The Conscience of the King
			Chapter Eighteen: Windmills

"Take the darkest hour, break it open
Water to repair what we have broken
There's something that you won't show
Waiting where the light goes
And any way the wind blows, it's all worth waiting for
Pull on the borders to lighten the load
Tell all the passengers we're going home
(any way the wind blows, it's all worth waiting for)"
	--Toad the Wet Sprocket



	Soft footsteps padded through the corridors of Shinra Tower. It was
well past midnight; everyone was asleep except for the few night-shift
workers, far down in the tower. This far up the high-rise, in the
rarefied executive air, lights went out well before dark; the few who
worked up here were rarely present past dinner, taking themselves out of
the Tower proper and into the satellite buildings that housed them. Dark
and silent, tenanted only by security cameras and the occasional guard,
the halls held a haunting deserted quality that had caused more than one
person, in the past, to shiver uncomfortably and make a hasty retreat. 

	The visitor was not disturbed by the darkness, nor by the
sepulchral silence of the empty hallways. Up first one flight of stairs,
and then another. Doors that should have remained locked and barred
opened easily, silently.

	Past the deserted boardroom on the 66th floor, past the science labs
on the 67th (and perhaps, the visitor thought, it would be wise to go
and pay respects -- but no, there were other tasks to complete first,
and perhaps there would be time when that was done). Past the extensions
of the labs on 68th, where a single bored lab technician dozed away the
wee hours of the night. Past the executive offices on 69th, which had at
one time offered the best chance of finding an awake and alert person at
this time of night. But that person's office had moved, scant weeks
before, and the visitor did not pause.

	In the luxurious opulence of the office of the President of
Shinra, Incorporated, the lights had long since dimmed to power-saving
mode; no one had moved in the proper length of time, and so the only
light came from the soft glow of the computer monitor on the corner of
the desk. Slumped across that desk was a man, golden-haired and
golden-skinned, unconsciously echoing the position that the former
inhabitant of the office had taken in the end. Only the faintest sound
of soft breathing spoke to the fact that he was still alive.

	The visitor glided across the room, and the lights did not
respond. Slender fingers brushed a lock of hair out of those closed
eyes, and the man did not stir. A long moment went by, and then the
visitor bent low to whisper a single word into the man's ear.

	Rufus woke quickly in the darkness, sitting bolt upright from
where he had fallen asleep on his desk, and it took him a long time
before he could convince his nerves that he was alone in the office.


				-- * --

	"Okay," Tifa said in a level voice, staring at the same thing
that everyone else was staring at. "Am I the only one seeing this?"

	They had just let the chocobos go -- Aerith had given hers an extra
scratch behind the ears, and it had "warked" quite happily at her -- and
turned around to see one of the giant snakes they had been outrunning.
It had been impaled on a stake, still faintly twitching; thirty feet if
it was an inch, and something had strung it up like it was nothing more
than a child's toy.

	"Sephiroth," Cloud said, in an undertone. The act of telling his
story in Kalm had disturbed Tifa, but seemed to have settled him -- as
though by giving the words voice, they became real for him. She gave him
a look out of the corner of her eye, not liking the sound she heard in
his voice. What was playing behind his eyes? What was whispering in his
mind, that told him stories of things happening that she didn't remember
at all?

	And was she the one to remember incorrectly, or was he?

	She shook her head as Aerith came up at her other elbow. "We're
after someone who could do this?" Aerith said, quietly. "Are we sure we
need to chase after him?"

	"We're not going to get answers until we find him," Cloud said,
firmly, and strode off towards the path that led through the mountains. 

	They were halfway through the caverns when the voice stopped
them. "Hold on a minute," it came, deep rumbling that sounded as
ponderous and heavy as the stone that surrounded them. 

	They turned, to see Rude standing there and watching them
carefully. Tifa tensed, and Barret brought his gun-arm up to a ready
position, but Rude simply watched; there was no threat in how he was
standing, Tifa judged after a moment, and relaxed as much as she could
while still remembering Sector 7 collapsing in on itself.

	"What do you want?" Cloud asked, quietly.

	Tifa had only seen Rude without the sunglasses on once or twice;
she had learned, after a while, to read his expression even behind the
dark lenses. His expression now was, oddly enough, regretful. "There's
more to it than --"

	"It's all right, Rude," came a female voice, and a woman stepped
up next to Rude; slender, blonde, dressed in the same business suit that
was the Turk uniform. "I know you don't like speeches. Don't push
yourself." 

	That seemed to spark amusement, though Tifa knew that nobody who
didn't know Rude would see it. "Then go ahead and explain, Elena." 

	The woman looked over at AVALANCHE, and her expression was cool.
Tifa wondered if she was the only one who saw how Elena's hands were
shaking. "I'm the new recruit. Thanks to what you people did to Reno,
we're short of people."

	"He deserved it," Tifa said, studying the woman's face. A new factor
in the equation; she knew how Rude would react, but Elena was an
unknown. Would she decide to break the fragile truce that had existed
between AVALANCHE and the Turks for so long? Oh, not a truce, precisely,
but Tifa knew full well that Tseng had always known what they were up
to, and had never turned them in.

	But this woman, nervous as hell and trying not to show it,
trying to prove that she did belong, could be dangerous.

	"Nobody deserves what you people did to him," Elena snapped
back, her eyes coming to focus directly on Tifa. "He's still in the
hospital, you know? The doctors weren't sure if he'd ever walk without a
cane ever again. And thanks to /you/, we were shorthanded when we got
sent out after Sephiroth. And no matter what you intend to do, we'll be
there to stop you every chance that we --"

	"Elena." That voice too was familiar, and Tifa whipped her head
around to see Tseng, standing up on a higher ledge that appeared to lead
outside of the caverns. "You talk too much."

	The woman flushed, nearly invisibly in the low light of the
cavern. "Yes, sir."
	
	Tseng had his arms crossed over his chest, looking amused as he
watched the tableau beneath him. "Didn't I give you other orders? Go on,
you and Rude get out of here."

	Elena nodded. "Yes, sir, we'll follow Sephiroth to Junon Harbor--"

	"/Elena/." Tifa frowned; /that/ tone in Tseng's voice was
amusement, nothing more. Not even a hint of irritation. "You're really
missing the point here, aren't you?"

	"Oh -- yes sir, sorry sir --"

	"Rude," Tseng said, with a nod to Rude; Rude nodded back and
turned around, taking a hold of one of Elena's elbows and ushering her
out of the caves. Just as he exited, he turned around, and Tifa got the
distinct impression that he was looking directly at her. "Reno told me
he's looking forward to seeing you again for a rematch," he said before
leaving, and the tone was distinctly darker than usual.

	Tseng waited until his subordinates had left, and then took a
step forward, closer to the group. "Aerith," he said, almost gently.
"So, it looks like you managed to get away from Shinra after all."

	Next to Tifa, Aerith took a firmer grip on her staff and squared
her shoulders. "No thanks to you," she retorted. 

	That coaxed a soft laugh out of Tseng. "No, I suppose not. Be
careful. It's a dangerous world out here."

	"That's pretty funny, coming from you," Aerith said, her chin
coming up defiantly.

	"Yes, I suppose it is." Tseng looked out over the top of the
party, his eyes distant, as though looking at something that no one else
could see. "Well, if you're not going to be careful, at least stay out
of Shinra's way. Sooner or later, our orders are going to tell us to
look for you, rather than for Sephiroth. And I don't think you'd really
like to be taken back to Midgar in chains, would you?"

	Aerith opened her mouth as though to say something; Tifa,
suspecting what Tseng was doing -- giving them as much information as he
legitimately could, while still respecting the battle lines that had
been drawn -- stepped on Aerith's toes as unobtrusively as she could.
The glint in Tseng's eyes as he looked back down at them told her that
he'd seen. Tifa added up the situation, rolled the mental dice, and
asked him, in Wutaian, "\What more can you tell us?\"

	Tseng's eyes only glinted further -- or was that the reflection of
sunlight hitting a mythril vein? "\Why, little rebel,\" he answered in
kind, "\I haven't told you anything of consequence, now have I?\ I won't
bother you further right now," he continued in a language that the rest
of the group could understand, "as I have rather many things to attend
to, elsewhere. Do recall that next time you might not be as lucky."

	Barret was swearing under his breath as Tseng departed. "Shoulda
let me take a shot at him," he grumbled. "Coulda hit him from here.
Winged him at least. Might notta killed him, but we coulda done some
serious hurt."

	Tifa's eyes were still on the cave-exit where Tseng had
disappeared. "No," she said, slowly. "He's helping us. Or as much as he
can, I think. He brought the new girl because he knows that she can't
keep her mouth shut, and he told us that his orders /aren't/ to
concentrate on us right now -- that's important. We need to know that."

	Barret snorted. "Why'n the hell would he want to help /us/?
Yeah, he came and drank our beer, but he still the one who dropped ten
million tons of metal on the bar when they told him to, ain't he? I
don't trust anythin' he says further than I can throw him. What'n the
hell did you say to him, and what'd he say to you?"

	Tifa shook off the dazed expression and glanced around her with
a sense of purpose. "Nothing. Come on, we should get going."

	"Tif' --" 

	Cloud interrupted Barret. "She's right. We have to keep moving.
We're already going to have to spend a night in these mountains, and we
don't want to let Sephiroth get too far ahead of us." 

	Tifa watched Cloud carefully as they made their way further.
~Sephiroth,~ she thought. ~It all comes down to Sephiroth. We're all
chasing him, but Cloud is -- drawn to him. Or following him. Or -- oh, I
don't know what the hell is going on here, but I don't like it.~

	From the worried look that Aerith cast at Cloud's back, she
didn't like it either.

				-- * --

	Board meetings had taken on a strained air, more so than they
had in the past. Rufus heard the last of the reports with as much
attention as he could force himself to pay; he hadn't been sleeping
well. Everything around him seemed to be wrapped in a shroud of cotton,
and his own breath sounded too loudly in his ears.

	"All right," he said finally. "I've got this stupid parade thing
in Junon next week, and then over to Costa del Sol and the Gold Tower to
make sure that they get a chance to do the meet and greet routine.
Heidegger, I want you shoring up the defenses in the city. /Without/
intimidating the civilians. Our popularity figures are running nearly in
the negatives these days, and I don't want to cause any more ill-will
than we've already gotten. Scarlet, I want to know just where the rebels
are getting their weapons; if I have to set IntSec on the
quartermasters, I /will/. Reeve, pull anyone you need for clearing what
used to be Sector 7; we're not moving along as quickly as I'd hoped, and
I don't want to think about what that's going to be like once the
weather starts getting warmer."
	
	"Working on it already," Reeve said, his voice clipped; Rufus
noted it for the record, sighed inwardly, and made a mental note to ask
Reeve what was bothering him. 

	If he had time. If they ever had time. "Also, how are your
robotics projects going these days? We're having problems locating
AVALANCHE through normal means, and while it's certainly not a priority,
I want to know what they're up to -- they certainly won't let a Shinra
employee get close enough. If we could get one of your projects near
them..." Rufus trailed off, frowning a little as something caught the
corner of his eye. It was nothing, but it distracted him from what he
had been saying.

	Reeve seemed to think about that for a minute. "I can have you
one of the latest prototypes in a few weeks. It's not the best of
models, and it doesn't make a great deal of sense when it tries to talk,
but it can be remote-controlled if necessary, and it knows enough to
shout for home if it finds anything that's not covered in its basic
programming."

	"All right. Now, has anyone seen Hojo in a few days? I told him
that I wanted him at this meeting." Irritated, Rufus caught himself
reaching to undo his tie; the room was hot, but not that hot. He made
himself stop, placing his hands flat on the table and studying each face
in turn. No one responded. "Well, I'll talk to him later. Now, does
anyone have anything else they'd like to bring up?" 

	He waited for a minute, but no one -- not even Reeve -- met his
eyes. "All right, fine. Dismissed, and I'll expect everyone's reports on
my desk by nine AM on Monday." 

	The room cleared quickly, leaving him sitting at the table with
his head in his hands and Reeve -- already standing, on his way out the
door -- turning around at the very last minute before leaving the room.
"Rufus," Reeve said, quietly.

	He picked up his head and looked at Reeve. "Yeah?"

	Reeve seemed as though he was going to say something else, and
then changed his mind. "You're going to be too busy to have dinner
tonight, aren't you."

	Visions of the paperwork burying his desk crossed his mind
briefly, and then Rufus shoved them out of his consciousness. He'd
cancelled their last three dates because of the things he had to do; it
was Friday night, after all, and some things could wait a little longer.
"--No, I do have a lot of things to do, but I think I can spare enough
time to have dinner. Meet me up in my place in about an hour?"

	Something sparked in Reeve's eyes, something almost like anger.
It baffled Rufus; a year and a half apart had changed Reeve, turned him
almost into a stranger. He couldn't read this man coolly regarding him,
didn't know what he could have said to bring that spark of anger to
Reeve's face. "All right," Reeve agreed, and turned to go.

	Left alone in the boardroom, Rufus slumped backwards in his
chair and closed his eyes. Unbidden, the sensation of a ghostly hand
brushing a lock of hair out of his face rose to memory, and he shivered.
You haven't been sleeping enough, he told himself. That's all that it
is. Lack of sleep, and everything seems to be turned up just a little
too loudly. Get some sleep, and everything will be fine in the morning. 

	Everything will be fine in the morning.

	He rose from the table, gathering up his papers -- being
president of the company spawned even more paperwork, he noted once
more, and vowed once again that it was time to send out a memo about
sending him things electronically rather than paper copy, no matter how
much Heidegger and Palmer couldn't seem to operate the email attachment
system. He was distracted as he took the elevator up to his father's --
/his/ office, but not distracted enough to fail to greet Beatrice as he
went inside.

	"Mail for you," Beatrice said as he walked past, holding out an
intra-company envelope. Rufus plucked it from her hand as he went by.
"Will you be doing your typical routine of working through the night, or
do you plan to actually leave this room before four in the morning?"

	No matter what happened, he could always count on Beatrice for a
healthy dose of sarcasm. "Dinner with Reeve, actually," he said,
distractedly sliding one finger under the edge of the envelope to open
it. He'd always wondered whether or not Beatrice knew about the two of
them. 

	"Ah," Beatrice said, and wisely fell silent as Rufus went past
her into his father's -- /his, dammit/ -- office. He dropped his
briefcase on one end of the huge desk, and dropped himself into the
chair that he'd had brought up from his office to replace the one that
had needed to be discarded. Rufus slid the piece of paper out of the
envelope (which was addressed, simply, to "R. Shinra, President", the
use of which appellation still had not become commonplace and still
caused him to blink) and unfolded it. There was handwriting on the back
of the paper; he discarded that for the time being, opening it up to
read the typewritten words inside.
	
	And then stopped and stared at it for a long minute, barely even
blinking, reading it over twice to make sure that he really was reading
it properly. 


	June 17, 985

	Dear sir,

		It is with regret that I announce my resignation from my 
	position as Science Director of Shinra, Inc., effective 
	immediately, due to personal necessity. 

		I thank you for the opportunity to allow me to serve,
	and wish you well in your future endeavours.

	Regards,

	Simon Hojo, Ph.D, M.D.



	Slowly, wonderingly, Rufus turned the cream-colored stationery
over, taking a few slow minutes to puzzle through the lines handwritten
in Hojo's spidery handwriting on the reverse:


	He stayed: and was imprisoned in possession.
	The seasons stood like guards about his ways;
	The mountains chose the mothers of his children,
	And like a conscience the sun ruled his days.
	Beyond him his young cousins in the city
	Pursued their rapid and unnatural course,
	Believed in nothing but were easy-going,
	And treated strangers like a favorite horse.

	And he changed little,
	But took his color from the earth,
	And grew in likeness to his sheep and cattle.

	The townsman thought him miserly and simple,
	The poet wept and saw in him the truth,
	And the oppressor held him up as an example.


	"Beatrice," Rufus finally said, reaching out for the intercom
button on the desk. "You might as well get me the files on the Science
department. I think we're going to need a new chief."

	Without waiting for her reply, he let the button go, and
smoothed out the piece of paper on his desk -- not the side with the
typewritten resignation, but the other side of it, poetic lines staring
up at him accusingly. It meant something; he knew that much. What it
meant, he couldn't say, but he knew that Hojo was trying to tell him
something.

	He only hoped he could figure out what it was trying to say
before it was too late.


				-- * --

	"This sound at all familiar to you?" Rufus asked, kicking off
his shoes and tossing a photocopy of the back of Hojo's resignation
letter over to Reeve. He'd been late to get upstairs, of course, and had
found Reeve already present in his apartment, with what appeared to be a
... stuffed moogle? with a /cat/ sitting on its head? ...sitting on the
coffee table. 

	Reeve took the paper, frowning at it for a long moment, having
the usual problem that people had with Hojo's handwriting. "Sounds
familiar, yeah," he said, eventually. "Sounds like something I had to
read in college. I didn't pay much attention in the poetry classes,
though. Why, where'd you find it?"

	"Written on the back of Hojo's resignation letter." Rufus undid
his tie and tossed it half-heartedly in the direction of one of the
chairs; it caught the edge of the chair, but slid down to the floor. He
dismissed it; someone would be along to clean it up, sooner or later. 

	"Well, you could always ask him what it -- Wait a minute." Reeve
looked up, suddenly putting Rufus's words together. "Resignation
letter?"

	"Resignation letter." Rufus headed over to the bar, taking out a
glass, noting that Reeve already had a drink. "Came back from the board
meeting and Beatrice handed me an intra-office envelope. It had that in
it." He gestured with the empty glass towards the paper that Reeve had
in his hand. "Well, on the back; the front was probably the /blankest/
resignation letter I've ever seen. 'Regret to inform blah blah personal
necessity blah blah pleasure working with you blah.'"

	"Huh." Reeve frowned down at the paper. "And you think that
'personal necessity' is code for what?"

	"I think 'personal necessity' is code for 'I'm going after
Sephiroth on my own, and I don't want you to beat me to it,'" Rufus
said, bluntly. The ice-cubes clinked and shifted in the glass as he
poured the whiskey over them. "If Sephiroth really /is/ his kid, he's
going to have a vested interest in getting him /back/, hopefully before
the rest of us get our hands on him. And I don't know why he /has/ that
vested interest, except that there is, as usual, stuff going on here
that I can't figure out."

	Rufus had shared his theories regarding Sephiroth's parentage
with Reeve; Reeve was keeping an open mind about it. "You've got Tseng
and Rude out there looking for him, don't you," Reeve said, slowly. "And
the new girl. Who are you going to send after Hojo?" 

	Well, maybe some things didn't change too much; Reeve could at
least still recognize that Rufus wasn't going to let Hojo go without at
least some pursuit. "Heidegger's the only one we've got right now,"
Rufus said with a sigh, dropping into the chair opposite Reeve. "We
could give it to IntSec, but they're busy enough, and Heidegger's got
his people spread out all over two continents. I don't have any idea
where Hojo might possibly be heading, and we've already got /one/
wild-goose chase ongoing; I don't particularly feel like starting
another."

	Reeve sighed. "It never gets easier, does it?" he asked, rubbing
a hand over his eyes. "I thought that once your old man was gone --"

	"That it'd be smooth sailing?" Rufus sighed as well. "Yeah, me
too. Instead, I'm up to my ears in work, there's weird shit happening
right and left, and the shit just keeps getting weirder."

	"Well," Reeve said, sitting up from his slouched position in the
couch and brightening slightly, "I do have some good news for you."

	"Hit me with it," Rufus said, gesturing with his glass. "I could
use all the good news I can get, right about now."

	Reeve's face was the most animate Rufus had seen it since
returning to Midgar. The thought snuck into his consciousness, poked at
his defenses for a few minutes, and then wafted away; once, Rufus had
been able to provoke that animation in Reeve's eyes. That had been a
while ago. "Here," Reeve said, picking up a small control box that had
been sitting on the coffeetable. He pushed a button, and the stuffed
moogle jerked to life. "The boys down in Manufacture finished putting it
together for me while we were in that stupid meeting."

	Rufus watched, blinking only slightly, as the moogle walked
across the table and the cat swiveled its head to appear to look Rufus
in the eyes. "I am Cait Sith," came a voice from the cat, and Rufus
blinked again to recognize Reeve's voice, recorded and re-synthesized --
though filled with a thick Gongagan drawl the likes of which Rufus had
only rarely heard from Reeve. "Would you like me to tell your fortune?"

	Trapped in a laugh, Rufus took a sip of his whiskey and shook
his head. "Tell my /fortune/?"

	"Ah, well, yeah." Reeve looked a little embarrassed. "This one
was programmed to be one of the Gold Saucer attractions. It doesn't have
a whole lot of brain -- just enough to pick up on what someone says to
it, twist the words around, replace a few phrases from its dictionary,
and spit it back. The more you talk to it, though, the more it learns.
I've had its brain sitting around and listening to TV for a few weeks
before we put it into the body, so it's got a decent vocabulary right
now. And it'll keep learning. It's the audio version of that program I
wrote last year that will carry on conversations with you."

	Amused -- he remembered that program, and the way it had made
its way around in certain circles of the company, and some of the
conversations that had resulted from "talking" to the program while
drunk -- Rufus leaned back in his chair. "It sounds like you."

	Reeve tugged at his ponytail. "Yeah, I couldn't find anyone else
who was willing to record the base for the voice synth. It doesn't sound
/too/ bad, does it?"

	Rufus laughed. "/I/ think it's charming. How long have you been
working on it?"

	Reeve shrugged. "A couple of years, on and off. It's a hobby."

	Rufus nodded. "Do you think that it'll be able to do what we
want? You said it can be remote-controlled?"

	Reeve clicked a button on the control pad and the moogle slumped
over, the cat bending its head and closing its eyes. "Yeah. It's got
built-in transmitters, so as long as we're somewhere close enough to an
amplifier station, it'll send all of its data back home. And if
necessary, I can transmit voice to it, and it'll just repeat what I
say."

	Rufus nodded again. "We can use that. You'll have to keep an eye
on it, of course -- if it picks up anything that we can use, you might
have to take over and talk for it for a while, if it's really as dumb as
you say. But it might help to have some eyes and ears in places that
people would never expect us to."

	"Rufus." Reeve's voice was tired, and Rufus looked at him,
startled. "Do you really think that putting a stuffed robotic moogle
somewhere might help us find AVALANCHE when the Turks can't?"

	Rufus didn't want to say what he was actually thinking, which
was that a stuffed robotic moogle would be much easier to control than
the Turks. He knew that Tseng's loyalty to him was unquestionable -- but
that small creeping voice of paranoia in the back of his head had been
warning him lately not to place too much trust in any one person in
particular. "It might be useful," he finally said. "I know, I know, it
sounds crazy. It /is/ crazy. But we're being pulled in too many
directions right now, and none of them are being any use at all, and I'd
like to at least have something we can use as an ace in the hole. You
don't mind, do you?"

	Reeve's eyes seemed unhappy. "No," he finally said. "Not really.
I can always build another one, and if you think it'll help ..." He
trailed off.

	"What's wrong?" Rufus leaned forward in his chair. "You've been
-- quiet lately."

	Reeve waved a hand. "It's nothing, really." He sighed again, and
rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm just tired."

	"I know the feeling," Rufus said, under his breath, and then,
louder, "What do you want for dinner?"

	Reeve shook his head. "Whatever you want," he said, softly. "I
don't really care."

	Somehow, that response worried Rufus, but he just inclined his
head and reached for the folder of menus. 

				-- * --

	"They know we're here now," Cloud said, calmly, as they emerged,
blinking, into the bright sun of Costa del Sol. "I heard Rufus bitching
out Heidegger for letting us get away. They might think that we went
overboard to one of the other troop ships, but we need to get out of the
public eye quickly."

	Tifa limped up to stand next to him, looking out over the sleepy
resort town. She'd been injured in the battle on the ship, and Aerith's
curing spells couldn't remove the strain entirely. "Looks like we'll
have plenty of places to choose from," she said, a touch of sarcasm in
her voice. "But you're right. We should get out of sight as quickly as
possible. The inn?"

	Cloud shrugged. "They'll look for us there, of course, but there
aren't really many other choices." His face was set, but Tifa could read
the disquiet in his expression. "We should sleep. Half of us are hurt,
and we'll do no good running after Sephiroth if we keep falling over.
The inn's as good a place as any."

	Tifa nodded. "You go pick up the rooms. I'm going to take a
walk. This pulled muscle isn't going to get any better unless I stretch
it out a little."

	Cloud glanced over at her. "It's not a good idea to wander
around unescorted," he said, tonelessly. "You can walk around in the
rooms we get."

	Her temper flared a little at that. "Cloud, we've been cooped up
on that damn ship for a week, hiding behind crates for half of it. If I
go and sit in a little hotel room, I /will/ go stark raving nuts, and I
don't particularly feel like endangering my mental stability any further
than this whole thing has /already endangered it/. I'm going for a walk
on the beach. I'll take Aerith with me if you really think I'm in any
kind of danger. Nobody will look twice at two girls on the beach."

	Cloud seemed to ignore that. "Barret," he said, and Barret lumbered
up behind them. Cloud transferred his attention to the other man. "Take
Red XIII and go and get two hotel rooms for us. We'll be along sooner or
later."

	"Where you goin'?" Barret regarded Cloud suspiciously.

	Cloud smiled, a thin-lipped expression that didn't seem to hold
much amusement. "Tifa and Aerith want to go for a walk. I don't think
it's a good idea to leave two women walking around unescorted in this
place. We'll be along."

	Tifa took deep breaths and tried to keep herself from blurting
out that she could probably kick Cloud's ass. For one, it was almost
sweet, the way he was concerned about her. For another, she wasn't
entirely sure that she /could/ handle Cloud in a fight, and she didn't
really want to find out; once or twice in the two months they'd been on
the road so far, she had caught him in some physical feat that should
have been impossible for any normal human. Sometimes she forgot that
he'd been in SOLDIER. She'd wanted time away from Cloud, away from all
of them, but that wasn't something she could put into words properly.
Not without being too hurtful.

	Barret just watched them both for a minute. His eyes flicked
over to Tifa, and she read the message there -- /you sure?/ -- and she
nodded agreement; he nodded in response, and the tension in his
shoulders eased a little. "Okay," he agreed. "Hey, furry, c'mon. We're
the errand boys."

	"Let us hope that the inn has no regulations about pets," Red
XIII said amiably, and sneezed in the heat. 

	"You're worried about something," Aerith said quietly in Tifa's
ear as Red XIII and Barret strolled off down the road and Cloud moved
ahead of them, his eyes scanning the crowd for signs of trouble.

	Tifa sighed. How /did/ the girl manage to do that? "Yeah," she
said, shortly. "This whole situation gives me the creeps. I mean, has it
occurred to you that we're chasing a dead man halfway around the world?
We /saw/ him, back there on the ship. We /fought/ him. Only it wasn't
him at all. What the hell was that thing?"

	"Evil," Aerith said, her voice still pitched so as not to carry
to Cloud's ears. "Whatever that is, it's not Sephiroth. It might look
like him, but it's not him. It's -- old. And dangerous."

	Tifa stopped for a minute, turning to face Aerith. Cloud,
despite having decreed that he would accompany them to watch the women,
didn't notice; he kept moving on ahead. "Aerith," Tifa started, and then
stopped, biting her lip. "Look. I think there's something really wrong
with Cloud."

	"I know there is." Aerith's face was unhappy. "He and Sephiroth
seem to have -- some kind of connection --"

	Tifa shook her head. "That's not -- quite what I meant." She opened
her mouth, as though to confess to Aerith the burden of uncertainty
she'd been carrying, ever since Kalm -- but no, not yet. If she spoke
it, it would become real. "Just keep an eye on him, all right? Please?"

	"...All right," Aerith agreed. "We'll talk about this later? When we
can get a chance to have some privacy?"

	Tifa nodded. Cloud seemed disinterested in what had gone on as they
caught up with him again. "Girl talk?"

	"Something like that," Tifa said in a tone of forced lightness,
the smile feeling fake on her lips. "Doesn't this sun feel nice?"

	Cloud shrugged. "You want to go walk on the beach?"

	"I'd like to see the ocean," Aerith volunteered. "I couldn't see
much of it, in Junon. And I've never been close to the ocean before
now."

	Tifa got the impression that Cloud couldn't care less about the
ocean, but he simply nodded and gestured towards the boardwalk. It /did/
feel good to stretch her legs, Tifa admitted to herself, and the sun
/did/ feel nice. And the act of confessing what had been weighing on
her, ever since Kalm and Cloud's story had disturbed her so badly, left
her feeling much lighter than she had been in weeks. 

	Somehow, finding Dr. Hojo of Shinra, Inc. lying on the beach
didn't startle her as badly as perhaps it should have.

	Aerith let out a little squeak when she realized who was lying
on that chaise. "Cloud," she said, quietly. "That's Professor Hojo. From
Shinra. He's the one who -- who took me."

	Cloud's eyes narrowed. "What's he doing /here/?" he asked.

	Tifa could feel her hands balling into fists. "We should go talk
to him," she said. "We should find out what he's doing here. What he
knows. He might know what's happening to you --" She cut herself off
before she could say too much.

	Cloud looked back at her, one eyebrow arching up, but cut across
the beach to approach Hojo; the beach-bunnies who were surrounding him
scattered. "You. Hojo." 

	Hojo looked up from the book he was reading, his expression
irritated. "What? I said that I didn't want to be disturbed -- Oh. It's
you." 

	Cloud's eyes narrowed at the tone. "What are you doing here,
Hojo?" he barked out.

	Apparently disinterested, Hojo looked back down at the book.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm getting a tan. I could ask the same of you."

	"I'm not really in the mood for word games," Cloud said, and
took another step forward. 

	Hojo didn't seem to notice. "I suppose we're both after the same
thing," he said, calmly.

	"You mean Sephiroth?" Cloud frowned.

	"/Did you see him?/" The doctor's tone was urgent. Tifa was
watching Hojo, rather than Cloud, and she saw the slight shock that ran
through Hojo's body; for half an instant, something crossed his face --
upset, worry, surprise, shock; she couldn't quite tell -- before it
locked back down to nothingness. "Well. I see. I suppose --"

	"Suppose what?" Cloud's eyes narrowed, and he looked as though
he was contemplating violence.

	"Have you been feeling something, Cloud?" Hojo asked, tucking a
finger into his book to hold his place and squinting up at the group.
"Some sort of call? An urging to visit somewhere, or to follow after
someone? You'll feel it, of course. You might have been a flawed
experiment, but you should still feel the call. You'll be sure to tell
me if you feel Her, of course. I may be able to block -- No, /stop/." 

	The last sentence was not directed at the group at all, but
seemingly at himself. Aerith shook her head, as though she was hearing
something that no one else on the beach could, and asked, quietly,
"Professor Hojo, is Sephiroth a Cetra?"

	Hojo's hands were shaking, and he dropped the book into the
sand; slowly, his hands curled over the arms of the chaise he was lying
on, and he closed his eyes. Tifa frowned; he looked as though he was
fighting something. "Said too much," he rasped. "She'll have me back
soon, I didn't get far enough. Get out -- go and find him, find /Her/.
You have to stop Her. Someone needs to tell Rufus -- Jenova, the files
--"

	Hojo fell silent; Tifa and Aerith exchanged a look, and then Aerith
stepped forward. "Professor Hojo?" Silence further; Aerith reached out a
hand and rested it lightly on Hojo's arm, and then jerked her hand back
quickly, as though she had been burned. "Come on," she said, under her
breath, taking a step backwards and almost twisting her ankle in the
sand. "Come on. We need to get away from him."

	"But we were having such a lovely conversation," Hojo said, and his
voice sounded distant, half-recorded. "Come, come, you can stay a few
moments longer and enjoy the sun." 

	Tifa followed Aeris after a second; Cloud took one last look back at
Hojo, as though he wanted more of an answer, but followed reluctantly.
"What the hell /was/ that?" Tifa asked, casting another look over her
shoulder at the once-more casual Hojo lying on the beach behind them. 

	Aerith looked as though she was about to cry, or perhaps about
to pick up her skirts and run as fast as she could until she couldn't
run any further. "That wasn't Hojo at the end. It was for a little
while. I could tell. It wasn't like when he had me back in the labs, it
was like he was real for a little while. And then -- /something/ reached
out for him -- when he was talking to us, it's like he said, something
took him back --" She shivered violently, like her blood was ice, even
though they were still in the heat of Costa del Sol. "Whatever it is
woke up inside his skin again. We need to go. I don't know what it is,
but it feels like Sephiroth did. Old. And it wants us."

	"Why should it be any different than the rest of the world,"
Tifa muttered under her breath, but kept going.

				-- * --

	Rufus squinted against the sun as he stepped off the troop-ship
(~and what a stupid way to travel, seven days pitching and tossing on
the damn ocean -- that's why the blessed gods invented /helicopters/,
for Ramuh's sake, whatever gave me the idea that taking the ship would
be good for the morale of the army~) before he remembered the sunglasses
that he'd stowed in the pocket of his jacket. "Heidegger," he said
quietly, feeling the headache starting already.

	"Yes, sir." The "sir" was bitten off, as though Heidegger would
rather be calling him an entirely different epithet, as though Heidegger
hadn't forgotten the days when Rufus was the one calling /him/ "sir". 

	Rufus ignored the tone. He knew full well that Heidegger
resented the hell out of him; it didn't matter. All that mattered was
that Heidegger did his job -- or a close approximation thereof. "They
tell me that the ruckus last night was because Sephiroth was on board."
(~And is that why you couldn't sleep, even on a ship in the middle of
the ocean? Is that what you keep seeing out of the corner of your eye?
Or is that just a hallucination brought about by the fact that you
haven't bloody slept in what feels like the past two months?~)

	"That's what they tell me as well." Heidegger stood at the
closest approximation of "attention" he could manage, staring over
Rufus's left shoulder. 
	
	"And AVALANCHE as well." The lack of sleep, the heat, the glare
of the sunlight, the headache -- all combined to make Rufus perhaps a
bit more snappish than he could have been. It was better to tread softly
around Heidegger, no matter how much Rufus wanted to shout. Heidegger
was not the type of person to forget being cheated -- for so he viewed
it -- of control of the company.

	"Yes, sir." Heidegger's eyes did not move, still staring at that
unknown point over Rufus's left shoulder.

	Rufus felt his temper snap. "Well, perhaps you'd better stop
standing here and giving me monosyllabic 'yes sir' answers and get your
people out there to perhaps /find/ the people who were /right under your
nose the entire time/."

	Heidegger flushed -- anger, embarrassment, Rufus couldn't tell
-- and his jaw set. "Yes, sir." He whirled around and started barking
orders at the various troops and security detail stationed around the
docks.

	"Hell," Rufus said, under his breath, and ran a hand through his
hair. The sunlight, even though the glasses, was giving him a headache.
"I'll be over at the townhouse. Just -- contact me if you find anything.
We'll leave in the morning."

	He strode off without waiting for an answer. The area between
his shoulderblades itched; he resisted the urge to look around him. It
was his /imagination/, dammit. Imagination, and nothing more. There was
no one waiting in the crowds to strike; there was no unseen horror
creeping behind him. 

	He needed to /sleep/.

	He'd been tempted to ask Reeve to come with him; out of contact
with Midgar for two weeks, maybe more, away from his city. But no, it
was best that Reeve stay where he was. They needed someone sane in the
city, someone who could take notice if anything started to happen and
act to stop it -- especially with Tseng and the Turks gone, out of
Midgar for who-knew-how-long chasing after Sephiroth already. He'd
explained all of that to Reeve, carefully, over dinner that Friday
night. Reeve had listened, and nodded, and seemed to understand. But
Rufus wondered how much of it Reeve really understood, and how much of
it was being stored behind those wounded eyes to be taken out later and
held against him.

	"Rufus." The voice yanked him out of his reverie as he stalked
down the street, and he stopped dead in the middle of the road, turning
around to see who was addressing him. It couldn't be --

	It could. Hojo stood there, watching him carefully. Rufus tried
to yank his mind back and think, dammit, think. "Ah. Dr. Hojo. I didn't
expect to see you here."

	There was something wrong about Hojo. Something more wrong about
Hojo than there usually was. Hojo stood straight and tall, but seemed
awkward in his own body, as though he was wearing his skin as a
disguise. "You received my resignation, I take it."

	Why, why, /why/ did things like this always happen when he was
least prepared to deal with them? "I did. We're sorry to see you go, of
course --"

	Hojo waved a hand. "Please disregard it. I acted in haste. I'll
be back at my position on Monday, of course."

	Rufus blinked. "Disregard -- all right, fine, I won't ask." He
blinked again, pondered asking about the lines of poetry written on the
back of the letter, and decided that whatever it had been, it wouldn't
be prudent to mention it. "Are you all /right/? You look -- odd."

	Hojo paused for a minute, as though he was listening to
something else entirely. "Most likely a touch of heatstroke," he finally
said, and inclined his head. "I will see you once you return to Midgar." 

	Something was very, very wrong; the skin on the nape of Rufus's
neck was itching, the hairs standing on end. He took an involuntary step
backwards, and then forced himself to stop. "All right. Uh, enjoy your
vacation."

	Hojo nodded again, and turned to go. Rufus, left staring after
him, shivered once and rubbed his hands over his upper arms. His laptop,
slung over one shoulder, stood in mute testimony that he still hadn't
been able to break into Hojo's files. There was something going on that
he just didn't understand, and it was something that he needed to.
Something that he needed to understand soon.
	
				-- * --

	Corel had not been happy to see Barret again; Tifa had winced,
seeing the way he was treated, and wondered not for the first time what
had really happened. Barret had never really ventured the information,
and she didn't feel comfortable asking. He'd been quiet, withdrawn, ever
since they'd arrived at the Gold Saucer's lavish playground. 

	"I've never seen anything like this before," Aerith said,
looking around herself with wide eyes.

	"We ain't here to play," Barret said, shortly. "We're here to
find Sephiroth, and don't you forget it." 

	"Barret," Tifa said, softly. "We'll remember. We're all on the
same side here. We've all got the same goals. We'll remember. But let
her have a little bit of fun."

	Barret simply glared at Tifa, but she met his gaze unblinkingly.
He growled a little, under his breath, and stalked off. "Fine," he threw
over his shoulder. "You go play. I'll go lookin' for what we really here
for."

	Tifa watched him go, and sighed. "I'm sorry, Aerith," she
finally said, turning back to the other girl. "He's just --"

	"He's in a lot of pain," Aerith agreed, quietly. "Something hurt
him really badly, and coming back here just opened it up again." She
smiled a little. "It's all right, I don't really blame him. He's a good
man at heart. Do we want to split up to look, or shall we all stay
together?"

	"I'm staying with you two," Cloud said, firmly. Tifa looked at
him, started to say something, sighed, and just nodded. 

	"All right. We know from the people in Corel that Sephiroth is
looking for something called the Black Materia, and that he came through
here. Let's see what else we can find." 

	They wandered through the amusement park, looking for some sort
of clue -- Dio, the owner of the Gold Saucer stopped to talk to them,
and from him they learned that Sephiroth /had/ been there, asking about
the Black Materia, but they couldn't manage to get out of Dio whether or
not Dio actually /knew/ anything about the Black Materia -- including
what it was. Or how long ago Sephiroth had been there. "I feel like
we're always four steps behind," Tifa mumbled under her breath as they
walked into the next section. "Two days too late. Too damn behind."

	Cloud didn't seem to notice the stuffed moogle until he
practically walked into it; his hand twitched as the moogle bounced up
and down a few times, the cat standing on its head waving its hands
excitedly. "Quick, quick!" came a voice from the cat, a thick Gongagan
drawl. Tifa blinked. "Don't look so sad. Gold Saucer is for fun. I'll
read your fortune!"

	Cloud, seemingly distracted, looked down at the creature.
"Fortune?"

	The moogle bounced again. "I am a fortune-telling machine! My
name is Cait Sith."

	Cloud looked over at the two women and then shrugged. "Do you
only read fortunes?"

	"I do only read fortunes and find things and tell fortunes and
mend your socks." Tifa raised an eyebrow; whoever had programmed it
hadn't taught it to make much sense, she supposed. Well, as a toy, it
was good enough.

	Cloud seemed to be debating something, and then shrugged again.
"Do you know where Sephiroth is?"

	There was the faintest of pauses, and then the synthesized voice
came back with "Sephiroth is a handful of eels that are full of mercy
and guns." 

	Cloud looked at the machine for a minute and then snorted.
"Forget it. It's just a toy."

	"I'll read your fortune!" the toy insisted. It did a little
dance, and handed Cloud a piece of paper that scrolled from a slot in
the moogle's belly. 

	Cloud took it and studied it for a second, then read it aloud.
"What you pursue will be yours. But you will lose something dear." He
crumpled up the paper and tossed it on the ground. "What's /that/
supposed to mean?"

	"Oh, dear," said the toy, and suddenly -- Tifa didn't know why,
it /sounded/ the same; the voice still synthesized, the emphasis still
odd -- it seemed to be making a great deal more sense. "I've never
gotten a fortune like /that/ before." There was a pause, and then the
stuffed cat actually nodded. "Well, I suppose there's no choice about
it. I'll have to come with you."

	Aerith shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

	The toy -- Cait Sith -- bounced over to stand next to her, with
the faintest whirring of robotic noises. "As a fortune teller, I can't
just let something like this go by. I wouldn't feel right. I have to
come along with you and see what happens! I'd hate for you to get into
trouble because of a fortune I gave you." 

	Aerith looked helplessly at Cloud. "Cloud?"

	Cloud seemed to consider for a second, and then shrugged. "Oh,
whatever. Let's just keep going. We have a lot of things to catch up
with."

	Tifa looked at the toy, looked at Cloud, and then sighed. It
didn't seem like a good idea, but it didn't seem worth arguing over.
They had things to do, after all.

				-- * --


	Reeve slept like a baby. Rufus envied him that, at four in the
morning on a Sunday night. Monday morning. Whatever the fuck time it
was. Too early, or perhaps too late, with the digital clock casting its
baleful eye over the two of them overlooking Midgar. Ever since he'd
gotten back in the city, he'd been living his life by the clock, numbers
falling over each other in their effort to make him realize /too late,
too little, never enough time to do everything that needs to be done./
Four twenty one twenty one twenty one, flick, flick, flick.

	Four twenty two.

	He slid soundlessly from the bed, knowing by now how to move
without waking Reeve. Familiarity breeds content. Contempt. He wasn't
sure what the saying was. Reeve didn't move; sleep had caught him
tightly and wouldn't let go.

	Rufus hadn't slept in days. Weeks. They all blurred into each
other, red-eyed and coffee-saturated, always with the endless spectre of
something whispering at the corner of his vision. 

	Even Midgar was quiet at this time of morning, the neon lights
dimmed down to a pale shadow of their usual glory. City of man. It
called to him even now, beckoning /here, here I am, O best beloved, walk
my streets and let me swallow you whole./

	He turned his back on the windows -- the drapes were never drawn
against their plate-glass promises these days. For a moment he
considered the living room, where piles of paperwork stood in mute
testimony to the fact that the company he had coveted for so long
finally answered to him alone. But light would wake Reeve where the
motion had not, and Rufus didn't believe that others should suffer
simply for his own insomnia.

	He thought of something Reeve had said to him once: /so many
years of living in luxury, you don't even notice it when it's around
you./ It wasn't the truth, not precisely. He was aware of it, in the
same vague and disconnected sense that one is aware of one's shoes, or
one's clothes. It was a simple fact to him, one that had been there for
his entire life. It didn't make much difference. It never had.

	The unbroken grey slate of the bathroom floor was cool against
his bare feet. With the door safely shut behind him, for a moment his
hand strayed towards the light, but then fell again. Let Midgar be his
illumination; even at four twenty eight (twenty eight twenty eight
twenty eight four twenty nine) there was still enough light for his
dark-accustomed eyes to see by.

	The shower stood silent in the center of the room, glass-framed
walls offering little concealment. He reached inside and flipped the
water on, not needing to stop and strip. Cold at first, and then the hot
water made its slow and ponderous way up from the water treatment plant
in the basement. 

	Reeve had laughed once and said that of course Rufus liked his
showers hot enough to scald another man; Rufus did everything large and
brightly. Rufus had laughed at the time. It didn't seem as funny now.

	Nothing seemed as funny now.

	The floor-to-ceiling glass of the shower walls and the
plate-glass windows somehow almost never fogged up. He didn't have any
clothes to strip off; all he had to do was step inside. Like stepping
into another world, the warm and wet embrace of the steam curled around
him in the darkness.

	Unseeing, uncaring, he crossed his arms over his chest and
curled his fingers over his shoulders, tilting his head back to let the
water strike his throat. The ceiling seemed endlessly far away.
Everything seemed so far away these days, like viewing the world through
a layer of water sheeting down around him. Dark and distant and wet.

	He'd always imagined, somehow, that someday the company would be
his, and it would solve the problems. Well, it was his now. All of it
was. And it was empty and ashen and bare.

	Something caught the corner of his eye and he whirled around,
dripping hair whipping water into his eyes. He blinked, and it was gone.
Too often; that was happening too often. There was always something
hovering just out of sight, waiting in the darkness to sidle forward and
whisper in his ear. 

	Four thirty nine. thirty nine. thirty nine.

	Four forty.

	The bathroom was dark and silent, the only sound the hissing of
the pipes as the rain fell down on his body. He reached out his hand and
inch by inch turned up the hot water, until he couldn't see through the
steam anymore.





[ The poetry written on the back of Hojo's resignation letter is from W.
H. Auden's "In Time of War". It will, of course, become significant
later. And yes, Cait Sith is an animated version of MegaHAL. Ashlea's
MegaHAL, to be precise. I would fear if I were you.]