I dreamed of Jorin again that night.

We were in a huge, cavernous room. The floor beneath our feet was polished and smooth, and lined with the symbols of Yevon. And all along the massive, concave walls were people sleeping in what looked like bubble-like capsules. A pedestal floated in the air above us, and a silhouetted figure in a long, flowing robe stood on it, looking down at us. "You want them?" he asked. "They are here."

And suddenly he was not alone on the pedestal. My mom and dad were with him. "Mom! Dad!"

"But they are not here for you," the figure echoed.

Mom and dad looked up at me then, with eyes I didn't know. Eyes that terrified me. Pale, gleaming white eyes filled with none of the love for me that should have been there. Filled with nothing but evil.

And looking around me, I began noticing that all the people suspended on the walls were looking at me with the same eyes. And then they were moving. The capsules they were suspended in suddenly seemed immaterial, as the people were moving right through them, floating through the air toward me. Their arms were outstretched, clawing fingers reaching to grab, eyes that were wild for me.

Jorin grabbed my arm. "Come on!" he shouted, and we started running. We ran through ornate, polished halls, trying to outrace the angry screams of the people behind us. I looked behind me, seeing that they were still gaining; they were even coming through the walls to get at us. But still we ran… until we found they were in front of us too. They were coming from every direction, leaving us nowhere to run.

These people were innocent; somehow I knew that. They were victims, people who had been uprooted from their homes, who didn't ask for any of this. But now their minds were gone, and they now had no purpose except for destruction. And now that purpose was directed at me.

Jorin pulled me to my knees, wrapping his arms around me. I suddenly felt safer somehow. I knew it was stupid, but if I had to be ripped apart, being in his arms at that moment made it not seem so bad.

…

Moments passed with nothing happening. Slowly I opened my eyes, and began to lift my head. The crowd around us had become motionless, except for seeming to shimmer like a fog. It was like they'd become just images on a sphere screen. And standing in front of us was that boy in the purple hooded vest, the one I dreamed of before. "It's coming," he said.

I think that was when I woke up.

For two days after that, nothing happened. Shinra ran all the tests he could think of on that crystal. He told us that there was definitely some kind of signal being sent out from it, but nothing he did could identify what it was doing. And in the meantime, we just kind of cruised aimlessly around Spira, having no other leads to go on. So we passed the time however we could; I sparred with Paine, Vidina and I practiced our blitzball moves, and Farru and Nadaleen continued sneaking around and making out when they thought we weren't looking.

I started acting a little less hostile and a little friendlier towards Jorin. I began catching myself smiling when he walked into a room, and admiring myself in the mirror with the necklace he gave me. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to him from the moment he saved my sorry butt in Luca, but I was finally becoming okay with that. Maybe he wasn't such a scumbag after all. Maybe I didn't have to be ashamed of how I got tingles whenever he smiled at me.

On the third day I finished practicing with Vidina and decided to head to the airship's lounge for some refreshment, and found Jorin relaxing at the bar. "Hiya, klutz," he said. Hey, that's another thing: I'd even stopped being annoyed at him calling me that. In fact, I was starting to find it kind of endearing.

"Hi, Jorin."

"That's it?" he said as I sat down next to him. "Just 'hi?' No insults? No threats of violence? I think you're losing your edge, klutz."

"Oh, is that what you think, scum breath?" I said with a friendly grin. "I could always fix that."

"Why don't you?"

"Okay…" I leaned in and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm gonna beat you 'til your hands are so busted you'll never pick pockets again."

He looked back at me, raising an eyebrow… and finally choked out laughing. "What was that? That was pitiful!"

I felt myself turning red with embarrassment. He was absolutely right; I hadn't even tried with that.

"I think I know what you need," he said, getting to his feet and moving behind me.

"Yeah? What's that?"

He leaned in close to my ear. "Incentive."

I watched him as he started walking away. Then he suddenly turned back to me, and held up my crystal necklace. "Missing something?"

My fingers immediately went to my neck, where the necklace had been just a moment ago. He had snatched it off my neck without me even noticing. "Hey, give me that back!"

"You want it? Come and get it."

Oh, I came to get it alright. I launched myself at him, piledrivering him to the floor and proceeding to wrestle with his arms as he kept the necklace constantly just out of my reach. "You give me that back, or I'll cut those sticky hands of yours off and throw you off the ship!"

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" he beamed. "That's my klutz!"

We kept wrestling like that, me futilely trying to grab the necklace back from him, until he rolled us over. Suddenly I was lying on the floor with him on top of me, staring into my eyes, and both of us stopped moving. All I could do was stare back at him, hearing nothing but the pounding of my own heart. His head began slowly descending toward me, and I realized my own was rising to meet him…

"Get a room already, guys."

We looked up to see Camall walking to the bar, watching us with an amused look. "It was bad enough when we only had one pair of lovebirds running around here."

I grimaced. "Get off me!" I barked, shoving Jorin aside and rising to my feet. I took a few steps away, then stopped, turned back and snatched the necklace from him. "Thank you very much."

"No use being coy, missy," Camall grinned, pouring himself a drink. "I see right through the both of you."

The intercom crackled and Murran's voice echoed through the room: "Everybody to the bridge!"

I didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved, glancing back at Jorin.

I began heading to the bridge, with Jorin close behind me, while Camall hung behind a moment to finish his drink. When we got to the bridge, Paine and Vidina were already there, and even though it was hard to tell under her trademark stoicism, I was pretty sure Paine looked concerned about something. Farru and Nadaleen showed up a few seconds later, with Camall not far behind.

"Did Shinra find something?" Farru asked. I thought it was unlikely, given that Shinra wasn't on the bridge with us.

"No, he hasn't," Paine said. "And we have another concern. I just spoke with Gippal. He told me he's been in contact with Nooj, and they've found that neither of them has heard from Baralai in months, and all their recent attempts to contact him have failed. As of right now, it seems nobody has any idea where he is."

"Do they think he's been abducted too?" Nadaleen said.

"The former praetor of New Yevon?" Vidina remarked. "That's awful convenient, ya?"

"The last time anybody reports to have seen him is when Roumsey took over as praetor," Paine said.

"Hey, if we're thinking what I think we're thinking," I said, "then this mess started way before what happened on Gagazet."

"Roumsey did more than just take over the group," Vidina said, "he got rid of the old boss."

"What are we supposed to do about this now?" Farru asked everyone. "Go back to Bevelle and make Roumsey tell us what he did with Baralai? Last time we tried that it didn't go so well."

"I don't want to go back to Bevelle," Nadaleen put in.

For a moment nobody said anything. Then all at once, Jorin turned and wordlessly walked off the bridge. "Hey, where are you going, pickpocket?" Camall asked him.

Jorin didn't say a word as the door closed behind him.

"Well that was odd," Farru said. "Even for him."

"Ah, forget him," Vidina said.

Ultimately none of us had any ideas. The only thing that had changed was that the mystery had deepened, and we still had no more clues aside from waiting on Shinra's analysis. I will say, though, that the way Paine looked right then… I'd seen her placid veneer disturbed before: when she brought us the news about Kimahri; when we saw the results of the attack in Luca; when we saw Rikku on Steel Island. But this was different.

As most of us started leaving the bridge, I decided to bring it up with the only two among us who I was fairly certain knew Paine as well as I did. "Hey, Vidina, Farru."

The three of us gathered in the corridor while Nadaleen and Camall went off in their own directions. "What's up, Riza?" Vidina asked me.

"Did you guys notice the way Paine looked in there?"

"Whaddya mean?" Vidina asked, looking puzzled.

"Yeah, I did," Farru nodded.

"It was like learning about Baralai disappearing really disturbed her," I said.

"Why shouldn't it?" Vidina said. "That wasn't exactly good news."

"In case you haven't noticed, Vidina," Farru said, "we haven't had a lot of good news lately, and none of it has made her look like that."

"Guys," I said, the wheels in my head starting to turn harder, "what do you know about this Baralai guy?"

"I don't know, I never met him," Farru said.

"I think Paine used to run with him and Gippal and Nooj back in the old Sin days, ya?" Vidina said.

"Do you think…" I began, still chewing on the thought that had entered my brain.

"What?" Farru said.

"Do you think there was something between her and Baralai? Like, intimately I mean?"

Farru and Vidina looked at each other. "For all we know, there could've been," Farru offered. "It's not like Paine would tell us if there was."

"If she was so close to the guy, don't you think she should've found out about him disappearing a long time ago?" Vidina put in.

"I don't know, I'm just grasping at straws here," I said.

"Well maybe if we just asked her…" Farru thought out loud.

"Uh, you do remember this is Paine we're talking about, right?" I said. "Last time I checked, prying into her past wasn't exactly the way to her heart."

"Then what do you want us to do?" Vidina asked.

Not for the first time that day, none of us could think of anything to say. After a long silence, I began marching back toward the bridge. "Hey, Riza!" Vidina called after me.

I got to the bridge to find that Paine had already left it. "Where's Paine?" I asked.

"Oh, she left to go find Shinra," Murran answered. "Looked like she had a few things to talk about with him."

I nodded and made my way to the elevator, heading down to the lower decks. I got to Shinra's workstation, to find that not only was Paine not there, but neither was Shinra. They must have been somewhere else on the ship, I figured, and thought I might as well go find them…

I stopped then, turning back to the workstation. Something seemed wrong. I stepped up to the console. His computer equipment looked like it was all together, and while I couldn't have even tried to guess what all of the machina he used was, it all seemed to be there… but something was missing. Something that should have been on that empty base, the one with the little red light in the middle, and the disconnected tubes lying around it…

…where the crystal should have been.

I ran. I ran all over the ship, checking all the rooms, finally finding Paine and Shinra talking with Camall in one of the lower lounges. "Riza?" Paine asked, on seeing me enter.

"Something wrong?" Camall said.

"Shinra," I panted, "where's the crystal?"

"What do you mean? It's at my workstation, isn't it?"

"No, that's what I'm saying. I was just there, and it's not."

Immediately everyone was on their feet and running for Shinra's workstation. I hurried behind them, arriving back at the workstation a few seconds after they did, seeing them observing the empty spot where the crystal was supposed to be. Shinra's hand went to his intercom button. "This is Shinra. Everybody report to my workstation now!"

Moments later the station was crowded up with our group plus all of the Al Bhed crew who didn't have their hands full flying the airship. "The crystal is gone," Shinra uttered, the accusatory tone in his voice barely concealed. "Where is it?"

We all looked around at each other, and then Farru spoke the inevitable two words that nonetheless made my heart drop into my stomach:

"Where's Jorin?"

Indeed, our resident thief and immediate most likely suspect was not among us. But he couldn't have taken it, could he? Not after the way he got it for us in the first place. Why would he steal it from us now?

Riza, since when did you become such a pushover? A pretty boy dazzles you with his smile, and you totally forget what a scumbag he always was?

All of us began fanning out, searching every corner of the ship. Several minutes later when we all met back up on the bridge, no one reported finding him, but one Al Bhed crewman reported something in Al Bhed that made Camall hang his head.

"What did he say?" I asked.

Camall lifted his head. "He said there's a glider missing. Jorin's gone."

I couldn't believe it. He did it! He really took it! Our only potential clue left, and he just took it!

"That sneaky, no-good, backstabbing dirtball!" Vidina shouted.

Vidina's rant didn't even come close to what I was thinking about him right then, my blood boilding and my clenched so hard I might have torn the skin of my knuckles. Every harsh and angry word I could think of ran through my mind, and when I ran out I made up a few new ones. I couldn't believe I ever had any fuzzy feelings for that bastard!

"Not to worry," Shinra said, moving to a computer console along the side wall. "I planned ahead." He pulled up a display and began running through maps and typing through the readouts.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"I planted a tracing device on the crystal just in case something like this happened."

"Then you know where he is?" Farru said.

"We passed over Mushroom Rock a little while ago," Shinra said. "He's on the Mi'ihen Highroad now, heading south toward Luca. Probably thinks that's the best place to hawk it."

"Then we know just where to find him," Vidina grinned eagerly, squeezing his fist.

"And when we do, I'm gonna wring his rotten neck until his eyes pop out and use them for marbles!" I spat.

Hey, he was right: a little incentive was exactly what I needed to make my threats better.