Final Fantasy VII: Reflections - Book 1: Descent

EIGHT

Just over a month after the train wreck and Mom's death, I slipped quietly into her office. I'd been back home for almost two weeks, seeing to Mom's funeral arrangements and the like after spending at least that long in the hospital. But it didn't feel like home anymore. It wasn't, not with Mom gone. I was still trying to sort through all her things, decide what to keep and what to give away. When I could manage it, that was. Sometimes the grief was just too much, and all I could do was sit there as the tears came again and again.

Today had been one of my better days, so I decided it was time for me to get off my ass and start digging into what happened. I'd had Cait sneak into the wreckage of the station for me to see what he could find while I was still laid up in the hospital. I had known that time had been of the essence since Shinra was surely going to do everything that they could to cover up the fact that the train wreck hadn't been an accident. And that included removing or altering any possible evidence proving it wasn't. Fortunately, Cait had gotten there first.

What he'd found had confirmed my suspicions. Charred fragments of wiring and explosive material in the wreckage and debris along with traces of blasting agent. I'd worked under Scarlet long enough to know the components of a bomb when I saw them, and the pictures Cait had shown me had been clear as day. This had been no freak accident. Not a chance. It was sabotage, no doubt about it.

Everything Cait had collected from the site of the train wreck—the remains of the bomb along with visuals of the blast patterns and where it must've originated from near the tracks—had been safely stored in a secure vault at the Shinra Building that only Reeve and I had access to. Until we could have everything analyzed by someone we could trust, it was too risky to let anyone else know about it.

I sat in Mom's chair and turned on her computer, hoping I'd find a clue on there about what had happened and what she had known. This was the first time I'd been in her office since her death, although I tried not to think about it. But it was always there in the back of my mind. I missed her so much. I still do.

She'd had her phone with her when she died, of course. It had been destroyed when the train had derailed. So there was no way I could use it to find the answers I was looking for. So that left her computer. Mom had always kept a lot of stuff on it from her work as head of Shinra's PR Division, but I hoped she had also made a backup of whatever files she had been taking to Sector 7 to get checked.

Scouring through her email, I froze when I spotted a message she'd received day of the Reactor 3 massacre. The timestamp read 9:47am. It had been sent less than an hour after the incident. I checked to see who the sender was, and my eyes widened when I saw the address. I read it again to make sure I wasn't seeing things:

aburrows429

Aria Burrows! The reporter from the Shinra Information Network News. The one who had told me the truth about the massacre and had been killed in a truck accident on her way back to the news station. But just before that, she had sent someone a copy of the unaltered security footage she'd obtained. I had never known who it was until now. And I could still hardly believe it. Mom was the one she'd sent it to! But why? I leaned forward and read the message to find out:

Amanda,

I don't have much time, so I'll get right to it. I've been monitoring the video feed from Reactor 3's security cameras like you asked me to. I think I understand now why you wanted me to do it. Something horrible's just happened there, and I've got it all recorded and stored on a secure server. You can access it with the code we agreed on earlier. Looks like you were right. You must've known something like this would happen.

Luckily for us, I know people who can hack into the reactor's security systems for me. I just hope that you and I can find a way to get the truth out there before Shinra comes down on us. I'll keep in touch, but I've got to go. I'll call you once I get back to the station, though. Be careful, okay? The server address is included just below this message. So get the footage checked as soon as you can. And stay safe.