Cog in the Machine
Him and Rude are crouched in the corner of the office next to Tseng's. It belongs to some schmuck from city planning, and pictures of his fat wife and snotty little kids are on the desk and the sterile white walls. The only sound in the room is Rude's slow, deliberate breathing. Rude seems calm, but then the bastard always seems calm. Maybe it's just the glasses.
He, Reno, is coiled like a spring. He can feel the sweat soaking into the shirt under his armpits and his tongue is like a strip of leather in his dry mouth. He just wants to get this over with.
Footsteps on the hard floor of the corridor outside. Reno drags some air down into his lungs, sharply, loudly, a sound like sandpaper. He can almost feel Rude's glare on the side of his face but he doesn't stick his tongue out or flip his partner off as he normally would. Instead he keeps his eyes fixed on the gap between the office door and its frame, gnawing on his bottom lip. He catches just a glimpse of her as she walks past, copper hair like a tumble of autumn leaves down her neck, suit crisp and clean and wearing those goofy little gloves. A cold wave of nausea breaks on him as she passes by.
He hears the door to Tseng's office close and him and Rude inch towards the corridor, careful not to make a sound in their hard-sold shoes. Rude swings their door inwards and pokes his bald head out into the corridor, while Reno just stands there like a sentient sack of meat, his arms limp at his sides. His suit feels hot and confining and he wants to tear it off and throw it on the ground.
Rude beckons to him and the two of them slip their shoes off and start creeping down the corridor, moving like cats up on the balls of their feet, no sound except the soft rustle of clothing. The floor feels cold through Reno's socks. He is holding his breath.
They stack up on either side of Tseng's office door, backs to the wall. Reno hears Tseng's deep, velvety voice:
"...disobeyed a direct order. I told you to find him and bring him in, but you deliberately let him go."
"Could you really have brought him in to die, Tseng?" Cissnei's voice is louder, sharper. When he hears it Reno feels like he's been kicked in the stomach.
"The company comes first, Cissnei. Always. That's something you seem to have forgotten," Tseng is saying. He still sounds so calm. Him and Rude. How can they be so relaxed when they know what's about to happen?
"Damn you, Tseng!" she's yelling now. "You – You're a monster!"
"Cissnei, it's become clear to me that you're no longer able to carry out your duties as a Turk. We're letting you go."
That's the signal. Reno's blood surges. Him and Rude burst through the door. He grabs Cissnei's arms before she can react and they are so slender he can almost make his fingers meet around them but they writhe like snakes. She kicks out at his shin and he forces her arms up behind her back and she's squirming and yelling and he slams her face down onto Tseng's desk. A mug of pens explodes into the air like a firework. Rude gets the gag around her mouth and he ties it tight so it pushes her lips back and bares her teeth. Her yells become muffled grunts and she's still squirming and trying to kick him but he's much stronger than her so he keeps her pressed down on the desk. Tseng just stands over her with his hands behind his back, watching like it's all unfolding on a television. Still so damn calm!
Now Rude has her hands tied and the rope bites red into her wrists. He squats down to work on her legs but she's lashing out with her feet and he keeps having to fend them away. Reno watches as he manages to grab first one ankle and then the other in his big, black-gloved paws and he gets the rope around and ties it off.
Reno lets go of her and she falls onto the carpet and starts flopping around like a dying fish, trying to ease off the rope. But Reno saw Rude tie the knots and he knows they aren't going to come loose. When he looks down at her squirming and grunting at his feet he just feels sick with himself.
"Let's go," Tseng says, and he heads towards the door. There is no emotion in his voice. Reno looks at Rude because he wants some kind of reassurance that he's not the only one who feels just god-awful about they are doing, but it's like his partner's face is made of stone, there's nothing there.
Rude gets down on one knee next to Cissnei and fishes a black silk bag out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He bunches it up into a kind of ring and then pulls it down over her head. Reno catches a glimpse of her eyes just as the bag goes down over them, burning with anger and wet with tears, and it wrenches his gut. A chill runs down his body and he feels like he is going to freeze up.
He stands there watching as Rude hauls Cissnei up onto his shoulder. The bald man is built like a bear and she seems to weigh nothing to him. She squirms and squeals but there is no way he's dropping her, and he gets to his feet without even a grunt. He jerks his head at the door and Reno follows him out into the corridor. At the far end Tseng is waiting for the elevator, looking just like a businessman running late for work. They're too deep into the night for anyone else to be around and the floor is deserted, but Reno keeps whipping his head around to check behind them. His heart is drumming in his ears.
Two nights later he, Reno, awoke in a tangle of sweat and sheets, breathing hard like he had just run a race. He watched his bare chest rise and fall, glistening skin gliding over the ribs. He'd been dreaming about it again.
He propped himself up on an elbow and parted the curtain to gaze down at the street far below. It was still dark outside, and yellow light from the street lamps pooled on the dirty footpaths and dripped down onto the road. Everything - the buildings, the alleyways, the parked cars, glossy like beetle shells - was tinged a pale green by the light of the mako reactors. The city was quiet, a faint hum on the fringe of his consciousness. The distant roar of an engine sounded like the buzzing of a fly.
He kicked off the tangled sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The thick carpet of his apartment was soft on the soles of his feet. He sighed and hunched forward with his elbows on his thighs. A far-off siren sawed through the quiet of the night. He ran a hand through his fiery hair.
A drink. That was what he needed. A drink and a cigarette to steady his nerves. He stood up and stumbled down the stairs to his kitchen.
His apartment was at the heart of Midgar and it was very modern, very fashionable. He'd paid someone to decorate it and they had done so in clean whites and smooth blacks and steely greys. It was a place for impressing people, not really for living in.
When he turned the light on in his kitchen it seared his eyes and set him squinting. He found a bottle of whiskey in the pantry and set it on the rich, glossy marble bench-top with a tumbler. The amber liquid spilled into the glass like honey. He fumbled blindly in a draw under the bench for a pack of cigarettes, and took them and the whiskey out to his balcony.
The balcony jutted out over the dark street below, enclosed in several big panes of glass that were topped by an aluminium rail. He set his tumbler down on the rail and leaned on it with his forearms, looking out over the sickly city, an unlit cigarette perched on his bottom lip.
Nothing moved on the road several stories down. He wanted something to distract him, to force some different thoughts into his mind. Guilt was growing on his brain like a slick, oily mould. He couldn't fend off his memories of it.
He sits in the car beside her. Rude is in the front, driving, and Tseng rides shotgun. They could be statues except that Rude moves his arms to steer and change gear. No one has spoken since they left the Shinra building.
It's a flash vehicle they're in and the inside is all cool black leather and rich wood panelling that's marbled like a fatty cut of meat. The windows are blacked out so the streets slip by as hazy smears of light. The engine makes a deep, muffled purr.
Beside him, she's still squirming and grunting, trying to loosen her bonds. He keeps his eye on them, but they have her trussed up like a pig and she's not making any progress. It's easier to look at her now she has her head covered. He can forget who she is. His breathing has calmed down and the nausea has dissipated in his gut. He can do this. He just has to forget.
He has to forget that she was there the first time he ever killed a man. They were in Wutai, on an assignment to destroy some strategically important bridge. It was one of his first missions with the Turks. Him and Cissnei didn't really know each other then, and in the helicopter on the way over they mostly discussed the mission. Reno smothered his nerves by talking himself up and telling stupid jokes. He leaned back in his chair and rested his arm lazily on the window ledge of the cockpit, slapping the steering stick around with one hand like he could fly in his sleep.
They weren't anticipating any difficulties because the bridge was supposed to be unguarded. It wasn't. He eased the chopper down a couple of kilometres from the bridge and they jogged across a dry, empty plain with the heavy explosives strapped to their backs. The leather straps chafed on the base of his neck as he ran. The only light they had was from the great spray of stars in the velvety black sky above them.
Reno wasn't really on alert as they approached the bridge. He'd started to believe in the cocky, devil-may-care act he had affected in the helicopter. Armoured in the crisp folds of his new Turks suit and with a pistol nestled against his rib cage, he felt as close to invincible as he ever had. Then, as he rounded one of the columns in the murky dark beneath the bridge, he almost walked in to a Wutai soldier.
The guard seemed as surprised as he was. Time seized up and they stared at each other for what felt like a couple of seconds. Reno went for his gun as the other man fumbled with his rifle. He brought the pistol up and sank a slug into his enemy's face, point blank. The bang echoed around the underbelly of the bridge and the gun bucked in Reno's hand. A crater appeared in the soldier's visor and blood and slimy strings of grey matter erupted from it, splattering Reno's arms, his suit, his face.
It took his brain a couple of seconds to connect his squeezing of the trigger with the gory explosion that followed it. He stood there, stunned, listening to the clatter of feet all around him as the other guards burst from their hiding places. The man he had shot swayed on his feet, blood running from under his visor in a thick red curtain. The rifle slipped from the soldier's grasp and clattered to the ground and then its owner fell too, and horror broke over Reno like a huge, cold wave. He didn't move even as bullets clattered off the pillar next to him and he would have died then if a strong hand from behind hadn't pushed him down into the dirt.
Cissnei was standing over him but then she darted away in a flash of black and fiery copper hair, and Reno stopped noticing what was going on as the world shrunk to just him and the man he had killed.
The soldier's helmet had fallen off, revealing the hole Reno had punched in his head. It wasn't the kind of perfectly round, clean hole he'd seen bullets make in movies but rather a jagged, asymmetrical gash, the kind maybe an axe would make, and the blood was still bubbling out, thick and syrupy, muddying the ground. The soldier's face was a red mess but clearly he was young, even younger than Reno, and the Turk began to imagine the kid's proud parents, the little brothers that idolised him, the baby sister that ran out with her arms in the air to be scooped up and carried on his shoulders every time he came home on leave, and the nausea, the guilt, rose in Reno's gut, and he propped himself up on his hands and everything in his stomach gathered up and tore out his mouth in a thick torrent that felt like a giant snake scaling his throat. He was left gasping for air, shuddering as the taste of bile bit into his mouth.
He flopped over onto his side and began to cry, loud, choking sobs that convulsed his body. His eyes locked with those of the dead soldier, and the flat, empty stare of the youth gripped him through his tears, froze up his body so he couldn't look away.
He was still lying there, paralysed in a muddy pool of blood and vomit, when Cissnei came back and found him. His knees were pulled up to his chest, foetus-like, and his face and suit were caked in dirt and gore.
She dropped to a squat beside him and rested a delicate hand on his shoulder. "Hey," she said, like a mother to her hurt child, "it's okay. It's all over now. You did well."
He seemed to hear the words from under water. They were distant and meaningless, dissolving into groups of random syllables that swam around in his brain. The dead soldier still stared at him.
"You're going to be fine," she said in the same maternal tone. Again he didn't respond.
The weight of her hand on his shoulder was lifted away, and she stood up.
"Pull yourself together!" she snapped from above him. "Look at yourself! You're a Turk, remember? 'We complete the mission. No matter what.' Well, this mission isn't over, and it's not going to be until you get up and start helping me!"
Her sharp tone severed the connection between the soldiers eyes and his own, and her words finally penetrated his brain. He rolled over and looked up at her. She stood over him with her arms folded, frowning. At last he became conscious of the state he was in, and shame burned in his cheeks. He sat up and dragged his sleeve roughly across his face.
"I'm sorry," he croaked, staring at his feet.
She laughed a little. "It's okay," she said. She squatted down beside him again and looked him right in the eye, serious again. "Someone told me once that we're just tools of the company. I think that's a good way of looking at what we do. A tool doesn't have to feel, it just has to do the job it's made to do. That's how I think about it, anyway."
She stood up, offered him her gloved hand. He grasped it and she pulled him to his feet. When he glanced down at the dead soldier's body, it looked like just another corpse.
The car eases to a halt. Out the window, he, Reno, can see the dark, hulking form of one of the city's mako reactors. The huge company logo glares down at them from its mountainous side, and a volcanic plume of smoke oozes from the top.
Rude gets out and opens the door on their captive's side. She's still fighting the ties around her wrists and ankles. The bald Turk leans inside the vehicle and grabs her roughly around the waist, hoisting her up onto his shoulder like a fireman.
Reno clambers out his side. A cold breeze blows up under his untucked shirt and flutters his jacket and trousers. The air smells like burning plastic. Tseng and Rude are already halfway up the stairs to the entrance and Reno hurries after them, rubbing his arms.
Inside, their feet drum a shifting, unsynchronised beat on the metal floor as they cross to the elevator. Still no one has spoken and the only sounds in the reactor are the grunts from the squirming black package perched on Rude's shoulder. Muzak starts playing as they descend in the lift, scaring Reno so much he almost goes for his gun. Even Tseng glances up, briefly.
In the elevator they plummet down into the core of the reactor. The doors open onto a strip of metal, maybe as wide as a car, that traverses a vast and yawning black void to a valve on the far wall. Rails on either side are supposed to stop you from falling.
The reactor core is like a cathedral, steel walls arcing up to meet the roof high overhead. Their bodies are dwarfed by the sheer bulk of the machine as they carry their captive out to the middle of the walkway. Rude drops her to the floor with a heavy clunk. Even now she hasn't given up, she's still writhing around on the metal.
Reno watches as his partner gathers the shoulders of her blazer in his hands and shoves her torso up onto the railing so her covered head hangs out over the void. She struggles and tries to kick out but he keeps her pressed there with his big hands.
Tseng fishes in his jacket and brings out his pistol, stepping up to her. His neat, delicate fingers linger over her head. Then he whips the bag off. Copper hair explodes out in a tangled mess, and suddenly Cissnei's back, it's her and Reno is remembering all the times she laughed at his jokes, lectured him on his sloppy dressing, gnawed at her lip when they were in a tight spot.
She has stopped struggling and is still, looking down into the dark heart of the reactor. Now she knows she is going to die she has decided to meet that fate with dignity. Reno watches a tear swell like a pearl in her eye and then drop, glistening, down into the abyss. He's sweating. His armpits prickle and his stomach churns and roils with nausea. Tseng puts his pistol to the back of Cissnei's head. Rude lets go of her jacket and backs away.
"Do we really have to do this?" Reno blurts. His voice is so high it's almost a shriek and his words echo off the high ceiling. When they die off there is silence but for the heavy rumble of the reactor, which is like the stomach of a giant.
Tseng lifts his gun up and Rude rushes to pin her to the rail again. Reno's heart leaps. Tseng stares at him with an eyebrow raised, more curious than afraid.
"Of course," he says, as though he's puzzled such a question could even be asked. "It's the company's orders. She knows too much."
That's it then. There's nothing he can do. It's him or neither of them, and he chooses himself. He says nothing, just stares at his feet. He can't even bring himself to watch. Coward. A shot rings out and she's dead. When he looks up Rude is tossing her body over the railing.
On the balcony he lit his cigarette, the glowing orange tip eating into the shaft when he inhaled. He sipped at his drink and the alcohol and the hot smoke burned inside him.
His actions in the reactor were becoming harder to live with. It was a weight he had to carry all the time, and sooner or later he would collapse under it. It occurred to him that he could jump. A quick vault over the railing and he'd be splattered like roadkill, dragged down by his guilt no more. But, no. He loved himself too much. Or perhaps he was too much of a coward.
He dragged deep on the cigarette and blew smoke out into the night air. Why should he feel guilty? It wan't him who had decided Cissnei needed to die. He was an instrument, a mere tool in the hands of his superiors. If there was someone who should be having their insides eaten up right now, it was whichever corporate suit had ordered her execution. They probably didn't even know Cissnei, were probably asleep right now in the arms of some beautiful woman inside some beautiful house without a care in the world. He guessed that was how these things worked. You didn't have to feel bad unless you were the one watching that delicate, limp body tumble into the abyss.
There was no room for sentiment in this job, he decided. Tools didn't have feelings. Cissnei had forgotten her own advice, and look where it landed her. He, Reno, vowed then not to balk at his future orders, no matter what he was told to do. He was a tool. That was all.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading this. I was kind of hazy on what to actually call Cissnei; "Cissnei" is a false name and the Turks probably know her as something else, but I didn't really know what else to use. Also, I got a little experimental with the writing style, so I'd be really keen to hear what people think of it. If you've got time, please drop a review!