I freaking love the book Catch-22. It's the best. The absolute best. And honestly, I wanted to do a little bit with the story, but I can't touch Heller, so I took a different route, through Shin-ra...

Let Others Wage War

Reno liked his partner, Rude. Rude was as solid as a continental glacier and just as steady, pushing and sliding his way through life at a measured pace, morphing and reforming everything surrounding him so he wouldn't have to change one goddamned iota of his own character. Reno liked Rude a hell of a lot more than he liked his previous partner, who was crazy.

"You're crazy, yo," Reno said bluntly.

"You're just saying that because you're crazy." He took a swallow of beer as he peered at Reno through lowered lids. "Or do you think it's normal to want to die for some poor bastard's corporation?"

Reno returned the man's piercing gaze with contempt he only saved for people who called him suicidal and idiotic in the same breath. "Hey, I never said I wanted to die for it."

"But that's just the point. That's not your choice to die, is it? It's purely circumstance. Coincidence. Fate. You could probably live forever if you tried, only you're stuck dying for some poor bastard's corporation. Do you even like working for the Turks?"

Reno thought about those statements hard because he had never thought about those statements before. It wasn't very often that he risked his life for ShinRa, though he supposed he did every once in awhile. But did that mean that he was going to die? No, of course not. He'd been through the training. He knew what to do, when to do it. "But Turks are some of the most well-trained elites in this sorry city. ShinRa's second-to-none."

His partner grimaced. "Are you saying ShinRa's reputation will save you from a stray bullet?"

"I'm saying that ShinRa will always come out on top."

"I don't give a damn about ShinRa! I'm talking about you and me! Who's going to guarantee that we come out on top?"

"You're crazy," repeated Reno. He then finished his whiskey, because he was beginning to worry that his dickhead of a partner wasn't actually crazy at all, and the last thing he wanted to do was be afraid to go on missions for ShinRa, who paid him well and took good care of him. Or, he thought they took good care of him, but if they were trying to kill him, then they were certainly doing a shit job of it. "You're crazy," Reno repeated. This time, his voice quivered as much as his resolve.

"No, I'm making sense," his partner argued. "ShinRa is trying to kill us. Why else would they send us on these suicide missions?"

Reno heaved a sigh. "Well, what if every ShinRa employee felt that way, huh?"

"Then I'd be a damned fool to feel any differently."

Mutely, Reno stared at his partner. Yossarian was his name. A bizarre name at that, but Reno thought it fit, since Yossarian himself was bizarre.

Yossarian was his ex-partner now, ever since he had complained of a pain in his liver that wasn't quite jaundice and escaped to the ShinRa ward, where he was under constant scrutiny and care and loved every moment of it. Reno, in the meantime, was promptly assigned his steadfast rock of a partner and liked him immediately. Except when Rude was trying to kill him.

"I said right, you bastard, right, right, right!" Tires skidded, and Reno was plastered to the door in the backseat. "Is this as fast as you can fucking go?"

Rude grumbled mutinously under his breath, but the car sped up. Reno pressed his face to the rear window. "They're still following us! Hard left, here! Left, damn it!" The car obediently swerved, toppling the redhead in the other direction. "Now right! Faster!"

"Why the hell are we doing this? That bastard's the target! Just shoot him!"

"Shut up and drive the goddamned car, Rude! I said right!"

Reno knew the men in the other car were trying to kill him because they began shooting at him the moment he opened fire. He also knew that Yossarian was right—Reno had been the crazy one. He had thought that everything would be fine when ShinRa was in charge, but he'd been shot in the leg one day by some prick on the streets who barely even knew how to hold a gun. And while Reno helplessly clasped his hand over the wound to staunch the bleeding, he felt each pulse of his heart through the gaping mutilation seep effortlessly through his fingers, and he knew—he fucking knew—that if he lost any more blood, he could die. Right there, in the fucking ShinRa ward at the age of twenty-eight, simply because he was a victim of circumstance.

Yet the employees in the ward asked him asinine questions like what had happened and dabbed ineffectually at each surge of Reno's life as it dribbled down the leg of his pants. He caught a glimpse of Yossarian that day, still in for his not-quite-jaundice. The man nodded, as solemn as Reno had ever seen him.

That was when Reno discovered that everyone in ShinRa was trying to kill him. Everyone in the entire fucking world was trying to kill him.

And if he wanted to live any longer, he'd have to get the hell out of there.

Now.

He bent his head for a quick prayer: "Okay, God. It's you and me. Right?"

Of course, there wasn't an answer. He was probably in on it, too, that Bastard.

Fuck it, he thought vehemently, and he surged forward, past the startled shouts of the witless attendents, through the window in the ward, glass shattering, and out into the frigid Midgar air.

The moral of the story? Read Catch-22. And review, of course.