chapter seven: falling apart

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar..."

--T.S. Eliot

Between the walls of the Shinra mansion, as they creaked and groaned with the coming of another autumn, something walked.

It was nothing human, and nothing known to humankind. It was a voyager of eons, a subtle interloper in the shadows, an eater of worlds. It brought with it madness and death, plagues and rains of fire. But yet it was far from insensible; its intelligence was keen and deadly, if alien, no more but the silent whispers of cell to cell, virus to virus, that let them act as one. It was aware. And it hungered.

It had never met resistance before, and now it was both angry and glad. Awake at last after its long enforced sleep, it had needed to rebuild its assault; the challenge had been irksome and yet deeply satisfying. But now it was ready. It knew what to do. It would do what it had always done... but slower this time. With greater caution, greater care.

They suspected it already, it knew. The leader, the man of science, who held the leash of one of its new-adopted children, had ordered its body imprisioned on a high cliff, in the heart of an old reactor, bound with plastic and steel. But its seed had been spread, its children risen, and it was content in its small victory. They could not hold it, for it walked among them still. Still it walked. Still it spoke through human lips, watched through human eyes. Still it smelled their mounting human terror. And so did it begin to plan.

So it waited. And it watched.

*

"Simon?"

The sound of Gast's voice made Hojo glance back over his shoulder, briefly, as he stepped through the doorway to the supply closet. It was a cursory look, however, devoid of warmth and not very promising -- not that Gast had really expected much more anyway. The elder scientist had been waiting for Hojo in the hallway -- laying for him, Gast thought to himself with a kind of rueful, ironic incredulity; it's really come to that -- out of hope for a word with him once he'd stepped outside the lab. Odd as it was (or perhaps it wasn't even so odd, not anymore), he just couldn't seem to bring himself to enter the lab. He didn't want much to do with these rooms of science anymore, he found; his mind had even begun to entertain strange thoughts, thoughts of how he could get away, could make it so he would never have to cross that threshold again.

"Yes?" Hojo's voice responded dryly, cold and crisp, from within the supply room, accompanied by glassy clinks as he returned a few jars to their proper places. "I assume there's a reason you've been hovering outside the door for the last half hour other than to remind me of my given name."

Gast sighed imperceptibly. Gathering his will, he continued, "Yes, as a matter of fact. There's something I'd like to talk to you about." No response, not even a pause in the chattering of glassware; he sighed again and continued. "I'm concerned about Lucrecia."

That, at least, earned him a pause, and another glance, before the younger man returned to his tasks; even after he did, the reorganization of supplies seemed forced, calculated, nothing but a distracting sleight of hand. "So am I," Hojo's voice responded levelly, as he shuffled his way across the room, hands rearranging automatically. "My wife is about to give birth, after all. Is there some reason you felt the need to bring that to my attention?" Gast was grimly pleased to note that, for once, he had managed to unseat the bland neutrality that had been steadily growing in Hojo's tone over the last few months; now it was edged instead with a fine point of hostility.

"I don't mean just the pregnancy, Simon. Have you taken a good look at Lucrecia lately?"

"Of course I have," the voice snapped back irately, and this time it was actually followed by Hojo himself, returning across the small room to stand and scowl in the doorway. "She is my wife, isn't she?"

Just what I was about to ask, Gast thought of saying, but clamped down on the impulse; no need to get himself in that kind of trouble so fast. Perhaps he still had the chance to get some logic from his friend, who had become so strange... "Of course. Then you must have noticed how ill she's become. I... I believe the treatments may be doing her damage."

Hojo raised a single eyebrow in his direction, wryly, before turning back to the chemical storage. "As I recall, you're thought that for a good while now," came the mild but somehow waspish reply, at length. "We never thought the treatments would be entirely without side effects; but they won't have to continue much longer. And anyway, if my wife has complaints, she hasn't voiced them."

Of course she hasn't, Gast again thought but didn't say, because she sees as well as I do how much you've changed, and it frightens her as much as it does me. At this point, she could be dying right in front of us and wouldn't say a word to you... and I'm terribly afraid that may be just what's happening.

Rather than say any of that, he said instead, with forced evenness, "True... but it still might be advisable to seek some medical attention for her before the birth, don't you think? For Lucrecia's sake, and for the baby's."

There was another pause, this one heavy and faintly ominous. When at last the sounds of activity resumed, they were unmistakably feigned this time, and when Hojo spoke his voice was so cold it fairly chilled the air between them. "I don't tell you how to conduct your affairs, Jeffrey," it said quietly. "And I see no reason for you to meddle in mine."

It wasn't until Gast spoke that he realized he had gritted his teeth. "I'm not trying to meddle in your affairs," he bit out. "I'm just asking on behalf of Lucrecia, our mutual friend, that you take a little care." And then, anger making him dare a little more than he might have otherwise: "I'm not sure I trust you to take it yourself."

Hojo's forced activity faltered, and then stopped altogether; again he appeared in the doorway, arms folded, face granite. "Are you implying that I don't care about my wife's well-being?" he inquired evenly, his tone glacial.

Gast did not answer the question, merely staring the other man down; at last, instead, he simply asked, "Are you aware that in the entirety of this conversation, not once have you referred to your wife by name?"

That stopped Hojo cold, and for a moment his veneer of apathy slipped; under it Gast saw an emotional and almost physical ugliness beside which the vice president's true face paled, a dull, sullen loathing that actually knocked him back a step in shock. For that brief second Hojo's face held the look of a thwarted madman -- and then the bland mask returned, so quickly that Gast wondered for a moment, dazedly, if he hadn't simply imagined the whole thing. But deeper down, he knew better... and the knowledge terrified him on some level that his conscious mind could barely touch.

"I didn't realize that was a crime," Hojo replied mildly, tone a cruel parody of levity, bumping his glasses up on his nose in a gesture that was chillingly familiar in the man who had become so alien. "If you're trying to accuse me of something, Jeffrey, perhaps you should simply do so, rather than waste both our time with guessing games." He turned efficiently to close and lock the supply room's door behind him, turning his back deliberately on Gast in the process. The older man lost some of his patience -- perhaps had seen it shaken from him with that flash of true sight -- and stepped toward Hojo, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm not accusing you of anything," he said wearily, "and I do wish you'd stop behaving as though I wre. I'm trying to help, Simon; I'm worried about Lucrecia... and, to be frank, I'm worried about you, too. You've been different lately, these past few months. It has me concerned, and I know it has Lucrecia concerned as well. This is your research you two are working on; she's depending on you to solve any problems, and to stop it if it gets out of hand. And -- Simon, I think it has gotten out of hand, don't you? Far out of hand. Surely a few days off to call in a physician and make certain everything will run smoothly wouldn't be so much trouble?

For a moment he thought that might have done it; for a moment he thought he had gotten through. Hojo did not turn, did not speak, did not look back, but nor did he brush Gast away... but because he did not turn, there was no way Gast could have seen the brief struggle on his face, between its older, truer expression, and that blank shadow of a man. For a moment Hojo fought with his keeper, with a self that was not himself, fought weakly but desperately for the right to beg his friend for help...

And then the moment ended, and the shadow won.

Hojo turned back toward Gast, shaking his hand brusquely away, his features taut and irritated. "It could skew the results, Jeffrey," he snapped back, pushing past the other scientist to stalk toward the stairs. "Surely you know better than to ask me to introduce a foreign element into a delicate, lengthy experiment just as it's reaching its most crucial juncture. Or have you been avoiding the lab long enough to forget?" Gast ignored the jab, following the other man, and opened his mouth to speak again, but Hojo cut him off. "I think I've heard quite enough out of you today, Professor," he very nearly sneered, pausing only a moment at the foot of the winding staircase to face his senior down. "I have everything entirely under control, and I don't recall ever asking for your advice. We are men of science, not sentiment, and when we begin something, it's our place to finish it -- some of us still believe that, at least. If I were a more suspicious man I might think you were trying to sabotage me, and the rest of this project. I'm just doing my job, my very helpful friend; what precisely are you doing?"

Hojo didn't wait for an answer; it was just as well, since Gast certainly didn't have one. The younger man merely turned and marched up the stairs, not looking back.

At last, Gast found his voice, and it burst up the stairs to Hojo on a wave of frustration and anger. "What the hell's the matter with you?" he shouted, stopping Hojo near the top with the sound of his voice. "You were never like this before; you know it as well as I do. What's happened to you?"

Hojo turned slowly toward him, resting his hands on the narrow railing. He looked down at Gast for a long moment... and then he smiled, a slow, thin, utterly chilling smile. It was a smile Gast would never forget, no matter how far he ran, nor how hard he tried to leave it behind. It would follow and haunt his dreams and nightmares.

"Maybe I finally grew up, Jeffrey," Hojo said softly.

And then he climbed the rest of the way, and vanished back into the mansion; and Gast only remained at the bottom of the stairs, stricken and frozen, staring down the way that he had gone.

*

It was perhaps a week later that the baby was born; perhaps it was longer or shorter, or perhaps not. Afterward, no one remembered for sure. There was only a night pierced by an infant's sharp cry, and a woman's screams; and the next morning found Hojo a father, and Lucrecia the next step up from catatonia.

Later, when he thought back on it, when he could think about it at all, Ellis came to realize that that was when it all began to fall apart. It had been cracking and groaning for some months already, but that was when the pieces truly began to come loose and crumble to dust. A child's cry in the darkness of the basement. That was the beginning of the end.

*

"We've got smoke now, but where's the fire?"

Ellis looked up, blurry-eyed, from the bottle in his lap to see a thin, taut shadow standing over him, outlined by the moon. He squinted, shifting along the mansion's back wall, peering vainly up at the newcomer's face; it was impossible to see, silhouetted as it was, but it hardly mattered. He could still identify that voice even through his current inebriation, and despite the thin threads of rage -- bordering on hysteria -- that burned through it.

"Hello, Vincent," he said tiredly, dropping his eyes again. "Care to have a seat, or would you prefer to stand and deliver crypticisms for a while?"

Vincent did not appear to hear this; he barely seemed, in fact, to realize Ellis was there at all. He stalked forward a few steps along the wall, then back a few, pacing in the darkness. His face slid in and out of the moonlight as he walked, in and out of visibility.

"We knew this would happen. We knew it was bound to burn down. But we didn't stop it." He yanked a frustrated hand roughly through his dark hair, his face twisting in what Ellis thought was an unconscious snarl. "How were we supposed to stop it? Shit. We were all used, you know. Every one of us in that building. Right from the start, we were all being used, and it took this long to find out. By whom, do you think? That's what I wonder. Who was doing the using, if we were all being used? Who was pulling the strings?

"Each other," Ellis replied after a moment, thoughtfully, distantly. "Ourselves. Maybe that thing that's up in the reactor now. Maybe God. Who knows? I don't think that's the real question, anyway."

Vincent snorted bitterly. "No. I suppose it isn't." He stopped his pacing abruptly, folding his arms almost as though to still the restlessness of a hand that itched to be armed. He was silent for a long moment; when at last he spoke again, his voice sounded more lost than angry. "What did he do to her, Ellis? Just what in hell did he do?"

Ellis glanced up at him again, frowning dimly. "What do you mean?"

"Lucrecia," Vincent almost shouted, then struggled to control his voice once more. "Hojo. What the fuck did he do to her? I'm asking you; nobody'll let me near it. Rip says I should just forget it, do what the orders say. I told him to fuck himself. He's a good man; he should have had a few of my teeth for that, but he just walked away." His jaw clenched with an audible click, and he shook his head violently. "Just what happened to her, Ellis? Could you tell me that? What happened down there?"

Ellis sighed, slightly, and stared into the neck of his bottle once more. "She gave birth," he said simply, heavily. It sounded like a death pronouncement, a funeral dirge. Vincent froze.

"Perfect," he bit out viciously, after another long pause. "That's just right, isn't it. Just how it goes. He got his baby; so much for her. Fuck." With no other waring, the Turk spun, and drove his fist hard into the wall that had been behind him. Little chips of stone flew away on the breeze with a puff of mortar dust; Ellis winced away automatically, alarmed, but not before he could see the moonlight pick out a fresh lace of blood on the other man's knuckles. Vincent only stood for a moment, gathering himself, breathing hard; at last, slowly, he turned his head toward Ellis, his eyes grim and hooded.

"You know what's happening upstairs?" he asked lowly, almost softly, holding Ellis's eyes. "No, of course you don't. How could you? Well, here's an interesting piece of information for you. The Turks received a set of highly classified orders this afternoon. There was some jargon thrown in here and there, but the main thrust of it was pretty clear: Lucrecia officially no longer exists. Neither does the segment of Hojo's research involving her, or the baby downstairs that's half hers, I assume. She's to be taken out of here as soon as possible, at Hojo's discretion, and that'll be that. He'll have washed his hands.

"You see what they're doing, don't you? He's their asset. Their great triumph. And now they're cleaning up after him. Hojo broke his toys; now they want us to sweep up the pieces."

*

The door to the main lab banged open, making Gast jump and drop the notes he had come down to collect. Beyond the door lay mostly darkness; he squinted into it for a moment, and then the figure standing outside stepped forward and resolved itself into Ellis. Gast opened his mouth to greet him -- and then the words died on his lips. For a moment he actually felt, and resisted, a brief but powerful urge to step away from the young man; the intern's eyes glared into the room as if in judgement, his face cold, hard-lined, and thunderous with rage. He made no further move for a long moment, simply staring across the little room, into Gast's eyes.

At last the scientist found his voice. "Ellis," he began hoarsely, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Is -- is something the -- "

"We knew," Ellis cut across coldly, softly, not even seeming to hear. "We knew things were going wrong. We knew they would end worse. From the very beginning we knew... and we did nothing." He chuckled slightly, emptily, stalking a few steps forward into the lab. "Nothing. Just a coincidence, we said. First a suicide, then an accident, then a few more; but it still wasn't a problem. Of course it wasn't a problem. Just a few people. Just a few lives. How many deaths do you suppose it takes to make a problem, Professor? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? More than are necessary for the making of a fortune?"

"Have you been drinking, Ellis?" Gast asked quietly. His voice sounded gentle. He didn't feel gentle. He felt trapped, and half-panicked. His entire mouth seemed to have been numbed and filled with cotton.

Ellis sneered, slightly, stalking along the table. "Does it matter? Does it make it less true? I'm sure Shinra would say it does. Shinra has a good deal to say about a lot of things. Like science. Like profits. Like acceptable losses. There's a corporate phrase if there ever was one -- acceptable to whom? Not Kal, I should think, not Ruth or Mike; not Wil or Fred. Acceptable to whoever wants to take the money and run, I'd bet. Wouldn't you? What about you, Professor Gast?" He advanced on the older man momentarily, voice rising as his eyes blazed; this time Gast did take a step back, in alarm. "Do you find this acceptable? Do you find it acceptable that in the past ten months, the casualty rate per capita in this building has been approximately equal to that of downtown Midgar?"

"Ellis," Gast tried again, his voice heavy and weak. Ellis didn't let him finish; he stormed around the table, pacing like a caged animal, verbal guns blazing.

"I don't find it acceptable. I find it deplorable. But what have I done about it?" He snorted, bitterly, his voice raising as he repeated himself. "What have I done about it? Why, I've been a good soldier, haven't I? I've kept my head down and my thoughts to myself, and I haven't said a word to anyone nor put up a hand to stop them. I've hunkered with my hands over my ears and hoped maybe it would all go away. Shit!" He slammed a hand into the table suddenly; the crack of his palm striking the wood echoed ringingly through the room, making Gast jump. "And now it's a little late," he half-snarled, holding his hand momentarily on the table where it had fallen before resuming his pacing. "Jenova's been put out of the way, oh yes; I'm sure that's a great comfort to Kal, and Ruth, and the rest. Just like I'm sure they'd be very pleased to know they died in the name of science. But it doesn't seem to make much of a difference, does it? We're just as good at killing each other as any monster could be at picking us off. Have you seen Lucrecia lately, Professor? Did you also have an inkling that something was a bit off, back in the days when she could still feed herself and speak in full sentences? I know I did. And what did I do? I waited for the storm to pass, but I didn't even know what a storm was. Not yet. I'd only seen the eye of the hurricane. And I didn't know; and I let this happen. I let this happen! I might as well have cut her open and bled her dry with my own hands!" Ellis's voice, over these words, escalated gradually in pitch until it was a full shout, almost a roar, almost a scream. "What do we need a monster for? We are the fucking monsters!"

The intern fell back, at last, breathing hard; something about the look in Gast's eyes seemed to break his rage, and he simply turned, drained, to lean heavily against the doorjamb, gathering his breath. He began to murmur something, very softly, to himself; it took Gast a long moment to identify the words as those of a doctor's sacred vow.

"'If I keep this oath faithfully,'" Ellis half-whispered, "'may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.'" At this he stopped, and nodded, slowly, still to himself.

"Yes," he said at last, softly, thoughtfully. "May the reverse be my lot."

Then, with no further word, he staggered heavily from the room and was gone.

Gast did not move for a long time, merely staring after the young man. Finally, he heard a small noise behind him; he did not have to turn to know that Hojo had emerged from the tiny library and was standing in its doorway with his now-typical implacable expression, and so he did not, but merely stood looking at the door.

"Well," Hojo said, with calculated mildness. "What was that all about?"

Rather than waiting for an answer, he simply turned back around and returned to the library; but Gast still did not turn to look at his retreating back.

Instead, he left.

*

It was a dim, gray morning when Ellis was asked if he would drive Ms. Zephyr -- no longer equipped with a first name, apparently, and stripped of her more recent surname as though her entire marriage had been nothing but a dream in her fevered mind -- back to Midgar for "tests and rehabilitation", and the same morning when he agreed. Ellis didn't imagine Lucrecia would receive any rehabilitation, however. He thought the best she could hope for would be a swift burial; and the worst, he found he preferred not to think about. And it was the subsequent dim, gray afternoon when Ellis pushed her wheelchair out through the halls of the mansion, Hojo flanking them like a narrow white-coated bodyguard; that afternoon when Lucrecia gasped and sighed words to Hojo that Ellis could not make out, her voice rising and falling like the wind on a stormy night. At one point she reached up to clasp Hojo's hand, and he pried her fingers loose. He barely seemed to know who she was.

"Try to relax," he advised her impassively, dismissively, as they reached the door, then turned to Ellis. "Take care with her," he instructed over her head. "Drive slowly."

"Of course, Professor," Ellis answered hurriedly, but he was barely listening. He was looking at Lucrecia, the frail hand (which had been liberated from its wedding ring at some point, he saw distantly; so had Hojo's) that reached up to grasp fruitlessly at Hojo's, the meaningless whisper of her voice, the empty, leaking, faintly glowing eyes that seemed somehow to quail with despair. Hojo nodded, and Ellis pushed the chair out the door and down the walk; he heard that door close behind him, and knew it was the last time. He didn't know where he was going to take Lucrecia, but he knew it would not be to Midgar. That he could not do. Whatever might face him or wait for him outside the mansion's gate, he could never come back; and though a part of him rejoiced at that, the rest only felt like a man condemned.

He loaded Lucrecia into the anonymous white van parked out along the edge of the square; she neither helped nor resisted, only stared out at nothing with her lips slightly slack. As he secured her in the seat and closed the door behind her, however, Ellis began to feel, suddenly, something peculiar happening in his mind... a doubling, almost. A second sight over the first. He frowned, and paused for a moment, and tried to shake it off, but it refused to go. His choice was clear, though: either he could stay, if only long enough to give himself a more thorough examination and try to puzzle it out, or he could drive... and if he stayed, he might not have the chance to leave again. And that was no choice at all.

So as he started up the van and began to back out into the town's main road, he was looking over his shoulder at the road behind him, but he was seeing the basement, where Hojo stood and frowned over some test results, presumably from his infant son; as he put the van into gear and began to roll slowly out past the buildings, behind his eyes he saw Vincent take shape in the doorway behind Hojo, stepping cat-silent into the lab, unseen until Hojo turned to use the microscope and the two men came nearly face-to-face.

"I ought to kill you,"Ellis heard Vincent say softly, calmly, as the van turned down the street and nosed its way toward the main gate; he saw no weapon in the Turk's hand, however. But when Hojo turned to face the other man, Ellis recognized the glint of steel in his hand as the lab's security pistol -- the same one Wil had fired into his own head one not-too-distant morning.

"Is that so, Mr. Valentine?" Hojo asked with forced lightness, keeping the gun hidden as he turned. "May I ask why?"

"You killed her, you bastard," Vincent said tonelessly, stepping into the lab, and then his voice mounted abruptly to a shout: "You killed her!"

Ellis saw it all. He saw Hojo try to argue, and be cut off again and again, as he guided the van down the narrow main road; he saw Vincent advance into the lab, throwing accusations like the weapons he lacked, and Hojo's fingers tightening around the gun, as he passed the shops and houses and inns, heading for the gate. He saw; and still he drove. He drove as though his hands were bound to the wheel and his foot weighted to the accelerator, eyes forward but fixed on nothing as he watched the grim little scene play out. He drove like a programmed automaton, though as Vincent continued to grow louder he found he could hear the soft feminine voice that whispered into Hojo's mind, the voice that seemed to be many in one, whispering over and over: Kill him.

"Not unless I have to," Ellis heard Hojo answer it numbly, not even aware that he was speaking aloud, even as his fingers clenched on the gun. "Not yet. Not unless I have to."

The argument faded out, slowly, and though Ellis still felt that doubling of vision, it darkened now, seeming strangely far ahead, perhaps as though he were seeing forward, not what was happening but what would happen. Now he saw Vincent's body crumpled on the floor of the lab, blood welling from his disheveled suit-jacked around his upper arm and ribs; he saw Hojo bending over him, putting on a pair of latex gloves, his expression calm nearly to the point of serenity as he plucked Vincent's gun from inside his jacket and fired it briskly into his own calf, then nestled it loosely into the Turk's hand. And at last the vision faded out on Hojo's voice, saying, with a note of strain so false it was nearly ridiculous, He fired first; it was self-defense. No, I'm close enough to a doctor to handle it for the time being. Leave him, I'll tend to him...

And Ellis drove out of town.

As they reached the village's gate, he thought he heard some slight cracking sound in the distance; the van's radio -- tuned to the frequency the Turks communicated on; they were the ones who used this vehicle most often -- crackled suddenly into life bare seconds later. Rip's voice squawked over the airwaves, sounding startled and distressed.

"Zafara, Valentine, come in. Shots fired in the building. Repeat, shots fired. People, where are you? Over."

"Thelan?" Megan's voice. "I'm here, I read you. I'm on the perimeter -- was that the basement? Over."

"That's affirmative, Zafara. Where's Valentine? Valentine, do you read? Over."

"I ain't seen him -- he was taking off for the day. Hope he's not down there -- Over -- "

"Don't even talk about it, Meg, knock on wood or somethin -- Valentine? Valentine, do you copy? Over!"

Nothing.

"Vince? Vince, are you there? Goddammit... over."

"Valentine? Valentine! Vincent! Do you fuckin copy? Over!"

"I'm getting nothing, Rip. Shit. I'm going down there, over -- "

"No! Dammit, Meg, don't -- Vincent! Vincent, where the hell are you?"

"Somebody's gotta go, Rip -- I'm on the stairs -- "

"Get out of there, Megan, I'm not kidding -- Vincent, are you there? Do you read?"

"I'm down, Rip, it's cool, just gonna check it... oh." A brief silence; when Megan spoke again, her voice sounded thin, stunned. "Oh, fuck."

"Meg? Meg, what the hell's going on down there? Meg?"

No answer; Rip's voice seemed to escalate almost toward hysteria.

"Meg! Meg! Vincent! God damn it, somebody talk to me! Vincent! Do you read? Does anybody read? Meg -- "

Ellis reached calmly over and clicked the radio off.

In the seat beside him, Lucrecia's face had pinched into a thin frown; she shifted in her light, unnatural sleep, making a soft little sound, as if of protest or fear -- or warning. Ellis, however, did not look over at her, nor did he move to still her disquiet.

He drove.

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