Chapter 4
Tifa took the final watch of the night, though she really didn't know what time it was. The power had come back on while she slept, and a light from somewhere outside the shanty shone in through its cracks, enough for her just to make out her companions.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and listened to the unfamiliar quiet of Sector 5.
The stillness ate at her. Tired and aching though she was, she'd rather be moving. She wanted to do something, anything besides sit here with the enormity of Sector 7.
At least this time she wasn't alone. She had Barret and Marlene and Wedge, and that wasn't nothing. But how did they move forward? What could they build? How could she believe in a place enough to call it home ever again? Nothing lasted.
She curled her arms tighter around herself. At the first sight of anything Shinra, she thought she'd tear it to pieces. This was too much to hold inside.
Marlene woke before the others, lifting her head from Barret's chest and giving a soft whimper at the unfamiliar darkness. Tifa clicked on her flashlight.
"Here, Marlene. It's okay."
Marlene clambered over Barret's arm to her, and Tifa unfolded herself to encircle Marlene in her arms instead.
"It's okay," she said again.
"I wanna go home."
"I know. We can't. I'm sorry." There wasn't any home to go to. She held Marlene a little tighter.
"...why was everybody mad at Wedge?" Marlene asked.
Tifa glanced at his sleeping form. Later, she'd have to ask him exactly what had happened down there, but for now she could guess. "No one was mad at Wedge," she said. "They were scared and upset, and they were mean when they shouldn't have been."
Marlene nodded into her shoulder, accepting the explanation.
Was it their fault, though? She knew what Barret had said, and he wasn't wrong. Shinra didn't need a reason to terrorize its people, but AVALANCHE had given them an excuse. A target. Would it have been as bad if not for them? Or would it only have happened to a different sector?
Explosives had been built into the pillars well before AVALANCHE had distributed its first flyers. Some callous and calculating mind had seen fit to plan for an eventuality where Midgar's people turned on Shinra; there could be no other reason for a fail-safe like that. Everyone lived under constant threat and so few even knew it.
Even Tifa had never thought that Shinra would go so far. She should have known better, but Nibelheim had been so tiny and unimportant compared to Midgar. It was fewer lives, a small enough tragedy that they could bury it in a footnote on page 12, forgotten in the wake of the Great Sephiroth's untimely death that dominated the front page for weeks. But all their lives had the same value, in the end.
Marlene's stomach grumbled, and Barret woke as Tifa began rummaging through his bag. He helped her dig out the handful of ration packs he'd salvaged from the basement, and they picked out the things that didn't require heating. Marlene turned her nose up at the protein bar, but they got a few bites into her with Barret pretending to eat for the plush moogle he'd saved from the basement. Tifa split another with Wedge once he woke, and they passed around the one canteen that wasn't empty. The water tasted stale, but it was slums water anyhow.
"So..." said Tifa. "What are we going to do?"
Barret shook his head. "Dunno if Shinra knows any of us made it out yet, but they're gonna figure it out eventually. Even if nobody talks, there ain't no bodies with that Airbuster. We stick around an' they'll be lookin' for us."
Tifa eyed him uncertainly. "You're not suggesting... leaving Midgar?"
"Feels like runnin' away, I know," Barret said, and then he grimaced. With Marlene on his knee, he remembered to hold himself back, and his gun-arm only gave the ground a soft thump. "Hell, maybe we oughtta stay. We can't let them get away with this!"
"I don't want to leave either," said Tifa. She traced her knuckles with her fingers. "I want to do something, but... We don't know what to do, do we? So if we stay... I'm worried I'll just wind up rushing into something stupid."
"...you're right. We can't afford a stupid move right now." Barret let out a heavy sigh. "We got contacts in other sectors, but I don't think we can tap them right now. We'd just be puttin' them in danger."
"Um," Wedge spoke up, "what about going out to my brother's?"
"Your brother? Ain't he out in Kalm?"
Wedge shook his head. "Not in town. The farm's about an hour's drive out."
"He know about us?"
"No, but... Derek wouldn't tell anyone. I know him."
"Guess that's an option then." Barret glanced to Marlene and added carefully, "Don't know about spendin' too much time with a stranger though."
Tifa understood. If they went, they wouldn't be going forever, just until the heat died down. He didn't want to say it in front of Marlene, but when they came back, he wanted to leave her somewhere safe, with someone safe, and she'd never met Derek before.
"Maybe Johnny's parents would be up for coming," she proposed, looking to Wedge. "If you think your brother would be okay putting up so many people."
Wedge scratched his cheek. "At least for a little while."
"Johnny's folks?" Barret said skeptically. "They're the ones I trust least to keep their mouths shut."
"Right," said Tifa. "So who're they gonna talk to out in farm country?"
Barret snorted faintly. "Didn't realize that was calculated. We can try checkin' with them, if they're still around."
Tifa glanced at the bags he and Wedge had carried out of the basement. A lot of it was useful, but not necessarily for the situation they were facing. "We're gonna need more supplies before we head out. Should we split up?"
"No," Barret said firmly. "No, we're stickin' together right now."
Tifa nodded, relaxing. She'd proposed it because it seemed practical, but she hadn't really wanted to.
They collected themselves after their meagre breakfast and exited their shelter. Tifa led the way through the winding streets to what amounted to a town square, where most of the shops were. Half a dozen people were gathered beneath the big TV outside, watching a news broadcast about the plate drop. Tifa only let herself glance at it once. She ushered everyone inside the general store.
"Planning a trip out of town, are you?" the shopkeeper observed as they collected supplies. "You better have the gil to pay for all that."
They did, thankfully, and for an extra 10 gil, the woman let Tifa into the back of the store to fill up their canteens from her bathroom sink.
They had just settled up and stepped outside when Barret suddenly rushed them around the side of the building. They hid behind its wall, and Tifa looked up at him to mouth, Shinra?
Barret nodded and then mouthed, Turk.
Tifa went very still. She'd never seen a Turk in person before, only on TV. As far as she knew, she'd never seen a Turk before. While she could identify their distinctive suits if she was looking, at a glance they blended in with the average businessman, and their identities weren't advertised.
The door to the shop opened, and then swung shut. Through the thin walls, they heard a woman's voice address the shopkeeper. "I'm looking for a brunette, long hair, about my height, maybe a little shorter. Anyone like that come around today?"
Barret and Wedge both looked at her, and Tifa pressed her hands to her mouth. Was this woman taller than her? If Shinra knew they'd escaped the Airbuster, then why wouldn't she be asking after Barret? He stood out more than she did.
She didn't hear any reply from the shopkeeper, but the Turk sighed in irritation. "Figures," she said. "I can't believe this is my first assignment; if they wanted her this bad, they could've picked her up sooner."
The door opened again, and they crept farther around the store to keep out of her sight. Wedge pretended the TV broadcast around the corner had caught his attention. Then the Turk's PHS rang, and she stopped to answer it.
"Sir? ... Yes, sir. Understood. I'll meet you back at Headquarters." There was a pause, and then she let out another sigh. "Finally."
The Turk's footsteps faded into the other direction, and they exchanged glances.
Wedge began, "You don't think she could've meant..."
"...Jessie?" Tifa finished cautiously.
In Barret's arms, Marlene clutched her moogle plush closer to her chest. "Jessie's okay?" she asked.
"If anybody could've found a way off the pillar in time," Barret considered with a wary optimism, "it would've been Jessie."
They all wanted to hope, but it wasn't much to go on. They needed more information.
"...she can't have gotten far," Tifa said, running her fingers over her knuckles.
Wedge looked at her with raised eyebrows. "You can't be thinking... I mean, she's a Turk, right?"
"A green one, sounded like," said Barret. "And she ain't rendezvousing with anybody 'til she's back topside."
Tifa met his gaze. This felt like doing something. "So we pin her down and we ask her some questions."
"Are you two sure about this?"
Barret let Marlene down from his arms and unslung the duffel bag from his shoulder. "Wedge, you hang back with Marlene for a minute."
"I thought we weren't splitting up," said Wedge, even as he took Marlene's hand. Tifa saw Marlene's anxious expression, and she looked away, because she didn't want to be talked out of this. She knew it was exactly the sort of stupid thing she'd been worried about, but she couldn't help herself if it meant maybe they could still save Jessie.
"Don't worry, we're gonna be just around the corner," said Barret.
He caught her gaze and nodded, and the two of them hurried in the direction the Turk had gone, back through winding corridors of shanties and towards the station.
They didn't let her get that far. When they caught her up, there was no one else in sight.
Barret raised his gun-arm. "Stop right there, Turk."
The woman slowly turned around. She was petite in her tailored suit, definitely shorter than Tifa, closer to Jessie's height. And she was much too pristine for the slums, not a hair of her blonde bob out of place, her makeup neatly applied in a way that probably wouldn't be in fashion down below for another year.
She looked them over, unconcerned. "Gun-arm... Busty brunette... AVALANCHE?"
"Happy to make your acquaintance," Barret quipped. "Now get your hands up."
The Turk slowly lifted her hands from her sides, but as she did so, Tifa caught the faint green light that preceded magic.
"Barret!"
Tifa rushed in to grapple with the woman, but not before her hands shot out and something flashed past. She heard Barret shout in surprise. He fired off a short burst, well off-target, as the Turk blocked Tifa's first punch and shoved her back.
"What did you do, blind him?" Tifa demanded.
"No, he's a little confused right now. Good thing there aren't any civvies around, or that could get ugly."
She was on her own, Tifa realized. For an instant her heart dropped into her stomach, but then she ducked right to dodge a punch, moving without thinking. She focused.
The Turk was definitely practiced in hand-to-hand. Her weight flowed well through her movements, but Tifa could spot the tells and faults that hadn't been trained out of her yet. If not for last night, this wouldn't have been a challenge, but her own body fought her, aches and bruises protesting the speed she demanded.
She tried to maneuver the fight so she could keep an eye on Barret. He hadn't fired again, but she heard him crash into something before she angled around the Turk to get him in sight. He'd broken down the door of some shack and stood in the doorway like he was trying to remember why.
The Turk landed a glancing blow to Tifa's cheek. She stumbled, caught herself, dodged the next punch. She was on the defensive and she didn't like it.
How did a confusion spell work? It had to wear off, didn't it?
"You with me yet?" she called to Barret.
He spun at the sound of her voice, but his eyes were wild. He charged towards them, drew his right arm back, and slammed it into the Turk's back as though there were a fist on the end of it.
The Turk crashed into Tifa in turn, and her back hit corrugated metal. It gave slightly. She got a knee up and kicked the Turk off of her.
"Barret! Snap out of it!"
"Tifa?" He looked in her direction like he hadn't noticed she was there.
The Turk was stumbling, but as she straightened, she reached for something inside her suit. Tifa kicked her hand away. "No more tricks," she said. "Can't handle a fair fight?"
"You were gonna make it two-on-one," the Turk countered. The blow had rattled her, and Tifa caught the edge of a temper beneath her arrogance.
"I thought I'd heard Turks were good enough to handle that. Guess not."
"Turks are more than just muscleheads!"
"What about blonde airheads?"
And there it was. Just enough fury behind her next attack that when she realized Tifa was ready for it, she couldn't stop herself. Tifa used her own momentum to throw her to the ground and climbed atop to pin her arms.
"Barret?"
"I'm here," he said, approaching carefully. "I think. Sorry."
He kept his gun-arm trained on the Turk while Tifa searched her, retrieving a materia bangle, state-of-the-art PHS, and the flashbangs she'd been reaching for. She had a handgun, too, holstered neatly beneath her suit jacket.
Her ID badge was blank, displaying only the company logo. Tifa turned it over, wondering how much it granted access to.
"Barret, have we got something to tie her up?"
"Yeah, I'll circle back with Wedge. You good here a minute?"
Tifa nodded, adjusting her weight as the Turk briefly struggled beneath her.
"What's your name anyhow?" she asked.
The Turk just glowered, refusing to answer. Tifa flipped open the fancy PHS to check its messages. Most of them were curt, businesslike, and possibly in code, but a string of texts from someone called 'Reno' and the most recent response threatening to 'poison his IV' suggested both that he'd also discovered how easy it was to tick her off, and that he currently had a lot of free time to do so.
"'Laney'?"
"Elena!" the Turk corrected sharply, and then she snapped her mouth shut again. She did seem young, Tifa reflected. What sort of person joined the Turks? Did she understand what she represented?
Barret returned with Wedge, who bound Elena's hands so Tifa could ease up off of her. The three of them stood around her, cutting off any easy way to the street. She quirked an eyebrow at Marlene, who ducked back behind Barret's leg.
"You're running around with a kid?"
"Ain't none o' your business," said Barret. "We're askin' the questions here."
"Where would they be taking Jessie?" asked Wedge.
"Who?"
"The brunette you were lookin' for," Barret clarified flatly. "One o' your buddies found her, right?"
Elena rolled her eyes. "Boy, you guys have no clue what's going on, do you? You really think Shinra would waste the Turks on tracking down your little band?"
Barret's hand came to rest on his gun-arm. "You wasted a whole sector tryin' to get rid of us," he said darkly.
"No one's gonna see it that way. AVALANCHE are the ones who brought down Sector 7. All Shinra has to do is put your faces on the news, and the people down here will--"
"Stop it!" Marlene blurted. "Stop saying that! AVALANCHE helps people!"
Her outburst brought everyone up short. Even Elena stared.
Barret turned and knelt down in front of her. "It's okay, baby girl. She's just tryin' to make us mad."
"But why? It's not true."
"That's right, it's not. What matters is you know that."
Marlene nodded, hugging her moogle tightly.
Tifa turned her attention back to Elena. "...so if not Jessie, then who were you looking for?"
"That's classified."
Tifa exchanged glances with Barret. She didn't buy that Elena didn't know who Jessie was, or that the Turks wouldn't come after AVALANCHE, but maybe that hadn't been their mission here today. She wanted it to be, but she didn't know half the dirty work the Turks got up to.
Barret nodded. "Can't figure whether you're tellin' the truth or not," he told Elena, "but even if you are... Somebody who's enough of a danger to Shinra you'd send more than one Turk to track 'er down? Sounds like somebody I'd like to meet."
Elena snorted. "Good luck with that."
"Well... We'll just see. Came out on top with you anyhow."
It was a small win, after everything else, and Tifa wasn't sure what it really bought them. They'd never had a captive before.
The three of them turned to each other, keeping Elena in their peripheral vision.
"...does this change our plans?" Wedge asked quietly.
Barret shook his head. "Not in the short run. She made one good point: we can't be runnin' around with--" He broke off, glancing down at Marlene. "Anyway, we'll wanna lie low for a bit an' see if they really do put us on the news."
"That'll make things harder..." said Tifa.
"Yeah. But better if we ain't here when it starts. We'll figure out how to work around it if we got to. An' in the meantime, we'll see if we can get anything else outta her 'bout where they'd be keepin' their special guest."
"Right," said Wedge.
"I know we wanted to stick together, but..." Tifa glanced at Elena. "She's gonna make things a little complicated. I think maybe you guys should stay here while I see if I can track down Johnny's folks."
Barret grimaced, but he nodded. "Yeah. This's gonna be a little hard to explain, huh?"
"They don't believe Shinra did it," said Wedge, "but... I don't think they believe we did it either."
Barret ran his hand thoughtfully over his beard. "Maybe what we got here is a disgruntled employee," he proposed. "Fell in with a bad crowd, might know somethin' about the plate."
"I can work with that," Tifa said.
She didn't have to look hard to find Johnny's parents. The power being back on made it an easier trek across Sector 6, and they were among the refugees who'd chosen to camp at the park. She found them anxious; Johnny was already planning to leave Midgar, but he wanted to leave it farther behind than his parents were prepared to.
Tifa's proposal to go only as far as Kalm's farmland went over well. They'd get to see their son off, and they would have a place to stay for now that wasn't so unfamiliar. They didn't hesitate until they met back up with Barret and saw the prisoner for themselves.
It wasn't enough to make them change their minds. Slums residents were nothing if not pragmatic.
The Kalm area was a ways on foot, especially with a middle-aged couple and a 4-year-old in tow. They were prepared for it, but hopefully they could hitch a ride. They stopped for a rest once they finally cleared the shadow of the plate and found the main highway out of town.
Tifa sat on a guard rail and gazed at the sky; she'd seen it from time to time in Midgar, but her trips to the plate were rarely during daylight hours. Somewhere to her left, Barret was cautioning Marlene against looking directly at the sun, and asking her what shapes she thought the clouds made. Mrs. Sanford was complaining to her husband about her sore feet. Tifa wished Biggs were with them, making some joke about all they'd been missing out on in the city.
The distant rumble of an engine got Tifa back on her feet. She turned to her friends.
"Do I look okay?"
Barret looked up at her blankly. "Yeah?"
Wedge threw him a wry glance and then said, "You've got some soot on your face. May I?"
Tifa got ogled often enough that she never liked wielding her appearance, but she always knew it was a tool at her disposal. A passing trucker was more likely to stop for a pretty girl in a short skirt than for three grown men or a middle-aged couple. So when the truck came into sight and she didn't see a Shinra logo, she stepped out into the road, cocked her hip, and stuck out her thumb.
The first one didn't stop. The next two slowed, but when they saw the rest of her companions, they drove on past. They'd continued walking a ways when the fourth truck came along and offered them a ride. They let the Sanfords sit up front, and Tifa was happy enough to sit in the open back with a view of the road behind them.
Tifa had never seen the city from this angle. They played wide-shots on TV sometimes, but they always showed Midgar the way Shinra wanted it seen: from above, with its glowing reactors and the impressive wheel of plates encircling its central citadel.
From the road, she could make out almost nothing of the upper plate. There was only the vast darkness beneath it and the grey wasteland that surrounded it. Rather than a shining metropolis, it looked like a kind of hell.
For tens of thousands now, it was a graveyard. Tifa kept her gaze steady on it and made them a silent promise.