Wolfe Bite Chapter 15
By Captain Gaul
“Yes! I’ve got it!”
“What?” Commander Borscht walked over to the computer the detective was sitting in front of. “What have you got?”
“I’ve finished the trace on the drug they put in Princess Nadia. It matches a drug commonly used in the Kingdom of Zeal as an instant cure for insomnia.”
“Why the hell would the Kingdom of Zeal want to get involved with this?”
“Crono made some enemies in Zeal, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but they’re all dead. Before he made an enemy of them, they wouldn’t want to kill him, and after he made enemies of them, they didn’t have time to call in a hitman.”
“Still, we can definitely track this drug to circa 12000 BC. We’ll have to let Captain Gaul know when he gets back.”
.
“Well, Mr. Gaul, I just have a couple of questions for you.”
“Yes?”
“You know what lifestream is?”
“No….”
The President described, in great detail, the workings of mako and lifestream. How the earth contained a kind of spiritual energy, existing in all beings, and the spirit’s returning to the earth on the body’s death. How some of this massive quantity of spiritual energy could be extracted and put to powerful uses in everyday life. And how, with the right technology, you could rule the world with this stuff.
“It exists throughout the universe, I know. It must exist in your world, too.”
“If it does, I don’t know about it.”
“Hasn’t anybody ever even tried to tap it? Were there any ancient kingdoms that used a mysterious power source?”
“The only ancient kingdom is the Kingdom of Zeal. And they did have a mysterious power source, but they tapped the energy of a nigh-immortal subsurface being named Lavos. Hence, Lavos Energy.”
“…Never heard of it. So no one’s ever tapped the lifestream in your world?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Incredible….” The President’s hard eyes seemed to mist for a moment. “Anyway, thank you for your time. You are free to leave.”
“Oh, sir?”
“Yes?”
“How do I get back to my world?”
“…Reno left the appropriate device on the desk in the corner. A bright fellow like you ought to be able to figure out how it works.”
As the President left the room, Gaul examined the device. He decided the President was being sarcastic, as it had a single, large, red button. It looked similar to the device Ray had carried back when he had first seen him. He could leave at any time…but he wasn’t ready yet. He left the room and asked the receptionist a quick question, got his answer, then took the elevator down.
Shortly, Gaul found the Wall Market arms dealer, and managed to talk the shopkeeper into accepting a ‘Chocobo’ materia in exchange for about three hundred clips of Rorynex ammunition. Both men were satisfied they had gotten the better end of the deal, and Gaul walked over to the bar Sam had given him directions to earlier.
“Hey Captain! Come on, have a drink!”
“Steve! Sam! How’s it going?”
“Not too bad. Here, pull up a chair.” Sam looked over at Steve, who was using all of his energy to keep his head propped up with his elbows.
“Sorry I took so long gettin’ out.”
“Yeah man, Steve is long gone. Still, I got at least six or seven left before I pass out. So they let you off the hook?”
“They decided that what I did to Ray wasn’t worth the time, energy, and cash of keeping me in a jail cell for more than a couple hours.”
“Heh.” Sam knocked another one back. “Ray is such a loser. Like,” he poured himself another glass. “Like, did you know they recently had him reprimanded for gun-running?”
“No, I hadn’t heard that.” Gaul sampled his beverage cautiously. It tasted about as strong as the soda he had here last time—in other words, many times stronger than he was used to.
“Yeah. He was arranging the shipment of Rorynexes and Imperators to some place called ‘The Keep of the Elements’ in some wacko country called ‘Zeal’.” Gaul spat out his drink onto the bar and started coughing.
“Hey! Hey! You’re gonna clean that, buddy!”
“It’s okay, Tifa, he’s with me.”
“Then you’ll clean it.”
Sam shrugged and roughly patted Gaul on the back. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that name means something to you.”
“You could say so.”
“You ain’t gonna leave yet, are ya?”
“Well…I suppose one last round won’t hurt.”
“That’s the spirit. Tifa, could we get a couple of Schlitz here, please?”
After they finished that round, Gaul got up to leave. Before he got a couple of steps further, Sam fell back onto the floor. Gaul turned around, concerned. “Um…Miss…er, Tifa? Is he…?”
The woman behind the counter leaned over and peered down at the two sleeping off-duty Shinra men. “Nah, don’t worry. They do this every night we don’t have meetings. You go on, I’ll put your drinks on his tab.”
The captain thanked her and left the building. Shortly afterwards, he pressed the button on the strange device, and let the purple light engulf him.
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