Unholy Alliance

Chapter 6


Mulder picked his way through the ruins of the basement, looking. He played his flashlight beam off the walls, and saw a glint of metal. He walked over and found a file cabinet. Pulling at it, he found it locked. He pulled harder, and was rewarded when the lock broke, and the drawer shot open. Mulder began going through the files. Cait Sith bounced up. "What did you find?" Mulder was amused in spite of himself. It was hard to imagine that he was really talking to Reeve. "Don’t know. Grab a file." Cait grabbed the next file back and started to read.

Cid and Barett walked cautiously down a long hallway. "Whaddya think of her?" Barret asked.

"Who? Audrea?" Cid asked, looking around warily. "She’s … somethin’ else."

"Ya got that right. She’s a bi—"

"I think I found something!" Came a shout from the end of the hallway. Cid and Barret ran down the hallway and met up with Yuffie, who was standing in front of a large doorway, locked with an electronic keypad. "I bet there’s something in there! But how do we get in?" She asked.

Barret pointed his gun-arm at the keypad. "This is how." He fired, and the lock spat sparks. They entered the room, which appeared to be a storage room. Shelves and shelved of files and boxes stretched into the darkness. "Where do we start?" Yuffie asked.

Tifa, Vincent and Red XIII watched as Audrea brought the mainframe on line. "What can we do?" Vincent asked.

"I don’t know. I don’t know how long this is going to take." Audrea smiled as the frame came online and she began to search. They turned as footsteps came up the hallway. Yuffie burst into the computer room. "We found something! It’s like a big vault with all these files and stuff in it! You gotta see this!"

Tifa looked at her friends. "Perhaps we can be of assistance." Red offered, following Yuffie, his flaming tail lighting he way for Tifa and Vincent.

Mulder slammed the top drawer shut. Nothing but a bunch of reports in that drawer. He yanked at the second drawer, and rifled through the folders until he found one that said "Project Renaissance." Opening the folder, he saw a picture of Scully. "Jackpot."

Cait bounced up. "Jackpot what?" It asked, looking over Mulder’s shoulder. "Hey, It’s Dana! Project Renaissance .. I never heard of that one."

"I think that’s what we were." Mulder looked at the file, shining the light on it. His eyes fell on one passage. "The specimen already appears to have a weak strain of Jenova in her genetic material. Further tests will be necessary to determine if this is the same strain used in previous experiments. Recommend we keep this one near Shinra for observation."


So, he was right. Scully’s cancer was Jenova. He closed the folder. "This is all we need."

Audrea fought to keep her eyes open. Why did I ever enjoy this? When Tifa and her friends left, Audrea sat up. She typed in Sephiroth’s name, on a whim. The information came up, and she studied it. Pressing a key, she heard the printer come online. It spit out a picture and Audrea put it away.

Mulder came up behind her. "Hey, I’ve got something. Put in ‘Project Renaissance’ and see what you find."

Audrea typed it in. Mulder saw what she’d been looking at before she cleared the screen and entered the words. The computer prompted her for a clearance code. Audrea entered the one she’d found for herself, what would have been her new one had she not died. The information came up.

"These look like file numbers. I don’t know where the files themselves are. Yuffie said she found a room full of files and stuff, though."

Mulder looked at her. "Print it." Audrea did. He took the printout down to the room. "Guys, listen up!" He showed them the numbers. "These are all of the files that pertain to us. Split up and find them."

Two hours later the group assembled in the computer room, where Mulder was going through the boxes by monitor light. He opened the first box. "This looks familiar," he said, holding up a decayed leather wallet. He opened it. "Here, kid."

Audrea looked at her FBI badge and ID. "No way. What did they do save everything?"

Mulder opened the next box to find a rack of test tubes. He held one up. "Bingo."


There in the tube, suspended in clear liquid, was a tiny computer chip. "This is the chip."

Audrea went through the boxes. "I found something else. A formula." She opened the box and pulled out a rack of vials. "Look familiar, Mulder?"

Mulder picked up the vial and shined his flashlight through it. The light brown liquid shone in the light. "This is it. The vaccine."

Audrea looked at the printout. "Hojo was trying to develop a tranquilizer that could be used on renegade SOLDERs when they went crazy or left Shinra. He wanted to be able to take away what he’d given them."

Barett regarded her. "You’re okay."

"Gee, thanks."

Tifa looked at the chip and the liquid. "Now that we have this, what do we do with it?"

Red XIII looked at the files Audrea collected. "I would surmise that we go to the last place we saw Jenova and start there."

Cid groaned. "You mean that damn crater? Last time we went in there I almost lost the Highwind."

"Cid!" Tifa exclaimed. ‘This is Cloud we’re talking about!"

"Yeah, I know. Move out!"


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