Notes: I actually DID work, briefly, for a Children's Services/Juvenile Justice office. I filed for them. I can't count the number of times I had to open folders to check names so I could file them in the appropriate places. Almost every time I did, I was BOMBARDED by some of the things Yuffie later describes-- there is nothing like opening an innocent-looking manila folder to see photographs of a young girl's genitals stapled to the front page.
We Wove the Web
Chapter One
"Oh what a tangled web we
weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
But my how we
improve the score,
As we practice more and more."
-- Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, canto vi.
At some point between right this instant and three hours ago, the words on the screen had become a blur Yuffie couldn't decipher. The little letters and all the white space were giving her a headache. He was black-on-white, like boring ol' newsprint, and she was purple and orange and totally pretending that they went together.
They didn't, and her own text gave her headaches. She was using a plug-in for DeadMIM that leeched all the colour out of the windows. It was the only way to stay sane.
(20:14) OzzyManDayUs: Isn't your bedtime 8? You'd better head to bed.
(20:14) OzzyManDayUs: I wouldn't want you to get in trouble
(20:14) OzzyManaDayUs: With your parents.
She rubbed her temples and bit her lips. She wanted to reach through the screen and smack this guy. Sure, men in their twenties (and was she so sure this man was in his twenties?) could become friends with eleven year olds... Maybe.
But this one didn't appear to have any sort of interest in common with "Mina".
For the third time in the past hour, she wondered if this man was who she thought he was. She tabbed through her open programs until she had found GeekTools again. Twenty-one different windows open. When had she gone into multitasking?
One of her Trillian windows began to ping and she flipped back through.
(20:14) ElTangoDeReeve: Yuffie? Are you there?
(20:14) ElTangoDeReeve: I've almost got Vincent convinced to get a MIM screenname.
(20:18) ElTangoDeReeve: ...Yuffie?
(20:18) ElTangoDeReeve: Yuffie?
Yuffie blinked, and began to reply.
(20:18) KisaragiHisaragi: Sorry, I've just got a
The GeekTools search came back up.
OzzyManDayUs was, in fact, William Sheers. The IP addresses matched up exactly. There was no possibility of somebody using an IP blocker, or two computers in one house. They were both using MOL accounts-- the same MOL account, in fact. It was definitely Sheers.
She grimaced.
(20:18) DrakulasGurl11: i dont have school 2morr0 so mom said i could stay up l8.
(20:18) KisaragiHisaragi: I'm here. Sorry. Got a lot goin' on. Uhm, you know that Sheers has a MOL account, right? Well, he's got a seperate MIM.
With trembling hands, she picked up the phone and began to dial a number. Tifa's number.
"Is Marlene there?" She asked when Tifa picked up the phone.
"Yuffie, it's eight-thirty on a school night. She's--"
"I need to talk to her."
"Is this about--"
"Yeah. Can I talk--"
"No. Yuffie, I know you're only trying to help, but..." The sound of cloth moving-- Tifa shrugging-- and then a quiet, "I'm sorry."
Click. Beeeep. Beeeeeep.
Yuffie gritted her teeth and reminded herself why she was doing this. Sheers was going to rot in prison, get gang-raped in the showers because most criminals really hate paedos, and then she would kill him herself. Slowly.
Remember why you're doing this. Remember why you're doing this. Remember why you're doing this.
Going over and kicking Tifa's ass wouldn't help.
(20:21) OzzyManDayUs: Mina, have your parents told you anything about boys yet?
(20:22) DrakulasGirl11: well yah my parents rnt stupid
(20:24) OzzyManDayUs: And you'll come to me or your parents if anything happens?
(20:24) DrakulasGirl11: dude im like 11 my parents dont let me hang out w/ boys so nothins gunna happen
This guy was creepy. No, he was beyond creepy. This was, like, legendarily scary.
She wanted to call Vincent and sic him on this creep. She wasn't actually sure what she wanted to do. She just wanted him dead or dying or just-- just-- gone.
She wanted him gone. Away from Marlene, away from other girls, away from "Mina Harker", away from i here /i .
Anything. She'd told Tifa and Cloud and Barrett that she would do anything to find the guy. She'd turn the son of a bitch into a shish-kebob, she'd told them. She'd make sure--
But Tifa and Cloud hadn't wanted to hear it. She was only making things worse. Harder to deal with.
Well, fine. But she was getting the bastard off the WRO board.
And fuck, Reeve...
She didn't want to think about Reeve right now.
Her PHS lit up and began to play Good Evening, Welcome to La-La Land. That was Reeve's ring.
She flipped it open.
"Okay, where are you? Did you just up and walk away from the computer?" Reeve demanded.
She eyed the laptop. Reeve had sent KisaragiHisaragi several messages in the last minute.
"Yeah," she lied. "Headed to the kitchen. Heard the phone ring. What's up?"
"What was that you were saying about Sheers? I want an in-person report, not some random crap off MIM."
"You want me to head into the office?" Her voice didn't come out right-- she sounded surprised, exhausted, put-upon. Like he was asking too much and she hadn't expected him to go that far.
Well, it was true. It was 8:30 on a Thursday night. She SHOULD be contacting the people in Intel and getting reports instead of tracking down Sheers. The office was NOT the place for Intel reports.
She was suspicious, yeah. Then again, who wouldn't be? The WRO did have competition, after all. It wouldn't have surprised her in the least to find out that Rufus ShinRa was bugging their offices.
Asshole.
"No, no, not what I meant at all! I just--" she could hear him sigh and imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose, brow furrowed and eyes closed tight "--need to hear your voice when you tell me this, okay?"
That was right... Reeve didn't like to just read stuff. Well, that was okay, she wasn't all that fond of typing, anyway.
She posted a "brb" and then an away message to Sheers and then retrieved the files she'd stolen from Children's Services.
She had expected something like oragnization from the place. She hadn't found it. She had imagined a slick, glossy dossier, with professional-looking photos. Doctor's reports on thick white paper.
What she'd gotten was a thin manilla folder with crappy Polaroids, doctor's reports filled in with black pen on blue paper. Several faxes... Illegible notes, handwritten. Barely-comprehensible type-ups of interviews. A worksheet consisting of anatomically correct drawings of children. Most parts were left unlabelled.
Unfortunately, the important parts, the parts that broke Yuffie's heart, had barely-legible scribbles next to them. Marking where he'd touched.
"Incident investigation report number," she swallowed, "eighteen."
In two years, how had there been so much to do? How had there been so much to find out about?
"On April fourteenth of this year, Marlene Wallace was left in the care of one William Sheers. She was in his presence for a total, according to various sources, of two hours."
Two hours. Two hours. Gawd, if Yuffie had known Marlene was in the building, she'd have watched the kid herself! Marlene loved looking at all the nifty "spy gadgets" Yuffie kept around to amuse herself.
Like the penalty tranq gun. And the "bad employee" spraybottle. Or the suction-cup shoes that didn't work but were amusing to try anyway.
"On April sixteenth, Tifa Lockhart reported that she was having behavioural issues with Marlene. She was 'acting up' in classes with male teachers. She was 'reluctant to bathe'. She was displaying a, quote, bad attitude."
Reeve made a 'hm' sound and Yuffie fought down the urge to destroy him through the phone.
Did he not see where this was going? Did he not--
"Yuffie, do you think something... happened?"
Oh.
"Dude. Let me finish. When Tifa pressed Marlene about her--"
"--Stop with the business-talk. Just tell me like it happened."
"Argh! Fine! Tifa got friggin' worried, so she talked to Marlene, and Marlene starts freakin' out and--"
"--Freaking out how?"
"Screaming. Carrying on. Hell, I don't know! Tifa said she freaked. I took her at her word. Anyway. So Marlene freaked, and Tifa and Marlene got into it something awful and finally Marlene came out and SAID it and--"
Marlene had been pretty brave, for an eight year old. And here was Yuffie, eleven years older than Marlene was, and unable to say it out loud.
"Yuffie?" Reeve's voice, so amazingly deep for such a nerdy man, was gentle. He was letting her know he was listening.
There were times she wanted to hear Reeve ramble and ramble and ramble. That voice jarred with his personality, but it was such a damn nice voice...
"He molested her, Reeve. William Sheers is our largest financial backer aside from yourself..." She made a helpeless gesture, even though he couldn't see it. "And he's a paedophile."
She heard the sounds of cloth moving. Instead of wondering what he was doing, she flipped through the scarce contents of the file.
Reeve was silent for a long while. When at last he spoke, his voice was quieter than usual. Heavy with regret. "In order to detach the WRO from him, I'm going to need proof that all of this happened. And if you can get me a pattern..."
She laughed, bitterly. "I've got the Children's Services case file right here. The ADA is waiting on permission to prosecute, which he can't get because I have the file."
"That's not going to help matters. Illegally acquired material--"
"Plus I'm running a sting op on him right now."
"...What?"
"I'm posing as an eleven year old girl named Mina Harker. He's... very interested."
"What kind of interested are we talking about here? And how the fuck long have you been doing this?"
"We're talking the 'creepy' kind of interested. And Mina Harker's been online for about two weeks."
"Creepy interest. Has he solicited anything yet?"
"No. But he's carrying on some pretty weird conversations with an eleven year old. And he's memorized her schedule."
"You're talking about this fake screen name like it belongs to a real person."
Yuffie shrugged, then remembered he couldn't see her. "It kind of does. I'm not Mina Harker."
"Mina Harker... Mina Harker." Reeve stopped, burst into laughter "Named after Wilhelmina Harker? From Dracula?"
"Yeah." Yuffie laughed too. "And he's dumb enough that he isn't seeing it."
"Right. Well..."
She got up, moved to the kitchen. Poured herself a glass of orange juice.
The apartment was dark around her. The only lights on were a dimmed nightlight in the hall, so she could find her way around without tripping, and the laptop. Thick, inky blackness swathed everything else.
Her kitchen counter, she noticed for about the fourth time ever, was about the perfect height for a random bout of crazysex. Unfortunately, she was significant-other-challenged. Again. This last one had lasted... how long? A month? No, a month and a half.
The latest one must not have been worth it, then. It had taken him a month and a half to figure out that there were three important things in her life: Wutai, AVALANCHE, and the WRO. Such trivial things as regular meals, boyfriends, or keeping up with Edge's bizarre, death-oriented culture came in a distant forty-second to the Big Three.
"So he hasn't tried to get you to post pictures of yourself, meet him in person, or anything like that?"
"No and no. He's only been talking to her for about four days, though. Took me forever to get noticed by him. I have about four different fakes. Wasn't sure which one he'd go for."
He had gone for the closeted tomboy. A girl who liked dresses and skirts and had sleepovers and liked to talk about boys-- but was even more comfortable climbing trees in dresses or skirts, playing softball, and kicking boy ass. Not that Mina could ever admit that.
"I see. Well-- you'll let me know if the situation changes? I'm going to start writing a 'we need you to stop giving us money' letter."
"Got it. Will do."
She slapped the phone closed and went back to the laptop.
(20:38) DrakulasGurl11: sorry dad wuz lecturin me about my grades
(20:40) OzzyManDayUs: Is that so? Are they bad?
(20:43) DrakulasGurl11: no! theyre just not as good as my brothers he gets As ALL THE TIME & they want me 2 get As all teh time 2
(20:43) DrakulasGurl11: & its no fair cuz im not him!
(20:45) OzzyManDayUs: I'm sure your parents don't want you to be your brother. I'm sure they're very glad you're a little girl.
(20:45) OzzyManDayUs: I am.
Yuffie swept out a hand and knocked the orange juice off the table. She held her head in her hands and let loose a frustrated scream.
What a fucking bastard! She was going to i kill /i him!
(20:46) OzzyManDayUs: I wish I could cheer you up. I know! Why don't we go out for ice cream or something tomorrow?
She stared at the words. Her jaw dropped. Four days. FOUR DAYS. What, was this guy desperate!
i dunno, she typed, mind racing as to how to juggle her goals. She needed: 1, for him not to suspect anything; 2, to rebuff him; 3, not to get him frustrated enough to give up; 4, not to rebuff him in a way that would make him suspicious.
She hit on an idea. i mean we only been talkin like 4 dayz and mom says its dangerous.
(20:50) OzzyManDayUs: Well, we won't tell your mom. It'll be our little secret.
"Bingo," she screamed. "WE HAVE STUPID!"
(20:51) DrakulasGirl11: but mom & dad says i cant hang out w/ boyz
"What are you going to say to that one, child-molesting asshole!" She asked through gritted teeth. She had him, now. She had him nailed to the wall and he didn't even know it.
(20:53) OzzyManDayUs: It's not the same.
Oh, she totally had him now.
It was at that moment that an 'accept message' window popped up, asking her if she wanted to accept a message from VValentine27.
That was a boring screenname, she decided. She was going to have to hack the MIM servers and rename it to something funny and cool.
Like "angstierthanthou".
She accepted the message.
(20:54) VValentine27: ...?
Aww. Vincent was confused! Laughing, she replied.
(20:54) KisaragiHisaragi: Not sure what to make of MIM?
She got no immediate response. So she turned back to Sheers, sending Mina dancing on the bare edge of an abyss.
Dance little pretend girl, dance.
Sheers was pursuing her hard and hot and fast. He was sensing that Mina was slipping just out of reach, hiding her fear behind her parents and her mistrust behind uncertainty.
Desperately, he tried to reassure her that he wasn't a suspicious person. It wasn't like he wanted to hurt her, he said.
Yuffie, smirking, pulled her final trick.
(21:02) DrakulasGurl11: my lil sis has a friend named marlene wallace & mom says marlene got muhlested & i gotta b super careful or itll happen 2 me
She could imagine the frozen look on the rat bastard's face. Gawd, it was going to feel good to watch him suffer.
It was a long time before Sheers replied.
(21:13) OzzyManDayUs: I'm so sorry to hear that. You don't have anything like that to worry about from me.
(21:13) OzzyManDayUs: I promise.
Simultaneously, Vincent got the bright idea to respond:
(21:13) VValentine27: No. It is an unsual program.
(21:14) KisaragiHisaragi: ...What program are you using? Are you using the official MIM? Because that one is annoying. Get Trillian.
(21:15) VValentine27: Trillian? MIM? I do not own a computer.
(21:15) KisaragiHisaragi: Then how are you...?
(21:16) VValentine27: An internet cafe.
(21:17) KisaragiHisaragi: Oh.
She picked up the phone and dialled Reeve.
"Situation's changed?" He asked immediately. "What's going on?"
"I HAVE HIM!" She shouted. "I HAVE THAT RAT BASTARD IN THE PALM OF MY GODDAMN HAND."
"What?"
"He just offered to take Mina out for icecream. Without her mom knowing."
Reeve let out a loud, "Whoo!", then said, "That's my girl."
Her chest puffed out. Reeve didn't often give out real compliments. She smiled. They were going to nail this bastard!
TBC 26 June 2006