COSMO CANYON NOW "Barret and I will go with Jesse, Biggs and Cait Sith to Nibelhiem," Tifa said. "It's my hometown...and I think Cloud needs to have someone from his past to talk to him right now. You...won't be coming, Gabriel. He doesn't need to be made any more confused. And I don't trust you." "I'd rather go after Inno anyway," Gabriel replied. "So...I guess Aeris and Reeve are coming with me?" "We'll stay in touch with the other team through Cait Sith," Reeve explained. "I can't guarantee that my codes will work, but we can try to use them to disarm the security system at Shinra headquarters. I haven't figured out how we can get back to Midgar quickly, though." "I'm coming too," Yuffie announced suddenly, jabbing a finger into Gabriel's chest. "I'm not letting you out of my sight! When this is all over you're coming back to Wutai. I don't care what you call yourself; I know who you are, Abel, and I won't rest until you're back where you belong!" Gabriel smiled wryly. "Whatever, Yuffie. If you all will excuse me, I'm going to go for a walk to clear my head." * * * MIDGAR THEN The group hurried downstairs toward the elevator. They stopped briefly when they noticed Tifa wasn't following them. She had stuck behind a few yard back. "I'll be waiting for Cloud! Keep going!" The door sealed shut and locked with a satisfying click. "I guess we should keep moving. Let's go!" Aeris suggested. They reached the elevator and stepped in. The elevator had a tough time fitting all ten people in. Suddenly, gunfire blared from the other elevator shaft. The glass that surrounded the elevator shattered violently as a giant mech launched an all out attack on the group. Wedge, who had been shoved up against the edge of the elevator when the group entered, lost his balance and fell over the edge. Jessie tried to grab him, but couldn't grab his arm in time, as he fell down sixty-eight floors. "No time to worry about him! We've got to fight!" Gabriel exclaimed, as he checked the materia slots on his chain sickle. * * * MIDGAR. NOW Inno sat, rather disconsolatly, in the tiny holding cell. *I wonder where they took Nanaki.........* she thought. She had not seen her red companion since the Turks had rather handed them over to the Shinra forces in Costa del Sol. She at least had been given a bed, and food: Nanaki had been electromag'd into unconsciousness and stuffed inside a crate with 'C.O HOJO' on the side. That probably wasn't good. Before she could worry about him, though, she had to worry about herself. This wasn't like that time with the MPS; this was Shinra Corporate Security. Who knows what they'd to do her? They were ready for her "abilities" this time as well. Oh, they hadn't figured out a way to STOP them yet; she could blow down the door with a Fire spell and walk out easily enough...... ..... right into the arms of three SOLDIERS 1st Class. Damn. *I wish Gabriel were here........* Further ruminations were cut short when the door to her cell clanged open, and she jumped hurriedly to her feet, prepared to put the most defiant face forward toward whatever sicko interragator Shinra had decided to throw at her. Which was why she was VERY surprised when President Rufus Shinra himself walked in, flanked by two of her gaurds. He put out a hand. "File, please." It was supplied. "Ah, yes," he said, leafing through it. "Kinsley, Inno. For someone who's lived such an ordinary, dare I even say _dull_, life, you and your companions have caused us quite a bit of trouble." His voice hardened. "Not to mention time and money." He finished leafing through the file and handed it back to one of the gaurds. "It's of no consequence, however. I had _hoped_ for Reeve, but you will do just as well." He spun on his heel and prepared to make his exit. "Wait!" Inno snapped out invountarily, immediatly regretting it when Rufus truned back around with an 'I know more than YOU do' expression on his face. "Yes, Miss Kinsley?" "Ummm..... do for.. what? Precisely." Rufus grinned like a shark. "Why, for the public execution, of course. The people DO need to be shown the consequences for rebellion, not to mention terrorism. I think..... in three days time, yes. That should give us time to assemble quite an incriminating video package of your various exploits, including the wholesale destruction of Sector 7. Good day, Miss Kinsley." The cell door slammed shut. * * * SOMEWHERE IN MIDGAR. THEN He was comfortably numb, yet still in pain. Yes, that was it. It made no sense, but there it was. Wedge lay on his back (he thought he was his back) and tried vaguely to form some coherent recollection of where he was and how he got there. There had been a building, he was sure. A tall building. And he had been very near the top, he remembered. And then he had tripped, or been pushed, or something, and there had been just him and the air and the sound of wind rushing by his ears and then a disconcerting wet thwaping noise like a slab of beef hitting a table..... Oh. That wasn't good. But he was okay now. He thought he was okay. He was moving at least. Being moved anyway. Maybe Barrett had taken him home to Tifa's to be patched up. He'd done that before. Good old Barrett. Yes, that was it. Wedge felt a strong white light being shined on him. He didn't like that all. Jessie had probably moved one of her devices too near him again. He'd told her not to do that while he was resting. And now people were talking. Biggs and Barrett probably, he was sure. He hated it when people talked while he tried to sleep. Was he sleeping? Didn't matter. He'd tell them to be quiet.... if he could just open his mouth...... "Mmmrgghhh..... umfffffff..... Bar---ettt? Biggzzzz?" "#@$%@!! He can't wake up now!! Put him back under!!!!" "I'm TRYING! Pass me that syringe!" Syringe? Wedge didn't much like the sound of THAT. He tried hard to force his eyes open, and thought he saw a man leaning over him, but it wasn't Barrett..... wasn't...... Bar......... Just before the fluffy blackness came to take him away, Wedge thought he heard someone say something....... "We can rebuild him. We have the technology." * * * Final Fantasy: Fated Chapter 19: The Midgar Project. by Mercutio * * * "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." -J. Robert Oppenheimer. MIDGAR, SHINRA CORPORATE HQ. THEN Rufus Shinra was, as it were, living large. He had gone, within the space of a couple days, from being just another wealthy playboy to the most powerful man on the face of the Planet. Most people in his position would be kicking back, celebrating, getting toasted on the finest wine and four-hundred Gil an hour hookers. Rufus had plans for that later. For right now, he was paying a visit to his single most valued and trusted associate. Deep within the bowels of Shinra Headquarters (actually, it was on the 45th floor, but it _felt_ like the bowels to someone used to the penthouse suite) Rufus walked down what looked like a nornal corridor, but was really a gigantic deathtrap to anybody not carrying rather numerous security clearence cards on their person. Which Rufus was. Stopping at the end of th hallway, he unbolted an enormous door made of wood and swung it aside, entering the chamber beyond. He had just enough time to blink before three arrows whistled through the air, coming staright at his chest. * * * MIDGAR, SECTOR 3 THEN "Mmmmfffffffffff....... umwah?" Wedge wasn't really feeling all that well. Understandable, after falling off a skyscraper, but it still annoyed the hell out of him.Or would have, if he'd been able to think. Well, he could think, but not clearly. Ummm. Thinking..... hard. A tiny, still lucid part of Wedge's brain was screaming at his body that the reason it was so damn sluggish was that it'd obviously been pumped full of something very powerful, likely illegal, and certainly beyond the wherewithal of Avalanche's rather limited resources. Therefor, would he mind perhaps WAKING THE HELL UP AND SEEING WHERE HE WAS AND WHO THE HELL WAS DOING THIS TO HIM!!!!!!! In deference to this tiny but rather shrill voice, Wedge managed, by dint of much effort, to open his eyes, raise his head, and look around. The first thing he noticed was that only his right eye opened; something appeared to be taped over the left. The second thing he noticed was that he was lying flat on his back, on a flat metal table, surrounded by various machines and tubes which were likely sticking into orifices Wedge did NOT want to think about right now. While this tiny corner of space was immaculatly clean, in fact almost sterile, the rest of the room was not. It looked liek nothing more than a curious amalgamation of laboratory, body shop, hospital, and airplane hangar. Grease covered tools and bits of equipment lay everywhere. What looked like an extremely modern teleivsion/com system/computer occupied the enitrety of one wall. On the opposite end of the room, a tiny orange plane, it's wings folded back so as to make it fit into the tight space, rested in front of large double doors big enough to permit egress if neccesarry. Off to one side, what looked like a large glass tube big enough for a person to fit into was slowly filling with a curious purple goo. *Well, that's rather ominous,* the cynical part of Wedge's brain noted. Finding the rest of the central nervous system currently having a drug-soaked party with bits of the glands and musculature doing the catering, it automatically assumed it was in charge. First order of business was basic motor skills.... let's see about moving this hand.... Wedge's hand attempted to raise itself off the table. Were it not for the leather restraints, it might have succedded. THOSE sounds weren't the sort normal hands made!!! Wedge lifted his neck and attempted to peer at the offending appendage. He shifted slightly on the table, and the white sheet lying over him shifted with him, drawing back to reveal a metallic hand, gleaming silver, with only three fingers and a thumb and an unwholesome-looking bundle of wire where the other two digits would be. He reflexively jerked his arm in surprise, and watched in horror as some of the loose wires twitched with life.... At this point, the part of Wedge's brain that had thus far been giving him a semblance of consciousness gave up and went to go get hammered on whatever the delightful cocktail those tubes were feeding into him was. * * * MIDGAR, SHINRA HEADQUARTERS, 45th FLOOR. THEN Rufus flinched as the arrows sped towards him, raising is arms in afutile effort to ward off the impact. Which turned out to be entriely unneccesary, as the arrows bounced harmlessly off his well-tailored suit and fell away like matchsticks. A distance away, on the other side of the room, a small man holding a bow stared expectantly at Rufus, a small smile twitching intermittenlty across his face. Rufus bit back his urge to visit violence upon the offender. You could do that to a normal employee, but not to this man. Instead, he said, as nonchalantly as possible, "Foamed rubber arrows, Leonard?" Leonard, the man at the other end of the bow (which, upon closer inspection by Rufus, appeared to be plastic) put it down and smiled. "Yes, sir. I thought they might come in handy. You know, for the training of troops and such without expending any live ammuntion. And of course, no-one can get hurt this way." "Um. Yes." said Rufus. "You ARE aware though, Leonard, that Shinra Corporate Security has not used bows for nearly two decades, ever since the mass-production of firearms became practical?" He tried hard not to smile nastily at the boy. Leonard shrugged. "I understand that bows are still used in many less-developed areas of the world, sir. As such, my invention still has a certain amount of practicality. "Yes, Leonard, but those people who still use bows are generally AIMING THEM AT SHINRA!!!" was what Rufus didn't say. Instead, he nodded and said "Ah. Well then." Leonard nodded happily. "But I've been impolite, sir. Come, sit, sit. Would you like some tea?" "Yes, thank you." Rufus hated tea. Rufus Shinra generally didn't put up with this sort of thing. He fancied himself far too important for such things as basic courtesy and patience. But Leonard was a special case. Leonard of Kalm had emigrated to Midgar from Kalm (hence the name) four years ago, in order to attend the prestigious Midgar University. Six months later, he had graduated with full honors, and Masters Degrees in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Architecture, Biology, and Materia Skill, with numerous minors in the Humanities. Needless to say, he'd been headhunted by Shinra's R&D Department almost immediatly. A few things any person should know in order to understand Leonard da Kalm: That the boy was a genius, none could doubt. Spend five minutes in his company, and you'd receive more information than you thought possible about nine or ten different subjects, coupled with long expositions about said subjects practical use. Leonard always assumed that any listener was both an expert in and as insanely interested in as many topics as he was. Lacking the ruthlessness required to obtain the upper levels in the corporate hierarchy, he probably would have gone on to become one of the many middle-ranked grunt scientists who wound up doing most of Shinra's REAL innovating, if not for an incident one day. He was engaged in pumping one of his latest creations, a sort of jellied gasoline (he had no idea what possible use it could be, but figured he'd make that up as he went along) from a large tank into a series of smaller tanks, when the hose had popped loose, dousing a large number of people with the sticky, gooey, highly inflammable substance. One of said people had been lighting a cigarette at the time. The term "carpet of flaming death" barely even BEGINS to describe it. As it so happened, Rufus's car had rounded the corner onto that particular street just as the incident occured. Normally, he wouldn't have cared much at all; industrial accidents happeend all the time, and he was not interested anymore insofar as the commotion would delay him in reaching his destination and whether or not his auto was scorched. This time, though, he took a very, VERY keen interest. Not out of any humanitarian urge, or even a detached economic sense of how much of what would eventually become his property would be reduced to ash. No, Rufus was interested in the fact that the flaming people COULD NOT BE EXTINGUISHED BY NORMAL MEANS. It was quite remarkable, really. Water did nothing, nor did smothering the flames; they would damp down for a second and flare back to life. Ice Materia had some effect, but encasing people in giant bricks of ice did not exactly improve their situation. In fact, it seemed as though everyone involved would die a horribly messy death until Leonard, who had escaped the initial blast, came running up with a large red canister and sprayed a foam over the area, effectively ending the mess. A few minutes later, as the various civial authorities and the MPS tried to sort out the matter, Rufus had some quiet words with Leonard's immediate superior. The boy came up with that? All by himself? All kinds of crazy, dangerous, things you say? Amazing. No, no disciplanary action on your part will not be required; I will see to the matter personally. Shinra appreciates your diligence. Come over here, da Kalm. Yes, yes, horrible and tragic, of course. You don't, by any chance, know how to make more of that, do you? Ah, I see. Yes, you'd better give me your notes, I'll take good care of them...... Six months later, during the opening skirmishes of what would eventually widen into the full-scale Wutai/Shinra War, Shinra Corporate Security deployed a new weapon, a kind of flame that would not die that had been dubbed "Naykalm." By that time, of course, Leonard da Kalm had been safely ensconsed in his new lab on the 45th floor. Over the next few years, Leonard was almost single-handedly responsible for all of Shinra's purely technological advances. He would do the initial groundwork and draw up preliminary plans, before another project caught his attention and he drifted off, and Rufus would hand those plans off to other scientists to do the REAL developing work, careful in the process always to take full credit for the implemetation of the new "discovery." Without Leonard, in fact, Shinra's entire Aerospace Division would not have existed. Leonard's main problem was a lack of proper perspective. He really did see no connection between designing a new, more efficient type of flange, and the fact that this flange would now make possible the deployment of a rolling, flame-spewing death engine that heretofor had been too heavy to move under it's own power. "...... and did you know, sir, that if the perspective was drastically scaled up, they actually have more tensile stength than our finest steel wire?" "Ummm? I'm sorry, Leonard, my mind wandered," Rufus said, as he set his teacup back into it's saucer. Being this nice was satrting to get to him..... "What has the tensile stenght of our finest steel wire?" Maybe they could use this...... "Cobwebs, sir. It's really quite amazing, actually." Rufus didn't care. "But you probably don't care about that, sir." Good call, Leonard, Rufus thought sarcastically. Leonard suddenly leapt to his feet, surprising Rufus. "Oh wait, how careless of me!!! I've made a breakthrough on that biological sample you sent me, sir, you remember, the JENOVA tissue? If you'll come this way....." Leonard beckoned him toward a large capsule lying in the corner of the room. How typical, Rufus thought. The boy spends ten minutes discoursing on the relative strength of spider's web's, and almost forgets about the IMPORTANT project. "Yes, Leonard, do show me," he said. "If you'll recall, I wanted you to theorize on a way that the entity could be rendered inert. Purely speculative, of course..... " pleasepleasePLEASE let the boy have come up with something. Leonard was currently in possesion of the only remaining sample of JENOVA tissue Shinra had. Rufus had ordered all other specimens destroyed, but he had severe doubts that Hojo had complied with him. Blast the man!!!! Rufus Shinra really had no idea about the larger implications of JENOVA. All he knew was that it, in connection with the traitor Sephiroth, had waltzed right into the most secure building on the Planet and rather messily murdered his father. Rufus really had no intention of giving Scarlet, or worse, Heidegger, the pleasure of walking in on HIS bloody corpse. "If you'll just watch, sir, you'll see here....." Leonard beckoned Rufus to gaze into the small window on the specimen tube. "Now as you can see, the specimen is in what passes for it as perfect health." Rufus could see that. How the HELL did the thing live without a head, anyway? "Now," Leonard said, "watch." He manipulated some controls on the side of the tube, and a small chunk of strangely colored ore projected into specimen chamber through a tiny airlock. The reaction was almost immediate. The tissue of the JENOVA creature nearest to the ore immediatly began to wither and die, and the specimen slowly oozed and lurched away from it, until it had plastered itself against the far side of the tube, twitching slightly. Leonard worked another dial, and the ore withdrew. The creature immediatly seemed to grow healthier, slowly resuming it's former state. "Amazing," breathed Rufus. "How does it work? Perhaps I can have the rock formed into some sort of personal armor...." "That would be most unwise, sir," said Leonard, visibly alarmed. "That ore was artificially created, by me, under extreme laboratory conditions. It gives off radiations that are, from what I have observed, inimical to ALL organic life. JENOVA seems to be more susceptible to it than others, but it would kill us, too, given enough time. Fortunatly, a simple shield of lead will protect us." Rufus nodded. "So of what use can this be, Leonard?" "On the small scale, sir? Very little. It's not powerful enough, and the emanations disapate over a surprisingly short distance. To be useful at all, we would have to produce this radiation in vast quantities over a wide area, and that's where we run into trouble. Here," Leonard swept a number of doodads off a nearby table and pointed to a very complex chart full of diagrams and notations, "look. As you can see, in order to produce the neccessary result, we would have to inject a small amount of another synthetic element into the one I already created, thus setting off a chain reaction. Unofortunatly, there would be negative side effects." "Such as?" Rufus said. He was intrigued now. The last time Leonard had spoken off negative side effects, he was speaking of a new kind of high-explosive he had developed accidentally while trying to formulate a new kind of plastic. "A monstous explosion, sir." BINGO!!!! thought Rufus. "Of at least 10x1 orders of magnitude larger than anything we could currently produce with conventional devices. Also, the radiation thus produced would be so strong as to have a 'salting the earth' affect, rendering nearby areas unfit for human habitation for thousands of years. It would be such an intense explosion, sir, that we would have to develop an entirely new delivery method to ensure that the people delivering the reactive materiels were not caught in the blast." Leonard pointed to another pair of schematics. "I formulated two such delivery systems, both airborne; a large canister that can dropped from an aircraft, and a sort of long-range, intercontinental, ballistic device." Leonard laughed. "Purely theoretical, of course. It would never work in real life." "Oh?" said Rufus, alarmed that Leonard was balking on him now. "Why not?" "Why, you'd never find the engineers willing to build this sort of thing, or the soldiers willing to deliver it to wherever. For that matter, you'd never find the official to even ORDER it's use. You could obliterate half the Planet with devices like these. Who could be that evil?" Rufus smiled. "Who indeed?" * * * SECTOR 3, MIDGAR. THEN The next time Wedge woke up, he felt much better. His head still felt as though it was packed with cotton, and he couldn't really feel much below his neck, but aside from that, not bad. And hey, he could move! And the table had been conveniently tilted at a forty-five degree angle so he could get up and walk. "Ufffff..... ah, that's bet- whoa.....uh-oh...." Of course, that only applied if your definition of walk included the words 'stagger blindly about the room and trip into someone's arms.' "Whoa there, sport. A little bit to early to be up and wandering around." Wedge blinked, at looked up at the face connected to the arms. It belonged to a friendly-looking, not unattractive women. "You're quite lucky, you know," she said in a conversational tone as she set him upright. "Most people in your position would be street goo right now. As it is, we had to patch up practically your entire body. You've been out for weeks." Wdge looked down at said body. Rather than the pseudo-military outfit he had taken upon joining AVALANCHE, he was now decked out in a simple white shirt and blue jeans. Not that it really mattered. His entire form, from the neck down, was swathed in heavy, tightly wrapped bandages. Curious, he tugged at the ones over his left hand.... "No, nononono," said the woman, staying his hand. "There'll be time for THAT once we've got you acclimated." She helped Wedge limp/walk/stumble back towards the table. "Come on, we can start your recovery program now, if you like...." Wedge mumbled something affirmative as he allowed himself to be led. He was too out of it to really care anyway...... Almost imperceptibly, there was a whine like gears working together as he walked. * * * MIDGAR, SECTOR 3 BEWTEEN THEN AND NOW The next three.... months? weeks? passed as a blur to Wedge. He had to re-learn everything. EVERYTHING. How to walk, how to talk. He couldn't even stand upright without something to lean on, at first. And his depth perception was all skewy, like someone had slipped a lens over his left eye. In fact, he couldn't even tell what his left eye LOOKED like: there wasn't a mirror to be found. The young lady was very helpful. She was always there, helping him, teaching him. Sometimes a tall, gruff man with short blonde hair would come by, look him up and down, and grunt in a satisfied manner before leaving again. He rather reminded Wdge of Barrett. Still, as he gradually worked his way back to pre-plummet conditions, certain nagging doubts began to fill Wedge's mind. Where the hell was he, for starters? It was Midgar, certainly, no other place was that noisy or had that smell, but where in the city? Where were Jesse and Biggs and Barrett and Tifa, and whatever-their names were, Clod and.... Erith? And..... Anno? Innsley? And the red thing, and the guy with the big hook..... Also, there had been.... incidents. Curious incidents. Like, they wouldn't let him take his bandages off, for starters, even though he felt fine. And once, unthinking, he had tried to readjust the table that was his de facto bed, and the entire thing had snapped right off in his hands. He had held it, a hundred-pound piece of metal, five feet above the floor without effort, for one brief instant, before the shock of it all made him drop the thing right on his foot. Which hadn't hurt. They had been very upset about that. The woman (what WAS her name?) and the man had both come running right in, and the man had touched a weird looking thing to the back of Wedge's neck, and then he'd slept. When he woke up again, everything was back the way it had been. His sleeping was weird, as well. It was like he just..... shut down. He'd lie down, and there'd be a brief gap in his perception, and then he'd be conscious again and the clocks would have advanced many hours. Speaking of time.... when was the last time he ate? When was the last itme he'd used the bathroom? Something wasn't right. Then, one day Wedge woke up, and he felt...... normal. The coton in his head was gone now. He could think clearly, and walk and talk again. It was time to get some answers. The woman (what WAS her name? He had told her HIS) was sitting on a small stool in the 'workshop' area of the room, dutifully making notes about something or other. She didn't even raise her head as Wedge walked over to her. "Excuse me, um, Miss?" said Wedge. That was the mode of address he had eventually settled on awhile ago. "Yes, Wedge?" she said politely, looking up. "What can I do for you?" "Well," he began, "You've been really nice to me and all, what with nursing me back up and verything after my.... accident. But, well, it's think it's time I was moving on. Er. My friends will be worried about me, and I need to go back, I really." He rubbed his arms absently. "Also, I really would like to get these bandages off. And, umm, something to eat. I think. I'm not really hungry at all, but people need to eat, and......" he trailed off, shifting uncomfortably. The woman stared at Wedge for a bit, then sighed. "I knew this would have to be done," she muttered, "I just didn't think it'd be today. Look, Wedge, you just wait right for a minute, mm'kay?" She jumped up and trotted off into a side room. Wedge was left standing about rather aimlessly. After a couple minutes, the lady came back with the man (*Awright, I'm learning some NAMES.* thought Wedge) in tow. He stood back, looked Wedge up and down, and smiled with quiet satisfaction. "You turned out better'n expected, boy. I'm told you want answers, and I guess it's time. Introductions first, tho." The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Cid Highwind. How the hell are you?" * * * MIDGAR, SHINRA CORPORATE HQ. NOW Rufus, flanked by the now ever-present gaurds (Perhaps he was paranoid. Meh. No matter. What was the point of having SOLDIER's if they werne't put to use?) strolled through the corridors to his next appointment. Giving the news to the Kinsley girl in person had been quite satisfying, yes. And now, for his OTHER projects. Rufus turned down a side hall, made a left, a right, another left, and entered a large, airy lab. It was the most luxurious Shinra had to offer, staffed with nothing but the best. One wall was dominated with alarge glass window, commanding a spectacular view of Midgar, or it would have were it not blocked by the large airship moored to the top of the Tower, and by a tall, sinster-looking cylinder that extended from floor to ceiling in the room, and in fact up through a roughly-cut hole (*I odn't remember authorizing THAT* thought Rufus) in the ceiling into the chamber above. A haggard scientist, dry-washing his hands, came running up to rufus. "Ah, er, President Shinra. We've been, hmm, expecting you....." "Dr. Shtalus. I trust you have have good news." It was a statement, not a question. "Ah, er, yes. Umm." Schtalus was a brillaint scientist, but not much used to talking. "We have, um, er, used those...... preliminary scheamtics to complete two prototypes. Um, sir. One is still in this room, being installed into the..... delivery device." He guestured at the cylinder. "Um. Quite a miracle of concept, that. I don't, er, suppose you can tell me where you........." he trailed off. Rufus said nothing, merely stared at the man. "Um." Dr. Shtalus decided to simply pretend the question had never been asked. "Er, anyway, sir, the other prototype has been loaded into a small plane, at the, er, airfield. For, um, delivery. To the testing site! Yes. Um, if you have decided on a, er, test bed yet. Sir?" "Yes, Dr. Shtalus, I have." Rufus handed a small, folded map to Shtalus. "A sufficently small, out-of-the way area where nobody should notice. Have this delivered to the pilots immediatly. I expect the devide to be on it's way to be tested within the next few hours. Good day, Doctor." Rufus turned to leave, and paused. "Oh yes," he said. "I have had a commendation inserted into your file, Doctor. The work you andd your team did getting the long-range airship," he guestured vaguely towards the window, "operational was quite superb. I am indeed pleased with my new private yacht." He nodded nce, curtly, at Shtalus, then proceeded on his way. *He praised me. Er. wow.* Thought Shtalus. Savoring the moment, he opened the piece of paper Rufus had given him. It was a map of the northern continent. On the top edge, a large crater had been circled in red, with an arrow pointing at it. *Ah. Right.* He raised his voice. "Baugh! Come here. Er, take this down to the airfield, woud you please?" * * * IN THE AIR, NORTH OF MIDGAR. FOUR HOURS LATER Lieutenant Cole turned to Captain Figaro. "Sir, why are we doing this again?" "Damned if I know, boy." Said Captain Figaro, pilot of Shinra Air Corps long-range cargo plane NCD-1712, which he had dubbed 'Lonae' after his mother. "All I knows is that we take that thing," he jerked a thumb at the tubular, egg-shaped object nestled behind thme in the cargo bay, "Up to North Crater, then open the lower doors, dro it, and get the hell away. The computers'll do the rest." "Ah. Well, it's not the CRAZIEST thingHQ ever had us do. Remeber that time thatURK-" "Cole? What's theAICH-" Captain Fiagro had time to say before his head imploded into a fine pink mist. Professor Hojo stepped forward, putting the silenced slugthrower (a 'gift' from the R&D Section) back into his coat. *Rufus, you are a fool.* he thought, pushing the bodies out of the way and taking a seat at the controls. The plane banked slowly and carefully around, assuming a new course that would take it far to the West. -END- Auhtors Notes: WHEW. That took FOREVER, and I still didn't get to do everything I wanted too. I gaurentee, though, that whatever you were expecting, this was NOT it. Why did i do this? Well, no offense to those who wrote before me, but FF: Fated was becoming, basically, a re-telling of the game with but a few MINOR changes. I felt it was time to REALLY shake things up, a LOT. Hence, this thing. We now have: Cyber-Wedge. What new and whipass abilities will he have, once he finds out that he now has a story even better than the one about how Barrett got his gun-arm? And what IS the deal with his left eye? Cid and Shera, the Tiny Bronco, and the Highwind, in Midgar. How did they get there? Why? Is Cid still working for the Man, or did he strike out on his own? Will they run into Reeve and Gabriel when they come to rescue Inno, or will Wedge decide to do something really stupid and noble on his own? A rogue nuclear bomb in the hands of Hojo, and an ICBM in the hands of Rufus. Of course, that's assuming they even WORK right...... gow good IS Leonard da Kalm anyway? Hope you had fun. Take it away, Wallace!!!! -Mercutio "A plague 'a both your houses!"