Viral Love

We landed in the biggest pile of garbage I’d ever seen. Having worked for Shin-Ra many years, I’d nonetheless never taken particular notice of how the company got rid of waste. I considered this an unwelcome education.

Valentine landed on top of me, and completely shoved every last bit of wind from my lungs. The Turk weighed a ton. I rolled, desperate to draw air, but almost fifteen seconds elapsed before I could take my first good inhale. Too bad the air down here wasn’t exactly hospitable.

“You cut your hand off,” he said, sounding almost accusing. Getting to his knees, he scanned the enormous heap. “Gods.” His voice held only truest disgust.

“It’ll grow back.” I tightened the tourniquet. Jesus, losing a hand hurt.

“How do we get out of here?” Valentine slid down, hitting the only available clear spot. “I don’t see any doors.”

I scanned the darkness. He could see better than I did, of course. I’d augmented him for night vision and not considered it for myself. I’d lost my glasses, too, fuck it all. Hoping they’d landed close, I started groping. Thank Shiva, I found them quickly.

I didn’t dare strike flame down here. Not only did we have leftover chemicals to contend with, the methane levels in this room soared past any safe zone. Even a static electric spark would blow us both to kingdom come. At least the methane seemed to counter-act the procreation gas. I no longer felt like fucking Valentine.

Well, to be honest with myself, I did still feel like fucking him, but not in our current state.

I made a controlled fall down the garbage mountain and came to stand beside my churlish companion. “There has to be some way out of here,” I insisted. “This isn’t a compactor or an incinerator. This mess must be carried away as-is, which disturbs me.”

“Why?” Valentine plucked a banana peel off his shoulder. “Shin-Ra is a planet-raping company that you work for; it shouldn’t bother you to know this stuff is just getting dumped somewhere.”

I ignored his deliberate attempt to get me to defend myself, and started fumbling with the bracelet in my pocket. I hoped it hadn’t been damaged by our trip into the bowels of hell. Hopefully the remote relay still functioned…

“What are you doing?” Valentine asked.

“Checking to make sure I can still use this thing.” The blinking light came on, relieving me. “Good, it’s still working.”

The floor under us vibrated in time with a tremendous clanging sound. Valentine looked down at me, red eyes blazing with accusing mistrust. I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t do that, whatever ‘that’ is.”

The floor shivered again, violently, and we were suddenly thrown onto our bellies. “Holy Shiva,” Valentine said. “I know what that is. We’re getting airlifted. They’re going to dump us.” He whirled on me. “This is completely your fault, and I’m not going to forget it, either.”

“What are you going to do, beat me up?” I demanded. “Save it for later.” I hit the remote on my bracelet. The clone would figure out what the sudden release of his locks meant. I couldn’t take a chance on leaving him to Shin-Ra’s tender mercies, and if I got carried too far away, the remote wouldn’t work. “Here, take this.” I got the bracelet off. “I can’t wear it with my watch.”

Valentine looked at the medic alert bangle full of materia and then back at me. Silently, he clamped it around his left wrist.

We began to move. I pondered if we’d get dumped on land or sea. It didn’t make much difference, really. We’d both survive the impact. I imagined he could swim, and I knew I could. Granted, I hadn’t been in a body of water for fifty years…

“You’re nothing but grief,” Valentine muttered, sitting up.

“Then you ought to like me, Valentine, because you wallow in grief,” I snapped back, irritated. “You’re aware the Hereafter doesn’t give points for hair-shirts and self-flagellation?”

He shoved me into the garbage, scowling with those beautiful lips. “How would you know?”

“Pretty little Cetra women tell me.” I got up and tried to scrape filth from my lab coat, but it’s difficult to do that one-handed. “Ifalna Gast told me a lot about the Promised Land.”

“Under duress, under torture,” he claimed.

“I never tortured the lady. Do you think I enjoy that sort of thing?”

“Yes.”

Well, he was right. I did enjoy hurting the ones that stood in my way. But, Ifalna never stood in my way, only her hypocrite of a husband. He insisted I use Lucrecia in the Jenova Project, and he’d use his wife. But, when the chips were down, he’d backed out. I’d only done what anyone else would do.

“You have no idea what motivates me, how I feel, or any of my inner workings,” I told him. “You never cared to know. All you cared about was taking what belonged to me.”

To my satisfaction, Valentine flinched. Giving me his back, he retreated into silence.

To pass the time, I began taking inventory of what I had in my pockets. I had a habit of stowing things and forgetting about them. But, when one routinely has eight pockets, it’s easy to lose track. I didn’t have to check for my guns. The 454 had bruised me between my shoulder blades while in the waste duct, and the tranq gun felt heavy in my left inner front pocket.

I had a roll of suture string and a needle, a smashed sandwich, half a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, my knife and a block of paraffin I’d used to fix the sticky drawer in my office desk. I threw the sandwich away and sat on an overturned garbage can. I could feel my hand growing back. In a few hours it would form completely.

I didn’t mind losing that hand. I’d developed arthritis in it. This new one wouldn’t have such a painful, aggravating affliction. Too bad I couldn’t cut my head off to fix my insanity.

I must have nodded off, for suddenly Valentine was grabbing my shoulder and shaking me. “We’ve started hovering,” he said. In the next moment we were falling through the air with tons of refuse, heading directly for the ocean

It felt like hitting concrete.

Everything became pain and confusion. Water went down my esophagus, up my nose and into my ears. Garbage kept falling on me, shoving me under again and again. I heard Valentine cursing and thrashing, his dark, rasping voice indignant and disgusted.

Then, silence except for our coughing and the sound of an airship. I looked up and spied the craft. Scarlet and Heideggar stood side by side at the railing, waving at me. Furious, I flipped them the finger.

In retrospect, it wasn’t the best idea to further anger two people who enjoyed guns so much. I had to get under floating heaps of waste to avoid their bullets, but I didn’t manage to dodge them all. One tore into my shoulder and another into my side.

“Idiot!” Valentine shouted. “Do sharks mean anything to you?”

Oh, yes indeedy they meant something to me. All this blood and garbage would draw them quickly. I had to think of something.