Jaded by the opposite of love, held on high from up up up above, kept my high on the second one, kept my eye on the first one.
Chapter 1: Cheated Hearts
There's a great chasm here; I feel it. There's this great big giant chasm between me and the other trainees. Because of Jenna everyone thinks I got in here on her rep. It doesn't help that Jenna was better than me. Well, at least so far. But I can't help the fact that despite being nothing alike we want the same career path. I can't help that she was a better Turk than I look like I'd make… But I'm here, aren't I? I made it in, didn't I? So why is there this chasm?
"Martin!"
"Huh?"
"Note from administration for you. Says report now." I took the note from James and looked down at it. Under the Shinra emblem the 'At once' box was checked with the perfect professional little tick copyrighted by that bitchy secretary, Kathleen. Well, at once means at once. I shrugged on a jacket so that whoever wanted to talk to me would think that the Turk trainees weren't total slackers (nor too big for our boots; I didn't button the jacket) and walked out, my pen from some paperwork shrugged off on me by a higher-up trainee still in my hand.
The note just said I should go see Kathleen; she'd tell me where to go from there. I had a sneaking suspicion that Tseng changed office locations every week just so it could be some great mystery as to where the great leader of the Turks spent all his time (not that I went to his office a lot. Try once.) Of course, it was always the same decorations, the same hallways, so how was I supposed to know? The Shinra building looks the same to me whichever direction I go. I survive on where people tell me to turn left and right alone. It's a good thing we aren't supposed to know everything about Shinra, because if we were supposed to be geniuses I'd be screwed. Well, I'll cross that bridge if I ever actually become a Turk.
Kathleen greeted me with her pointed way of ignoring me. Word among the trainees is that my sister had a bone to pick with her, (or that she always did.) Funny, the one broad who I'd like to realize that I'm nothing like Jenna is the one person who's convinced I'm just like her. Just shows you how popular I am around here.
"Miss Martin, you are to report to Tseng's office."
"Where is it?" I asked to satisfy the woman's desire for me to seem like a complete idiot. Unfortunately she didn't get the red-faced embarrassment she wanted when she accentuated the point that I wasn't important enough to know my way easily to Tseng's office. I happen to know that I'm not important enough, and I've come to terms with that fact. The only shred of dignity I'm holding onto now is the coveted information (hem) that I haven't forgotten exactly the way Tseng moves and talks since the first and only time I ever met him.
"You'll find it if you go all the way down that hall, make a left, all the way down the next one, make a right, and go to the door at the end of that hall." Kathleen made brisk pointing motions to indicate my movement, accompanied by sharp little turns where I was supposed to. And I'm supposed to be the junior head case around here.
I wasn't worried when I was with Kathleen. She was a cow and everyone knew it; she couldn't hurt me. The thing that was freaking me out was going to see Tseng. My jacket wasn't nice enough; my hair was all over the place, my shoes were scuffed; I'd left my gun back at my desk (bad move). I could feel my heart rate increasing as I walked down the halls. Finally I got to the door with his name on it, and knocked.
"Come in." I can't start to tell you what his voice sounds like. It's deep and smooth, totally calm and like miso soup (a Wutaian SOLDIER cadet named Haruko made some for me once) and rain. His voice was like molten chocolate, and I barely remembered to reach out and grab the doorknob before Tseng had to get up from his desk and open the door himself.
But he hadn't. He was still sitting at his desk; he hadn't even looked up. He was filling out paperwork in his elegant, steady handwriting. The pen in his long-fingered hand had to be the luckiest writing utensil ever… I was staring and not even bothering to hide it. When he looked up, raising one austere dark brow, I didn't even blink.
"Elena." I would like to fool myself that his use of my first name was some kind of homage to my beauty, or, more importantly, my place in his heart. However, he addresses everyone in the Turk program by his or her first name. Maybe it's because he has us use his.
"Yes, sir?" I snapped out of my reverie over his hand.
"Are you aware of recent events regarding AVALANCHE?" It wasn't a rhetorical question, was it? I felt at once stupid and inadequate. Of course I didn't know! I was a trainee—if something had happened that wasn't in the newspaper (and that included a lot) it was likely that no one had told me. But Tseng wasn't unreasonable…if he thought I should know, it must be my shortcoming, right?
"No, sir."
"My second in command, Reno, has been temporarily neutralized. He will be out of action for some time while he recovers in our medical center."
"What does that mean?" Why was he telling me?
"You're being elevated to the Turks."
"What?" Oh, slick Elena. I felt like a dumb child.
"I'm filling out the paperwork now. Rude will debrief you on the next action to be taken after I finish. This is extremely high profile; don't take it lightly. Miss Carson" (I took sick pleasure in his referring to Kathleen by her last name) "will provide you with logistics. You may go." I was dumbstruck, but thankfully the nerves going from my brain to my feet were still live and got me out of there.
Did I just become a Turk?