Crisis Core: The Novel

Chapter 14 - Duty

Back at Shinra, everything was tense, like a low droning rumble of an earthquake right as the ground opens up and swallows everything.

"Come on, pick up!" Zack gritted his teeth by the Break Room window.

"Who are you trying to call?" asked Kunsel.

"Sephiroth. I haven't been able to reach him."

"Haven't you heard? He's shut himself inside the data room researching the R&D Department."

"How do you know all this?"

Kunsel took Zack aside in low muffled tones. "Sessions are logged and I know the network guy..."

Zack froze, this was way above their clearance level. "What do you know Kunsel?"

"He's looing up something called Project G. What's going on Zack? This is like Men in Black conspiracy-type creepy."

"Heh, your guess is as good as mine."

Zack would get his answer sooner rather than later, when he would be called to take on yet another mission that he would never accept lying down.

"Security Department is hounding me because of the Genesis raid," Lazard said from his desk as Zack stood front-and-center in his office. "They're getting ready to eliminate both Genesis and Angeal."

Zack froze, trying hard not to freak. "Wait a minute! You do know that Angeal was in the battle, trying to protect the Shinra Building—"

"The company has branded him a terrorist. We do not negotiate with terrorists."

Too late, Zack freaked. "I can't believe what I'm hearing! If that's the way things have to be around here, I quit!"

"You forget SOLDIER, you signed a contract when you joined this organization. If you try to quit I'll have you in a holding cell for the remainder of your tenure and send Sephiroth in your stead, and I can assure you Shinra has been making him dance for far longer than we have you. A good SOLDIER knows his place."

Zack stormed out, slamming the door so hard that a crack edged across the glass. It was not the only crack, there were several in different places making their way toward each other like an expanding road map. Lazard remained unfazed. He was used to having 1sts storm out of his office.

Zack shoved past them and kept walking, all the way to the train station, all the way to the church in Sector 5, where the asphalt piles from long-ago bulldozing operations laid like open graves.

"They want me to kill the man who trained me," he said to Aerith as he sat next to her in the pew like one of the kids she peer-counseled on weekends. She sat with her legs crossed next to him, listening intently while a mixture of confusion and anger crossed her features.

"How are they even allowed to do that? You're not just a drone, you're a human being and you have a conscience."

It was so nice hearing Aerith call him a human being. He'd felt like a corporate punching bag for a while now.

"Is this the man you fell off the Plate for?" she asked, and Zack just looked at the flowers with a nod. "Then he deserves your support, and I support him too...he brought us together."

"He killed his own mother Aerith. How do you square that against a guy? I've been going over and over it in my head and I just can't make it mesh."

She sighed next to him. "Oh Zack, if only I could help you answer that question."

They sat there in silence holding hands, lost in their own thoughts like the dust swirling in the fraylight of stained glass windows.

"Things are really starting to heat up at HQ," said Zack. "I'm locked-down on base right now but I can be deployed anywhere in the world at any minute. I could be gone for weeks, maybe months, even a whole year if things get hairy."