Chapter 7
The soldiers didn't return Aeris and Red to the lab, which was the only up-side Tifa could see to their current situation. Instead Tseng took all of them to a set of holding cells on a lower floor.
Some man who must have been one of the head scientists came down to argue about it, but Tseng was firm. Because of the escape attempt, he said, the matter would have to be resolved by security before anyone could be released to the research department. The scientist stormed off in a huff, saying the President would see things his way.
Tseng, too, moved out of sight, leaving them with the guards posted in the cell block.
Jessie had already taken a seat on the cot in their cell, and Tifa joined her. Okay, she thought, so they were prisoners. Shinra probably wouldn't kill them until they had interrogated them to determine whether there were any other surviving members of AVALANCHE, but she wasn't sure how much time that really bought them. Shinra wouldn't need all three of them to find the answer.
There had to be something in this cell they could use to get the door open... and then fight their way through the guards and whatever heightened security Shinra had probably put in place now that their headquarters had been breached.
"Hey, Aeris," said Jessie, "are you there?"
"I'm here," came Aeris's voice from the neighboring cell.
"I just wanted to say, if you've got any special powers that could help us out of this, now's the time to share."
Tifa shot her a look, and Jessie whispered, "What? Isn't it worth asking? We're in kind of a bind here."
"It didn't help her any before," Tifa whispered back.
"...who did you hear about that from?" Aeris asked quietly.
"Elmyra told us," Tifa answered, "about you being an Ancient. Whatever that really means. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
A short silence. "I kind of want to," Aeris said. "I just wish it didn't have to be here." She sighed softly and Tifa heard her get up from her cot and move closer to the front of her cell. "I'm not sure I know a lot about being a Cetra... an 'Ancient.' My birth mother died when I was seven, and sometimes I can still hear her, but it's not the same as talking to a living person."
"You can talk to the dead?" Tifa asked. That qualified as a special power, all right, just not anything that could help them escape.
"Mm, not exactly," Aeris said. "I can hear the Lifestream, a little. It's hard in Midgar, because it's so crowded here, and because of what Shinra's doing to the Planet. The only voice I've ever been able to pick out is my mother's. She said, one day I'd get out of Midgar and speak with the Planet. But I'm not sure what that means."
"What about the 'Promised Land' the Shinra want you to take them to?"
Aeris answered as though she were reciting something. "The Cetra were born from the Planet, speak with the Planet, and unlock the Planet. And in the end, the Cetra will return to the Promised Land, and find happiness."
"What does that mean?"
"More than words, I don't know. And I don't know what the Shinra expect to gain from it."
Tifa nodded to herself. She got up from the cot and went to the cell door, though she couldn't lean out to see Aeris. "Once we get out of here, and out of Midgar, maybe you can start to figure some of it out."
"You think we'll get out of here?"
Tifa hesitated and glanced at Jessie, who seemed to be looking to her, too, for some sort of guidance. "We can't give up hope," she said.
Barret spoke up from the other cell. "Get some rest, Teef. We'll figure this out, but they ain't gonna kill us just yet."
"Yeah," Tifa said. Just a couple hours of sleep, and maybe something would come to them.
* * *
Tifa woke to the sound of screaming.
She jumped up from the floor and looked to Jessie, who was sitting up from the cot in alarm. It hadn't been her.
"Aeris? Barret? You guys okay?"
"Yeah," came Aeris's anxious voice.
"We're okay in here," Barret confirmed. "The hell's goin' on?"
The guards outside their cells had moved out of sight. "Hey!" Tifa called out from the cell door. "What's happening?"
There was no response. Another scream sounded in the distance, echoing down the corridor.
"I don't like this," said Jessie.
"Me neither," Tifa said.
She jumped at a loud slam from Barret's cell, and she realized he was trying to break the door down. The Shinra had removed the gun from his arm, but not the metal base it was mounted on, and he was using it to ram the lock.
"Any luck?" Tifa asked after a few tries.
"Damn thing won't budge," Barret said, though he gave it another slam for good measure.
"My hairpins," said Red.
"Your what?"
"Hojo has never taken them. They're decorative, but perhaps you could use them to pick the lock."
"Ain't exactly my strong suit," Barret grumbled, but after a few moments, Tifa heard the faint click of metal on metal.
The screams were getting closer.
"Hurry, Barret," said Jessie.
"I'm tryin'!"
Barret's cell door at last swung open, and he and Red rushed out into the corridor. Barret passed the hairpins through the bars to Jessie. "Here, Jess, you're better at this than me. We're gonna scout ahead, see what's up."
"Got it," said Jessie, and set to work on the lock. She got them out faster than Barret, and moved on to Aeris's cell while Tifa stood watch. The guards were nowhere to be seen, but soon enough they had Aeris out, too.
Barret reappeared down the hall. "Found our stuff," he said. He had already fit his gun arm back into place, and he tossed Tifa and Jessie their confiscated gear.
"Careful...!" Jessie hissed belatedly, but Tifa had forgotten about the grenades in her bag, too.
"Did you find anything out?" Tifa asked him.
Barret's face was grim. "Lotta dead bodies," he said. "It's pretty bloody out there. I don't know who's doin' it, but we're not gonna get a better shot at gettin' outta here."
Someone was slaughtering Shinra employees? Another anti-Shinra group? She'd never heard of them.
Barret was right; whoever was doing it had left them an opening, and that was all that mattered right now. "Let's get to the elevators," she said.
Red was waiting for them around the corner, and when they reached him, he loped on ahead. The rest of them followed.
Tifa wanted to move quickly, without stopping, but when they came across the first corpse, Aeris gasped in horror, and something about it struck Tifa unexpectedly. She'd seen dead bodies before--hell, they'd killed people on this very mission--but this was different.
"Barret, these aren't gunshot wounds," she said.
"Nah, looks like some kinda sword," he agreed.
She swallowed. Why should that bother her? Other people used swords. Most of Shinra's elite SOLDIER force did.
Jessie knelt down to tug the rifle from the man's fingers and slung it over her shoulder. "I think I might need this," she said.
Barret laid a hand on Tifa's shoulder. His face showed concern without understanding. "Come on, Teef. We gotta keep moving."
Tifa nodded, but before they could, they heard a shout from close by, followed by a strangled scream.
A body tumbled out of a doorway into the hall ahead of them, and a tall figure followed. A man in a long, black coat. Long silver hair, stained at the ends with blood, just like the sword he carried.
He paused in the hall, and turned to look in their direction.
Tifa met his gaze, those glowing green eyes, and her blood ran cold.
"Isn't that...?" Aeris began.
"Run," Tifa whispered. Her hands clenched into fists and her weight shifted forward.
What was she doing?
She grabbed blindly at her friends, never taking her eyes off of him, found someone's arm. She gripped it tight, feeling the warmth of life in it, and found her voice. "We have to run, now."
She tore her eyes away and pulled Jessie with her as she turned and bolted back down the hallway. She heard her friends following; they didn't ask questions.
He was blocking the way to the elevators, so she didn't know where she was running to. There was only one other way to go that didn't dead-end them back in the cell block.
"There is stair access from this floor," said Red, pushing ahead of her. "I'll lead the way."
As they followed him, Tifa expected at every bend to see him standing in their path, but they saw only evidence of his earlier passage. Red leapt easily over the corpses, the rest of them stumbling as they tried to keep pace.
They reached the stairwell unimpeded. Tifa shoved the door open and hurtled down the stairs. Two flights in, she missed a step; Barret's arm caught her around the waist and kept her from falling.
"Hey. Maybe you wanna slow down a bit now."
"We can't," Tifa said breathlessly. She recovered her balance, pulled away from him, and glanced up towards the door they'd come through. "We can't slow down."
But she realized that Jessie and Aeris were falling behind. They caught up to her and Barret on the steps and came to a stop, winded.
"We can try the elevator from a lower floor," Red suggested.
Tifa shook her head. "What if he follows us?"
"How would he know," Jessie said, "what floor we get off?"
Tifa could think of no rational way to counter her point. There was no reason that he would, no reason for him to follow them at all, except that she felt it was within his power as a nightmare made flesh. She fisted her hand in her shirt, conscious of the scar beneath.
"Okay," she said shakily. "A few more floors, then we'll switch."
They exited at the 42nd floor, and Tifa braced herself for a fight, but they found it empty. Nothing but a series of offices, their lights dimmed after hours, and a fairly straight shot to the elevators. She still crossed the floor at a run.
Once they were inside the elevator, Tifa slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. Everyone but Red was out of breath, and for several floors no one spoke.
Finally Barret asked, "What's goin' on, Tifa? I've never seen you this spooked."
She could only shake her head. How could she explain to them her terror over losing them to that man, the way she'd lost everything to him? Her terror at herself, because she'd almost charged straight for him?
Aeris crouched down in front of her. "Look at me," she said, and took one of Tifa's hands in her own. "We're all still together, and we're going to make it out."
Tifa looked into her face. Green eyes, but so, so different. Tifa sat up and put her hands around Aeris's. "Right," she said. "I promised to get you out."
"That was Sephiroth. Wasn't it?" said Jessie.
Tifa sucked in a breath. She hadn't wanted to say it, as though like some fae monstrosity, speaking his name aloud would make him more powerful. She released Aeris's hands and pushed herself to her feet. "Yes," she said, "but as long as he isn't following us... then that doesn't matter right now."
"You gonna be all right, Teef?" Barret asked, looking at her in concern.
She nodded. "I can hold it together. Sorry."
They rode the elevator all the way down to the first floor, and it let them out into the lobby. At first Tifa thought it was clear, too; she could see the corpses of the security guards lying not far from the main doors, and no movement from anyone else.
But there was sound from just outside, and beyond the glass windows, soldiers were gathering, preparing to storm the building. Of course. A response to Sephiroth's slaughter. She knew with a numb certainty that they were preparing to meet their deaths.
"Shit," said Barret. "Can't get out that way."
"Let's try the way we came in," said Jessie. "Maybe they haven't surrounded the building."
She found her bearings more swiftly than the rest of them, and they followed her through a service door out of the lobby and through the halls to the loading dock. Barret hauled open one of the garage doors, startling a handful of men stationed just outside. Red sprang out, tackling the first before he had time to raise his weapon. Tifa and Jessie went for the other two; one of them got off a few shots before he went down, but the spray of bullets hit only the concrete wall of the building.
Barret helped Aeris down from the loading dock and let the garage door slam shut.
"Do any of you know how to drive?" Aeris asked.
Tifa looked at the trucks parked there. She had had a few lessons from Mr. Kiefer, who owned the only truck in town, back before...
She exchanged glances with Barret and Jessie.
"How hard can it be?" Jessie said, though plainly she had never driven before.
"I think I can remember," Tifa decided.
They searched the trucks until they found one whose driver had left the keys on the seat. Tifa climbed up behind the wheel and Jessie and Barret joined her in the front, while Aeris and Red slid into the narrow seat behind them. A group of soldiers, drawn by the earlier burst of gunfire, appeared around the side of the building as Tifa turned the key in the ignition.
"Stop!!"
Tifa barely remembered to put the truck in reverse, and wheeled it sharply backwards so that their shots struck the trailer instead of the cab when they opened fire. She shifted the truck into what she hoped was the right gear and slammed her foot on the accelerator. The truck charged down the street behind the Shinra building, clipping one of the other trucks as it left the loading dock area.
"Way to go, Tifa!" Jessie exclaimed, leaning past Barret to look out the window behind them. In the side mirror, Tifa could see the Shinra building and the soldiers there falling away into the distance.
"Where are we going?" she asked, looking ahead. Of course she had never driven in Midgar; she didn't know the roads.
"Um, that way! To the right!" said Jessie, pointing to a sign ahead directing them onto the highway.
"Are you sure?"
"It should take us to the city limits."
Tifa turned the wheel. Jessie had studied enough of the city's plans, Tifa figured, that she must have some knowledge of its streets. The highway stretched ahead of them, disappearing into the horizon. It was the middle of the night, and lights crowded the city, a poor imitation of the stars that were never visible above the smog. The green glow of a Mako reactor loomed in the distance.
The truck jolted forward as something rammed it from behind, throwing Tifa into the steering wheel. She recovered quickly and straightened them out, glancing at the mirrors. Motorcycles had come into view behind them.
"Are they chasin' us?" said Barret.
"Well, why wouldn't they?" said Jessie. "They probably think we're the ones who killed everybody!"
"Hold on," Tifa said. She thought they could go faster if she just... Right. She switched them into a different gear, and the truck accelerated, a little.
Barret leaned out the window, exchanging fire with their pursuers. Jessie passed him a grenade, and he pulled the pin and tossed it. The explosion followed seconds later, and Tifa counted two motorcycles fewer.
"Guys, get down!" Aeris shouted.
A motorcycle had pulled alongside the driver side of the truck and its rider leveled a gun at them. Tifa ducked down as the others did the same, and a spray of bullets went over their heads. The moment it stopped, Jessie sat up, lifting her rifle, and fired back out the window. She struck him, and the motorcycle fell out of view, crashing somewhere behind them.
Barret and Jessie managed to keep the rest of them at bay, until they ran out of grenades. The motorcycles slammed into the truck again and again, and Tifa felt herself losing control.
"They're gonna run us off the road!" she said.
"Then pull over!" said Jessie. "We can use the truck for cover."
"There're only a few left," Aeris put in, glancing out the window.
Tifa slammed on the brakes, and she felt something crash into the trailer. The truck squealed to a halt, and the remaining two motorcycles flew past ahead of them.
"Everyone all right?"
"Yeah," Aeris confirmed.
They piled out of the cab and ran for the rear of the truck. The third man lay not far from them, thrown from his motorcycle. Jessie hurried to check him, making sure he was down for the count, and then searched him for weapons.
"Damn, these guys must be from SOLDIER," she said, holding aloft a green orb.
"Give it to me," said Aeris, and Jessie obliged, tossing her the materia.
They regrouped behind the trailer. Aeris leaned around the side, and Tifa looked out above her head. The soldiers had turned back around and were closing in when a bloom of fire exploded in front of the nearer one's chest, knocking him from his motorcycle. The bike fell sideways and skidded down the pavement to a stop.
The last remaining soldier stared at his comrade as he rode by, doing nothing to attack them. Once he had passed, he swerved slightly as if to circle back, but then he seemed to think better of it and straightened out, disappearing back into the city.
Tifa strode to the downed soldier, kicking his weapon away from him.
"Is he... dead?" Aeris asked, clutching the materia to her chest.
Tifa knelt down and felt for a pulse. "No," she said. "But we'd better get moving again."
They climbed back into the truck and Tifa got it started again. No one else came after them.
Once they were out of Midgar, Jessie offered to take over from her, insisting that she pretty well had it figured out from watching Tifa drive. Tifa let her, leaning back against the middle seat and closing her eyes.
"Hey, Teef," said Barret softly from beside her. "We made it."
"Yeah. We made it."