Author's Notes and Miscellany: A revision of Midgar Nights. I had written it a long time ago and I've been wanting to re-write it for a while now. I'm so glad! Below I have a as a note, and so I'll explain it here. The Head says "We", but the literal translation is ware ware wa: the closest translation is "we the company", but it can even be translated as "the royal we". Yes, I'm incurably weird. Anyway, I do not own Final Fantasy VII and I have no aims to. And I have nothing to do with Square Soft, which is probably a mercy. Oh yes, I did snitch the title from a "Matantei Loki Ragnarok" chapter, because I loved it so much.
Have a Hardboiled Morning!
In the oppressive heat that hovered in a black cloud on Midgar, the streets were ribbons of artificial lights, and the sounds of traffic were as muted as a discordant lullaby. The buildings that hunkered over the milling people were like the dead: decrepit, rotting, silent. Few windows were open, even though the heat on the inside must have been far worse, but even worse still was the filthy turgid air that moved listlessly through the Midgar streets, humming itself to sleep with sobs. The lights that sporadically appeared across the buildings gave the city the appearance of a ghost-town, and all the surrounding inhabitants just residual memories from difficult times; no one wanted to be there, but limbo was better than hell.
In "the bad part of town" where the buildings were falling apart, with traces of their old grandeur, like an aging belle who kept bits and parts of her beauty alive, there were no lights. In the abandoned district, one block of buildings had lights, and the remaining seven were lost to the darkness that steadily crept into Midgar. In one dark window, a row of teeth glinted in the light of the streetlamp below as they clenched around the black metal barrel of a gun and loaded one bullet into the chamber. The black metal flashed as the gun was lowered to the window sill; a puff on a cigarette and a freak of the wind brought a face to the sniper. But it was pale and the eyes were sad, and it hardly looked like the face of a killer. The face disappeared like the other images of the city viewed from a moving vehicle; only there for a fleeting moment and pressed into your memory for only a second.
As joyful laughter passed beneath it, the gun changed positions, and the sight tracked a dark head as it passed. One spidery finger lifted and rested on the trigger. The gun roared.
"Wow, gang you nailed that one on the head!" The daily Midgar Mornings smacked against the table and slid four seats down before stopping to be fully visible. On the headlines were the words "Prominent Heir to Yamamura Corp. Murdered" and below that the picture, barely recognizable as a human head and shoulders; half of the skull was missing and some unidentifiable matter had leaked onto the pavement around it. The only commentary to meet this was a disgruntled "Ugh" from one young man who promptly slumped in his seat after eagerly straightening to see what the picture was.
"That's why we don't let you out unless it's a fighting mission." Murmured another man; cupping a hand to his mouth he lit a cigarette and flicked his tea-coloured hair from his eyes. Various responses similar to this one were echoed across the room from the thirteen inhabitants. The only ones silent were the young man subject of the talk and another who was similarly slumped in his seat. His warm brown eyes, shadowed by his ragged dark hair as they were, were fixed on the grainy black and white photo on the front of Midgar Mornings. As though caught in a daze, he extracted a pack of crumpled cigarettes from his breast pocket and put one of the black items to his lips. It was so natural and unperturbed, one would have almost thought her was untroubled by the success of the assassination. But, as he lifted a battered Zippo to the clove cigarette, his hand began trembling so badly that, in fear of the lighter being dropped and the room set alight, one of his co-workers took both items from him and lit them himself. The young man murmured thanks as the cigarette was pressed back into his lips before returning to his eerie state of calm.
"What's next." He had clasped his hands before his brow and was smoking with his eyes closed; they reopened when the next burst of chatter came.
"Ah? What's this? Aren't you going to ask for a promotion, Valentine? I would."
"Yeah, that was some motherfuckin' fucked up shit! Do it, do it!"
"What's next?" The tone, almost pleading, lead the rest of the members to silence as well. Coffee and donuts were passed around; the scene became so mundane one would never have guessed that unspeakable atrocities were born in this room. The Head of Administrative Research and Development of Shin-Ra cleared his throat before conducting the next line of business.
"This one is probably the biggest in the history of the ARD--."
"Oh fer fuck's sake, call us T.U.R.Ks. That's what we are after all, right, boys?" One of the members cut in, a spray of sprinkles and white sugar powder flying from his lips in his angry outburst. After a generally murmur of assertion, the Head continued.
"Yeah that reminds me: We're not allowed to call ourselves the TURKS while we're in the building. Orders from the top." After a general cry of outrage, the previous outspoken member was beaten to voicing his indignation by a smaller member.
"What? Why the fuck not? That's fuckin' ridiculous!"
"All they said was 'We can't have visitors thinking of us as anything other than our carefully crafted public image. Please keep impromptu nicknames to a minimum. Regards, Blah Blah Blah.' What I'm sayin' is just call us ARD while we're here. Anywhere else is fine to call us the TURKs. Capice?" The Head watched as the members, all barely more than children and no older than thirty, settled down and made a second pass of coffee and donuts around the room before continuing. "Anyway, as I was saying, the Science Research Department found some insane power levels coming out from somewhere in the ocean. It's faint, but they figure it's a distance away, so they're going to search for it. And, not being a fighting folk, we need to tag along to give them some protection." There was finally a snort from the previously silent Vincent Valentine; his still looked like a mask and the hand that lifted the coffee mug to his mouth to take a fortifying sip trembled.
"Whatever. I know for a fact that one of the newest interns, when he's not high off some unnatural concoction, is an expert marksman. And even though they may appear to be helpless, they're scions of devils. We're probably just cannon fodder." The Head rolled his eyes and was about to ask Vincent to keep his conspiracy theories to himself when a new voice answered.
"I'd be offended if that weren't true. You're way too smart for your own good, kid." It was as if some cosmic entity was laughing entirely too hard at the irony in its own joke when the TURKs turned and saw what could only have been Valentine's mad young scientist. He looked more like a scarecrow than a man, with his impeccably white lab coat too long and loose on his small slender frame. His skin might have been naturally a sickly sallow, but it only served to make him look outlandish, especially when coupled with the chemical stained hands, and the sour, ulceric expression he wore when looking down the barrel of a Walther PPK.
It was strange that, even though these men all had backgrounds in battle and martial arts, when faced with an abrupt life or death situation, the collective men only froze like a breath before a blow. And had only been an instant from when he had spoken, but when the young man curled a finger around the trigger of the small gun, a hand clamped down on the young scientist's arm. The faces around the room all wore identical expressions of blank shock as the interns gun was forced into a safety position, and a man of only slightly smaller stature than the gunman stepped into clearer view. He looked regretfully with rather sad brown eyes at the assemblage of TURKs before speaking.
"Sorry I'm late. I'm Doctor John Gast, and this is my assistant, Professor Saimura Hojo."