Archive of Our Own

Six helicopters sat at the far end of the field, not parked so much as waiting impatiently, their blades spinning as if to say, Come on, move it, rookies, we’ve got places we need to be!

It was the end of a long sweaty day of training, Zack’s first day,  and Essai’s and Sebastian’s too. They trudged in Kunsel’s footsteps, having attached themselves to him because he seemed to know what was going on and was willing to share his superior wisdom.  Not far away on the sidelines, Angeal Hewley stood with his arms crossed, keeping an eye on their deportment. All the recruits were conscious of Angeal’s assessing gaze,  but Zack, who was nothing if not impulsive and did nothing by halves, was perhaps the most self-conscious of all. He had already set his heart on being chosen. Angeal Hewley was everything he aspired to be. If he couldn’t have Angeal for a mentor, then….

Nope,  there was no “then”. No Plan B, no fallback option. Zack Fair was going to be a Hero, and heroes didn’t settle for second best. He was going to get Angeal Hewley for his mentor, or die trying.

So he squared his shoulders and held his head high.

Shiva’s tits , though, he’d never dreamed it was possible to feel so tired, to be so tired that each individual cell of his body was groaning in its own special voice, to feel the tiredness with such raw intensity. To be so in tune with his body that he could actually, almost, hear it speak. Okay, maybe that was his imagination, but still…

Becoming a SOLDIER had been a revelation to him in ways he hadn’t expected. He’d known about the super-strength, of course. Being super-strong was every small boy’s dream. What he hadn’t known about, until it happened to him, was that the sky would be bluer, the sun hotter, water wetter, ice colder; that music would somehow have more notes, that food would have a million flavours he’d never known existed; that the touch of a girl’s hand could feel literally like an electric shock.  It was as if he’d been walking in his sleep through a grey landscape of muffled sounds and drab flavours, until that first treatment woke him up to the true wonder of the world.

And as for rubbing one out - how could he begin to describe that feeling? Agonising ecstasy? The first time he’d tried it he’d passed out without even coming.  According to Kunsel, this was normal.

His newly sharpened eyes now noticed a group of figures standing in the shadow of the helicopters who were neither MPs nor recruits, but men and women with pale faces, in white coats, holding clipboards. They smelt of ink and coffee and blood and chemicals he had no name for.  He recognised a couple of them. They’d supervised his treatments. The one in the middle of their circle was a stranger to him. Older than the others, and obviously the one in charge, his skin looked as if it never saw the sun. He wore thick glasses. His long black hair, streaked with silver, had been pulled away from his face into a messy ponytail.   Zack wondered….

“That’s Professor Hojo,” said Kunsel, not exactly reading Zack’s mind so much as picking up on the dozen small sensory clues being given off by Zack’s body.

Zack gasped. “For real?”

“He likes to keep an eye on our progress. We’re his babies.”

“Omigod. I have to talk to him - “

Forgetting Angeal, forgetting dreams and honour, forgetting everything but the impulse of the moment, Zack broke rank and sprinted at top speed across the field to where the scientists were standing. Most of them drew back in alarm, but Hojo did not flinch at Zack’s thunderous approach. Something like a smile toyed with the corners of his mouth. Zack took this as a sign of welcome.

“Omigod, Professor Hojo! I just had to - “ Zack grabbed Hojo’s right hand, ignoring or oblivious to the fact that it was holding a pen, and enfolded it in his much larger one, pumping vigorously up and down. “Thank you! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” said Hojo, with some amusement.

“This - being in SOLDIER - what you do - it’s unreal, man. I never dreamed. My name’s Zack. Zack Fair. From Gongaga.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to remember,” said Hojo, still with that tone in his voice that was almost, but not quite, laughter.

“Oh no, man, I expect you see so many of us, I get it - but one day I’ll be First Class, I swear it. It’s what I live for. One day, even the President will know my name. Me, Zack Fair from Gongaga. You’ve made my dreams come true, Professor. You’re like a - a miracle worker. It’s like - I didn’t even know I was born till I came to Shinra. Hey, d’you want to hear something crazy? I’ve grown three inches in one month. One month , man!”

“This is subject S-Sol/ZF/M/2000/36/P,” said a woman, reading from her PHS.

Recognition dawned in the Professor’s eyes. “Ah, yes. That one. I am aware of your superior growth rates. Excellent reactivity quotient. Better than average mako tolerance scores. You may indeed make First Class, if you don’t die first.”

“Don’t you worry, I’m not planning on dying any time soon! I got too much to live for. I’m going to be the greatest SOLDIER you’ve ever seen! The best of the best  - “

“Zack.” Angeal didn’t have to shout to make his voice carry across the field, and Zack didn’t need his enhanced senses to hear it.

“Gotta go!” Zack gave Professor Hojo a salute, cried, “Thanks again! You’re the best! I mean it!” and ran off to rejoin his fellow recruits, who were boarding their helicopter in an orderly and disciplined fashion.

Hojo took off his glasses, polished them, put them back on his face.

“A good batch, don’t you think, Professor?” asked the woman with the PHS a little nervously. “The failure rate with this intake was only twenty six per cent.”

“Interesting,” said Hojo. The others waited, but he did not elaborate, and they knew better than to ask.

.

You got nothing for nothing in this world. Zack’s dad used to say that, and Zack knew it was true. The SOLDIER treatments were unpleasant, but they were endurable. Survivable. For Zack, anyway. And the pay-off….   The pay-off was worth whatever it cost. The risk. The pain. The insomnia that afflicted everyone for two or three days after each mako bath. The weird dreams. His newfound ability to smell the SOLDIER latrines from a mile away.

For raw recruits treatments were given once a week. After half a year in the program, they went down to once month. After a year, once every three months.  The mako baths were situated in the Science Department. Zack had been in SOLDIER for just over a year, and this was his first visit to the Science floors in a while.  He was standing in line for the submersion tub,  wearing nothing but a white towel embossed with the red Shinra logo and electrodes glued in various places all over his body, flirting with a blonde technician fresh out of college, when the corner of his eye caught sight of a familiar figure walking by on the other side of the glassed-in corridor. At once he darted from his place in the queue to bang on the glass and wave and shout, “Hey, Professor! Remember me?”

Hojo stopped and turned. His entourage stopped and turned with him. He looked Zack up and down without recognition, though with a certain professional appreciation for the SOLDIER’s magnificent physique, a glint in his eye not unlike that which came into Zack’s dad’s eyes when he surveyed his prize pigs.

“It’s me!” Zack laughed. “Zack Fair! Not dead yet, Professor! I’m a Second already, how about that?”

“Get back in line, SOLDIER,” said the MP supervising the process.

Hojo smiled and nodded as if to himself, and walked on. His entourage walked with him. Zack returned to the line.  Kunsel, behind him, said, “He doesn’t know who any of us are. We’re just numbers on a spreadsheet to him.”

“Maybe that’s true of the rest of you,” said Zack, unwrapping and re-wrapping the towel more securely around his hips, “But the Prof knows who I am. He said himself I’m a superior specimen. He’s got his eye on Zack Fair, I’m telling you.”

“Sure he does.”

“Hey, didn’t I say I’d get Angeal to mentor me? And didn’t you say I had about as much chance as a snowball up Ifrit’s ass? And who was right, huh, huh?”

“Angeal knows all our names. Because Angeal’s an actual human being, not a data crunching machine.”

“Hey, the Prof’s a human being too. He’s just, you know, got his head in the clouds. He’s a genius, right? Lucky for us. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be shoveling pig shit in Gongaga.”

Kunsel sighed. Why waste breath arguing, when Zack was so stubbornly determined to see the best in everyone? Funny, how the SOLDIER enhancements hadn’t opened his eyes in that respect.

.

The war with Wutai was over. Zack had got one good mission out of it, and then poof, peace, finish. And now Angeal and Genesis were missing in action, possibly gone AWOL, though Zack wouldn’t believe it of Angeal until someone showed him concrete proof. Rumours flew thick as hornets. Zack longed for a mission, something constructive to take his mind off things, but the department was dead quiet. Director Lazard hardly ever came to the SOLDIER floor. Whenever he did show his face, he looked stressed. Not exactly surprising, considering the pressure he was under. Sephiroth had turned into a recluse. Morale was at rock-bottom, and as far as Zack was concerned, that sucked balls, because in every other respect being a SOLDIER was the best job in the world.  

He spent a lot of time hanging in the SOLDIER lounge with some of his buddies, doing squats and chit-chatting about women. “Man,” said Luxiere, “Have you seen the tits on that new receptionist? Wouldn’t mind getting my hands on those puppies. Her blouse looks like it’ll pop its buttons if she takes a deep breath.”

Zack shooked his head. “I wouldn’t rate her against that new Turk chick, what’s her name? The hot one with the shotgun? Hey, that rhymed!”

“Freya,” said Essai.

“Yeah,” said Zack, “That one with the ponytail. She's the full package. A nine at least, amirite? Her ass in those tight trousers is enough to make a grown man weep.”

At that moment his PHS beeped. Zack straightened up from his squat, took it out and paged through to find a new message from Kunsel. Hojo’s in the training room. I wonder what he could be studying? I think I’ll sneak in later…

Zack shoved his PHS back in his pocket and ran for the training room. The MP standing guard made a feeble attempt to deny him entry, but was easily intimidated. Zack flung himself through the doors. “Professor, it’s me!”

“Ah.” Hojo neither turned around nor looked up from his clipboard. “There you are at last. Let us begin the experiment.”

“Experiment? Cool! What experiment?”

“Never mind. Just go inside.”

“Hey,” said Zack. “You know I’d do anything for you, Professor, but I can’t take on a mission if I don’t know what it is.”

Hojo sighed. “Explaining my experiment to you would be a waste of time. Long experience has taught me you are unlikely to understand.”

“Ah, come on. Just try me, man!”

“If it will hasten your cooperation, then very well. I want to verify the virtual data I extracted from a certain SOLDIER operative’s combat results. You are going to help me validate my data by participating in simulated combat.”

“Simulated combat?” The sim chamber was Zack’s very favourite place in the whole of the Shinra Building, but since Angeal’s disappearance nobody had been allowed inside it. “Bring it on! I’ll show you what a SOLDIER can do.”

The first simulation involved a Foulander and a Wuteng warrior on a road in South Wutai. It was over almost before it began. The second simulation, guard hounds on the streets of Midgar, was laughably easy. The third, blood tastes in Banora,was a piece of cake. Zack hadn’t even broken a sweat. Yet his heart was beating fast. By some bizarre coincidence, all three of the sim locations chosen by the Professor were places that meant something special to him. The memories they stirred - of Angeal, of happier times, of travelling hopefully - weren’t so easily mastered.

“Impressive,” said the Professor, when for the third time Zack came strolling out of the sim chamber twirling his sword in victory. “I think you may have what it takes to be a study sample.”

“Study sample? No offense, Prof, but no thanks. I like being a SOLDIER.”

“You should be proud of yourself. I see a sample with your potential only once every couple of years.”

Zack scratched his head. Once every couple of years ? Not good enough. He had to be the best ever . To be the best had always been his dream, but he didn’t just want it for himself any more. He wanted it for his mentor’s sake. To vindicate Angeal; to prove Angeal had been right to chose him.

Hojo said, “Perhaps you’d like to have a go against an extra special program?”

Zack’s ears pricked up. “Extra-special?”

The Prof looked Zack straight in the eyes. Zack couldn’t remember him ever doing that before. His characteristic smile was playing round his lips again. He said, “It’s a simulation I modified personally.”

One of the curly-haired technicians exclaimed, “Professor! You’re not thinking of pitting a flesh and blood human being against that thing, are you?”

“I’m thinking of pitting this SOLDIER against it,” said Hojo, still looking into Zack’s eyes. He chuckled. “It would be a great match for a wonderful study sample such as yourself.”

What the heck, though Zack, if it makes the Prof happy, I’ll do it, why not? He crossed his arms, a conscious imitation of Angeal’s confident posture. “Bring it on,” he cried.

“No, no,” said the other curly-haired assistant. They could almost have been clones, or twins, or something. “You don’t understand. That program is no joke. If you go in there it could cost you your life.”

Zack laughed out loud at the thought. “It’s just a sim room, buddy. It’s not real.”

The other assistant said, “What happened to Genesis was real - “

“Be quiet,” said Hojo.

“Genesis?” said Zack. Nobody normally mentioned Genesis out loud like that. They spoke of him in whispers, behind closed doors. “What about Genesis?”

“Nothing important. A freak accident.  Utterly predictable.”

The contradiction contained in Hojo’s words went over Zack’s head. “You mean he got injured? Like, for real?  In the sim room ?”

“Genesis Rhapsodos is not my area of study.”

“Has that got something to do with why he defected?”

“If you were injured, would you defect?”

Zack puffed out his chest. “No way, man! I get injured all the time. I just heal right up and get on out there again.” To ensure there would be no misunderstanding, he added, “Angeal was my mentor. He taught me my duty. Like him, I’m loyal to Shinra.”

“A true SOLDIER,” said Hojo.

“Damn right,” said Zack.

“A worthy study sample indeed. Will you take on my extra-special program?”

“Just try and stop me!”

“And if the worst should befall you,” Hojo chuckled, “Your remains will make a valuable contribution to science.”

Sometimes, thought Zack as he waited for the simulation to begin, it was hard to know when the Professor was joking and when he was serious. It must be weird to be like that, so much smarter than everyone around you. Weird and kind of lonely. Zack was pretty sure he wouldn’t like it. But then, Zack was happy with his lot in life. He wouldn’t have swapped being a SOLDIER for anything.

.

Aerith gazed deep into his eyes. Beautiful , she’d called them. Just in time he’d managed to stop himself blurting out, No, you’re beautiful , and with a good pretence of his customary swagger he’d said, “If you like them, go on looking. Be my guest. Eyes infused with mako energy. It’s the trademark of SOLDIER.”

She said, “This morning started off like any other ordinary day….”

She didn’t finish the thought, but she didn’t need to. Zack knew exactly what she meant. They were kind of in tune that way. He’d felt it right from the start.

Though, to be honest, his day had started out as an anti-climax. In his dreams he’d always pictured Angeal being there to congratulate him when he got his longed-for promotion to First Class. Without Angeal, the great honour felt kind of… not so great. Director Lazard had noticed he wasn’t as enthusiastic as he should have been.  The sudden call to fight the rogue mecha had come as a relief. Zack felt sure of who he was when he was fighting. All his doubts and confusions flew away. Probably because he was so damned good at it.

Reno and Rude had been territorial jerks, but Turks were jerks by definition and it hadn’t dented his battle high. Midgar didn’t belong to them. Plenty of people needed Zack’s help. Including that Turk chick, Cissnei. She might have died if he hadn’t stepped in.

Wings symbolise freedom to those who have none . Who did she mean? Angeal was nobody’s prisoner; he’d chosen the path he was on. He said he was loyal to Shinra, but then why was he protecting Hollander? For Genesis? Genesis wasn’t a prisoner either.  If anything, Genesis was the jailer. Even if all those seconds and thirds who had defected with him had gone of their own free will, they weren’t free any longer. They weren’t even themselves any more.

Zack didn’t pretend to understand a lot of the confusing stuff that had gone down today, but on one point his understanding was crystal clear. Putting human beings into mako tanks and turning them into monstrous replicas of yourself was evil. And fighting evil was a SOLDIER’s duty.

She had been hot, though. That Turk chick. Cissnei. And deadly with that shuriken, which was also kind of hot. Was it wrong for him to be glad she’d got into difficulties with that replica thing? It had given him a chance to show her what SOLDIER Zack Fair was made of. She wouldn’t be forgetting him in a hurry.

Yes, it wasn’t every day that a newly-minted First Class, even one as handsome and debonair as Zack Fair, got to rescue not one, but two ten-out-of-ten certified smoking hot damsels in distress, so that was definitely a point in this day’s favour. An hour ago he would have sworn there wasn’t another girl in the world as stunning as Cissnei. He would have staked money on it. And then he’d fallen into the slums and met Aerith.

It almost felt like fate.

If he’d been on his own when the kid pickpocketed him, he’d have knocked the brat’s head against the wall to teach him some manners. But the kid had a sob story, and Aerith had the face of an angel. He couldn’t bear for her to think badly of him. In fact, if he was to tell the truth of what was in his heart right at this moment, he longed for Aerith to think Zack Fair was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

“If the sky looks like your eyes,” she said, “Then I’m not scared at all.”

Zack wanted to say, That ribbon looks so pretty on you.

He wanted to say, Why are you so beautiful? Where did you come from? Why were you there waiting for me?

He wanted to say, Aerith, help me, I think I’m falling in love , and he didn’t even notice the pun.

But he was a tough SOLDIER guy with a reputation to maintain and a girl to impress, so he folded his arms and said, “Yep, there’s nothing normal about me at all. I’m not just any SOLDIER, you know. I’m a First Class. If you ask me, normal’s over-rated.”

She gazed deep into his eyes. He gazed deep into hers.

And then, because it was a very inconvenient moment, his phone rang, because that was what phones did.   

“Zack,” said Sephiroth, “Get back to HQ at once. Genesis has launched an attack.”

“Understood.” He hung up. “Aerith, I have to go.”

“Duty calls. We’ll meet again. Right now, you have to save your friend.”

It was amazing how she understood, without a word needing to be spoken.

.

Just when he was wondering how many monsters he’d have to kill in order to reach HQ, Angeal swooped down to lend him a hand - or rather, a wing. “Flying actually feels pretty good,” Angeal admitted. He’d clearly straightened out his thinking and remembered which side he was on. “Listen,” he said as they flew up towards the Shinra Building, “It’s complicated, but I have to be brief. Genesis is sick and he thinks Hollander can cure him. That gives Hollander a hold over him. Hollander lost out to Hojo in his bid to control the Science Department. Now he’s bent on using Genesis to achieve his revenge.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Zack. “Seph told me earlier.”

“Then you understand that Professor Hojo is Hollander’s main target. The Professor is a crucial company asset. Your job is to protect him. Sephiroth will guard the President. I’ll track Genesis down and stop him doing anything else stupid.”

“Gotcha,” said Zack.

He fought his way up to the sixty-eighth floor, where he found the Professor in his lab, unperturbed, as always, by the mayhem unfolding around him. He might be old and he might look scrawny, but he had balls as well as brains and Zack admired him for that.

“Hey, Professor! The cavalry has arrived!”

Hojo looked at him over the top of his glasses. “Who authorised your admittance?”

“Prof, it’s me! Zack Fair. The great study sample, remember? You said I had potential, and guess what, I’m a First Class now, got my promotion today.”

The Professor shook his head irritably, as if trying to clear his thoughts.

“The building’s swarming with Genesis clones. I have to take you somewhere safe.”

“You’re here to protect me?”

“We need to get moving.”

“Genesis is attacking the building?”

“Yes. There’s no time to lose.”

The Professor smiled to himself. Then he chuckled.

“It’s not funny!” Zack cried.

“Degrading monsters are nothing to fear.”

“What are you talking about? Do you mean Genesis?”

“A leftover from a less enlightened era, when men could deem any unclassified life form an ancient.”

Was Hojo still talking about Genesis? And what did he mean by ‘ancient’? Genesis wasn’t any older than Angeal. “What unclassified life form?”

“Jenova, the calamity from the skies.”

The thing about the Professor, Zack was coming to realise, was that where normal people’s minds moved forward using human-size steps, his leapt along taking giant strides, skipping right over many of the points someone like Zack needed in order to join the dots and put the picture together.

“Your ignorance is of no consequence. My job is to think. Your job, as a SOLDIER, is to protect this thinking brain of mine.”

Which was kind of how Zack saw things, too. Coming from anyone else, he might have taken offense at being called ignorant. Compared to the Prof, though,   everybody was ignorant. You couldn’t expect the ordinary rules of social interaction to apply to an extraordinary mind like his. The Prof wasn’t deliberately being rude. He was just calling it like he saw it. Zack could respect that.

Things seemed pretty quiet up here. If a few Genesis clones burst in, Zack could handle them, no sweat. And there was no guarantee that any other floor would be any safer. Even a chopper might not be safe. Genesis liked to use summons. On balance, Zack decided he might as well let the Prof stay here and keep doing his thing. If Genesis did show up, Angeal wouldn’t be far behind. Of that, Zack was certain.

The Professor had gone back to studying the notes on his clipboard. He seemed to have forgotten Zack. His ability to focus was out of this world! Unwilling to disturb him, Zack killed time with some squats, and when that palled he began to poke around the lab, checking out the various machines and their cryptic instructions, trying to figure out what they were for.

“Don’t touch anything.”

Hojo’s voice made him jump. He hadn’t realised the Prof’s eyes were on him.

“If you break something,you’ll be responsible for the repair fees. That equipment is rather expensive. Of course, you wouldn’t be asked to pay all at once. A small amount would be garnished from your wages each month. Let’s say, twenty per cent. You would have it all paid off in ten years. Or so.”

Was the Prof laughing ?

Zack let his shoulders slump theatrically. “And I just got my raise. Sir, are you sure you don’t wanna go somewhere else?”

“Am I not keeping you busy?”

“It’s not that, but - “

“Why don’t you go see what’s in the pod?”

Zack glanced over. It looked empty. “There’s nothing in there.”

“Are you sure? Look closer. Go on.”

Zack’s irrepressible curiosity needed no further urging. He sprinted up the ramp into what Hojo had called ‘the pod’, though to Zack’s mind it looked more like a round tank, or maybe a big perspex cage. There were clawmarks on the stainless steel floor.

“Prof, what - “ Zack turned round just in time to see the doors closing, trapping him inside. “Hey!”

“Don’t be concerned. It’s just a simple experiment.”

“I am concerned!” Zack knew the Prof well enough by now to know what was likely to happen next. Whatever had made those clawmarks would materialise  inside this pod, and the Prof would take notes while Zack killed it; observing SOLDIERs doing their thing was like his favourite thing in the world. But this was no time to be playing around with experiments!  Zack had shown enough times that he could handle anything the Prof threw at him. What if Genesis clones invaded the lab while he was locked in here? How would he explain that to Director Lazard and Angeal?

Presumably the thing with the claws hadn’t been able to break out of this cage. Could a SOLDIER break out? If Zack broke it, he might end up paying for it for the next ten years. Unless the Prof had been joking about that. It was always so hard to tell.

“Just answer the following questions,” said Hojo. “Question one. Currently, which do you admire more? A,  a SOLDIER operative like Sephiroth, or B, a SOLDIER operative like Angeal?”

Oh shit, multiple choice. Zack had never been good at multiple choice. He always ended up second guessing himself, trying to figure out which answer the teacher was looking for. In this case, the right answer was almost certainly Sephiroth. Sephiroth was loyal to the company. Angeal - his mentor, his friend, his second-father - had been labelled a deserter and a renegade.

“Sephiroth,” said Zack.

Hojo scribbled something on his clipboard. “Very good. Question two. Which do you think Shinra needs right now? A,  many powerful SOLDIER operatives, or B,  state of the art science and technology?”

This time the correct answer was obvious. “Science and technology,” said Zack.

“Good. And finally, which do you feel is more befitting a SOLDIER operative, A, a person who gives his all to Shinra, or B, a person unafraid to challenge Shinra.”

“B!” shouted Zack, and then cursed under his breath. It was a slip of the tongue; he’d meant to say A, which, he was almost certain, was the right answer.

“Aaaah,” said Hojo, evidently satisfied with the outcome of his quiz. “You are indeed a most promising SOLDIER operative. In accordance with your wishes, I shall enhance your physical capabilities - “

“You what?” cried Zack - and then clapped his hands over his mouth as the pod filled with a white mist. It smelt faintly of candy floss. He couldn’t see a thing. He held his breath - fifteen seconds, twenty seconds - and the mist began to clear, leaving behind the scent of burnt sugar clinging to his clothes and hair. The pod door hissed open.

Zack stepped free and took a deep breath. He wouldn’t be going back in there in a hurry, no sir.  “What did you just do?” he demanded.

“I’ve accelerated by one thousand the capacity of your mitochondria to aerobically process adenosine triphosphate.”

“Oh,” said Zack. “Uh. Cool. I guess? Thanks. Only - how come I didn’t feel a surge of power, or something?”

“Because your cellular structure has limits. Unless you’d like to be altered to the point of degradation, like some second-rate scientist I know has done?”

“You’re talking about Hollander, right? Seph said you and him had some kind of feud going.”

“Hollander is unfortunately unable to acknowledge certain facts. A man should know his limits, and accept his lot in life. For instance, no one can deny that you are indisputably a First Class SOLDIER. Are you prepared to protect this brilliant mind with your life?”

Not that it would come to that, but -  “Of course I am.”

“No second thoughts at the moment of truth?”

“Bring it on is what I say!”

Restlessly Zack paced the floor, his back turned to the professor, and did a couple of quick squats just to keep his back and thigh muscles warm. Maybe it was his imagination, but his glutes did seem a little stronger since he’d passed Hojo’s quiz and got gassed with sugar vapour or whatever that stuff had been. “I’ll show them the power of a next-generation SOLDIER First Class!”

“Good,” said Hojo. He really sounded pleased. “Because I won’t abide any losses to some second-rate hack’s test-tube baby. Ah, speak of the devil - “

Hojo’s tone, amused and scornful, hadn’t altered - no, it was the sound of leather boots touching down on the lab’s linoleum, soft as a spider’s footstep, audible only to enhanced ears, that caused Zack to snatch the sword from his back as he whirled around. Genesis had come from above; he must have been in the ceiling girders, hanging there in the shadows like a damn bat with his one black wing. How long had he been there?  Had Hojo known he was there? The point of his sword was aiming at the nape of Hojo’s neck. A split second was it all would take to decapitate the old man.  

Hojo wasn’t afraid. He was laughing, laughing so hard his shoulders shook.

“You actually think that if you kill me for Hollander, he’ll stop your degradation? Pitiful! Hollander can’t cure you, you pathetic creature. A hack like Hollander couldn’t cure a cold.”

Yeah, but , thought Zack to himself, nobody knows how to cure a cold. I mean, if somebody found a cure for the common cold it’d be the greatest invention of all time -

Buster sword in hand, Angeal came striding through the doorway just as Zack had known he would. When Angeal made a promise, he kept it. “Genesis, that’s enough.”  

“Aha,” said Hojo, “What do we have here?”

“My friend,” said Genesis, “The fates are cruel. There are no dreams, no honour remains. The arrow has left the bow of the goddess.”

Hojo chuckled. “The entire cast of Hollander’s freak show.”

“Shut up!” Zack cried, though whether he was shouting it at Genesis, or Hojo, or both, he couldn’t have said. He owed a lot to the Prof and he would defend him to the death because that was his job, but nobody, not even Hojo, called Angeal a freak and got away with it. Genesis, on the other hand -

“LOVELESS, Act IV - “ Genesis began.

“Where the two friends challenge each other to a duel.” Hojo swept his arms through the air, not a dramatic gesture so much as a mockery of one. “An ancient epic. I read it thinking it might aid my research, but…pure drivel.”

Angeal lowered his sword. “How does the duel end?”

Hojo shrugged. “Unknown. The final Act is lost and has never been found.”

Or it’s still to be written , thought Zack. But before he could put this thought into words, Genesis also lowered his sword and said, “There are various theories.” He said this as if they were holding a debate in some classroom. Zack saw the fire burgeoning in Genesis’s hand too late to do anything about it. Genesis cast the firaga at the Professor’s pod and blew away both the perspex cage and the wall behind it. Then he said something about the gift of the goddess, and fled, and Angeal snatched Zack up and chased after him.

.

Much later that day, as he stood under the hot shower in the SOLDIER barracks, Zack wondered about Genesis’ choice of action. Why had he blown up the lab but not the Professor? To make himself an escape route? He had come  to the labs to kill Hojo, so why had he let Hojo live? Because Angeal told him to? Because Genesis knew, in his heart, that Hojo was telling the truth and Hollander was a liar? Because whatever was ailing him, it wasn’t Hojo’s fault? Because some dreams, or at least some honour, remained?

Zack spent a lot of time wondering about this, but he could never arrive at a firm answer. Another thing he wondered at was Hojo’s fearlessness. Anybody else in Hojo’s position would have said whatever they could think of to placate the person holding a sword to their throat. Not the Professor. You couldn’t frighten him into lying. He’d speak his mind no matter how much it hurt. He’d speak his mind if it killed him. There weren’t a lot of people like that. It didn’t exactly make him easy company, but at least if Zack ever wanted a 100% honest opinion, he knew who to go to. And anyway, who was likeable all the time? You could be friends with someone and still recognise their flaws. Nobody was perfect.

Except, maybe, Aerith…

.

Some months later, Sephiroth and Zack found themselves out of town together on a mission. The location was a real backwater place called Nibelheim, a one-chocobo town if ever Zack had seen one, worse even than Gongaga, but he was keeping him opinions to himself because it was the hometown of one of the grunts who’d come with them, a friend of Zack’s named Cloud. Cloud was kind of a quiet guy, low on self-esteem. Zack was working on building him up a bit. Even though Nibelheim was a rustic dump Sephiroth seemed kind of taken with the place. “I never had a home town,” he said - and later, when Cloud was out of earshot, Zack had said, “Man, if you’d ever had a hometown you’d know how badly everybody wants to get away from theirs. Cloud won’t even take his helmet off, did you see?”

“Which one is that?” said Sephiroth, and then, “No, never mind. I don’t care to know their names.”

He sounded a bit like the Prof when he said that. Probably it had something to do with them both being geniuses.

They were here because the reactor had gone silent. It was still producing mako energy, which ruled out terrorist activity, but the reactor staff weren’t answering HQ’s calls. A couple of Turks had done a recce and said the reactor was locked and the mountainside crawling with monsters. Zack hoped this meant the reactor staff had locked the place down and were safe inside. He reckoned he and Seph would get up there and find a pair of dragons had made their nest in the big chimney, or something. He was hopeful they’d find the staff alive; Sephiroth, less so. The dude was such a pessimist. Especially since….

Zack tried, but he knew he’d never replace Angeal and Genesis. And to be honest, Seph was no substitute for Angeal, either.

It really wasn’t a two-man mission, but the Nibelheim reactor had both historical and sentimental importance. It was the first full-size reactor Shinra had ever built. They were supposed to go in, resolve the problem fast, and get out. Zack was hoping they’d be back in Midgar by Friday. He had a date with Aerith Saturday night.

.

Saturday had come and gone and now it was two a.m. on a Thursday morning in this backwater town, the darkest hour of the night, and Sephiroth didn’t look like he was planning to leave any time soon or even come out of that musty library in the basement, where the lights were always on. Cloud was fast asleep in the next bed, snoring softly. Zack couldn’t sleep. He was worried Aerith would be pissed at him for missing their date - she was always so cute when she got miffed with him; he was weak in the face of her adorableness - but he was even more worried about Sephiroth. Was the guy sleeping at all? Was he remembering to eat?

Genesis had flat out told Seph he was a monster, made in a petrie dish as some kind of experiment.  Zack regretted failing to kill Genesis when he’d had the chance.

Sephiroth had said, Was I made - like this - ?

And Zack had wanted to shout, don’t flatter yourself! I was made in the normal way and so were you! You don’t have to be a monster to be a SOLDIER First Class!

Sephiroth had said, I always knew I had some special purpose -

And Zack had wanted to shout, You and me both, buddy, every kid thinks he’s special and unique. It’s human. I’m human. You’re human.

Sephiroth had said Hojo had put the things in the pods in the reactors but Zack didn’t believe him. He didn’t see how it was possible or even likely. Hollander was the one who did the freaky genetic experiments, turned men into clones and gave SOLDIERs wings. Hojo just… gathered data and wrote battle simulation programs and tweaked their treatments. If Genesis was alive then probably Hollander was alive as well. Almost certainly Hollander was the one who’d put the - whatever they were - in the pods.

(Zack suspected they might be the reactor staff, but he was trying not to think about that).

So deep was Zack in his thoughts, it took him a while to realise that the sounds coming from beyond the window were not the kinds of sounds you’d expect to hear at two a.m. on a Thursday morning in a quiet mountain town. It sounded like a street party, shouts and fireworks. No. Those shouts were screams. He smelt smoke.

.

The sensation of drifting in and out of consciousness was not unfamiliar to Zack. He’d been in this state more than once. Man, the first time it happened, when he was still a Third, he’d been on maneuvers in some abandoned coal mines and disturbed a nest of fly-eyes. They’d hit him with so much poison, felt like the flesh was melting from his bones. He’d passed out, of course. Pretty humiliating. Angeal had saved him. Swimming up through the green darkness back to the light, he’d opened his eyes and there was Angeal’s stern face. A good sight to wake up to. If only he could wake to it again.

He was rising to the surface now. He could feel the light growing stronger. He could hear footsteps. Someone speaking. The voice of a friend.

“... Someone like you…”

No. That friend had flown away into madness. One flies away. One is taken prisoner. One becomes a hero.

The fog was in his eyes. Was he going blind? That would be inconvenient. Not far away a soldier was holding the buster sword. Angeal. No.

“Cloud. Finish him.”

He felt no sense of urgency. The deed would be done because it must, and then they could all sleep.

The light faded. He sank down into unconsciousness,  rose again, opened his eyes.

Cloud’s feet were planted on the reactor walkway. He had both hands wrapped round the blade of Sephiroth’s sword. Sephiroth, suspended in mid air, was clinging to the sword like a man who’d just fallen off the edge of the cliff. Cloud twisted his body; Sephiroth flew through the air and hit the electrical cables webbing the reactor wall. Sparks crackled. Sephiroth fell into the mako. Well. You couldn’t swim in mako, wrong density.  Not even a First Class could survive drowning in mako. Good-bye, friend.

“You did well, Cloud….”

.

The next time he opened his eyes, Tseng and Professor Hojo were there. If only it could have been Angeal. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. He respected Tseng, but he wasn’t sure he entirely trusted him. All that sneaking around after Aerith. The Prof, though, was a man who knew what he was doing. A safe pair of hands.

“This boy here?” Hojo was saying. “Interesting. Very interesting. We’ll use him as my new sample.”

Zack felt himself trying to smile, and said weakly, “Stop calling me a sample,” but he didn’t think anyone heard him.

“Cloud,” he said, “It’s okay, the Prof’s here.” But maybe he only said this in his mind.

.

Being unconscious felt like floating in a tank of liquid mako, it felt like ducking his head under the surface in the mako bath back at HQ and opening his eyes. Was he back at HQ? Sometimes, when he opened his eyes, the Prof was there on the other side of the glass, scribbling on his everlasting clipboard. Zack tried to wave a hand. Hi, it’s me, Zack. I think I’m still alive.  Are you keeping me alive?

.

He woke up on an operating table. The operating table was surrounded by men and women in white coats. The Prof was not among them. He tried to move and found he was tied down by his wrists and ankles. Mere leather straps could not normally have held him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so weak. Was this going to be permanent? Just how bad were the injuries he’d sustained in that fight with Sephiroth? The pain was pretty intense, but he’d known worse.

He tried to speak. No words came out, not even a squeak.

A woman approached. She had a surgical mask over her face and a scalpel in her hand. Don’t cut me! I’m awake! Zack blinked his eyes furiously.

“Harrison, the specimen’s fucking conscious,” said the woman. “Do your fucking job, you moron, or I’ll file that report on you with the Professor, I swear I will.”
“Keep your hair on,” said a man’s voice.

Zack felt a prick in his arm, and at once slipped back into the soothing nothingness of mako, like a minnow slipping back into the sea. Like floating in your mother’s womb.

.

It seemed to him that he was awake more often. They put him on the operating table more often, and once they realised that the leather straps could hold him, they didn’t always bother with the anaesthetic. They hurt him. He couldn’t form words, but he could roar. It made them laugh.

There was no way the Prof could know what they were doing. No way . Hojo had his quirks but fundamentally he was a good man. His SOLDIERs were precious to him. He was a friend to SOLDIERs. A friend. He would not have let this happen if he knew. And he would know. Zack was going to tell him. The Prof would be told and then these sick twisted bastards would get what was coming to them.

What his torturers didn’t realise was that, as the periods of wakefulness increased, so did his strength. Soon the day came when the leather straps could no longer hold him. He picked up the one called Harrison and threw him against the wall; he broke the woman’s wrist and took her scalpel and was ready to carve his way out of there when his backside was hit by a tranquiliser dart big enough to take down a behemoth. They pelted him with materia - Stop and Sleep and Manipulate - and he felt the rage seeping out of him, unconsciousness flooding in. The scalpel dropped from his fingers and he fell to the floor.

As they were putting him back in the tank he noticed, for the first time, that there was another tank in the room and someone else was floating in it. He couldn’t see who.

.

Sometimes when he was awake he tapped on the glass to try to get a response from the person in the other tank. Either they were never awake when he was awake, or they never woke up at all.

One day he wondered to himself, How come I haven’t drowned yet?

One day he saw the other person being taken out of their tank. He saw that it was Trooper Cloud, the homeboy.  They put him on the operating table. They didn’t tie him down. He didn’t wake up. It was a mercy.

.

One day they were all gone. Only Harrison was left. There were no more sessions on the table. Zack was awake more and more.

He had considerable time to think. It was obvious to him that the gang of labcoats must have lied to the Professor. The Prof would never have just left him and Cloud here to rot in these mako tanks. Come on,  Zack Fair was the Prof’s favourite sample!  The Prof had put them into the mako baths to heal them - it was standard practice - and then he’d left them in the charge of the psycho labcoat gang and the labcoat gang had screwed up somehow and were covering it up. Probably the screw-up was that Cloud remained unconscious. But Cloud wasn’t SOLDIER. They shouldn’t have put him in the mako in the first place.

.

The Prof never came. But Angeal did. Call yourself a SOLDIER? he chided. Shame on you.

“I want your wings,” said Zack, realising it was true.

He struck the glass of the tank with the buster sword and it shattered. The mako rushed from the tank, carrying Zack with it. He lay on the floor thinking, oh shit, how much am I going to have to pay for this? , when Harrison came in carrying a tray. Harrison bent over him. That was Harrison’s mistake. Zack grabbed him by the throat and threw him through the air. Harrison hit his head on the corner of the operating table, fell to the ground, and lay there, twitching, whimpering.

Zack picked up the buster sword and smashed the lock of Cloud’s tank. He caught Cloud in his arms.

“We’re getting out of here, buddy,” he promised.

.

He wondered what these troopers had been told. Escaped monsters? “Can’t you see who we are?” he shouted at them. “Don’t you recognise me? I’m Zack! Zack Fair! SOLDIER First Class!”  They either didn’t hear him, or didn’t care.

Nibelheim was all in one piece, like it had never burned. Yet he had seen it burn. Was that what this was all about?  Tseng had told him once, ‘All evidence of company misdoing must be erased.’ Including the witnesses.

When Cissnei came creeping up behind him on the beach, that was when he knew for sure he was being targeted for elimination because of the things he had seen.

Good old Cissnei. She still had a soft spot for him. And she was still as hot as ever. One day he’d have to figure out a way to thank her properly.

She’d proven he could trust her, so when she said, “That’s the other one who escaped with you, isn’t it? He looks very sick. What’s wrong with him?” he told her honestly, “Mako poisoning.”

“Is that what they did to you?”
Zack didn’t honestly know how to answer that. He wasn’t poisoned. He was pretty sure the mako vat was what had healed him and kept him alive. He wasn’t degenerating, so someone had got the calibration right. He guessed that someone was the Professor.

It was all too complicated. “Yeah,” he said.

She gave him the key to her motorbike. She was a good friend, Cissnei. Good heart. He had to laugh when he saw the bike, though. Who was the sidecar supposed to be for? Him? Anyway,  it would do perfectly for Cloud.

.

He’d got as far as the Cosmo Bridge when Genesis ambushed him. Why the fuck was Genesis still alive? It was all so fucking unfair. A couple of Genesis’ minions held him down while Genesis spouted some lines from Loveless. Then one of the minions yanked out a handful of his hair.

“What’s going on?” Zack cried.

“You were a test subject in Hojo’s latest experiment. You’re part of Project S now. Jenova’s power runs through you.”

A little of the fight went out of Zack. “Seriously?” The thing was, he could believe it; it wouldn’t be the first time the Prof had decided to give him new enhancements without his permission. But… if he remembered rightly, wasn’t Jenova the name of Sephiroth’s mother? The last thing he remembered clearly was rescuing someone’s mother from a burning building… Unless that was part of his mako fever dreams too? He’d fought Seph, he remembered that. He remembered Genesis in the reactor, begging for Seph’s help. And Seph refusing.

“Your cells will be the gift of the Goddess to me. With them, my degradation will cease.”

The minions’ hold on him had relaxed. Zack shook them free. He had remembered a couple of others things, namely that Genesis was a liar and a fantasist, a man who used summons where no summons should be used. He wasn’t a SOLDIER worthy of the name. If he’d had any honour he wouldn’t still be alive.

“You’re - you’re twisted,” Zack warned him.

Genesis looked past him to the minions. “The monster has been harvested. Discard him.”

“You’re the monster!”

Genesis simply turned his back, a gesture of utter contempt, and strolled away, quoting Loveless as usual before leaping into the air in a flurry of black feathers. He was gone so fast Zack didn’t have a chance to see which direction he flew off in. One of the minions went with him. The other was choking on Zack’s hair.  Zack made short work of him and got back on the bike. Cloud hadn’t moved.

“What am I going to do, man?” Zack asked him. “If my hair could cure you, I’d shave my head and feed it to you myself. But you wouldn’t want to turn into that , would you? Not after everything else you’ve been through, buddy.”

There was one man whom Zack knew for sure could cure Cloud. If he couldn’t, no one else could, and if all else failed, then Zack knew where they would have to go. Plus, Aerith was in Midgar. She must be worried sick about him. How long had he been locked inside that mansion? Weeks, at least. Maybe even months.

.

But the trail of blood that was the story of Genesis wouldn’t let him go. First to Gongaga, where he didn’t see his parents but did see Hollander and Lazard, both now members of the freak show, as the Prof had put it. What was wrong with them? Were they crazy ? Hollander died and Lazard flew away in pursuit of Genesis. Blue apples: Banora.

Genesis got his gift of the Goddess. The entity in the bowels of Banora cured him. Unless it was his faith that cured him? Whatever, it didn’t cure Cloud. There was nothing more Zack could do for Genesis, and the sidecar only had room for one.

.

The motobike had broken down, but a nice old geezer heading for Midgar was giving them a lift in his pickup truck.

“You hang in there, buddy. You’re still there inside, I know you are. We’re gonna find a guy who can fix you. I’m not sure how we’re gonna do it, but we’ll do it, I promise you. He’ll want to help, he likes interesting specimens. That’s how you know he likes you, right? When he calls you his ‘prize sample’. That’s what he always called me. Anyway.  That girl I was telling you about, well… I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s been four years. She might have moved on by now. And I don’t want to put her in danger. More danger. I’ll find somewhere safe for you, don’t you worry about that. I’ve looked after you up till now, right? I’m not going to leave you hanging, buddy. I’ll find somewhere safe for you and then I’ll figure out a way to get in touch with him. The Professor, that’s his name. Professor Hojo. You want to remember that, Cloud.”

Zack paused, looked around. Every part of the wastelands around Midgar looked the same as every other part. “Hey, pops!” he shouted, “Are we nearly there yet?”

“Shaddup! You’re lucky I even gave you a ride.”

The dirt road was pretty bumpy. Cloud’s head kept bouncing around. He’d break his neck if they weren’t careful. Zack sat down next to him to hold it still. “Hey, Cloud,” he said after a moment, “When we get to Midgar, what do you want to do?”

People said Professor Hojo lacked a conscience. There were people who had said this to his face. His wife, for one. As a woman, she had always had that tendency: to claim knowledge of topics of which, upon closer examination, she proved to be almost completely ignorant.

He did not argue with such individuals. He did not make a habit of getting into arguments over irrelevancies.  Nevertheless, he believed they were wrong. He did not think he lacked a conscience. His failures weighed upon his mind. Some of his failures were errors of judgements; others were due to a lack of vision. In bed at night as he was falling asleep he dwelt upon his failures and strove to identify what he should have done differently. Those who do not acknowledge their mistakes are condemned to repeat them. He had not repeated the experiment of marriage. The data extracted from his first attempt had been conclusive.

The failed Jenova test subjects were another case in point. He continued to call them, in his mind, ‘the failed subjects’, though it was clear by now that at least one of them was not a failure, but something much more interesting.

Regarding test subject S-Sol/ZF/M/2000/36/P, he had correctly predicted that the subject’s previous extensive exposure to SOLDIER treatments (including some unique enhancements he had designed for the subject personally) would serve as an innoculation against the effect of the S-cells. The subject’s native constitution had also had something to do with it. Only strong-willed subjects with high self-esteem were chosen for the SOLDIER program, because only they had shown a positive reaction to the treatment. Weaker specimens had tended to wither and die.

Indeed, S-Sol/ZF/M/2000/36/P’s primary purpose in the experiment had been to serve as a control for all the other subjects, who had all responded to exposure to S-cells exactly as he had predicted they would: a complete atrophication of personality (or identity, or being, call it what you will), and a systemic reconstitution of their DNA to make them physically resemble the donor. The process had been fascinating to watch, more rapid than he’d anticipated, and also, apparently, painful, which he had not expected.  Another thing he’d failed to predict was that the total loss of their will to the reunion instinct would induce a monomania that caused them to lose all interest in eating, sleeping and drinking. Left to their own devices, they would have starved to death before the reunion could take place. He’d had to hire a woman, one of the new Nibelheim villagers, to look after them.

All his data had indicated that test subject S-PSM-Pri10869CS should react in the same way as the other non-SOLDIER subjects.. According to the records, S-PSM-Pri10869CS had applied to SOLDIER and been rejected on psychological grounds. And yet S-PSM-Pri10869CS was no ordinary army grunt, for no ordinary army grunt could have taken on Sephiroth and lived.  One of the project assistants had speculated that perhaps the accelerated activity in the limbic system and consequent heightened levels of adrenaline and epinephrine catalysed by S-PSM-Pri10869CS’s trauma at witnessing the massacre at Nibelheim had in some way muted the influence of the S-cells on his identity, but that was just ridiculous. All the test subjects had suffered from the same trauma, but only S-PSM-Pri10869CS had demonstrated resistance. The fact that S-PSM-Pri10869CS  had actually awoken from a coma and regained a sufficient degree of independent functionality to pass as approximately normal was nothing short of remarkable, and Hojo only wished he’d had more of an opportunity to study the phenomenon.

S-Sol/ZF/M/2000/36/P’s body had simply rejected the S-cells. All the other test subjects, the so-called “successes”, had been overwhelmed by Jenova’s essence. But S-PSM-Pri10869CS , the one he’d so short-sightedly deemed a failure, had done something much more interesting. In this subject, the superficial, apparent resistance to Jenova’s influence had masked a subliminal melding of the reunion instinct with the subject’s own will. S-PSM-Pri10869CS retained a fragmentary identity and a strong, if illusory,  sense of agency. To Hojo it was obvious that the subject was being driven forward by the reunion instinct, but the subject believed it was acting of its own free will and that Sephiroth was its enemy. Indeed, S-PSM-Pri10869CS had even spun a detailed story to justify its irresistible urge to pursue Sephiroth, in the same way that dreamers inside their dreams used the logic of sleepwalkers to explain their bizarre actions to themselves.

Professor Hojo could not explain why test subject S-PSM-Pri10869CS had reacted in the way that he had. By all the data currently available to him, it didn’t make sense. But that was his fault, a consequence of his lack of vision, his inability to understand. He knew that somewhere amongst the hundreds of files-worth of documentation, somewhere amidst all the statistics and analyses, somewhere hidden inside his own mind, lay the answer. If he could not find it, that was his failure, not the failure of his data.  He was a very imperfect servant of science. He freely admitted it.

So how could people say he had no conscience?

.

S-PSM-Pri10869CS  haunted him like a bad dream he could not wake from, the embodiment of his self-reproach. S-PSM-Pri10869CS broke into his lab, stole valuable rare test subjects, killed his genetically-modified creations -  and then, when Sephiroth skewered both President Shinra and the Science Department’s future in one thrust (for young Rufus had never made any secret of the fact that Hojo’s funding would be the first thing to go), and he had decamped to Costa del Sol, S-PSM-Pri10869CS followed him there, begging to be given a number.

I don’t give numbers to failures .

But he had known even then that S-PSM-Pri10869CS  was no failure.

Trailed by the Turks, press-ganged by Rufus, dragged to the Northern Cave, he had been forced to witness the act that plumbed the full depths of just how wrong he had been about S-PSM-Pri10869CS, as well as so many other things. He called himself a scientist, and yet he’d completely failed to recognise what had been in right in front of him all along. It had been a humiliating yet fascinating experience; what people called an eye-opener.

He thought it had probably been as difficult for Rufus to ask him to come back to work as it had been for him to accept the offer.  He’d never felt safe around Turks. But the Meteor crisis made for strange bedfellows. More to the point, the knowledge that Sephiroth was still alive had changed his priorities.  A father’s first duty was to help his son.

In the end, it came as no surprise that three of his greatest errors of judgement were what killed him.

And when his body’s meat had dissolved into wisps of mako, and his mind’s synaptic sequences had been uploaded into the digital coding of a computer network, and all that was left of him was his naked soul, a stunted, underfed, grubby little thing standing shivering on the banks of the Lifestream, full of fear of confusion, he lifted his eyes and saw a figure approaching out of the fog, a face he recognised, a good-humoured friendly face, holding out a hand and saying,

“Hey, Prof! The cavalry’s here. It’s me, Zack! Remember? Your prize sample! Take my hand and step right in, the water’s fine. Don’t worry, I won’t abandon you. I mean, we’re friends, right?”