Gunpowder and Firecrackers

IV. Vincent


The airship provided to them by Highwind Corporation was named the Bronco. According to Cid, it was the fourth generation Highwind, fitted with all new engines and a digital display glass cockpit system. The Bronco was also installed with machine gun turrets. All of this was wasted on Vincent Valentine, who didn't care what the airship did, as long as it worked.

He'd parked it in the backyard of Costa del Sol with the permission of the town mayor. The poor man was obviously frightened out of his wits as Vincent had landed, and he had stood there for fifteen minutes explaining that no, Sephiroth had not returned from the dead, that Green Earth was not going to take over the city, and all he wanted was a hot bath, a meal, and the whereabouts of two former Turks before he went on his way. As he had expected, there was only one place in town Reno would head to on a vacation.

He had been standing in the shadows of the bar, watching the red-headed man whistle as he plugged away at one drink after another, when the commotion had happened. It could have been worse. The bar was not crowded, and Vincent did not want to imagine what would have happened if Rude had burst in at night, on a full house of revellers and a drunken Reno.

Tseng had warned that Reno would be difficult to reason with, perhaps more difficult than Vincent would expect. He'd gotten the call from the former Turk leader on his way from Edge to Fort Condor, on the road again, restless for reasons he didn't quite know. The Geostigma symptoms which had appeared almost six months ago had spread again, now stretching up his entire forearm and reaching black fingers up across his elbow. He'd gone to Edge again, to Aeris' church, to the pool where she had once healed Cloud Strife and then an entire city. The water had soothed his skin, dissolved the red pustules around the edge of the sickness, had healed the minor scrapes and scratches he had gotten while tangling with a small dragon on the outskirts of Wutai two weeks ago. But the black flesh remained.

He would ask Cloud about it, but Cloud was gone.

When he'd arrived in Corel, he had gone straight to the Green Earth headquarters complex, walking directly across the center of town in broad daylight, too tired and in pain to stay in the shadows. Corel itself was beautiful now, entirely rebuilt, a peaceful town of pink granite building fronts and paved roads. The Shinra building in Midgar had been sleek glass and metal, a forbidding structure of towers and ramparts, but Green Earth's white gates opened onto a smaller, compact set of facilities with carefully manicured lawns and gravel walkways between buildings. Tseng met him at the front door of the main building, holding out one hand to greet him. Vincent had looked at the hand, looked at Tseng, and said, "I'll pass, thank you."

Tseng dropped his hand and said, "So Rufus was right about your arm."

Rufus Shinra was having the odd dreams again, said Tseng, and he had known something was wrong with Vincent, had asked Tseng to confirm. Vincent felt very old and very silly at having come all the way to Corel so a bunch of pseudo-environmentalists could pronounce him sick, and told Tseng as much. "It's not quite how it sounds," the other man said. "I told Rufus I'd handle it. He's away, and doesn't know you're here."

Tseng looked older than he remembered. His long ponytail was streaked with silver. There were crows' feet at the corner of those dark, slanted eyes and he moved slowly with the plodding of a man retired from a life of activity. "You've gained weight," Vincent said. Tseng laughed tiredly.

"I prefer to call it 'filling out'," he said. "I don't get out much these days. I work all day, then go home to eat and sleep, then get up the next morning to do it all over again." He put a hand to his stomach, rubbing it absently. Vincent recognized the spot as where Sephiroth had stabbed him long ago, at the Temple of the Ancients. "I would say you look the same as ever, Valentine, but that would be less of a compliment for you."

"I don't mind," Vincent replied affably. He glanced around at the coral-painted walls of the corridor as they climbed the staircase to the second floor. Watercolor paintings of different landscapes and cities hung at regular intervals, and he recognized some of them: the forests outside Gongaga, the World Bank building and surrounding park area downtown in New Midgar, Cosmo Canyon's cliffs, the moon rising over Junon Harbor. The carpet muffled their footsteps as Tseng stopped at the fourth door and motioned Vincent inside.

"My office," he said, closing the door behind him and gesturing around the small room with its bare walls. "Make yourself comfortable. I regret that I am not the most hospitable man you'll meet."

Vincent smiled slightly. "None of you are. But I make do. Please get to the point."

Tseng seated himself behind the desk and its blinking computer and reached behind him to turn on the radio. Soft music filled the room and he folded his hands in front of him. "Show me your arm," he said.

Vincent laid his right arm on the table, pulling back the sleeve. Tseng studied for it a second, and then turned away with a slight shudder. "That will do, thank you."

"Disgusting, isn't it?" Vincent said, pulling his sleeve down again. "It doesn't hurt, not the definition of pain any of you are familiar with. It's more like a slow burning itch, tender when it's touched."

"Do you remember Kadaj?" asked Tseng abruptly. Vincent nodded. Tseng said, "I wonder whatever happened to him?"

"He died," Vincent said. "As far as we know." He did not sound as certain as he wanted to, but Tseng shook his head.

"Oh, I believe Kadaj died," Tseng said, "just like Sephiroth died, just like Aeris died." There was a slight hiccup in his voice as he said her name, but only because Vincent had been listening for it. "Just like Jenova died."

"Was Jenova ever truly alive in the first place?" Vincent countered. "I don't think we can afford to put so many definitive quantifiers on things we still don't understand. Gast's and Hojo's research was only the beginning, and Meteor only one end."

"Sephiroth died," Tseng said, "Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that death is a barrier that stops him for long. There is so much we don't know about the Lifestream yet."

Vincent looked at him sharply. "Geostigma was born from Jenova's destructive cells in the Lifestream," he said. "Aeris Gainsborough countered it, life with death. But this new disease..." he trailed off, staring at his arm beneath the black cloth that covered it.

"Could it be that Aeris' powers from the Lifestream are weakening? She's been dead thirteen years, only a girl when she was killed."

Vincent stared at him levelly. "Isn't that your job to find out?"

"Was our job," Tseng corrected him, staring out the small window at the bustling center of Corel. "The biological development and research branch of Shinra is no more. As you well know."

He had no answer to that, so he simply stared again at his arm as the tinny music wafted from the radio's speakers, thinking of Aeris and the brief time they had known each other. She had not been like Tifa, determinedly optimistic, nor eternally brash and outgoing like Yuffie Kisaragi. There had been something quietly desperate in Aeris, as if she had known that her time would one day run out before she had done all the things she wanted to do, as time had run out for her mother, for the rest of her race.

Aeris Gainsborough was what the world needed right now, and she was dead.

"I have a favor to ask," Tseng said finally, and Vincent raised his head, looked the ex-Turk leader in the eye.

"Ask it."

Tseng breathed in deeply and let it out, looking out the window again. "Rude is in Nibelheim," he said. "Rufus had a dream about Cloud Strife and he sent Rude to investigate. Reno is headed to Costa del Sol to intercept him. There is a....possibility that one or both of them might be injured and unable to make it back." He squeezed his hands together. "I would like you to go to Costa del Sol. I will, of course, reimburse you for your trouble."

"And how will you do that?" Vincent asked softly. "Rufus doesn't know I'm here, remember?" The cheerful music from the radio segued to a ballad, the piano melding softly with the singer's melancholy voice.

My last night here for you
Same old songs, just once more
My last night here with you?
Maybe yes, maybe no

Tseng smiled slightly. "I've amassed a fair sum in my bank account over the years. You don't trust me?"

Vincent looked down at his arm, back at the tired, worried man in the chair, over Tseng's head at the landscape outside the window. He was not used to Corel being so very green. "Of course I don't trust you," Vincent said. "You forget that I was once one of you."

"The Turks of Shinra are gone, Valentine. Elena's head of security now, not me. Reno and Rude are still around because Rufus does not have the heart to order them to go. I'm now the past figurehead of something that no longer exists."

Vincent flexed the fingers of his metal left hand. "You're admitting that this time, none of you can help yourselves. Am I hearing you correctly?"

"They're good men. Go save them, Valentine. I don't deserve your help, but...they do."

Vincent rose from his chair. "I'll go," he said. "But not because you'll pay me. I won't take one gil of your money. Call this paying back old debts."

Tseng stared at him. "That might not be a wise choice."

"Even a wanderer gets tired of being alone sometimes," Vincent said. "I will set out as soon as I'm able to secure transportation. I trust Highwind Corporation will assist me?"

"Building number four, the warehouse to the right of this one using the covered walkway," Tseng said. "Thank you, Vincent. I won't forget this."

--

He made it back to the motel before Reno, going noiselessly up the stairs to the sound of the sea from the open windows in the stairwell. Reno had left the door unlocked. Vincent went inside and found Rude sitting up in bed.

"It's you," Rude said, sounding unsurprised. "I was wondering when you would get here."

"Were you expecting me?"

"More or less," the other man said, settling back against the pillows with a slight wince. He had rarely seen Rude without his sunglasses, and he looked younger, more vulnerable. "Tseng tends to pull you out of his deck of cards when things get rough."

"Things are going to get a lot rougher," Vincent said darkly. He went to the open window and shut it, pulling the curtains closed. "How good of a shape are you in?"

Rude touched his face experimentally, patted his injured arm and jerked his shoulders up and down a few times, wincing again but under control. "I'm fine," he said. "Are we going back to Corel?"

"So says the shadowman," Reno interjected, banging the door against the wall as he entered the room. "What's up, Valentine, you developed lock-picking skills or something?"

"The door was open when I arrived," Vincent said. "Again I should remind you about the follies of carelessness." He went to the door, closed it and bolted it firmly.

Reno glared at him and disappeared into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him. "Go and stick it up someone else's ass, Valentine!" came his muffled voice. Vincent looked at Rude.

"Has he been spending time with Highwind Corporation?"

Rude smiled slightly between the bandages and began to get out of bed. Vincent reached out a hand to help him, balancing the big man as he tottered unsteadily to his feet. "I assume Highwind lent you some sort of air transportation to get us out of here?"

"It's just outside the city," Vincent said quietly. He glanced again at the window, at the moon's waxing crescent above Costa del Sol's palm trees. "We need to leave soon."

Rude wrapped a holster around his waist, slid the gun lying on the bedside table carefully into it. "Once Reno comes out of the bathroom," he said. One hand went to the side of his face, where the white bandages were now stained a dusky red. "I should change these."

"You should," Vincent said. His arm was tingling again, stabs of not-quite pain shooting up and down the infected area. "When did you start carrying a gun again?"

"Since Tseng told him to," Reno's voice called from the bathroom as the door opened again. "Are we ready to go?"

Rude gestured to him. "Just waiting on you."

"Your bandages," Vincent reminded him, and Rude shook his head.

"I can wait till we get to the ship to change these."

"Suit yourself," Vincent said. He watched Reno sling his duffel over his shoulder and nod at Rude. "Follow me."

The stars were out now as he led his motley crew out of the back door of the motel, down the moonlit side street out of sight of the surfside partiers that had begun to emerge with loud drunken voices and the sound of beer bottles opening. Vincent led them to where the alley met the main road, motioned to them to wait. From behind him, as he slipped into the shadows of the town center, he heard Reno whisper accusingly, "I'm supposed to be on vacation."

"I'm sorry," Rude said, and then Vincent was out of hearing range, the wind rushing past him in great gulps and flickers of golden air. Stars shimmered in his vision and he gazed out into the land, closing his eyes and letting the flow of the world pass him by slowly as the Planet turned and the Lifestream sang in his ears along with the gibbering of demons at the edges of his hearing, Chaos' echoes from inside his soul where the monster still dwelt, submerged.

He could not see the Lifestream like the Ancients had seen it. If he could, perhaps he would not have this mysterious illness eating away at a body still ageless.

The coast and surrounding areas of Costa del Sol were quiet and clear. He slipped back into the street and joined the two Turks. Rude was leaning against the alley wall, face clenched in pain though trying not to show it, and Reno's expression was tense. Vincent took in the situation at a glance, jerked his head mutely, and Rude pushed himself off the wall with a grimace.

"Rude-" Reno hissed, but the tall man shook his head.

"I'm fine," he said. "Lead on, Vincent."

The Bronco was where he had left it in the grassy field on the far side of Corel, still tethered, darkly silver in the moonlight. He and Reno helped Rude on board and settled him in one of the crew chairs on the upper deck, and Reno unshouldered his pack, spilling its contents on the floor. Vincent left him rummaging through packages of bandages and went to check on the engines.

It's a government conspiracy, Cid had said darkly when Vincent had gone into building four of the Green Earth compound and found the former astronaut slouching by the receptionist's desk, jotting down a phone number. He seemed genuinely happy to see Vincent, said that Reeve was out of town, in Edge for the week, about a government contract to restart the Shinra space program.

Vincent had wondered privately that Cid did not seem as happy about that news as he'd expected him to be, but said nothing. The man had grown increasingly touchy and restless since his divorce. Instead, he relayed in brief the news that Tseng had given him and asked to borrow some form of transportation. Anything but another Tiny Bronco, he said, would be adequate. That was when the government conspiracy theory had come up again, because in Cid's opinion, the new government in New Midgar was just another excuse to find some way to take over the world, as Shinra had.

"I highly doubt that at the moment," Vincent said. "Midgar seems to be keeping to themselves for the moment."

"They've been posting flyers in Corel," Cid muttered. "Lookin' for recruits for their new military police force."

He recalled seeing some of those flyers tacked up on bulletin boards around Edge, remembered that there had been a large poster in the foyer of the main Green Earth headquarters building, but he hadn't taken any notice. "I'd be more worried about the state of affairs in Nibelheim at the moment," he said. "Something's not right."

"I hear ya," Cid said. "Goddamn fucking Sephiroth."

Vincent pressed one hand to the tiny window of the engine room, wondering if the Cetra had felt the Planet rushing past them too, like clods of dirt and soil and years of history torn up by a blast of Earth. Will we be fighting Sephiroth forever? he wondered. Perhaps he should feel that kinship with Sephiroth as men who both carried part of Hojo's shared legacy, but he shied away from that. He was many things, but he was not the monster that Sephiroth had been, no matter how many times he would succumb in battle to the darkness of the creatures living inside him.

Cloud had defeated Sephiroth many times, but the nightmare kept returning.

"Vincent?"

It was Rude, fresh bandages wrapped around his head, leaning on the doorframe. "We should go."

He turned from the porthole. "I hope you have a full report ready for Rufus Shinra," he said quietly to Rude as he passed him on the way back to the cockpit. "Things are going to get a lot worse from now on."