valves parted this way and that and disappeared into the walls and ceilings. Intakes and energy supplies all lead down into the core of the device, which seemed pretty simple; a small mako generator on one side, a discarded oxygen tent which lay in disarray, and a steel slab. Most of the grunt work had been done in a separate part of the building, in silent rooms where people knew how to make cells dance.

Cloud had been here only once, in the very beginning, when there was nothing on that slab of steel but bleached bones, which they’d extracted from the Northern Crater, and a few spots of what had looked to him like rust. A pleasant lady had been there to explain things, and Cloud had felt like a tourist. He’d smiled at her, that much he remembered.

She hadn’t smiled back, not really. She’d told him that the cell samples had been seeded over the bones and that Hojo’s device would use up all the energy stored in the materia he’d donated to direct the growth according to a pattern which he hadn’t understood. He’d probably looked and sounded like the dumbest man alive to her. He’d nodded, thanked her, told her they were doing a great job and fled.

There was no whitened skeleton on that steel bed now. Monitors and wires trailed across his sight and concentrated there, where he couldn’t bring himself to look.

He stared at Zack, who had snagged a passing Reeve as they had entered. They were talking. Cloud couldn’t hear them over the buzz in his ears and mind, over the rushing of his own blood, over his thudding heart.

He was vaguely aware that Zack was calling to him, but he couldn’t turn, couldn’t answer him. His gaze followed a man in an immaculate lab coat who hurried over across the room and out of sight, and fell on the steel guardrails which had been hastily welded to the bed.

There, bound and tied by leather restraints, Sephiroth’s long body lay unmoving, fussed over by an army of nurses and technicians. The blond froze, panicked. His heart thumping furiously, dreading the fire and blade of Jenova, dreading the cold and calm of the General, he felt the world crash in around him.

There, amidst the wires and the hurrying technicians, Sephiroth’s naked chest rose and fell, once.

Cloud stared. Rose and fell, again. A nurse bent over the metal railing, checked the restraints that had been installed to secure the man’s hands, feet and neck to the frame, reached over to stare at what he presumed was an intravenous drip and nodded to herself.

Rose and fell, again.

He hadn’t realized he’d walked closer, but he reached out and steadied himself on the railing. The nurse jumped back, surprised, and stared at him. She sent a panicked look towards Reeve. Cloud ignored her.

Up close, he realized the din he heard wasn’t all in his head; monitors all around him told their tales in beeps and whirrs. He stared down at his hands gripping the railing. Beyond, an expanse of smooth, unblemished pale flesh, undoubtedly alive. He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding and let his gaze travel upwards.

The man seemed younger than he remembered. Dimly, Cloud knew this made sense; he’d been only twenty-five when Nibelheim had gone up in flames. Without the harsh sneer of Jenova’s hatred twisting his features, he looked even younger. Sephiroth’s eyes were closed, but Cloud could make out a dim green glow seeping through the man’s silver lashes.

A hand clamped on his shoulder and he jumped, startled. Zack came up next to him and gave him a tentative smile.

“It’ll be fine, Spike.”

“I... I can’t do this, Zack.”

Zack ignored him; he’d heard it more than once over the past few months. “Cloud, Reeve says they can’t keep him sedated much longer.”

Cloud’s voice was little than a whisper. “I know.”

“We’re still doing this, right?”

Cloud took a deep breath and stared down at the man who slept, unknowing, before him. He remembered Hojo’s files, and Hojo’s voice, and Hojo’s cold hands on his flesh, and the basement where he and Zack had spent five agonizing years of hell and blood.

Sephiroth sleeping there, whole. Hojo dead and gone, by Cloud’s own hand.

“Yes, we’re still doing this.”