There was a loud thumping noise.

It took Lazard several seconds to realize that it was him hitting his head against his desk. Repeatedly.

It had been the pain that had clued him in.

One second he'd been receiving a report from Tseng that had detailed how he, Fair, and an infantryman named Strife who'd obviously lied about his age in order to enlist had been stranded in a frozen Genesis clone infested wasteland after their chopper crashed, and the next he was receiving a report from another Turk that stated that Fair was vacationing in Costa Del Sol alone.

Nobody could figure out how the hell he'd gotten there.