4. Meandering
Reno's POV
The drive out to Midgar is short, too short, and Avery fills it with questions that make it seem longer than it should by any right feel. I tried turning up the radio a bit, a subtle enough hint for most people to catch, but Avery either ignored it or didn't catch on.
"So, why is Tseng so convinced anyone would want to hide in Midgar? I mean, that place is so dangerous!" She's whining and I wanna deck her.
"He told you, he and Rufus are convinced that it's a perfect hiding spot. If I were a criminal, I'd wanna hide there too. No one in their right mind would go there, so people in their wrong mind would hide there without a second thought. Fuckin' think about it, Ave!" I am getting thoroughly aggravated.
"But that place is a polluted wreck! It's not safe!"
"You scared?"
"Aren't you?"
Hit the nail on the head with that question. She doesn't doubt Tseng at all, she and I are just in the same boat; we don't wanna be in Midgar. No one wants to go there. It's necessary, but after all the shit that has happened there in the past five years the place is heavily avoided. We've tried to clean it up, but that's one hell of a project and with the Remnants showing up and pulling their traumatic bullshit there and Deepground's current and past transgressions stemming from the damn hell hole, it never got done.
"Course I am." Honesty is the best policy, after all. "I just know that it needs to be done. We've checked everywhere else, so we have to check here too." Honestly, we could have been more thorough checking everywhere else first, in my opinion, but there are only six of us Turks left and WRO troops are still busy routing out what's left of Deepground so we really couldn't have been more studious in our attempts. We probably missed a lot, but we've been doing our best. "Look, Ave, nothin's gonna happen. Face it, people don't go to Midgar. It's frickin' awful." Tripping over rubble and finding bodies beneath it would make even the most hardened criminal shit his pants.
"You know that, I know that, so why are we scared still?" Poor girl looks like she's going to cry.
I shake my head, seeing those thin lips wobbling dangerously. She's not been a Turk for very long and, as such, she hasn't developed the kind of thick skin the rest of us have. It's like comparing cardboard to leather. She can hold things in, but eventually they're going to seep through. "Look, shorty, have I let anythin' shitty happen to you?"
"No."
"Do you trust me to keep shitty things from happenin' then?"
There's some hesitation before she nods, wiping her eyes on the back of her hands. I smile and pat her shoulder gently, parking outside the ruins we used to call home. "Then keep on trustin' me, Ave. Our priority is to crawl through this shithole and look for dealers, makers, or users. We gotta find at least one and the quicker we do, the quicker we go back to HQ. If we apply ourselves, I see this takin' three days to get through. Deepground has cleared outta here, there's no Remnants here, and there's likely as not no fuckin' people here at all. We don't even post WRO members here anymore. We might find a scrounger or two lookin' through here for scraps, but they won't give us any guff. Keep your head and this'll be a breeze."
My pep talk has an effect, and I think it's a good one, and Avery steps out of the car with a more professional face on. I lead her into the ruins, sidestepping rubble that has collapsed over the path that got cleared out a few years ago so that we could get into the place with troops. All I can hope for as we start meandering through the haphazard remains of streets that used to be bustling with life, is that I didn't lie to her when I said this would be a breeze.
