Disclaimer: Not my characters.
Chapter 2
A soft buzzing interrupted their silent conversation. The girl ignored it, burrowing her face deeper into his neck. He ignored it too, choosing instead to tighten his arms around her. The buzzing stopped, and silence resumed its haunting song.
She loved being here in his arms; being able taste the wonderful emotions of peace and acceptance rolling off him. She’d never felt accepted by anyone, neither had she felt understood. With Deepground, she’d been sent on countless missions which were executed to exquisite perfection.All she had gained from her superiors was a hollow sense of achievement. But with this strange man, with a dark past and an uncertain future, living in the here and now was a joy she could scarcely take in.
All these emotions were still new to her. Feeling joy, anger, sadness and a myriad rainbow of other sensations still came as a surprise. She revelled in the things her once unfeeling heart could now experience.
And the best of it all was her love for the man holding her. A man possessed with a WEAPON, and the curse of immortal life. She couldn’t quite be sure that the deep abiding affection she felt was in fact her own. But it didn’t really matter. Not to her. The love and affection she felt was not going to mellow anytime soon, if at all, and for all the purposes of their relationship, it was enough.
The vibrations started up again, interrupting her thoughts. The girl opened her eyes and peered down into the red folds of his voluminous cloak. The phone definitely was ringing, and Vincent definitely wasn’t moving to answer it.
His choice, she thought. Shutting her eyes against the setting sun, and resting her cheek on his warm shoulder, she returned to the silence of their love-making.
Of course, not quite love-making, not as how one would think it. Still, it served the same purpose as love-making would in any other normal couple. But they weren’t normal, she thought. Not by a long shot. And the upside was that they could go on for hours where others could not. Her mouth curved into a smirk.
The caller certainly lacked neither determination nor persistence, she noted with no small amount of irritation. He or she was definitely unfazed by Vincent’s continued indifference to the ringing of his phone. The red-haired girl sat up unwillingly, peering into his face.
Unblinkingly, he stared into the reflections of the white monolithic trees on the calm azure surface of lake that lapped at his boots. She rolled her eyes. He had probably been waxing all philosophical inside his head; she was sure, oblivious to the insistent call of the piece of circuitry in his cloak pocket.
She nudged him, hoping to elicit a response. None was given. Not that she expected anything more. Letting out a frustrated sigh at the hint of a smile coming onto his face, she threw up her hands.
“All right, I’ll get it,” she stated. Reaching over him, she retrieved his phone and flipped it open.
“Vincent! Won’t you ever pick up your phone?” Barret’s worried voice blared out through the receiver.
She winced, holding the phone away from her ear.
“I’m not Vincent,” she replied.
“Could you put me through to him? He’s there, isn’t he?” Barret’s rough drawl took on a slightly forced tone, cold suspicion leaking from his voice. The child within her recoiled, retreating away. Her rational thought receded away, phone dropping from her frozen fingers.
She did not see Vincent snap his hand out to catch the phone a foot from the ground. She did not hear Vincent mutter a few quick words to Barret before slapping the phone shut. For blood roared in her ears; the only sound she could hear the pounding of her own heart.
Waves of emotion washed over her, each one radically different, from hurt, anger and resentment, to even a sense of resignation; the fact that she simply deserved such treatment. The world around her dissolved into a morass of impersonal colours. The urge to shut down emotionally and the urge to let her emotions run wild warred within her. Within her, The Transparent and the Scientist fought the girl Vincent loved.
But she felt the firm touch of Vincent’s hand on her shoulder. She held on to it like a lifeline, her only anchor in her emotional storm. She focused all her mental strength upon that steady, warm weight on the blade of her left shoulder as Vincent strove against the feelings that threatened to rip her of her identity.
“Shelke.” One monosyllabic word cut through whirlwind that was smothering her.
Slowly, the world coalesced into distinct shapes, the blur of colours in front of her eyes resolving into the face of her partner. Taking deep gasping breaths, Shelke grasped for her sanity, reining in her racing thoughts and emotions.
Vincent gathered her small frame into his arms. She hugged him back tightly, pouring out her love for him into the embrace, willing him to understand through her actions what her voice could not express. Looking into his eyes, she knew he understood.
“You’re getting better Shelke. It’s slow, but you’ll get there,” his slow, deep voice whispered in her ear, his flesh hand tracing circles on her back.
“Just…just hold me for a minute."
So they sat, motionless, his metal hand flashing blood-red in the dying sun.
~
The leaves above them rustled in the evening breeze, sending the last of the spring flowers down into the dirt. A black-haired man reclined in the grass, a red-haired girl curled up on the black chest of his bodysuit.
“So, what did Barret want?” Shelke absent-mindedly twirled a wisp of Vincent’s hair, fingers tracing his forehead.
“Cloud’s missing, apparently. It’s already night in Edge.”
“Really. And you’re supposed to find him?” Shelke shifted her weight of his chest, standing to her feet.
“Yeah.”
“And are you going to? I don’t want you to go.” Shelke knows she’s being selfish.
“Yes. But you’re coming with me. We could use your help.” Vincent stood and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Shelke broke into a wide smile. “Of course I’ll come along! Where do we start?”
“Now that where you come in handy, love,” crouching down, Vincent knelt face to face with her. “Think you can do a Synaptic Net Dive?”
Shelke hesitated, old fears rushing to her mind. Her abilities reminded her of years best forgotten. Reminded her of the person she once was. Reminded her of the mistakes she made.
“If you’re okay with it, that is. You could help make this search a lot easier. It’s not your abilities who determine who you are. It’s what you make of them.” Sensing her distress, Vincent placed a gloved hand on her cheek.
“Anyway, there’s a storm coming up here. It's probably already hit Edge. That’s probably what’s got them all worried about him.”
“I’ll do it.” Shelke’s voice shook slightly, she did not want to let Avalanche down, let him down.
“I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be getting the chocobos ready. Be back in a minute.” With a smile, Vincent handed her his phone and strode off into the trees.
Sitting down, Shelke pulled her utility vest to her, and removed the Worldwide Network interface from it. With swift, practiced moves, she hooked it up to the power supply in her vest. However, her movements became less confident as she rigged it up to be able to access the network using the connection from Vincent’s phone. Shelke was still reluctant to execute the SND, but she figured that doing this, helping AVALANCHE find Cloud, she might increase her standing in their eyes. Encouraged by that thought, Shelke took a deep breath, and placed the neural device on her head.
Images roared past her as she dived deep into the Worldwide Network, seeking information on Cloud’s whereabouts. She checked the communication records of all the cell phones in Gaia, checked the transactions of the few stations that sold the type of fuel needed to power the motorcycle Fenrir, even checked the ferry records of Junon and other ports. Nothing.
Frustrated, she dived into millions of terabytes of data, searching for any sign of Cloud’s whereabouts. Her efforts went unrewarded. Taking apart lines of binary code, she slipped through the countless firewalls, her mind working at speeds beyond even a super computer as she searched for any mention of him in recent missives or transactions.
Her efforts were fruitless. Defeated, she sat back and considered her options, all the while staying on the move, on the alert for the numerous security programmes that policed the network. Then all of a sudden, she was caught.
Her cyber body was frozen, suspended within the network, unable to move; unable to counteract whatever that was holding her. In panic, she activated whatever fail-safes she could think of. Nothing worked. In fact, the entire network seemed to have stalled. Time seemed to stand still around her; the streams of data and code, the electronic signals that the network ran on were as frozen as she was. She was indefinitely trapped in a state of limbo.
Then, she heard a voice. Which was technically and mechanically impossible. Her cyber ‘body’ was made up of lines of complex organic code. She couldn’t speak while doing a network dive; much less hear another’s voice. Neither could the lines of binary code around her.
The voice was oddly distorted, but she was positive that she had heard it somewhere before. Despite her surprise at this strange occurrence, she was even more surprised at what she heard.
“I’m sorry that I had to stop you like this. I really hope it doesn’t hurt. I’ve never done anything like this before,” the voice rippled and ebbed, flowing through her non-existent aural nerves.
Shelke was even more insulted now. She, the consummate hacker, one of the most deadly pieces of code on the Worldwide Network had been incapacitated by a complete novice.
She attempted to speak, only to find that she still was unable to do so. The voice continued, seemingly oblivious to her struggles.
“You’re looking for Cloud, aren’t you?” The voice became oddly tender upon mentioning Cloud, Shelke noticed. “He’s somewhere in near that Chocobo farm southeast of Kalm. I’m not actually too sure of his exact location. His PHS isn’t too much of a help, because of all the interference from the snowstorm he’s in.”
“Actually, he’s in trouble. He’s stranded as his motorcycle gave out in the storm.” Like she couldn’t make that logical leap for herself; had she been able to, Shelke would have huffed in indignation.
“So, please get AVALANCHE all organized and find him, he might get frostbitten if you don’t hurry. I really hope you and Vincent find him quick…” the voice took on a worried note.
“Thanks!” The voice was fading away. “You might be hearing from me again. It was nice to meet you, though. Never thought anyone could soften Vincent up….” The voice trailed off into the infinite depths of the Worldwide Network.
Shelke found that she could move again. In desperate attempt to uncover the owner of the ‘voice’, she cast her data-crawlers out in a wide net, searching for any sign of the mysterious entity who had accosted her. She found absolutely nothing.
In frustration, she took out her anger on a couple of World Regenesis Organisation cyber watchdogs before pulling her mind out of the Worldwide Network. She stomped over to Vincent, hurling his phone at him, which to her disappointment, he caught with ease. She yanked at the reins of her Chocobo, which warked in protest of her rough treatment. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vincent raise an eyebrow at her brusque behavior. However, he chose to reserve his comments, a small smile playing on his lips instead. Wise of him, she thought. Leaping into the saddle, Shelke took off, leaving Vincent behind in a cloud of dust.
In a high-rise office hundreds of miles away, Reeve Tuesti received an urgent missive from the Chief of his Security Department concerning the breaching of the company’s firewall.
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