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The Artifact	By : PandaBearzh Category: Final Fantasy Games > Final Fantasy XIII-2 Views: 1996 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the final fantasy fandom. I do not make $$ from this fiction.

Chapter List
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- 13
At this point I'd like to take a quick moment and remind everyone of the "Violence" and "MCD" tags on this story. There is major death and violence.

After renovations, the giant warship New Arcadia possessed seven floors. As many large structures are, the offices and chambers were divided and assigned possession due to necessity. The uppermost floor stored many of the supplies and served as a significant buffer of the echoing grinding of landing ships for the floor below – which served as both a training course and the location for several administrative offices of higher ranking military officials. Previously known as Lieutenant Colonel, newly promoted Director Yaag Rosch was one of those to have an office on the second floor, but didn’t use it for anything more than a place to hang his jacket. Paperwork tasks had been assigned to individuals—and he had such a vivid and reliable memory that it never required him to need to scribe anything down. On the other hand, his wife, who had earlier that day been hired to work for Cid Raines directly instead of under contract, could barely remember a thing if she didn’t make note of it somewhere. Actual paper-bound books had filled the shelves of their joint office, creating the false illusion of a warm academic environment upon entry. Many times Rosch had asked her why she didn’t just use an electronic device—it would ensure that her musings would remain confidential should someone have attempted to break in. Clearly, his words hadn’t penetrated, and due to the exasperated explanations he would receive, he had long since ceased his requests. Those books had vanished now, and the office that Rosch had encountered today was completely empty. Her desk had been cleaned out, and it appeared as if the books she had stored in his desk had vanished too. Without her presence, the room seemed abundantly sterile.
His eyes drifted over his desk and recognized a pair of thin wire glasses and a yellow square of paper stuck to the surface that hadn’t been there when he left. Someone had drawn a smiley face on the note. A smiley face? He ripped it from its location and studied it for a second before crumpling it with his left hand and tossing it into the empty waste bin. Surprisingly, there was no rattle; there were other yellow squares there. Some of them had abandoned messages on them. Others the message ran off of the edge of the paper. What a waste, he considered. It was just like her, and he could imagine it perfectly. Her—with her stupid old fashioned pen—trying over and over to find a way to articulate herself just right. She didn’t have to. He knew that she was excited about the pay raise, and her transfer hadn’t interrupted the household’s control over PSICOM—he had inherited it from her. The promotion had appeared to be win-win from all perspectives. Still, he couldn’t understand why his client would want to hire his wife of all people for that position. It wasn’t something that he thought too much about though; as far as he was concerned, Cid Raines was an ignorant fool who just couldn’t leave history alone. No case was better evidence of this than the way that he had dealt with Hope Estheim, and even though Cid reported to Cocoon that the boy had ‘accidentally died,’ Rosch had yet to see the body. That even, was aside from the knowledge that his death had been planned anyhow, and there shouldn’t have been anything accidental about it.
Damn, he hated this little room. The man wasn’t even sure why he had returned to it at all. Perhaps he thought he was going to catch a glimpse of his wife? It would be difficult to see her for a while. He preferred to remain on Pulse as much as possible, but when he did come up to New Arcadia she usually made a point to travel to meet him. Otherwise, she would remain in the inner city, pacifying their crybaby of a client and reassuring him that yes, they were doing everything possible to find this elusive Noel Kreiss character—if he even existed. Yes, of course, there had been a prophecy about him, but this “future story” didn’t really seem to be anything more than computer generated holograms. Not only had he seen the technology before, he had actually used it in various interrogations, including in a few of those sessions he had managed to steal with the young rebel Captain Estheim. No, until his undercover informant provided him information about Kreiss’ existence, he would take every suggestion of digital markup with a grain of salt.
After a moment, he reached back into the wastebasket and after a few seconds of searching, retrieved the crumpled smiley face. What a waste. Still, he couldn’t help but smile privately back at it. He slipped it into his pocket and replaced the trash bin on the floor before gathering the glasses and locking the office door behind him. For the first time in about a month, he would fly to Cocoon. Raines had called on him for some reason—presumably to discuss the title redistribution in their contract. He could give the lenses to Jihl then. She was probably frantic without them, considering that she had lost one of her contacts down the drain last night. Would she be able to read anything that she would write? It made the director chuckle just imagining the little bookworm as she held some little scrap of paper up to her nose with a squint.
The dimly lit corridors seemed especially empty today, and the director noted the lack of presence in the back of his mind. It was probably nothing but coincidence, and perhaps the Guardian Corps had some sort of training seminar that they needed to attend. There were still a few scattered about, but they all appeared to be focused at their tasks with great deliberation. None appeared to be alarmed, and there certainly weren’t any sirens rounding through the speakers. Even though the morning had been out of the ordinary, it looked as if the rest of the day would consist of the very same sorts of activities that usually plagued it. It could be incredibly still here on New Arcadia sometimes. If Rosch had his way, he would make this ship out to be the efficient body that it could be. All soldiers—Guardian Corps included—would only begin their training here. Instead of involving the simple puzzles and on-board obstacle course, New Arcadia would additionally provide them with the psychological training that they would need to survive if they were ever to be stationed on Pulse. The docks wouldn’t serve to lock away war-ships; it would be used to service them temporarily before permitting the fleet to embark again into the world. Sustenance could be safely stored here as well; including weaponry, ammunition…the list went on.
His boots scratched across the short grated planks that made up the stairs he descended, kicking tiny scraps of metal through their eyelet gaps. Shit. More bolts and washers from the walls. Sometimes they would become loose from the joist hangers, and the upper-level supports would vibrate in their nests. The problem was caused by the same process that ensured that New Arcadia remain afloat; with such a shortage of energy, it was necessary for the fuel requirement to be bypassed. The entire process was just outside of Rosch’s realm of understanding, but as it had been described briefly to him, it was the combination of wind currents and gravira magic that sustained its point of ascension. Technically, the craft was caught in a closed loop, forcing it to rise up on the winds and then fall immediately back down—only to again be raised. The degree of its actions were so slight that no movement was felt by its passengers. As intended, the fastens and interlacing weaves of copper, iron, and poly-metalic substances would absorb all vibrations. Ultimately, it meant that maintenance should be carried out on the internal structure continually—all fastens would eventually writhe loose otherwise, and the ship would implode on itself from a combination of the equal forces generated by the air currents and reactive gravira magic. Whatever. Director Rosch wasn’t contracted to be worried about such things. It was true that his men were stationed here for interrogative purposes, but he much would have preferred to keep his bases on Gran Pulse where the enemy was closer. There were two reasons for transporting prisoners of war to this vessel: first, as a double safety measure against their unexpected escape, second, because the naïve son-of-a-bitch that constantly tried to control his techniques wanted to keep him as close as possible.
“So that you express developments more quickly.” Yaag could remember his sneering tone as if it was yesterday. Well, if he wanted ‘developments’ so quickly, maybe he shouldn’t have put such insanely restricting stipulations on the manner that he would carry out his tasks. It really shouldn’t have been any of his business. Raines had hired him and his mercenaries to perform a service that he didn’t have the alleged time to deal with himself. If he trusted PSICOM enough to hire it, then it should stand to reason that he shouldn’t attempt so many interferences with its processes. If his war was a machine, his constant meddling was making it run at its highest inefficiency. Then, after trying to handicap his method, he presumed to demand such outrageous results? Heh, what he didn’t know… it wouldn’t hurt him.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he greeted, locating the room he had been keen on and embarking through the open archway.
“Director Rosch, sir!” The five officers brought themselves to attention and opened the tight huddle that they generated around a surface in the middle of the small room. They turned their back on it, and saluted their superior with a quick gesture and short bow. It was apparent that they hadn’t expected such a visit so early in the morning, and that his presence seemed to have jolted their alertness to an excited level.
“Sir! Congratulations on your promotion, sir! I’m sure that the relationship we have with the Guardian Corps is going to be a lot easier with your wife working directly for Cid Raines!” Rosch’s expression didn’t falter, but his tell was well learned by his troops, and quickly the man corrected himself; “Uh—that is—Director Naabat, previously!” Their superior flicked his fingers softly at them, shooing them to the side so he could interact with the task that they had been assigned.
“How are we this morning? Tired, perhaps?”
“Yeah, we’ve been at it all night—” the eager soldier responded.
“Shut up!” his companion grunted with exasperation. Rosch pretended not to see the way that he jabbed him juvenilely beneath his armor “Does it look like he’s fucking talking to you, Bearns?!” It was true, Rosch hadn’t been speaking to the soldiers.
“Do you know who I am?” he continued, his full attention for the man that lay out on the table. The man’s armor had been removed, and his Guardian Corps uniform had been ripped and slashed where dyed from wounds. His hair was dark and of medium length, and possessed deep brown eyes that responded to Rosch’s question with merely a few blinks. Though they appeared to take a few moments to focus, Rosch waited for his pupils to dilate in recognition. Without a word, the man inhaled and released a quick breath. “Good. Now, unlike my good friends, I have no intention of bringing you any harm. Do you know why?”
The man shook his head slowly.
“That’s okay. Sometimes we don’t know things, and then,” he snapped his fingers at one of the five men and gestured him closer, “sometimes we do.” The soldier stepped forward to attention, and Rosch removed from him a standard sized handgun. “For example. I know what substance lights this room.” He set the gun flat on the surface and gestured at the lights with his left hand. The captive watched him, confused, but now adding the light fixtures into the array of objects he was keeping his eye on. “Did you know that all of these are connected? If one of them breaks the whole room has to be replaced.”
“I don’t care about lights,” the man hissed finally through torn lips. His voice was hoarse and unapologetic.
“That’s too bad. What do you care about?” Rosch inquired curiously. The man chuckled: they both knew that the prisoner wasn’t going to share that information with the new PSICOM director so openly. He turned to his five men; “Out.” The five turned and quickly obeyed. His subject’s chuckling grew to a hearty laughter.
“Really? There isn’t anything you can do to me,” the man murmured, his laugh growing stronger. “Even if you don’t kill me, Raines is going to fry your ass once he hears what you’re up to.”
“Who here would tell him? Not you. Do you see any GC present?” The man’s laughter subsided a bit, but the mocking grin never faltered.
“You have no idea what he knows about you,” he challenged.
“Mm-hm. Right. Rygdea, correct?” Rosch observed casually, “I don’t care who you are, where you come from, or what you think. I do care about Noel Kreiss. Tell me about him.” The brunette wet his lips, but didn’t take very long to speak.
“You know what we know about him. I don’t know why you would think we know more.” Rosch nodded softly and picked up the gun, thumbing the safety on and off. He carried it with him as he turned toward the door, pausing only for a second to look back at Raines’ captain with an eerie smile. He lifted the gun and pointed it at the brunette, who smirked back at him glumly.
“I thought you said you had no intention of—”
“I don’t,” the director interrupted firmly. His aim rose from the man to the strip above his head. “I also don’t care for these lights.” A quick pop resounded through the room, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass. The room went dark and silent for no longer than a heartbeat. Coolly, the Director emerged, handing the smoking handgun back to its original owner. The others peered in through the archway, trying to identify what was causing Rygdea’s painful cries in the darkness. Yaag had to speak up to be heard over his cursing.
“I don’t want to hear about you wasting your time on these sorts of people. If you can’t get information from them, kill them and move on. You’ve been at this too long to waste anymore time.” He paused for a moment, enjoying the sudden silence.
“Is he?” Bearns inched, trying to peer into the room. The young Guardian Corps captain made no sound. The soldiers looked back and forth at one another with uncertainty. Had they just offed an ally? No—had PSICOM just offed an ally? It was one thing to rough him up for answers; it was another to just kill the poor bastard…
“Sir, may I ask a question?” Rosch nodded. “Might I ask what is in the lights, sir?” Rosch nodded again with a smirk.
“Yes, you may as well put in a work order, though I can’t say for certain when it’ll get repaired. When you do go to retrieve the body, make sure you wear masks. If anyone gives you any trouble, send them my way. I have to be on Cocoon. Make sure you get me answers before your shift ends. Oh—and one more thing. When you draw up the report on his death: make sure that you label it as accidental, and throw him off the ship. I don’t want Cid Raines ever seeing him again. Is that clear?” The men exchanged glances.
“Accidental, sir?” one of them ventured softly.
“Yes. There seem to have been an increasing amount of accidental deaths of young Cocoon-born Captains lately. Go. You’re dismissed.”
“Sir, yes, Sir!” The soldiers affirmed in unison. They turned and began to jog back to where they might discover a mask for the body retrieval, conversing among themselves their own interpretation of the situation and how to carry out their orders.
Rosch checked his watch. It was 7:23. Perfect timing. With any luck, he would be able to sign these documents and get Jihl back her glasses before lunch. Maybe he would even get a chance to celebrate a glass of wine with her in her new office. He pictured it to be open and bright with natural light. Likely, she would have demanded real wooden bookshelves and throw rugs—she always did have a flare for the antique.
His walk hastened a half step as he climbed to the hangar. First things first, as always. Only after did he get Cid’s bullshit finished would he be able to see her, and the sooner the better.

[NAN]
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- 12
- 13
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The Artifact