Author's Note: Before I begin there is a few 'thank yous' I would like to say. Firstly to my friend and fellow Squinoa author Dark Raion, for letting me adopt this story from her. This first chapter is a mixture of both Raion's writing and mine. I hope that I will do her justice this, and that she doesn't mind that I re-wrote things and cut and pasted the hell out of this chapter!

Also a big thank you to Carie Valentine for Beta reading this, and offering so many helpful prompts and corrections.

Disclaimer: I do not own FF8.

Chapter 1 'Beginnings'

The building stood, a misshapen monster cloaked in the black of night before him. Weeds tumbled like leafy waterfalls from the cracks in the sides and the stone had long since begun to crumble away beneath the passage of years. Still puddles of water and mildew gave the scent of decaying civilization, the only notion that such a withered place like this could ever stand for. The air took on a gray tinge as if storm clouds had drifted towards the ground. Without the unkempt weeds and grass the scene could have been viewed in black and white and it would have made no difference. If a building could die then this was rotting.

He wasted not a single second rushing through the jagged doorframe formed by torn and twisted steel and found himself face to face with a ten-foot wall. Only a hole too small for him to fit through presented itself as a doorway; the old one now blocked off by bent, rusted pipes. No, it would take much too long to clear it away. Instead he backed up a few paces and launched himself forward, leaping straight up the wall as no normal human could ever do. His booted foot made brief contact with the wall near the top, propelling him over. He landed with crushing force; the concrete beneath him cracking with a loud, terrible echo.

It was then that he heard it, a muffled whimpering near the back. He moved toward it with swift caution, weary of hidden traps or surprises as he guided himself over fallen two-by-fours and other debris with utmost precision, as though the nearly complete darkness was not at all different to him than broad daylight.

His ears picked up the slightest movements made, and he could tell it was no imposing enemy he faced. No, it was small and helpless. He rounded the wall it had chosen to hide behind, that it was now cowering against, unknowingly giving off faint and high-pitched squeaks like that of an animal trapped in the bowels of blood-freezing fright.

It, a child, forced his eyes open and stared up at his hunter, wondering not for the first time what terrible things he'd done to be worthy of these kinds of punishments. A child of the street, he'd been pillaging food and scraps of cloth from an alleyway when he'd chanced upon them. They stood just on the other side of a chain link fence that sectioned off an old warehouse, talking amongst themselves in quiet whispers never meant for his ears. A few of them were dressed in long white coats, a few others in business suits. A short distance away, a white van was parked, along with an expensive looking car he didn't know enough about to identify. The words they spoke he didn't really understand, but it was of little consequence. They saw him, turning sharp and unforgiving glares upon him when he accidentally knocked a trash can over.

He had scrambled to get away, hoping they would let him alone but knowing enough of the world not to trust in this hope. He ran for the nearest place, this dilapidated building that he now realized would be his final sanctuary, and it wasn't long into his exodus when he heard the heavy footsteps following behind him.

Looking up at his pursuer, the child shuddered in terror, eyes blurring with tears of a terrible dread that took his heart in any icy iron grip and sought to crush it. He couldn't see much of the man, just bits and pieces illuminated by moonlight pouring in through the cracks. What stood out to him, what turned his bones to lead and his heart to thick sludge with a childish fear of unknown night monsters were the eyes; narrowed in heated rage or hatred, they glowed at him with fierce blue fire, the most sickly blue light imaginable. What was it that chased him here? Simply a phantom or spite-filled ghost, or perhaps a creature born of shadows that sought out new prey with the neon azure embers shining above its cruel, twisted scowl?

It didn't matter, he realized, watching the empty black barrel fall to obstruct his view of those nightmarish eyes. He closed his own eyes, and holding his breath, awaited the inevitable...

He sat up in bed with a start, sweat pouring off his body as it was wracked with an overflow of horror and pain and irrefutable guilt. It burned inside him, seemed to scorch every part of his soul until his own eyes welled with the threat of tears. Unable to endure it, his mouth parted in preparation for some kind of animalistic cry when, just as suddenly as the feelings had come upon him, they were gone. The memory of how it felt faded quickly as well, until he scoffed at himself for getting so riled up over something so meaningless as a dream. He couldn't understand at all what had caused such a violent reaction.

Turning to the clock next to his bed, he saw that he still had two hours left before he needed to be up. Sleep felt beyond his reach now, and he knew he wouldn't be hungry until it was time to eat. Instead of settling back into the now clammy sheets for a hundred and twenty minutes of staring into darkness, he climbed to his feet, stretched his muscles and wandered over to the window.

Below cars sped along the black paved streets, and neon-lit buildings towered over the masses, standing in bitter defiance of the sky. It was brilliant, electric with a life of its own, a gorgeously unique unification of the common. Yet, beneath the artificial glow cast into the night sky where countless numbers of people struggled to tell their own tales, he knew he was different from all of them, an individual in ways that they might never be. It was a strange kind of hope, or comfort, a feeling that seemed to trickle through the cracks of some invisible wall. It was only in the earliest or latest hours that he could feel any sort of self-satisfaction, even when pain and remorse had been stripped away. As the vivid lights died away, burned into oblivion by the rising sun, these feelings began to fall away from him as well, and for a brief second, for just the tiniest moment, he felt a lament for the loss of the night which he thrived on, before he once again knew nothing more of the enigma called emotions.

Traveling to the compound always began in the same way: a car would arrive with yet another faceless driver sitting behind a dark screen partition, stopping directly outside of his home. The morning would then proceed in the usual fashion of a silent and smooth drive; not even an uneven road surface could disturb the blandness. He stared out of the window at the traffic they passed, no match for the dark company car with the excessively powerful engine. They cruised past the brightly coloured inferior machines like a huge scurrying beetle, its black shell shining in the sun like spilt oil.

Although the day may have begun in the same fashion as most, at the entrance of the familiar building he was heading to, the comparisons would end. Today something more out of the ordinary was happening. He was rarely invited into the laboratories in the deep underground warren of the facility. The reason he had been given was, the doctors were afraid that something might trigger some unpleasant memories. He had not ventured to tell them yet that he was managing to find plenty of unpleasant memories on his own.

In stark contrast to the bustling city, the compound seemed a place of death for all its sterility and bland cleanliness. It stood imposingly, towering over the heads of those on the ground below. It had been designed to look like an old country estate with a carved plaque above the door displaying its name 'Esthar Cybernetics Corporation'. Built from strong grey stone of the surrounding area, it had scarred its way onto the sounding green countryside. A large electric fence ran the perimeter, complete with barbed wire on the top. It was unclear whether this was to keep people in or out. Trees had been cut down to make room for the car park, as if nature also had to keep its distance beyond the fence. Behind it, expensive cars showed the wealth of the company, regimentally lined up. There was nothing natural here.

But that was all the public ever saw. The admin staff also only knew this part of the building. The real compound ran deep underground and was protected by armed personnel. Very few people went below the ground floor, including Squall. But today was different.

The main building, which he was most familiar with, was for admin and for the information department. The lower levels were divided into two sides, one for actual surgical procedures, and one for the research lab in which tests were run and procedures were observed. Stepping into the lift he used his ID to reach the lowest floor and found himself remerging into a bright white corridor. The research lab to which he had been summoned was just beyond this corridor behind the main doors.

As he walked he could hear the incessant whirring of a ventilation machine, blowing stale cold air over his head. Sometimes he marveled at the complexity of such a seemingly simple thing as this machine. It wouldn't know, couldn't know what an important job it was doing, keeping them all alive in this tomb underground. It was only a machine.

He nodded at the man waiting for him and stared through the large glass window into the lab. The tiles on the walls were gleaming white and reflecting the harsh lights back towards the centre of the room. Within its confines were a number of people, none of them there by accident.

The shoes on the feet of the white coated doctors made almost no noise on the polished floors, almost gliding back and forth with light steps. These people didn't need to make noise to show their importance. They were the most medically qualified men and women in the country. They moved with self-assurance and a confidence in their work that was clear to every observer. With their heads held high not a single worry showed itself on their faces. So comfortable amongst their complex world of science and human anatomy that they barely needed to speak. Almost as if they could read each other's minds, they passed surgical instruments to one another without pause.

He stood next to a shorter, dark-haired man also in a white coat and glasses, staring through the window where a procedure was taking place. It was the first time that they had been here together since he'd been the one passed out on that cold steel table.

A man he'd never seen before laid there now, his chest opened and exposed to the outside. On a nearby table several carefully constructed limbs were laid out. A few of them already fitted with the narrow tubes that would serve as blood vessels and wires so thin that they were almost impossible to see to become nerve pathways.

Pieces of a rib cage made in a milky white, space age plastic was laid alongside them. The collection looked like a wreckage of a car crash, which had been wiped clean of all blood. Morbidly placed on display in a museum of human suffering.

The man's head had been shaved for better access to the brain. Along the right side of his scalp ran a thin red line, from where a scalpel had sliced through the skin. Squall knew that the scar would fade in time, just like ones that adorned his own body. Unconsciously he traced a scar on the back of his right hand, feeling its raised surface under his cold fingers.

They had covered him with a white sheet, pulled down to the waist. As if everything had been done to strip this man of his identity, he had even been stripped of his dignity. His left arm had been removed, severed from the elbow down. Either from accident or design, Squall couldn't tell. All he knew was that the man would soon awake to find a new limb attached to his adapted body; the realistic flesh on top of it always cooler than the rest of him.

He watched the scene with a critical eye, his eyes flicking to the machines monitoring signs of life on the young man. They bleeped every few minutes as the statistics changed. The white clad bodies swarmed around the patient, speaking to one another behind surgical masks. Of their faces, all he could see were hard eyes, focused and concentrating. The people inside had completely forgotten that anything existed outside of this room, so consumed by what they were achieving. They would work until exhaustion won through, and then they would be replaced by a new team.

He caught sight of his own refection in the glass and looked away. Sometimes the differences between himself and others reflected back only too clearly. His frame and his build neither average, nothing like the man beside him. Nothing about his reflection was soft, but angular and sharp. Even down to his hands, were his knuckles seemed to want to slice through their skin coverings and the veins were raised up in rivers of darkish blue. If he pulled up his sleeve he'd see them snaking their way up his arm back to the heart, straining against muscle, built up from years of lifting weights.

"As you can see, all goes well here," the man next to him reported. "In a few months' time you may very well have a partner."

"I don't need one. I'm perfectly capable on my own, Cid."

The older man chuckled slightly. "I'm well aware. I did design your mechanics after all. But you'll have to get used to the idea that there will be others like you, Squall. This is the future of humanity, you know. All my research will pay off someday, and this procedure will become commonplace. In the mean time, we need money to fund the project..."

"Another mission?" Squall wondered aloud. "Or were you hoping to set up some kind of charity event this time?"

Cid shook his head. "Watch your tone boy."

"Yes sir," Squall replied immediately without any thought to fuel the reaction.

Cid had one of those kindly faces, clean-shaven and creased around the eyes from years of smiling. Plump from having a comfortable life. It was the kind of face that inspired trust in most. For Squall it only reminded him that he would never have a comfortable life. That would never be his future. The smooth skin on his own face would never lose its youthful colour, nor would it crinkle and betray a lifetime of emotions.

"I don't like to use the product of my successful research for money-making purposes, however... It cannot be helped, as you're aware. It's costing an awful lot of money to fund this project. We're attempting a different method of integrating the artificial nerve pathways to the brain without resulting in damage to the hippocampus or other sections of the brain." Cid sighed deeply. "With more research, perhaps we can reverse the damage all ready done to you."

"It's not necessary. Now, about this mission?"

"Ah, of course. It's really quite simple, should be no problem for you. The President of Galbadia has requested a bodyguard for his daughter, who seems to be on someone's hit list now. All you have to do is stick close to her and keep her from harm until the government investigators can find the culprits."

A baby-sitting job?

"I know this probably seems like some kind of baby-sitting job to you, but it's a high-paying position, and should be relatively easy for someone of your considerable skills. Besides," Cid paused and chuckled slightly, jabbing the taller young man with his elbow, "I hear Ms. Heartilly is a good-looking young lady."

"The President of Galbadia's name is Caraway," Squall stated, ignoring Cid's more light-hearted remark.

What do I look like, some hormone driven teenager?

"Well, it seems she and her father don't quite get along... She's taken on her mother's last name instead. Now, you are to board a plane to Deling City in two hours' time. From Deling City International Airport, you will be driven by Caraway's personal chauffer to his mansion where you'll receive further orders. You leave here immediately. Understood?"

"Yes sir. I'll do my best."

"Good, dismissed. The car is waiting for you out front, as usual."

With a nod in response, Squall left the older man's side and followed the twisting corridors he'd come to know so well until he passed out through the sliding glass door. Outside, fresh green shrubs lined the side of the building, and carved stone benches were set next to the entrance, surrounded by small plots of flowers. It seemed terribly cheerful for a place so quiet and forlorn and void of real life on the inside.

As he followed the sidewalk out to the parking lot, he felt eyes upon him and immediately turned toward the source. Through one of the windows in a building that even he was restricted from, a blonde haired woman gazed down at him. A sorrowful kind of longing painting her features as she looked at him with some kind of desperate hope that he would come and ease whatever aching she expressed in her eyes. He promptly turned away. He had no time for a stalker's admiration when there was a mission at hand.

At the window several stories above, she removed the glasses from her face and rubbed the bridge of her nose as if to fight off some non-existent headache before peeking through her lashes again at the man below and pressing her hand to the icy glass.

"Of course you'd turn away," she murmured, not surprised or angry, only wistful in her tone. "I know everything about you... and you don't even know I exist."