It was too early in the morning to deal with stupidity. Yet, there I was, sitting in the grander of Shin-Ra's conference room, listening to our top employees ramble on about why their respective departments should receive more funding for their projects. Why us Turks had to be there was beyond me. Tseng sat quietly and never interjected while Reno and Rude dozed off. Rude was more subtle about it that Reno was. I could tell they were still paying attention even though Reno had his eyes shut and Rude was staring at the wall behind Scarlet, who had taken the seat directly across from him.

At one end of the table, next to Reeve, Palmer was finishing his speech as to why the Space Exploration Department, despite its cut from funding, should resume its projects. "Just imagine," he concluded, "how great Shin-Ra would look when we successfully put a human being on the moon!"

After his statement, Reno gave a loud snort and sat up in his chair. Everyone looked at him with curiosity (or annoyance in Palmer's case).

"Reno," Rufus Shinra began, calm as ever, but noticeably just as curious as the rest of us, "what is so funny?"

"This idiot over here babbling about sending someone to the moon," Reno laughed and pointed with his thumb at Palmer, "everyone knows the moon isn't actually real. It's just some hologram."

Everyone stared at Reno. Was he serious? Why did he think the moon was a hologram? He had to be joking, but the tone in his voice suggested he was absolutely serious.

Tseng, sitting next to me, cleared his throat and began to speak, "Who told you the moon isn't real?" I could tell Tseng was speaking with caution. It was hard to tell someone that their views were very obviously incorrect.

Reno shrugged, "Overheard some government guy talking about it when I was a kid."

"You do realize that not everything you hear is completely true," Reeve spoke, concern written on his face.

"There's physical and documented proof that the moon is a real object! How can you just ignore all that evidence?" Palmer all but squeaked. I hated to admit it, but he had a valid point.

"Because I looked into it and the evidence proving that the moon is fake far outweighs your 'evidence' that it's real." Reno was starting to get defensive and at the disbelieving eyes from everyone in the room, he sighed and said, "Look, I saw the moon glitch once and that was all the proof I needed." He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.

No one quite knew what to say to that, except Tseng who asked what we were all too afraid to ask at risk of offending Reno further, "Were you drinking at the time?"

Reno glared at Tseng. "Doesn't matter. I saw what I saw."

At that point, Rufus suggested we all drop the matter and finish the meeting. Scarlet heavily agreed and began rambling about some new giant robot she wanted to work on.

After the meeting, Rufus, Reno, and I were that last three people in the conference room. I so badly wanted to continue asking Reno about his absurd beliefs, but I was afraid Rufus might think I was provoking my coworker. I didn't want to look bad in front of him.

As Rufus was finishing packing up his papers, he glanced up at Reno, who was waiting for me in the doorway. He had a look on his face that looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it.

I finished packing my stuff up when I heard Rufus say, "you don't honestly believe the moon is fake, do you?"

I was surprised that that was still on his mind, but I was amused by it all the same. He asked the exact question I had wanted to ask.

Reno sighed and grimaced to himself. "Look, I have proof against it that makes sense to me. If I wanna believe the moon is fake, then let me believe it. Just because something I think goes against your beliefs doesn't mean I'm stupid or it's not true."

With that Reno walked out the door, no longer waiting for me. Rufus stared at the door then glanced at me with a look that asked "is he serious?"

I couldn't help myself, but I giggled. "I'd bet 500 gil that Reno's a government robot programmed to spread that information so that we question everything we initially believed to be factual."

Rufus chuckled at my comment and shook his head, standing from the table. "I wouldn't doubt that for a second."

I laughed again. Despite being somewhat cold, Rufus Shinra had a sense of humor.

"Elena, are you coming?" I shook away my thoughts and noticed Rufus standing by the door, waiting for me. I hastily gathered my stuff and met him at the door.

We walked down the hall until we reached the elevator.

"Did you know that there's 300 years in our history that actually never existed?" I said as the elevator doors opened. Rufus chuckled again.

"Please tell me you don't actually believe that."

"Of course not," I said with a smile, "but I'm almost certain Reno would."

This is a short one, but I found a writing prompt where a character should believe in a conspiracy theory and decided it would most definitely be Reno. Is case you're wondering, yes, there are people who believe the moon is fake.

Here's where I got the conspiracy theory ideas (ignore spaces in links. FFN doesn't like links):

www. popularmechanics science/ environment/ g130/ 9-utterly-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories/

Here's a website I found explaining why the moon DOESN'T exist (in case you were curious what evidence these people have):

www. revisionism .nl/ Moon/ The-Mad-Revisionist .htm

I don't believe in these conspiracy theories because there's more evidence against them, but hey, believe what you want to believe. As long as you're not hurting anyone, who am I to judge what you think is true or not?

Also, in case you were confused (because I mentioned it exactly once) this story is written from Elena's point of view.