By: Mags

Morrigan took a deep breath as the airship’s engines started up, vibrating the entire ship. He had always hated that part of ship rides. The takeoff and the landing were the worst as far as he was concerned. He looked over to see how Cole was doing, hoping that he was not alone in his plight, but Cole did not seem the least bit bothered by the motors. Morrigan, however, felt like his teeth were going to vibrate right out of his skull, but after a few minutes, they were in the air, and the vibrating stopped. Morrigan breathed out, having been holding his breath. His lungs relaxed and he sat back into his chair, getting comfortable. He looked over at Cole, who looked quite bored with the whole thing.

"The planet is dying, you know."

Morrigan was caught by surprise at this statement, and looked at the man in surprise. But Cole did not return the look, but merely kept on talking.

"The planet is going to die, soon. But not before it takes care of us." Cole continued, not waiting for Morrigan to respond.

"Oh? And why is that" Morrigan asked, finally able to get in a word edgewise.

"Because the company is destroying the planet with their blister domes. The size that that each town has grown to sizes that cause a very real threat to the planet, because they use up all of the resources within miles of the area they are in."

"So? The towns have always been there. They were not a threat before?"

"Long ago…" began Cole, "Before this age hovercrafts and blister domes that we have today, towns were much smaller, because the ShinRa wanted most of the world’s population to live in their city, Midgar. The towns had only a very small number of people living in them, and they received all their supplies and energy from ShinRa and their Mako Reactors."

"But Mako energy was outlawed hundreds of years ago, because it was the planet’s life blood." Said Morrigan, hoping to figure out what Cole was getting at.

"Yes, but the ShinRa themselves did not care about anything but themselves, much like the Rachwell company and his daughter only concern themselves with their needs."

"Uh…okay…" Morrigan said, muttering a silent prayer that no one was within earshot of that statement. People had been executed for saying things like that about the President.

"The ShinRa did not care if the planet died. But they knew that if it did die, then they would be out of business. So they sought the Promised Land, a legendary place that supposedly was made entirely of raw Mako energy. The ShinRa executives literally frothed at the mouth at the thought of such a place. They employed the Turks to find the last remaining Ancient…er…Cetra to aid them in their search. However, once they found it, it was too late for them to act upon it as a powerful beast decimated Midgar and the President was killed. That is why ShinRa does not rule today. In the aftermath of Meteor, the townspeople agreed that since Mako energy was killing the planet that it would be completely outlawed. To this day, it has been enforced. That is why the Lifestream is no longer in danger, because Mako is not used. Had the ShinRa survived, then who knows what it would be like now. If we would be here at all, that is."

"Nice fairy tale, old man, but we know today that it was an asteroid from the outer ring of Adrock that Sephiroth saved us from. The idea that there were spheres of magic that could summon planets and collide them is pure rubbish!" said Morrigan firmly.

Cole scowled and gave Morrigan a look that sent a chill up and down his spine. He could tell that he wanted to tell him something that he felt was important, but the airship landing cut him off.

"Please proceed to the baggage claim area" the monitors screeched in a very grainy, electronic voice.

Cole and Morrigan both unfastened their seatbelts and got out of their seats. Morrigan stretched his arms and legs, then followed Cole down the hallway, and into the baggage claim area. They retrieved their luggage and proceeded out of the station, to the streets outside. They hailed a hover-cab and told him to take them to the Corporate Rachwell Base on the outskirts of the Nibel Blister Dome. He complied, and within a two or three minute time they covered the 700 some miles that separated the air station from the facility they were headed to. After they got out of the cab, Morrigan gave the driver a 50 gil-piece, and he drove off.

Morrigan put his hand over his brow to cover the glare of the sun. He looked up at the Corporate Base, a large building by anyone’s standards, but incredibly tiny when compared to the giant bubble that is stood next to. The bubbles, although surprisingly thin and flimsy, were extremely large and the Nibel Dome in particular had been measured at about 70 square miles long and over 200 feet high, covering the whole of the Nibel City and part of the surrounding countryside. The bubble stopped about one mile away from the mountainous areas, as to avoid serious damage to the extremely expensive bubble-material. Morrigan was quite amused with the whole thing. The materials that the bubbles were made of had been designed to withstand gale force winds and extreme pressure forces like monster attacks and anything else that would strike at the bubble. Yet for some reason, the oils on a human finger would eat away at it like it was paper in a matter of seconds. It was really very amusing. However, it was also very expensive, because it was a breathable material, so it let air in and out. But due to the terrible conditions of the cities that they contained, and the pollution they pumped out on a regular basis, the materials needed constant replacing, when the pores got clogged with soot. But it did not concern him, so he was just content to be amused by the whole scenario.

"Well, here we are. What is it that you wanted to show me?"

"It’s inside the dome," replied Cole.

"Oh…" said Morrigan, then said quietly so that Cole would not hear him muttered "damn". He hated being inside the domes. The terrible stench, the grimy people, the crumbling buildings… he hated it all. But he knew that he had to distract Cole for now so that he could give the whitesuits from the mental facility a chance to intercept them and nab Cole. For now, he would just have to tolerate Cole and his theories as best he could.

"So what now?" he asked Cole hesitatingly, positive that he wouldn’t like the answer.

"We go in, of course," said Cole, walking towards the building and answering him without even looking at him.

Morrigan had known that he wasn’t going to like the answer.

"How do I get myself into these things?" Morrigan thought as he ran to catch up to Cole.

Inside the Facility, Cole walked up to the entrance guard and flashed his ID. The guard acknowledged and allowed him and Morrigan to proceed to the next level of security. There were five levels of security, each more difficult to pass than the next. It was designed by the company to ensure no unwanted personnel went into the domes and accidentally alerted the general populace that it was better outside the domes than on the inside. They approached the second guard. Cole took out his ID Card and inserted it into the machine that the guard stood next to, then walked through the detector. Morrigan followed suit after Cole stepped through. The device checked the brain waves of the individuals who walked through the machine, analyzing their brain patterns. Each person had their brain patterns mapped when they entered the Company, so it was impossible for an imposter to steal someone’s card and try to impersonate them. It was quite a handy little device, and had caught many a rebel employee since it had been installed not 50 years ago.

They had no trouble with the second level, and so they proceeded to the next level. The next part was a written assignment, and they had to sit in separate booths and state the purpose of their visit to the dome. It was considered to be easy enough by Morrigan, but then again, al he had to say was that he was here on Cole’s whim. It was a pretty easy step to take, but then again, it merely led up to the next level. It was a type of polygraph-type test, except that instead of testing blood pressure and respiration, it tested respiration and brain activity. If you so much as took a millisecond too long to respond to any of the barrage of questions that the machine asked you, you were pretty much a goner. But the few times that he had been here, he had never had any trouble with it. He entered the machine, and the guard began the interrogation process.

"Dr. Morrigan…" he corrected.

Morrigan cleared his throat.

"I am the Executive President of the Rachwell Company’s Archaeological Department," he said without a hint of hesitation.

He hated these interrogations. They were a waste of his time. He smiled as he thought of the guard’s expression as he read the readout on his response. This particular type read your thoughts and printed them out. If you had some nagging doubt in the back of your mind, then it was immediately picked up on and you were questioned about. It was a brilliant piece of equipment, but Morrigan still hated having to go through all of this crap.

"Yes?"

Morrigan was surprised. Usually these sessions went on much longer than the three minutes he had spent in here. He wondered if it had something to do with Dr. Cole. He supposed that he would find out sooner or later. He jumped off the stool he was on, brushed himself off, then walked out the slide door that had just opened up. There was no one here yet, so he assumed that Cole was still in there. As if on cue, Cole stepped out of the room adjacent to the one that thy had just been in and walked over to where Morrigan was, his footsteps against the catwalk they were suspended on the only noise to be heard in the entire facility.

"Lets go."

Morrigan nodded, and they proceeded to the next level. The next level was merely a basic identity check, which Morrigan thought rather useless considering the brain scan that they had had when they came in. This was just a random assortment of checkups, followed by a health examination to make sure that no one entering the domes was carrying any diseases that could produce Contagion-like results on the populace at large.

The first was an iris-scan. All he had to do was stand facing an odd-looking contraption that used a fine laser to map his iris, then matching it to the previously recorded data that the company had stored.

"Match confirmed," said the computer, and a door opened up and Morrigan proceeded through it. This was the blood and Rh factor test. The machine in front of him opened up its cavity to produce a small needle and an analysis device. This section tested your blood type and your Rh Factor. If by some off chance you were able to get through the other tests, then this got you. You couldn’t change your blood type. Of course, Morrigan suspected that you really couldn’t change your brain waves either, but he just worried about his department and let the boys over in the Security Division worry about theirs.

He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and shirt and then extended his arm, palm up, towards the machine. He needle gave him a quick, painless prick. It drew a small drop of blood and then it quickly withdrew it and the mechanical arm gave the body of the needle a couple of squeezes, letting a couple of blood droplets fall into the body of the machine, which then processed and analyzed it. Morrigan knew that he was, and always would be AB+, so he didn’t have any worries about this test. Not that he had any other tests that he worried about, either though. As if to agree with him, a green light on the computer lit up and the computer exclaimed "match confirmed" and another door opened, allowing him access to yet another test.

The next was the one that Morrigan hated the most. The fluids test. But to him, it was a glorified term for pissing in a cup. He didn’t even know what the hell it was used for, but he knew that he’d just get a censure or worse if he complained without having a better idea, so until one came to him, he knew he’d be better off just keeping his mouth shut.

He submitted his ‘sample’ in a hurry, just to get the whole thing over with, then hurried through the door to the final test.

To Morrigan though, it was not another test, but merely a precautionary measure that the company had come up with to prevent any of the Domes people to be exposed to any sort of foreign disease. It was very ironic. To Morrigan it was downright funny and some good joke. He knew that the company in truth didn’t give a damn about the people, yet they went to such extreme measures to ensure their health. He just figured that they wanted it to seem like they actually cared, no matter how transparent an act it was. He just figured that they thought that the less people who actually knew they didn’t care, the less likely they were to have a rebel employee try to warn the people. Although he knew that the company didn’t care about their employees either, he did know that the President did not like to waste things when he didn’t have to. In the case of rouge employees, what was going to waste were precious bullets, gas, needled, and toxins. He grinned at his own morbid joke as he approached the last apparatus. It resembled a giant motherboard computer, taking up almost an entire side of the wall from the floor to the ceiling. It was very ominous looking. Morrigan approached the machine carefully. He had never been through this portion of the tests because it had just been added about a year ago to help prevent more small epidemics like the one that had swept the people in the Kalm, Corel, and the Cliff Domes. It had turned out that one of the technicians that had worked on some buildings in those domes had picked up some sort of pox somewhere. He had been found, studied, then cured, but before then, hundreds had become sick and the casualties had been about 50 or so. Not staggeringly terrible, but they were taxpaying people, so the company did not want to risk some sort of rebellion within the dome. So they cured them, then to prevent such an event from ever happening again, they had the boys from the Health Dept. and the boys from the Technology Dept. collaborate on a joint-project to produce a health testing device. The fruit of their labors stood before Morrigan. A colossal machine designed to test your body for any foreign matter that could prove dangerous to the Dome’s general populace.

A large sphere attached to an even larger rod with all sorts of glowing wires and knobs on it extended from the middle cavity of the machine. To Morrigan, it looked like some sort of plutonium-fueled ion disrupter ray gun like people used to show in old science-fiction movies, thinking that that was the kind of things that people would be equipped with in the future. The very same future that Morrigan was now living in, and he knew that most of those theories in those movies about what the future would be like had remained fictional theories. There were no ion-disrupter death rays, hats with miniature cannons in them, or any other sort of fantastical devices. Well, maybe some, but they weren’t as fantastical as the ones depicted in the old movies.

While Morrigan was reminiscing, the machine had activated and the metal ball had opened a small compartment from which a fine laser scanned the greater area of Morrigan’s body. After it was finished scanning the front part of his Nervous System, the machine asked him to make a 180 degree turn, facing the opposite wall, while it scanned his backside. After it was done mapping the back of his Nervous System, the computer told him that he had a specific bacteria on him that, if not treated, could result in strep throat and nausea. It asked him to wait for a minute while it checked its resource list, to find the proper cure. It also added that if it could not find the proper cure or if it was out, then Morrigan would not be admitted into the Dome, and should wait approximately five days before attempting to reenter any of the Domes. Morrigan acknowledged the computers statement, and the large ball and rod retracted back into the motherboard and the computer was idle for about three minutes before it lit up again. Morrigan was treated with the medicine, and was told to wait ten minutes before entering the Dome area. The door then opened up, and he walked into a waiting room-like area with a sofa and a rack of extremely dated magazines. He saw that Cole, too, was waiting in the room, sitting on the left end of the tattered, old sofa looking quite interested in the magazine he was reading. As Morrigan got closer, he saw that it was an old issue of Paleontology Today, with a feature story on a valley filled with ancient Chocobo fossils that had been discovered about 3 years ago.

Apparently, the Company had not decided to keep their subscription, thought Morrigan, chuckling slightly at his joke. Of course, as a fact it made no sense considering that the company owned that, along with several other newspapers, and the printing presses they were printed in. But Morrigan didn’t really care about all that. He bent over the back of Cole’s shoulder and looked at the article he was reading over his shoulder. After about a minute, Cole put the paper down.

"Do you have any idea how aggravating that it?" he asked, without looking up at Morrigan or having shown any previous signs of noting Morrigan’s entrance to the room.

Morrigan just grinned.

"Just interested in what you seemed to find so fascinating," he replied calmly.

"You could have just asked, you know," replied Cole, the tone of his voice indicating that he was more than a bit irked at Morrigan at the moment.

"I suppose so," admitted Morrigan, but then he grinned again and added, "But you looked so peaceful I didn’t think that it’d be very nice of me to disturb you."

"Well, you failed there," said Cole.

"It’s the thought that counts," said Morrigan, grinning from ear to ear.

"Very well then, if that’s your game, then I’m thinking you should go away right now," said Cole in a rare display of humor.

"Touché!" grinned Morrigan.

He was about to reply when the computer announced that the waiting period was up and that the gentlemen could now proceed.

Morrigan headed for the door, but was stopped by Cole.

"I’m sorry, Dr. Morrigan, but you heard the computer. Gentlemen only." Cole said, with a shadow of a smile on his face.

Morrigan gave him a joking scowl and pushed past Cole. Cole did not attempt to stop him.

"This had better be good, Victor. I don’t usually come to these Domes unless company policy dictates that it is mandatory. And I certainly don’t usually come here on the whim of doctors who propose seemingly crazy and inane theories about the past. But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you, now does it?" asked Morrigan.

"Not in the slightest. I don’t have to show you what I am going to show you, but I think that it will be a real eye opener for you," stated Cole, as he walked down the catwalk towards the airlock system that led into the depths of the Nibel Dome.

Once again, Morrigan ended up running after him in an attempt to catch up to him.

Morrigan took a deep, long breath after he entered the dome and nearly fell unconscious on the spot. The smell was absolutely putrid. He looked over at Cole, but Dr. Cole seemed relatively unfazed by the pungent stench that was setting Morrigan’s nose aflame. He knew that as he spent more time here, he’d get used to it, but for now, taking quick, short breaths was all he could do to remain conscious.

"We go left from here, towards the Nibelheim Relics Houses," said Cole, once again walking ahead of Morrigan, who was almost doubled over, getting ready to vomit if necessary. Morrigan ran to catch up to Cole again. Meanwhile, some old homeless men who had watched the whole thing from the roof of a nearby building just laughed and laughed.

Morrigan stumbled into the clearing in front of the Nibelheim Museum Area building, glad to be out of the forest of dead and dying trees. He unplugged his nose and let out a sigh, and then took a deep breath. Although the air was still stale and polluted, it felt cleaner than the air in that forest. He stumbled awkwardly up to Cole, who still seemed unfazed by it all, and propped himself up by putting his arm on Cole’s shoulder to keep his balance.

"So what now, Victor?" Morrigan asked dubiously.

"We go inside," said Cole, as if it were the obvious assumption. He began walking towards the Nibelheim Museum Area building they stood in front of, not waiting for Morrigan, who fell over when Cole moved away from Morrigan.

"Aaugh!" yelled Morrigan, as he fell face-first into the dry dirt below. "Oomph!" he cried as he hit, then looked up at Cole vehemently, before he got up and ran after Cole, muttering obscenities under his breath.

Morrigan stormed into the door of the Nibelheim Museum Area building, and almost bumped into Cole, who was standing just a few feet away from the entrance. Apparently he had been actually been waiting for Morrigan to catch up.

"Are you ready?" asked Cole, impatiently.

Morrigan looked ready to strangle Cole on the spot, but decided against it. He gave Cole a sneer, and brushed himself off, causing clouds of dirt to be swept in Cole’s direction.

"Alright, I’m ready now."

"Then let us proceed," said Cole solemnly, as he turned towards the entrance to the Nibelheim Relics Houses quadrant of the Nibelheim Museum. The man at the counter informed them that it would be 500 gil to get in. Morrigan was about to reach into his pocket for his ID Badge, but Cole stopped him.

"We’ll pay," he said and handed the man five 100 gil bills.

The man gave Cole a suspicious look, then leafed through the wad of bills for a second to make sure that they were authentic, then, after being convinced of their authenticity, allowed them to go on in.

Morrigan walked up along side Cole and gave him an odd look.

"Why did you pay? All Company employees can go anywhere in the Domes free of charge. So why pay?"

"Pity," said Cole, without looking at Morrigan. "Something I doubt that you have felt in a long, long time."

"Pity? For what?" Morrigan demanded, perplexed by Cole’s actions.

"For having to live in a place like this when he doesn’t have to," replied Cole, coldly.

"Is that all?" demanded Morrigan. "You know, its not like he’s missing anything. Its not like he actually knows about the outside and is missing it. He doesn’t know."

"Oh, but he does. He may not be aware of it, I doubt any of them are, but somewhere inside them…trust me, they know."

"Nonsense. Complete and utter non…" Morrigan began, but was cut off by a cold stare from Cole. He stopped in mid-sentence, his jaw hanging open. After about five seconds, Cole turned away again, and Morrigan came to his senses, but did not continue the argument.

"The topic is a moot point," he said to Cole. "Now just show me what you brought me here to show me, and let’s get out of here!"

"In due time," was Cole’s only reply.

They walked the rest of the way through town without a word to each other, without so much as a glance towards each other, which was fine with Morrigan.

Morrigan glanced around the Museum Town area. It was the oldest area in the Nibel Dome area, possibly the oldest area in any of the domes. It was a gift of good faith by the company about 100 years ago to the people of the Nibel Dome. It was the original town from over 300 years ago that the legendary warriors Cloud Strife and Tifa Lockheart lived in for a greater part of their lives. It was an incredibly small area of land, barely 15 acres, but it was also the only plot of land that was unspoiled. Because it was a museum area, it was constantly being repainted, so it always looked fresh, unlike the grimy towns and soiled streets that the greater population of the Dome housed. Morrigan wondered where they were going when he noticed that they had passed most of the houses, and were now heading up the hill towards the edge of the museum area.

"So where exactly are we headed?" Morrigan finally asked.

"Up there," said Cole, motioning to the old ShinRa Mansion, now a public attraction with guided tours every half-hour.

"Oh great…" muttered Morrigan under his breath. He hated the mansion. There was just something about it that made his skin crawl. He had only been there on two different occasions, but as far as he was concerned, he had been there more than enough. But it looked like he was going to be going for Round 3 in just a minute, as he and Cole neared the house.

When they finally got up to the house, they walked inside and the receptionist at the desk stopped them.

"I’m sorry," said the pudgy lady, pushing her giant glasses back onto her nose, as they were about to fall off, "You just missed the tour. The next one won't be for another 25 minutes. You’ll have to wait." She then turned back to her on-line game of Solitaire.

Morrigan shuddered. The museum, apparently, wasn’t the only thing here that made his skin crawl. The receptionist’s voice was so whiny that it sounded like it should belong to a hovercraft horn rather than a person.

"No wonder this place needs to be painted annually," Morrigan thought, "This lady’s voice probably peels it right off."

Cole turned to Morrigan.

"Your turn," he said.

Morrigan nodded, and walked up to the receptionist. He tapped the bell on the counter lightly, and she looked up at him. He could see himself in her glasses, his face bent out of proportion like he was looking in a funhouse mirror.

"Can I help you? I told you, you missed the tour. You’ll have to wait."

Morrigan shuddered quietly again. Her voice was worse up close.

"Look Miss…" he looked down at her nametag and saw that her name was Gretchen, "Gretchen, we don’t want a tour."

He took out his ID Badge and flipped it open in front of her face. He left it there long enough for her to read it clearly, then flipped it closed and put it back in his pocket.

"Now let us into the building" he instructed her.

"Well, sugar, why didn’t you just say so?" she asked, and pressed a button on the side of the desk, opening the steel doors that led into the museum. "Have a good one," she said, with a small wave.

Morrigan went pale, and gave here a half-hearted smile, and hurried into the doors. He looked back quickly to make sure they were shut, then turned forwards to see Cole smiling at him.

"What? WHAT?" Morrigan asked.

"Nothing," said Cole, still sporting a grin on his face. He looked around the giant room they were in, and his smile quickly vanished.

"I haven’t been here in I don’t know how long, and yet even though it has been remodeled hundreds of times since they discovered it, it still seems to retain the same foreboding presence, don’t you think?" Cole asked, turning to look at Morrigan.

"Oh yeah. So what do you say we make this a quick trip then, eh?" asked Morrigan, his eyes darting around the grand hall, as if waiting for some sort of monster to pop out of the long shadows.

"I couldn’t agree more. I have had some rather…ill experiences… in this mansion that seeing it brings to mind. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can go back to forgetting them."

"So what do you say that we just skip this whole thing entirely and go get, oh I dunno, a hotdog and then get some sleep," suggested Morrigan hopefully.

"Because what I’m going to show you cannot be prolonged any further," replied Cole. "Lest the entire human race be put in grave danger of being wiped out by the Planet."

"Again with the Apocalypse crap," thought Morrigan. He hoped that the people that he had told Malcolm to call got here soon, because Cole was starting to act strange again, and if he decided to go completely off the deep end, well, he just didn’t want to be the only other one around to witness it.

"We go this way," said Cole, walking towards the large stairs in front of them. Morrigan dubiously followed Cole, not quite sure if it was such a good idea, but decided that he would have to in order to avoid arising Cole’s suspicion.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Cole turned to his right and walked into the hall, then stepped up to the lower room, and walked into it, ducking under the rope barrier. He stood inside the doorway waiting for Morrigan. When Morrigan reached the inside, Cole walked away from him, towards a stone wall that was in the far corner of the room.

"What I have to show you is here," said Cole, sliding his hands over the stone surface, apparently looking for something.

"Like what? Don’t tell me that you think you know something about this old house that the scientists who spent three years combing about every nook and cranny of this god-forsaken house? How arrogant you must be to think so, Victor Cole." Morrigan said, then laughed lightly.

Cole was now pushing against an area of the wall. He turned to look at Morrigan, giving his a steely gaze that shut Morrigan up quickly.

"Shut up and give me a hand over here," said Cole, gritting his teeth. "This thing probably hasn’t been opened in a couple hundred years, so it’s a bit stuck!"

"Whatever," said Morrigan, shrugging. He figured that he’d just humor Cole until the White Men from the company arrived. He walked over to where Cole was, and propped himself up against the wall that Cole was still struggling with. Cole relaxed his muscles and turned to face Morrigan.

"On the count of three, we push."

"Alright," Morrigan agreed.

"Good. One…two…" began Cole.

"Although I don’t know what you expect to prove here…" began Morrigan.

"Three!" yelled Cole.

Cole and Morrigan both gave a shove against the wall at the same time, and the hidden passageway flew open. Morrigan, who was still shoving, was thrown into the passageway, almost rolling all the way down the spiral staircase.

"Whoa! Oh shit, that hurt!" yelled Morrigan, holding his left shoulder, where a large bruise was forming. "I think I sprained my shoulder" Morrigan whined, as Cole proceeded to walk calmly down the stairs.

"That’s one way to get down them," said Cole with a shadow of a grin on his otherwise dry face.

"Well don’t worry about me. Don’t rush to help me now. Please calm yourself. Don’t hurry and call any paramedics or anything. I’ll manage somehow," said Morrigan sarcastically, as he attempted to get up, using only his right arm. He winced in pain and gritted his teeth as a turn to the side stretched his shoulder ligaments, sending a wave of sharp pain up and down his arm. Finally, he used the momentum from his right arm to push himself up enough to catch his balance, and he righted himself, cradling his left arm’s shoulder. He winced in pain again, and turned to face Cole.

"You could have warned me, you know! I could’ve been killed!" Morrigan screamed, not particularly caring what Cole did to him at this point.

"Even if I had done that," began Cole smoothly, "Would you even have believed me?"

"Well I…uh…no." stammered Morrigan.

"Well, there you go. Now lets continue, shall we?" Cole suggested, walking down into the dark cave without waiting for a response.

"Well…uh! Hey, wait for me!" yelled Morrigan as he once again ran to catch up with Cole, his voice still echoing in the dank recesses of the cave that Cole had led him into.

Cole stopped briefly at a door off to the side of the cave. Morrigan caught up to him while he stood there, and Morrigan almost swore that he saw Cole shiver, despite the rather warm temperature down here.

"Cole? Are you okay?" Morrigan asked.

Cole, after hearing that Morrigan had caught up to him, straightened his posture and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

No…nothing. Just a bad feeling," said Cole. "Let’s continue."

Cole turned around and, without another word, continued to follow the cave trail, until he stopped at what appeared to be a large metal door, with a long circular hinge attached in the center. Cole turned back to face Morrigan.

"This is what I wanted to show you," said Cole.

"What, the door?" inquired Morrigan.

"Behind this door contains documentation created by the ShinRa and their top scientists, Professor Gast and Hojo, before the Jenova Project and Sephiroth were ever created."

"I’ll believe it when I see it," said Morrigan doubtfully.

"Very well. An acceptable response," said Cole, using all his strength to open the door, letting it fly open, to reveal a large, dusty and very dark room with cloth sheets over many of the items in the first room.

"I can’t see a damn thing," complained Morrigan.

Cole reached over and took hold of a large switch that was on the side of the wall near the door from the inside. It took a second, but the room soon lit up. At first, it was very dim, but then the lights finally flashed to life with the full power of the ancient generator kicking to life.

"Wow," said Morrigan letting out an audible gasp of amazement escape his lips as he stared at the contents of the room.

The room was a huge section of the cave that had been carved into a laboratory of some sorts. He looked around and saw that there was even a giant library in the hall that led to another room. He ran down the hall, and ran into the next room, which seemed to be some sort of an underground study room, complete with its own desk and library. Morrigan was speechless. He gazed in awe at a library so large that it would take a team of fifteen speed-reading scientists about one year to go through. He went over to the desk, and ran his fingers over the wood finish. He left four trails in the dust that coated the desk, and wiped them off on his pants. He opened one of the desk drawers and found even more piles of ancient ShinRa documentation. He leafed through them quickly, like an excited schoolboy. Most contained classification of ancient monsters and such, some pertaining to the Jenova Project, and an assortment of other things. He put them back into the drawer, making sure not to accidentally damage the ancient texts. He closed the drawer, prompting a cloud of dust to fly up into Morrigan’s face. The coughing fit that resulted caused Morrigan to yank on the drawer, making it pull out of the desk, and the papers to fly all over the room. Morrigan made several feeble attempts to grab the papers, but ended up falling on his stomach when he tripped over the drawer he had thrown. He got on his arms and knees and looked over the area. Although the room was now a mess of papers, they all seemed to be intact. Morrigan gave a sigh of relief and set about picking up the mess he had created. When he had finally collected them all, he looked around for the broken desk drawer. When he finally found it, he laid the pile of papers on the dusty desk and walked over to the broken, splintered pile of wood that used to be a drawer. He picked up some of the pieces and to him, the damage did not seem to be so bad. It looked, to him, as though the only real substantial damage had been caused to the base of the drawer. He picked it up and examined the bottom part of the base. It seemed to be broken into about three large pieces, and the rest were just inconsequential splinters and such. He gave it a small shake, to see if he could get any more pieces out, but all he heard was a dull clunk as something rather large banged up against the side of the busted up drawer. Upon further inspection, Morrigan discovered that the bottom was merely a cover, hiding the unknown contents that lay on the real bottom. Morrigan hurriedly pried apart the remaining wood, uncaring of the few splinters that he received in the process, only caring about what was inside the hidden compartment. Finally, the fruit of his labors fell from the twisted pile of wood he held suspended in the air, and to the floor with a dull thud and a cloud of dust and splinters.

Morrigan abandoned the pile of wood in favor of the new discovery. It appeared to be a medium-sized black leather book, with a plastic ShinRa logo in the corner.

Morrigan opened it carefully, unsure of what to expect. To his amazement, it was some sort of journal. Morrigan’s eyes lit up with glee. Perhaps it had belonged to Hojo or maybe even President ShinRa. Morrigan’s eyes lit up at the thought. How praised he would be for such a discovery. He leafed through a few of the pages, looking for a passage that would identify the author. Finally, he found a passage that read- the failure…the ex-Turk…the fire cat…they are all against me. They fight to stop me and my plan from becoming a reality. But I am stronger then they are. I will crush them if they interfere again; Or else I am not… the Great Sephiroth!

Morrigan could not believe what he was holding. It was the personal journal of Sephiroth himself. This was a monumental discovery alone; not to mention what else was to be found in this veritable cornucopia of knowledge. It was a golden fountain that overflowed with treasure, and it was all his. The one last thing that existed in the world that could possible put the discovery of the Ancient City Malcolm’s team had discovered to shame, and put Morrigan in the spotlight for the rest of his illustrious life. For a minute, he realized that Cole might want to share the limelight and that he might need to get rid of him, but then he realized that it would be unnecessary because if Cole wanted the fame, he would have already made his discovery public.

"This is too perfect," laughed Morrigan to himself. Then he stopped, and stood up.

"Speaking of Cole, where the hell did he go off to?" thought Morrigan. He stuffed the journal into his jacket pocket and wandered back down the hall, looking for Cole. What he found instead was the first room fully restored to its original form. Cole had been busy. The lab station looked fully operational, and in very good condition. He wandered over to take a look at it. The extremely dated computers were fully operational, and the chemicals that surrounded the station looked fully preserved as well. He looked down at what he assumed to be an examination table. He gave it a closer look, and saw that there were dark patches on the steel slab.

"Blood stains," said Cole, making a sudden appearance behind Morrigan that made him jump.

"Aaugh!" cried Morrigan. He spun around to see Cole staring back at him. Morrigan gave him a once over. Despite the way he was acting, he looked a wreck. His hair was knotted and messy, his clothes were wrinkled, and his eyes looked bloodshot and baggy. But Morrigan was too upset to care about that right now.

"Don’t do that!" he yelled. "You could have given me a heart attack."

"My apologies."

"Well…just don’t do it again. Now what did you say about this examination table?"

"Not an examination table…a torture rack," said Cole so quietly that Morrigan just barely caught it.

"What?" asked Morrigan.

"This was the temporary laboratory of Professor Hojo, before he became a professor, before his experiments with Jenova. This was where the mad Hojo preformed his diabolical experiments."

"What are you babbling about? Hojo was a genius!" cried Morrigan.

"He was not a genius!" roared Cole. "He was a maniac who never should have been born. Professor Gast, his mentor, was a genius, but Hojo was just plain cruel."

"I will listen to no more of your rubbish," said Morrigan turning away. "In fact, it’s about time that I did this…" he said, taking out his cel-phone. He flipped it open with much difficulty, as he was using only one hand, and he pushed a button and it automatically dialed a number.

"Yeah… uh-huh…he’s right here. C’mon and get him," said Morrigan, then flipped it shut and returned it to his pocket.

Then all of a sudden, five men in white suits ran in and grabbed Cole. Cole, in a surprising display of strength, picked two of them up and threw them into each other and they fell to the ground unconscious. Cole then made a dash for the exit, but the remaining men tackled him to the ground and slapped a pair of electromagnetic cuffs onto his hands and feet, immobilizing Cole immediately. All at once, he stopped struggling and turned to face Morrigan, giving him a look that made Morrigan wish that there were more guards present. As they started to drag Cole outside the room and into the cave, Cole finally spoke.

"Robert Morrigan you have made a terrible mistake. The planet is dying, and so are we. I gave you all this in hopes that you would see the bigger picture, and become a hero for the people. I…uh…" Cole was cut off by a blow to the head from one of the more bulky guards.

‘Haven’t you heard?" Morrigan asked the unconscious Cole as he was dragged out of sight. "All the heroes are dead." With that, he turned and walked back into the library, leaving the esoteric Cole in the hands of the White Men from the Company’s insanity ward.