10
Wednesday, October 13th, 8:18am – Tifa's Seventh Heaven
The place had never looked bigger.
Walls were expanding away from her, converging at infinity, every brick scraping against dry concrete, chipping and cracking to produce a surface more welcome in the unchartered bowels of the Mythril Mines.
A marriage of depression and drapes produced rather ugly offspring in the form of darkness, silence and fear. They were more than an expression of hurt or the monthly four days of bitterness she would experience when she was old enough. She would have likened them to obscenities in a foreign language; something she could understand yet didn't know the meaning of.
Nobody, not now or in a million years, would be able to unlock the potential a young mind has to offer. The few that come close are often isolated from the current dystopia of Midgar, their wise words floating through fresh air besmirched by campfire smoke and the scent of blood in the most rural of places. Words that express the purity of young minds.
It is believed that these intangible objects are less like sponges and more like sieves. They do not absorb information but lose it as time passes. Innocence is the key to purity, but modern urban life pollutes the mind and degrades it, allowing it to percolate away, becoming defenceless against the entrancing prospect of wealth and power.
Her mind was still pure enough to dispense the required courage to pry open the splintered seal to this fortress of suffering, being warned not to several times by many a grown-up. But, to put it in a way they could understand, she simply didn't care. She didn't care what Auntie Jess had said about giving Tifa some time to be alone because she knew loneliness was the last thing she would ever want at such a sad time. She didn't care what Uncle Biggs had said about not talking to, or pestering as he had put it, Tifa at this time either.
She did, however, listen to what Uncle Wedge had said about smiling when she saw her.
Remember, Marlene. A smile goes a long way.
Daddy on the other hand hadn't said anything. Not a word.
"Teef?"
There was no response.
Progressing towards the bar jutting above her from the floor, caked in the dirt of a thousand shoes, she stood on the very tips of her toes, just able to place her nose over the counter. With eyes bouncing from one side of her head to the other, she scanned Tifa's nocturnal domain, finding the patches of wood worn away by the oil from the skin of her elbows, always propped on them as she gazed into the future.
The illustrious chequered tablecloth was present, obediently waiting for its owner to drag its limp body over the thin film of alcohol magnetically attracted to the tabletops and counters. The uncomfortable stool that was far too tall for her to sit on was there, too, motionless in the shadows, casting even more off in the distance under shelves stacked with bottles of all size, shape and colour. The artistic beverage containers had been arranged in a somewhat organised mess that looked oddly beautiful with the aid of cosmetic slivers of neon light cutting through gaps in the drapes.
She knew never to touch them, but that just made them all the more intriguing.
As the smell of old wood and alcohol began to make her dizzy, she dropped back down to her heels and searched the rest of the deserted wasteland.
It was truly amazing how the lack of a few pieces of furniture could transform a room into an area of increased dimensions; a couch here, a table there, a shelf somewhere else. When they were gone, the room would often feel empty and cold as though an aspect of its personality had been stripped away.
The analogy worked just as well with people. She often came here in the evenings noticing the markedly different atmosphere from the one she would leave on her way to school. The noises alone were enough to fill the bar with exuberance and character; laughter, chatter, music, chairs scraping against the floor, cutlery clinking together. But when it was all gone it would take little time to realise the soul of the room had gone with it.
The reciprocality of the soul of the bar and the soul within herself was astonishingly obvious. And so, she had to prove to Tifa that the bar within her heart wasn't as empty as she thought. After all, it only took one person and only one object to restore a room's character.
"Tifa? Are you here? You said you'd take me to school today."
She had considered calling her Auntie once or twice like she did with Jess, but it felt wrong and out of place. Tifa was more of a big sister than anything. An Auntie is someone who tries to reason with you when you run away from home after an argument with your parents, someone who gives you money on your birthday and someone you respect. A sister is someone who understands your problems, someone who gives you gifts that come from the heart rather than the wallet and someone you love.
She still loved Jessie but couldn't connect with her in the same way. They often told each other that they were just two peas in completely separate pods – or one of them was a pea and the other was a bean – or one of them was a pea and the other was any organic material that was the exact opposite of a pea, an anti-pea perhaps.
Such a strong comment was always taken with a pinch of salt by both parties. There was just no room for science and technology to mix with magic and imagination. Well, not in their minds anyway.
"Uncle Biggs said you weren't home so I came here instead. I hope that's OK. Tifa! Are you here?"
She pondered for a moment, staring back at the darkness behind her fighting with artificial lights and the sounds of the city pouring in through the door left ajar. Something looked odd and a little too coincidental for her to ignore, dropping another mushroom cloud of curiosity in the atmosphere.
She took a few steps around, scratching her head as though completely perplexed. Something was different. Something was missing. Some object had been removed from the area that somehow had changed its entire aura.
"Marlene?"
The heels of her shoes squeaked as they swivelled on the spot, allowing her to face a rather tired expression. A night of wrestling with a pillow had left the bar's proprietress with the considerably lethal condition of bed-head, the stray hairs hiding her eyes and the heavy bags underneath them.
"Hey, Teef. You ready to take me to school?" she said cheerily, the smile Wedge had told her to wear going unforgotten.
"Do I look ready?" she croaked, rubbing her eyes with the sleeves of her purple jammies.
Marlene giggled and rushed over to wrap her arms around Tifa's waist.
"Hey. What's the hug for, little missy?"
"I just though that a little hug could do you some good."
She wheezed in mock asphyxiation, splaying her fingers through the chestnut hair atop Marlene's head.
"A little hug? You've got the squeeze of a Midgar Zolom!"
The young girl's eyes were warmer than her tight hug. As intangible as it was, her innocence found a form, swimming through her large brown irises.
"It's OK if you wanna talk, Teef. I don't know what's going on with you and the rest of the gang but you'll always have me."
"I know, kiddo," she replied, affectionately tapping Marlene's button nose. "Don't you worry about me. I'll be right as rain in no time."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
There was a word she wasn't fond of. Although it sounded beautiful to those of which her language had no meaning, it was an expression of hope and honesty that hardly amounted to anything nowadays. Its good name had been tarnished by something far too bitter to be expressed in the form of a word, regardless of which tongue wished to use it. No, promises were just lies sprinkled with sugar. They were just a vehicle for false hope to deliver its pain to the innocent.
And if there was anyone in the world that she didn't want to lie to, it was Marlene.
Applying a brave face, she brushed her hair back with her palm and hurried back into her makeshift bedroom. A mattress she had ordered Biggs to fetch here six months ago for instances when she was too tired to walk home, a few old pillows and a thick blanket had given her enough opportunity to fall asleep. Of course, sleeping so close to the ground had been difficult at first but the adjustment did not take as long as her prior estimate.
"Just let me get my clothes on and we'll set off."
A faint OK carried its way through the hallway.
The mattress caught the corner of her eye, an object lying in the dirt with lacerations here and there, exposing its innards like a dying soldier on the battlefield. It was the sole furnishing the room owned besides the laptop, minding its own business as it recharged from the dangerous sockets.
E-mails were always so impersonal; at least that's what she thought up until last night. Voices through telephone speakers were always distorted towards the robotic, but there was still more than enough humanity to go around. And even though they could remove a person's recognisability they never removed their emotions.
It seemed silly that she required every sentence uttered in her general direction to be accompanied with the perfect amount of sentiment, but, as she would often verbalise, she simply wasn't good at picking up on these things unaided. She found it difficult to know whether someone was happy if they weren't smiling and found it difficult to know if someone was sad if there weren't any tears in their eyes.
Maybe it was because she had always worn her heart on her sleeve and let her emotions represent more than they ever should.
Grabbing a comb from the windowsill, she dragged it through tangled clumps of hair with a fair amount of force, the pain innervating a release of tears.
"See, Tifa," she spoke aloud to herself. "Tears don't always mean people are upset."
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
Handwritten letters were her preferred method of conversing with another soul. Every arch and curl of an alphabetic unit could represent any emotion and even those in between. Each word could be thought out for hours before applying pen to paper, each syllable measured to perfection.
In the right hands, a pen truly was mightier than the sword.
Of course, nobody had the time for handwritten letters anymore. Every single person around her had become martyrs of communication, simply to save time, and although time was precious, too, it had a far less profound effect on her. She didn't even have an e-mail address until a few weeks ago when Jessie had coerced her into creating one.
Sending an e-mail or two to Marlene helped her to grasp the basics, soon confidently enabling her to send one to Reno, embarking on a long journey of dirty-talk armed with a new arsenal of what could only be described as a teenager's vernacular. A night of chatting with him online had really taught her a few more things about this method of communication. She found that her giggling at Reno's comments transcended every step of evolution to become full blown belly-laughs. The emotions expressed from his small rows of Microsoft Sans Serif were even more evident than anything he could ever say to her face. With the physical barrier of a computer on her lap, she felt her inhibitions floating out of her head. The real Tifa, a more raw form of the emotionally fragile woman, was laying her cards on the table, or in this case her keyboard, and made it all seem worthwhile.
Waltzing back of the bedroom fully clothed and groomed, she rushed over to the drapes and yanked them apart, the pale light splashing over everything it could get its hands on. The youngster was so deprived of inspiration, especially when she inadvertently dished so much of it out. She had to get over this. For her.
"It's morning. The sun is probably out and I'm guessing it's a beautiful day somewhere, right, Marlene?"
"Right," she said, the forced smile replaced with a genuine one.
"You ready to go to school?"
"Do I look ready?" she responded, mimicking Tifa's morning grumpiness.
"Come here, cheeky," she chuckled, lifting her off the ground and carrying her around the room.
Laughter made a welcome change and filled the room, leading the way to the birth of its newest soul.
"Hey, Teef," she giggled, slumped over the proprietress' shoulder. "Did you do something to this room? For some odd reason it feels different."
"Uh, I don't think so," she replied, placing her back down again before grabbing her keys and opening the door.
"Hmm..."
Leaving hand in hand the two jumped on the slabs of concrete protruding from the dry soil dominating her back yard, passing the trash can with a hunk of dented brass emerging from a cylinder of garbage.
Marlene craned her neck to gaze at her big sister.
"You know, I never liked those scales either."
Thursday, October 14th, 3:53pm – Moers Road, Upper Plate
"It's forgotten. I swear to God, I've put it to the back of my mind, you hearing me?"
Rude nodded, prodding a potato wedge with a tiny blue fork, walking along the embankment with one foot on the edge of the slightly elevated pavement and the other on the edge of the road. The fun of walking in this lopsided manner would always make itself apparent when the elevation melted down to road level at zebra crossings for cyclists and pedestrians confined to wheelchairs.
It was funny how he only ever noticed things when they weren't there to be noticed.
"I'm telling you, bro," he continued, "I will not let this get the better of me." He lifted his fork bearing hand and pressed the back of it against his partner's rather wide chest. "And before you say it, I don't need to see a doctor. I don't need cold fingers probing my delicate areas, no matter how skilled the diagnostician."
"Actually, I wasn't going to say that."
"Oh, yeah?" Reno asked, a smile slowly revealing itself. He had only said 'And before you say anything' as an expression, the idea of Rude actually having a response waiting seeming utterly farfetched. Of course, he should have been used to the laconic quips and one-liners by now, but in all honesty, he didn't have the energy to stop talking and actually listen for once. "Go for it."
"I was simply going to ask why a blaspheming little S.O.B. like yourself would ever swear to God."
"Trust you to take everything I say literally."
"Oh," he responded, screwing up the now greasy newspapers that had acted as his plate. "Which metaphorical God were you talking about?"
"They're all metaphorical."
"I see. Your evil vicar of a father wouldn't have anything to do with this loathing of all things holy, would he?"
Reno wolfed down the last of his potato wedges and threw the newspapers behind a bus shelter, licking his fingers before he said, "My father wasn't a vicar. He was a priest, a Catholic priest."
"OK, wait. Aren't Catholic priest's supposed to be celibate?"
"My dad has a weak mind. He's susceptible to being brainwashed by anyone and the first one that got to him was the motherfucking clergy. He converted then became a priest after he got divorced and lost thirty grand in the Gold Saucer."
"So, what's the big deal?"
"So, what's the big deal? Alright, what's the difference between acne and a Catholic priest?"
Rude shrugged his shoulders.
Reno cocked his neck from side to side like a hungry pigeon to check for eavesdroppers before grabbing Rude's newspapers to stuff them in a nearby mailbox.
"Get this. Acne doesn't come on a boy's face until after he hits puberty."
"Ouch."
"I know. I had to endure jokes like that my entire childhood. I mean, a boy needs a strong male role model as he grows up, y'know? Not a possible paedophile that warns you not to have sex before marriage because he thinks you'll go to hell and get prodded up the jacksie by some red guy's pitchfork."
"Ah. Do you ever think this lack of a strong male role model ever had a lasting impression on you? You think how you behave with women stems from this?"
Reno cast a suspicious eye on his partner.
"Maybe."
"And do you think the way you behave with women may be creating some kind of overriding guilt that corresponds to your erectile dysfunc...mmm... mmmm."
Reno removed his palm from Rude's mouth when he felt the danger had passed.
"Would you keep the fucking volume down!" he spat, furiously. "Jesus, it sounds like you've had one too many a session with that head shrink."
Rude couldn't help but smirk as he straightened the lapels of his jacket and waited for Reno to continue walking.
Cold wind began to lick their skins as they continued on down the road, a vital proclamation of oncoming rain. It induced a little more pace into their steps.
"So," Reno said, showing a fervent hatred of being on this side of humiliation. "Are you enjoying your little vacation? Sounds like Tseng's trying to put some distance between you and Lockhart. Actually, it sounds like he's prepping you for some early retirement. You can't be a stone cold killer if you've got mushy feelings for some chick, especially a chick connected to a case, especially a case as high profile as this one."
He didn't respond. He didn't want to give Reno the satisfaction of doing so.
"Not talkin', huh? Well that's typical. You know, I think I'm gonna take some time off once this case is over – that is if I can ever get anything out of her. I'm just wondering whether Tseng will pull the plug on the whole operation now that Heidegger leaked our classified info. I bet they won't even find out. I'd put good money on the idea that their overgrown testicles make it difficult to squeeze through doorways, so even the most groundbreaking news story will take its time to get to them. I mean, lets face it, you've gotta have a hefty pair of cahonas to take on Shinra-"
"She knows," he interjected hesitantly.
They were nothing more than two common words, two words that could have been used in a million different sentences to mean a million different things. But simply put together, they conveyed something far more significant than anything either of them had ever heard in a long time.
Reno stopped abruptly. His jaw hung low before he gulped down the saliva accumulating in his mouth and forcibly clamped it shut with his hand.
"When the fuck did this happen... and just when the fuck were you gonna plan on telling me?"
He wrapped his jacket a little tighter over his body, suddenly feeling the cold wind, aided by Reno's cold tone of voice.
"To my knowledge it was a few days ago, but I don't honestly know how long she's known about me."
"You? She knows about you? She doesn't know jackshit about me though, right?"
"Don't you think it's only a matter of time before she does?"
Reno, brushed past his partner and continued to walk to his car, an object that seemed to be parked an extra infinitely large distance away than from the one in his memory.
"I honestly don't think she has the brain power to connect a child's dot-to-dot, let alone us two-" he said, stopping as thick fingers wrapped themselves around his arm with all the force of a mechanical vice. He looked back at his own reflection through Rude's shades and shook his head. "What's your problem?"
"I've had about enough of your snarky little comments. Stop talking that way about her."
"Oh, I'm sorry," he chuckled sardonically, wriggling free from his captor's grip. "I didn't mean to offend you. Honestly though, you're girlfriend has the IQ of a lamppost."
He could taste his own blood before he felt the fist striking his jaw. Falling to the floor, Reno cradled his face and groaned in agony. He rolled on his back, squinting as shafts of brilliant light pierced the clouds, and laughed, displaying a gruesome bloody smile. Before Rude could step over him and walk away he called out, impeded by a mixture of blood and saliva.
"I'm guessing Tseng doesn't know about this."
He stopped, choosing not to turn back and face the pathetic sight on the floor.
"You tell him and I swear I'll-"
"What? You're gonna hit me again? Go for it, baby. I think in some sick and perverted way I enjoyed it."
"This isn't about you and me anymore, Reno," he said, taking off his shades to massage his forehead. "Try to think about someone other than the sick fuck staring back at you through the mirror. She doesn't deserve to die."
Reno stood and dusted himself off. He coughed violently and spat out a globule of green slime that any forty-a-day-smoker would have been proud of.
"I don't give a shit. I'm just doing my job, and before you say it, I don't care if it makes me the bad guy." He stood to face his partner and tapped his temple. "In my head, I'm doing the right thing. I could bust into Santa's workshop, murder all of his elves and still believe I was doing the right thing because I've been programmed that way. Isn't that how murderers and suicide bombers justify their actions?" He moved his head within inches of Rude's. "How about people who want to put explosives in Mako Reactors? How do they justify it, huh?
"Don't tell me this woman is all innocent just because she's got a pretty smile and a sweet demeanour. I know it took me this long to figure it out, but that unstable perception was a lot easier to define when I focussed on her bad qualities instead of trying desperately to find the good ones. Yeah, she's cute and sweet, but how can someone so cute and sweet also be a murderer? Look at me. I'm selfish and sleazy and arrogant – the fact that I'm also a killer seems to make perfect sense. Look at you. You're stoic and aggressive and cold. The prospect of ending another person's life should have that effect on you. It's a healthy reaction to an unhealthy occupation.
"Deep down inside, she's just as bad as we are. She's a bad guy. She's a villain. She's a vulture, just like us, yo."
Rude placed his shades back over his eyes, found a handkerchief in his pocket and threw it at Reno.
"Wipe yourself off," he said, violently brushing past him one last time.
Thursday, October 14th, 4:14pm – Midgar Train Station, Upper Plate
He had seen it in the movies more times than he cared to remember. It was a neat little post-edit trick that always produced the same feeling of subdued awe; the world spinning by in doubled speed, almost reducing them to hazy blurs as the main protagonist meandered through them in a slow pace with a pathetic expression plastered on his or her face. It isolated the character from the rest of the world.
His world was not a movie, even though he felt isolated with the burdens of any lead role, and he was no protagonist either. Nor was he the bad guy. He was just the guy stuck in the middle – the soul sandwiched between good and bad, between right and wrong, between his colleague and his... what was the right word? Lover? Friend? She was neither and yet he was still willing to risk his career and even his life in pursuit of happiness for the nagging little organ in his chest, beating away silently, the rest of his body spinning by in doubled speed.
The movie effects had stopped just in time for the train to come to a screeching halt by the platform, the sea of humans around him providing a current to travel through without having to consciously move his limbs.
Herded into the nearest cabin, he found a spare seat besides a businessman hiding behind a broadsheet. Who knew what face hid behind the paper barrier? What story did it have to tell? Was the world spinning by him, too?
He looked blankly at the passengers ahead of him, paying no attention to the masses of drones cramming into the tube. They didn't bother him, even though they continually stared at him through narrowed eyelids, suspecting him of something - anything.
He was in no mood to satisfy their curiosity by moving. He was too busy thinking about the past twenty minutes. The sight of Reno's blood was not uncommon, bringing him back to the days of scooping him off the ground after a drunken brawl or three. But to actually be the cause of it was a completely different matter indeed.
Was it bad of him to enjoy striking his best friend? Well, Reno's smug attitude hardly made it easy to feel sorry for him, but there was still something bothering him about the way he ended the argument. It was hardly mature of him.
The train jolted as it accelerated out of the station on its way through a downward spiral into the murky depths of the slums. The butterflies were common at this part of the journey, but his were born from a different set of consequences.
Fear. Anxiety. Trepidation.
Dr. Kauffman would have a field day.
He continued to replay the argument in his mind. Reno had said it himself; stoic, menacing and cold. They were apparently by-products of his evil occupation, yet if he was supposed to be the good guy, why did he miss those things so much?
Hmm, it's true. I only ever notice what I have when it's gone.
I only ever notice things until they've gone?
Jake.
Where had Jake's memory gone in all this time?
The train suddenly submerged in icy shadows as it descended below, lower and lower into the garbage heap of a city. Smells overpowering those of the passengers made their way through jagged apertures in windows and the crackling sound of fire caught his ears even before he could see the spears of oranges and yellows licking the dirty air from empty trash cans.
"Sector Five!" a hoarse voice cried over the tannoy.
He closed his eyes and ignored the impulses from his ears and his nose and concentrated. He dove into the waters of his mind from inexplicable heights to the very depths. Although the surface of the water appeared crystal clear, reflecting the sun's light, shimmering pleasantly in a pastel shade of turquoise, the bed was formed by jagged rocks, protuberant shards of glass and a layer of inky blood.
These were the only memories he had left. Murder victims and the methods he used to end their lives. The guilt, a faceless monster, could always be repressed with aid of special training. But recently, eyes developed; blood red with pupils like yawning chasms. A nose sprouted too, ugly and bent with flared nostrils. Soon after, crooked ivory pegs shot from bloody gums.
Yes, the monster now had a face.
"Sector Six! The next stop is Sector Six!"
All he could do now was think of her face. She was the light at the surface, his sun that shone down on the water and allowed it to shimmer, even the sky that reflected its pastel turquoise sanguinity. She saved him in his realm of dreams, and although at first it seemed odd that the alpha male status he had developed over the years meant nothing in this somewhat upside-down world, he relaxed his muscles, unclenched his fists and let her innocence fight away all the malevolence in his head. She had become his saviour - a position that had once been strictly reserved for Jake alone.
He didn't need to think too hard. Tifa wasn't a vulture. He was a bad person, for what he done to others, for what he had done to his son and most of all for what he had done to himself. But if she could conjure up the same enlightening emotions as the single most important person in his life then she was surely worth fighting for.
"Sector Seven!"
He opened his eyes, noticing everyone else had lost interest in him, and stood up, brushing his way through throngs of commuters. After feeling the toy pistol tucked in his belt with the tips of his fingers, he jumped off the train and began to walk over the cobbles of Sector Seven.
He had said it himself; the most important person in my life.
It was time to stop hiding from the deeper end of the water. If he truly was the protagonist, he would simply have to deal with his problems.
Hopefully with Tifa's help, he wouldn't have to deal with them alone.
Thursday, October 14th, 4:29pm – Dean Street, Sector Seven
The soil crunched underfoot as he marched silently with all the purpose of an off-duty soldier fatigued by the prospect of a personal vendetta that had gone unsettled for too long. The street he walked through, he would have noticed had he not been so preoccupied, contained more than its fair share of workshops. Rags soaked in turpentine hung from doorframes, saturating the air with a far less pungent odour. Their proximity to the sparks flying from saws grinding against metal didn't seem to bother anyone else, much less himself.
He travelled through black smoke and oil clouds. He travelled through diesel fumes and neon lights. He travelled though crystal clear waters that transformed into a brackish, wild sea. Black waves were crashing in his stomach. The storm was raging in his mind. The fear within his heart was creating cloud after cloud, each blacker than last, covering the moon and blocking its waxy pool of light.
He gulped as he passed the school, wrapping his coat even tighter still over his chest. It provided a medium for his heartbeat to speak through. He felt every last thud vibrating his entire body.
Children were still tailing adults leaning heavily on pushchairs as they conversed with one another, the last few leaving the school gates rushing up to their respective parents to be hugged and smothered with love. They sang and chirped happily. Some even skipped. If the demoralising world they lived in couldn't kill their spirits, nothing could.
Reducing his pace to a slow amble, he looked at the bright faces around him. These loud, irritating creatures gave people the hope Jake had once given him. These tiny humans were responsible for so much joy to so many people. So why was he so terrified?
Man, I'm pathetic.
He had considered stopping and turning back, but the slightly blurry image of a boy slumped on a set of concrete steps squeezed at his heart, rendering him immobile. He could feel his lungs expanding within his chest as the ethereal force began to draw him closer like an errant breeze directed by the jerky hand of fate.
He wished he could stop his heart from thumping so violently – a wish that was soon granted, stopping for a second or two as his son had spotted him and began to stare like a deer in headlights, the innocence he had been blessed with pouring through his tear ducts. They weren't tears of joy though and Rude knew it.
They were tears of fear.
My own son fears me. What kind of monster am I?
He took one step forward, inducing electricity into the boy's muscles, enabling him to jump off the steps and run back into the house as fast as possible.
He could hear the door slamming from such a large distance above the calls of street vendors and the high pitched warbles of school-kids. He could feel the door slamming in his heart.
This was a stupid idea.
He felt for the toy gun, removed it, carefully looked at it and finally dropped into the flowing sludge in an open sewer.
The sight of my face sent him running, what would the sight of this gun do? Could I be any more of an idiot?
He huddled under his collar and braved the walk back to the train station pushing everything to the back of his mind. It was only until he felt the fresh air of the upper plate seeping through his fingers did he hear the saws grinding against metal and smell the turpentine floating through the acrid air.
Thursday, October 14th, 5:07pm – Intelligence Communications & Analysis Centre, Shinra Building
The light was playing on the food cart in just the right way to make its contents appear edible. Usually the squeaking of its under-oiled wheels would always be his first sign of danger, giving him ample time to duck for cover before the terrible cooks and grumpy dinner-ladies could deal any more damage to his small intestines.
He picked up a small piece of chocolate cake, neatly arranged in concentric circles around a large teapot, and tried not to let the glowering eyes of the old woman manning the cart to intimidate him. She stared at his swollen lip, and the dry blood around it, and then stared even harder as he placed the piece of cake back on the tray.
If he hadn't been nursing his facial wound he probably would have been emerging from behind a sofa right about now, but the prospect of impressing his female colleagues with a few battle scars had completely taken all of his attention.
He may have 'bagged' more women than he could care to remember, but he still had so much to learn about the opposite sex.
After taking a long look at his watch he slumped lazily on the nearest soft object, ruling out the rather podgy old cart-pusher. He loosened his already loose tie, making it easier to inhale the room's entire supply of oxygen in one breath. If anyone else had seen him sitting so patiently for more than thirty seconds they would have known for sure that he was either plotting something or he had taken a sedative, mysteriously found in his coffee cup. Again.
The former was almost correct. When one is plotting something, one must have a general plot in mind. Reno on other hand was deciding which one of the many convoluted plots was worth plotting.
His eyes darted over to the glass doorway as his superior entered, completely ignoring him and his swollen lip. It disappointed him a little.
Maybe the bright red patch around his face did not contrast heavily enough with his bright red hair? Yes, that sounded feasible enough.
He quickly coughed to gain Tseng's attention.
"Hey, boss."
"Oh, Reno, I didn't see you there," he said, sliding his reading glasses further down his nose as he lowered the stack of papers that appeared to be more interesting than a fat lip. "I've actually been looking for you." He sat down, pointing to Reno's injury without really acknowledging it. "I'm gonna ignore that for now and ask you something about the Lockhart investigation."
"Uh, sure."
He placed his arm over the back of the seat and crossed his legs. It was the generic Boss Posture. He just wanted to connect with his employee and be the nice guy.
It shouldn't have been this damn difficult.
"Information has gotten to the top brass and has now made its way to the slums. The unit's already drained of recourses and money—" Resources meant Turks. Money meant Turks, too. Killers are expensive commodities. "We don't know how these people will react to the news. It might spur them on to light their fuses even faster or if we're lucky, which we never are, it may actually scare them away. One way or another we have to clear up the mess. They can't come out of this on bail – they have to die."
He leaned closer, hoping the uncomfortable nature of proximity would squeeze an ounce of honesty from him.
Reno was beginning to regret his foolhardy decision to plot in the ICA centre.
"Uh, I couldn't agree more, sir."
"It wasn't my decision to make but it's for the good of the company and more importantly is for our safety."
The redhead gulped. He didn't like where this was going. He wasn't ready for this decision and he certainly wasn't ready for Tseng to pat his shoulder.
"I want your professional opinion, Reno. Do you think it's worth continuing this investigation behind the head honchos' backs or should we terminate them?"
He gulped again. Faces flooded before his eyes, all swimming in black and white spirals. They made him dizzy.
He wanted to go home.
"Well, I think in the current environment it would be risky to continue the investigation," he said, gaining enough courage to say one little word to wipe the smile off Tseng's face. "But-"
But I'm kidding, boss! We should wipe the bastards off the face of the planet!
"But?"
"But, according to my knowledge, the information has not found AVALANCHE's ears as of yet. I believe it's necessary to continue the investigation to ensure we have enough information about any sister factions that may be plotting other terrorist activities to destroy this company and this city. Killing the members of AVALANCHE we know of may also spark a fire of revenge in the hearts of unknown members or relatives. Plus..."
"That's all I needed to hear, Reno. I trust your judgement and I expect a full report by nine a.m. sharp on my desk. Is that clear?"
"Yeah, but I hope I'm not being punished for not telling you what you wanna hear," he said nervously, looking at the floor.
Tseng made his way to the door and sighed heavily.
"Fine. Nine thirty."