Crisis Core: The Novel

Chapter 21 - Lucky Stars

Zack lay in bed dialing Aerith's number.

"Hi. This is Aerith with Sector 5 Youth in Crisis. If this is an emergency, please hang up—"

He hung up. Plugging his phone in by his pillow, he adjusted, attempting to catch some rack-time. But something wasn't right. He turned over, shoving his hands under his pillow to get comfortable, then turned over again, and again. Tossing in his bed, a growing agitation began to gnaw at his subconscious that he couldn't shake no matter how much he punched his mattress to get rid of it. A whispering thought that blared like air raid sirens drawing closer and closer...

...another man.

Zack turned over again. It couldn't be, but it was. A guy always knew when there was someone else. The sense was a million years of deeply engrained genetics burned straight into his DNA, and now his spidey-senses were flaring like a frilled cockatiel.

He turned on his back, staring at the ceiling. He was being ridiculous! Accusing Aerith? All because she hadn't answered her phone? It's not like Zack never talked to her, he'd talked to her three times today. The poor girl had a right to sleep, it was bloody midnight.

A deep breath to calm down, but...it wasn't that late. She'd answered later than this before. There was a way to quell his fears, the next time he saw her, her phone. He stopped himself. If he was going to become the guy who went through her phone looking for a message that would turn out later to be from a cousin or nephew or uncle, he needed to start seriously reconsidering his relationship...

Okay, that's it. Up out of bed, Zack needed a walk. What he was doing was the definition of tripping. Throwing on some mesh shorts, a white tee and sandals, he walked out into the hallway rubbing the back of his head.

SOLDIER barracks was mainly racks for 2nds and 3rds sectioned into hallways by rank. There were bad hallways like there were bad neighborhoods, meaning they hadn't been remodeled since the Shinra Building was constructed and still had heating and air circulation issues, but those were mainly where they shoved the rookies who couldn't barter their way into a better piece of real estate for their first season in the ranks. Showers were down on the east end, common and stall in case someone wanted privacy for business. There was a kitchen area that mainly stored non-perishables and left-over fast food because no one in SOLDIER knew how to use a stove, and a common area with couches and a large projection screen for downtime afterhours. Zack headed there.

The couches of the Commons were either lined against the walls or angled toward the big-screen. Zack re-angled one of them toward the windows on the far wall that overlooked Midgar City. He slumped down onto the cushions, sinking into temperfoam as he gazed out over a glittering panoramic cityscape. The lights were alive underneath the shadow of Shinra, dancing in the capitalist colloquium of digitized datastreams, and Zack felt them invade him. The organic sentience of the city was something he never took for granted after being deprived of it for nearly his entire life. Now in the vastness of human ingenuity's greatest urban achievement, he was reminded of what he was fighting for.

Light footsteps, familiar, behind him. He turned in the dark to see Cissnei hold up her hands.

"It's just me," she assured him in a whisper, then came over to sit down on the couch with him. "I was doing my rounds and saw you come in. I thought I'd say hi."

She smiled at him, and he smiled back, his head still resting against the billowed foam of the lounge sofa.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Me? Oh yeah, nights just get hard sometimes." He knew she knew what he meant.

Cissnei gazed out with him over the glittering limelights of the city, speaking to him like she had when he first met her, like she'd known him all her life.