Unholy Alliance
Chapter 5
After Mulder’s proclamation, the rest of the group had gone to get ready. Mulder sat at the table with Audrea. "They don’t like you much, do they?"
"I don’t know why. I’m your friend."
Mulder sighed. "Cut the crap Agent Morgan. You missed what your dear, sweet Sephiroth tried to do to this planet."
"It wasn’t him!"
"Audrea he almost destroyed an entire planet. Everyone here saw him do it."
"It’s NOT HIM!"
Tifa came in. "I believe you Audrea." She put her hand on Audrea’s shoulder. "Cloud did a lot of things that he couldn’t control. He almost killed Aeris. He gave Sephiroth the Black Materia. All because of the Jenova inside of him. You think that Sephiroth was being controlled also?"
"That’s the only way. He’s not like … that … I mean yeah the war was brutal." Audrea said quietly. "But still, do you think that Patton or MacArthur or Schwartzkopf were happy about all of the people that died in war? War is hell, there’s just no way around that. It’s not his fault he was raised to be a killing machine. I mean in a way ... I was too. But he was different when we were alone."
"We’re getting ready to go," said a new voice. Audrea looked at the cat-mog –thing and laughed. "What is that?" It wasn’t a mean laugh, it was pure amusement.
"I’m Cait Sith. It’s me, Reeve."
Tifa laughed. "Reeve controls Cait Sith. That way he can come with us, but he never has to leave his office. Come on, let’s go."
"Hey, Tifa," Audrea began. "I’m … really … sorry about before."
"I know. Where do we start?"
"Midgar." Mulder said. "I have a hunch that if we can find Hojo’s research, we can find the answers."
"What answers?"
"How’s you kung fu, Agent?"
"Don’t call me Agent. I’m not an FBI agent anymore."
***
Highwind flew across the landscape. Audrea stood on the deck, watching the land fly by, remembering her first trip aboard this ship. Home from the war, at Sephiroth’s side … I’ll find you. I promise.
She closed her eyes before the tears came.
***
When they reached Midgar, Audrea was shocked to see the great city in ruins. "What caused this?" she asked, quietly.
Barret glared at her. "Your lover boy summoned a great big rock to destroy the planet. He didn’t mention that did he?"
Audrea ignored him. "The mainframe computer was in an underground vault. It might still be there. I might be able to get in." She drew her sword and began to hack at the weeds growing in the passageways.
After a few hours of hacking at weeds and dispatching the occasional monster, they came to the ruin of the Shinra building , found their way in, and to the basement. "Here is the terminal," Vincent said, dusting off the keyboard. "But who will access it?"
Audrea sat down. "I will." At the startled looks, she went on. "I had pretty high clearance. And I used to be pretty good at breaking onto computer systems." She sat down and began to type, and the screens came to life.
Cid looked around. "Everyone spread out and look around. What are we lookin’ for, anyway?"
Mulder thought a moment, remembering. "Vials…a brown liquid. Or a chip, a small chip, in a test tube or something." He flicked on a flashlight. The group spread out to look around.