RONIN - File 00 Prologue: Zero Protocol

SHINRA TOWER, MIDGAR TURKS OFFICE COMPOUND DISC 02 - JULY 2010

“This is Jika Thunderson! I’m issuing an official arrest order for the following individuals: Evan Oris, Valerick Goodliffe, Riwin Koucha, and Shizune Mai! Apprehend alive, if possible. Shoot-to-kill has been authorized by Shinra High Command! This is Jika Thunderson! I repeat…”

It had been a very long time since Shizune had heard her own real name being used over the MP channels, and hearing it again used in such a debased manner was perplexing to say the least. Shizune sat cross-legged in her lab putting the finishing touches on an orbital satellite laser system to be field tested by the Turks and perhaps stolen away by Shinra Science Division for use by the greater company. As was modus operandi these days. The strange MP transmission, automatically flagged by her system for alert because it contained several Crimson-level classified terms (specifically, the real names of actual Turk agents), was particularly troublesome. The fact that all the names Thunderson just spat into the public MP channel essentially constituted the entire roster of the covert Turk Cell R0-414–her own exemplary Turk Unit–was horrendously unforgivable. Shizune cursed under her breath.

“Surely, this is a goddamn jo-”

“You heard the confused manling,” cut in Evan Oris over the private Turk coms channel, her voice noticeably grave. “This is not a drill. Good news: Thunderson has blown the element of surprise for the PM corps. Bad news: our Turk cell is now Shinra public enemy #1. I’m not sure why yet, but for all of you on this private channel, enact Zero Protocol. This is my final order.”

A pregnant silence followed for only a fraction of a second but seemed to last an eternity. Although she was a consummate professional, Shizune found her senses still swimming in bewildered shock.

The unmistakable firecracker report of breaching charges and muffled gunfire in the room adjacent to her lab brought her back into immediate action. Truly, if this is the time for the Zero Protocol, then everyone had their own part to play, their own roles in the coming impromptu exodus. Valerick and Riwin were on assignment, and would be on their own, which frankly suited the both of them just fine. Evan and Shizune were still in the office compound, so it was up to them to burn all trails. The reasons could be reckoned later. What mattered most now was survival.

Shizune’s dextrous fingers danced across her terminal keyboard as she began base lockdown and a full erasure of their records. A shortwave radio burst issued from a device just under her desk–a single wireless command destroyed the delicate internal mechanisms of all the devices she had invented in her term as the head of the Turk’s Research and Special Projects Division. Shizune frowned grimly. Though she was proud that the failsafe she and Evan had concocted years ago worked, the en-masse destruction of her inventions felt like a stab in the heart. Now there was but one thing left to do.

“Shizune,” Evan said over a private comlink, her transmission overloaded with the sound of barking machine gun fire. “My special-issue TMP has failed,” Evan said cooly.

Shizune pressed two fingers to her ear and responded immediately.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I-”

“Good girl. You’ve destroyed all of our toys, then,” Evan said, the hint of a grin evident in her tone. “Now, wipe us from history, then get the hell out of here.”

“Roger that,” Shizune said, already enacting the software version of the Zero Protocol which would completely remove all records of them from the Shinra InfoNet permanently.

“But, ma’am, what about you?”

“Your concern is noted, but superfluous. I still have The Terminator.”

Mishima Heavy Industries Type-800 Variable-Ammunition Anti-personnel Shotgun–Evan customized and named hers “The Terminator.” It was said that if the safety on The Terminator was released, the weapon could not be re-safetied without first tasting enemy blood. Shinra typically frowned upon their agents and employees using equipment made by competitors, but Evan could care less.

“No one opposing me this day will live,” Evan explained, almost managing to sound disinterested.

An angry red progress bar flared to life on all of Shizune’s monitors, indicating the irrevocable erasure of their records from the Shinra InfoNet. Shizune propped her glasses up on her face with her index finger and watched the progress with gritted teeth. “Come on, come on…” she said under her strained breath. The sound of Evan fighting the enemy in the next room getting more ferocious in intensity made Shizune clench her jaw. For as much as she wanted to go assist Evan, the absolute priority was to ensure the fulfillment of the Zero Protocol–all other concerns were secondary, for if any portion of their pre-planned Zero Protocol went uncompleted, any potential physical escape would be essentially imperfect and meaningless.

Despite her urge to support her Turk cell commander, Shizune could tell that Evan was fulfilling her promise of death to the MPs who had arrived to arrest or kill them. She could hear the pitch of the battle, and her mind instantly analyzed the fight–the rapid, staccato’d fire was obviously the standard-issue MP carbine. The 3-4 burst-bark was the tell-tale signature of MP training. That the bursts maintained an easy-to-mark pattern meant that these fools were certainly not Alpha Company, and therefore did not make proper use of their automatic weapons. As a counter to the predictable pattern of the machine gun fire was the thunderous single-fire cannonade of Evan’s Terminator. With each singular blast, there was less texture to the cacophony of the machine gun fire–Evan was one-shotting MPs. Shizune hoped that one of them was Jika Thunderson, the fool. The thought made the corner of her mouth curl upward in a momentary grin.

The data erasure finished a moment after that, the progress bar showing a glowing, blood-red 100% for a second before the Zero Protocol began frying both the hardware and software of all the Turk terminals in the office. Static filled all the screen monitors in the lab, and Shizune, still dressed in her black business skirt and white labcoat, checked her sidearm for good measure–a habit left over from her days as a former Alpha Company MP. Her weapon of choice was an 8-round custom high-caliber revolver which she designed herself, lovingly named “The Baroness.”

She gave the ammo cylinder a spin with the flick of her palm, then began running full-sprint to the bookcase opposite her station. She pulled out three books seemingly at random, throwing them on the floor, and the bookcase slid to the left to reveal a solid metal door of unpolished steel, a tiny window slit of blast-reinforced glass residing at her eye-level. This door led not to a room, but to an escape pod which would jettison from the Turks’ offices on the upper floors of Shinra Tower and land gently at pre-programmed coordinates. Each pod contained a Turks emergency go-bag–extra gil, weapons, ammo, forged passports and IDs– which would come in handy for the subsequent escape. There was just such a pod in each room of the Turks highrise compound, and Shizune hoped that all of her now-apparently-outlawed cell would make it to a pod. This pod in particular was set for an access alley just behind Mako Reactor 03.

Shizune pulled open the heavy blast door with some effort, and secured herself within the pod, which only had enough standing room for one standard adult. Once she was securely fastened within the pod, the blast door closed automatically. She raised her hand to key the launch sequence, but hesitated. Shizune’s hand hovered over the launch console, the momentary thought of Evan fighting alone in the next room halting her hasty, per-orders retreat. Despite the fact that Shizune had designed the pod to be mostly sound-(and everything-)proof, it still surprised her that the sound of the firefight was completely sealed out. Alone with her own momentary regrets in the silence of the escape pod, Shizune activated her comlink once more.

“Ma’am,” Shizune said, seemingly louder than she intended to. “Zero Protocol has been completed. I’m currently in the lab’s escape pod, do you require back up?”

The silence of the next moment was as thick as blood.

“Boss, please respond!”

“What are you still doing here, woman!” Evan yelled back over the coms, “Get moving!”

“Roger wilco!” Shizune replied.

“One more thing, Shizune,” Evan shouted over the vox, the sound of the firefight in the background growing in intensity. “I’ve only seen MPs so far. Fodder, all of them. SOLDIER hasn’t yet been mobiliz-”

A thunderclap of furious, volcanic sound and an immense pressure wave turned Shizune’s entire world into ringing and white blindness.

An explosion had taken out the entire Western wall of the lab, opposite of Shizune’s escape pod. Shrapnel from the explosion tore a gaping hole in the escape pod and lacerated Shizune’s right forearm. The wound wasn’t deep, but would become an impedance later on if not tended to properly. The sharp white-blue of summer daylight and the cold wind of that altitude were flooding into the lab, followed swiftly by several rappel lines dangling into view of the new breach. Down these ropes came several warriors, all wearing the same navy-blue fatigues, avian-beaked helmet, and large melee weapons of various design.

SOLDIER had indeed been mobilized.

Shizune gave a guttural yell and slammed her palm down on the launch button. The entire pod began to jolt and vibrate violently from the firing of its launch rockets. From the viewing slit of the pod, Shizune could see the SOLDIERs arrayed in front of the pod, many raising their weapons to shield themselves from the sudden launch blast. One of the SOLDIERs had planted his buster sword into the floor to anchor himself. He had his right hand raised straight out in front of him, aimed accusingly right at the pod. In that moment, Shizune recognized that lackluster SOLDIER–Miyamoto Kaizen, Second Class. He had been on their cell’s track list for months and was but one shot away from being “liberated” by the Turks. In that frozen moment of recognition, Kaizen seemed to look through his helmet directly at Shizune through the view slit.

He was smiling.

This is wrong! Shizune screamed internally, her face twisted in a grimace of hate.

This is all wrong! WE are the ones who hunt SOLDIER!

Despite the long cut in her forearm, Shizune unholstered and unsafetied the Baroness in a single fluid motion which spoke of countless hours of practice, and began firing directly at Kaizen. She would have hit her mark many times over if not for the launch itself.

The escape pod tore away from the Eastern side of Shinra Tower like a missile, and Shizune lost site of the lab, the SOLDIERs and the building itself, as the pod re-oriented towards the landing coordinates. Shizune had never personally tested this device and was screaming from the g-forces now being exerted on her body. Icy wind surged through the open gash in the front of the pod, making the blood of her wound sticky and cold.

There was another explosion.

It rocked the entire escape pod and deafened Shizune. All the lit control panels in front of Shizune went dead, and propulsion stopped entirely. She could feel the pod spinning now. The light coming in from the view slit was also spinning. She could smell burnt electronics. There was an intense falling sensation.

Somehow, Shizune’s pod had been hit, and the pod was falling fast.

No.

Not somehow.

Images of Kaizen’s outstretched hand moments before launch flashed in Shizune’s mind.

He had been casting!

Shizune thought frantically. At this rate, from this altitude, terminal velocity was a given outcome. The sheer physics of the situation do not present any numerical chance of survival. The gravity of the situation was-

Shizune’s eyes widened frantically and she brought her left hand up to door of the pod, pressing her palm firmly against it. She only had seconds. She tensed herself to prepare for the pain that was going to come. She knew she might only come out of this barely alive, but it was still a better shot than doing nothing. Closing her eyes, Shizune channeled her will into her Gravity materia, targeting the pod itself. She knew that the gravity spell could theoretically act as an inertial canceller, making the fall from this height potentially survivable, but it was going to hurt like hell. If she lived through it.

The materia began to activate, and a dark, bruise-colored etheric miasma with a lightless pinpoint for a center appeared around the falling escape pod. The reinforced steel of pod began to groan, creak, and buckle violently, and Shizune began to feel a deep and painful constriction in her chest that felt as though her heart was being instantly tightened within a saw-toothed vice. She opened her mouth wide to scream but nothing came out–her diaphragm had been arrested by the gravity well. There was only the sickening sound of the pod imploding around her and the tesla-coil-buzz of the chaotic energies which composed her gravity spell. The sound was deafening. Shizune had never been been on the receiving end of this horrific spell, but now she understood why it was so fearsome and cruel a weapon. Her eyes widened further as she felt the sharp flashfires of pain in her sides as some of her ribs began to break.

A massive pressure filled Shizune’s eardrums and she began to weep tears of pain. A giant ethereal fist was crushing her to death. In a strange moment of clarity, she wondered how this had been a good idea. She wondered too, how bizarre it was that her entire life and career would come to an end one sunny, Sunday afternoon in a summer not worth noting. She wondered about her sister who would be left to deal with all of this. A sight from the escape pod view slit brought her out of her misplaced reverie–the ground was rushing at her with menacing speed. She couldn’t brace herself for the impact.

\ \ \

Shizune woke with a start. She inhaled huge gulps of air as if she had had been suffocating. She could hear a wheezing, moaning thing nearby, and that put her on edge. It took her a few moments to realize that the noise was coming from her.

The world was sideways, and the blanket was damp from her sweat. Shizune was lying face-down on a baby-blue futon. It was morning. There was a dull pain in her head. A faint summer wind blowing in from the open window played gently with her long streaks of raven black hair as they dropped haphazardly across her face. As the view of her tiny bedroom came slowly into focus again, Shizune composed herself. After several long moments of re-centering, Shizune sat up in her bed and closed her eyes.

“和、敬、清、寂,” (“Wa, kei, sei, jaku”), Shizune said evenly, slowly in Wutaian to no one, savoring each syllable.

That woman has been dead for five years, she said to herself, as if reaffirming a well-known fact.

I am Rei Kashiwabara.

つづく

To be continued in File 01: Sado

ENDING THEME: “YOUNG MEN DEAD” by THE BLACK ANGELS