CHAPTER ELEVEN: REFLECTIONS AND ACCOMMODATIONS
In which Veld considers the evidence, Rude and Reno discuss Cissnei, and the Turks move house
Above Plate...
A number of reports landed on Commander Veld's desk the next morning, confirming in writing that concatenation of events which he had already learnt about, piecemeal, through telephone conversations the previous day. He made a note of the key items on his pad:
Archive thief - Professor Hollander
Hollander, once Hojo's rival for leadership of the Science Department, but sidelined after the failure of Project G, had disappeared at about the same time as Genesis.
Genesis working with Hollander
This fact was now indisputable. Reno and Rude had chased Hollander into the underbelly of the plate and as far as Sector 5, but had been unable to capture him due to the relentless attacks by the Genesis copies. The clincher, though, was the attempt made by Genesis himself to kill, or possibly kidnap, Hojo, presumably on Hollander's bidding. But why would a man as aristocratic and as arrogant as Genesis be willing to do Hollander's dirty work for him? Hojo, when questioned by Tseng, had said that Genesis was 'deteriorating', whatever that meant. Mentally, maybe? Tseng had asked him to explain, but Hojo had laughed and said explanations would be meaningless for those without scientific vision. God, what a piece of kak that man was.
Stolen documents relate to mass SOLDIER desertion incident, Wutai, October 1999
This was what Veld had expected.
Secret lab Sector 5 reactor basement
How could Hollander and Genesis have hidden down there for so long undetected? Reeve was a genius, but the city he was building was a reflection of the way his own mind worked, a maze of dead ends and tortuous passageways and locked chambers. Veld had thought he knew Midgar like the back of his hand. Obviously he'd been wrong. Better tighten that up.
Sephiroth's loyalties? Angeal?
According to the report filed by Sephiroth, Angeal remained loyal to Shinra. Veld suspected that both Angeal's and Sephiroth's first loyalties were to their old friendships. All three of the fugitives – Genesis, Angeal, Hollander – had escaped; it seemed likely that they had been allowed to escape by SOLDIER. And what about Lazard? What did he know? What was his part in this? That information was vital. Cissnei would have to start trying a bit harder.
Genesis and Hollander. AVALANCHE. Wutai. Shinra's enemies were multiplying.
Veld tapped the pen against his silicon knuckles. There was one more thing to add. He did not yet know its significance, if any, but his job was to strategize, and to do this he needed to consider all eventualities, all variables, even one as unforeseen, as apparently random, as this:
In the course of pursuing Hollander, SOLDIER Zack Fair fell from Reactor Five into the slum church below and made contact with the primary objective, Aerith Gainsborough.
Below Plate...
"So," said Rude to Reno. "Cissnei. What gives?"
They were down in The Live and Let Live in the Sector Two slums. This bar was their mutual secret, the place they went to when they wanted to be sure none of the other Turks would find them. The Live and Let Live was a rusty old cargo container with the roof removed, where the rotgut brewed in the tin-can still out back cost a gil a shot, and most of the clientele were the saddest kind of crook: hungry, ragged petty thieves, kids and old men. Reno had done a lot of his underage drinking here, before the Chief plucked him out of the mob, raised him plateside, and made him somebody.
"I dunno," said Reno. "I just can't stop thinking about her."
"But what happened?"
"I dunno. She got sent off to SOLDIER and I didn't see her for a while and then when I did, wham! Sucker punch. I never saw it coming."
"Seriously?"
"You did. I remember. You see it all, don't you, Rude? And you keep it all to yourself. Otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this."
"If the Chief finds out…"
"Finds out what?" Reno threw back his head and drained his glass. "She's got Zack. She isn't interested in me."
"She kissed you."
"Bartender, two more. Yeah. That was one hell of a bizarre day, wasn't it? Every time I thought it couldn't get any more random, it did. I nearly kissed you, I was so fucking delirious to escape with my skin intact. She was glad to see me alive, that's all. Ciss and I are still friends, I think. That's what makes it all so…. so… weird."
"You better be careful you don't mess up her mission with SOLDIER. "
"Drink," said Reno. "C'mon. Keep up. Down the hatch. I'm not going to do anything stupid, OK? She doesn't want me. I'll just live with it and then I'll get over it."
"Find someone else," Rude suggested.
"Tried it. Doesn't work."
While he talked, Reno kept his hands busy building a wall out of their empty shot glasses. Rude was a little alarmed to see just how big the wall was becoming. He didn't think he'd drunk more than he usually did. So how much was Reno putting away?
"Reno," he said after a moment, "Do you – love her?"
Reno set down the glass he'd just drained. He turned it on its side and began spinning it. "Man," he said, "I don't even know what that means. I mean, sure, I say it, all the time. Yeah, 'course I love you, baby, 'course I'll call you. You know. That crap. And sometimes I wonder how it would be with Ciss and me. What if we did get it together? And what if after a week I couldn't stand the sight of her any more?"
He balanced the final glass on top of the wall. Then, with a vicious jab of his finger, he knocked the lynchpin loose and all the glasses came tumbling down onto the zinc tabletop, chipping, cracking, smashing.
"Music to my ears," Reno grinned. "Yeah, yeah," he added with a sigh as the angry bartender approached. "I'll pay."
Departmental Email, Administrative Research
Subject: New security measures
From: Director Veld
To: All staff
Date: 7th April 2001
In view of the multiple threats to Shinra that have surfaced in recent months, I feel it is necessary to take certain steps to ensure your protection, both on a personal level and as assets of this company which we are sworn to serve. I have therefore made arrangements for you to move into corporate housing on Warehouse Street in Sector 8.
The property is equipped with security protection on a par with that used for the President, and is accessible to the Shinra Building via an underground passageway. There are a gym and sauna in the basement. Each of you will be allocated a furnished studio apartment with cooking facilities and private washroom. Family members may not accompany you. I intend this move to be a temporary measure only, for the duration of the current crisis, and I have every confidence that you will understand the need for these measures and make them work to our advantage. The deadline for moving in is the end of this week.
Reno read through the Commander's email and mentally shrugged. One bolt-hole was as good as another, and Veld had said nothing about a curfew. If the others got on his nerves too much in the new place he could just lock the door and turn up the volume on his headphones. At least there'd always be someone around to talk to. As long as he could keep his cleaner, or a cleaner, he could live with the new arrangements. There wasn't much more than a suitcase worth of stuff to move from his apartment anyway. Rude wasn't looking happy, though. Well, he was a private kind of guy. Probably hated the thought of someone else seeing his boxers go round in the washing machine. Funny, the things they each got pissy about.
Aviva and Cavour already lived in the company housing, so no change for them. As for Mink, she'd obviously been born a Turk: whatever she was asked to do, she did, no fussing.
"What about you, Knox?" asked Rosalind. "What will you do about Barbara and the boys?"
Knox had taken off his glasses and was polishing them on his shirt. "They've gone back to Mideel. Midgar's no place for kids right now. They're staying with her parents. The boys are playing in the sunshine, climbing trees. They'll be OK." He put his glasses back on. Looking at no one in particular, he added, "You might as well know, Barbara and I have separated."
A shocked silence fell. Knox and Barbara had seemed to all of them like one of those rock-solid couples whom only death could part.
"I'm sorry to hear that," said broken-nosed Mozo at last.
"It's been a while coming. She thought she could handle this life, but she can't. It's better like this, actually. I used to worry they might be targeted. Having them gone – it's a weight off my mind."
He sounded as if he'd almost succeeded in making himself believe it.
One by one they made the move into their new home. The apartments were characterless: clean lines and simple furniture, with blue Shinra tiles, blue recessed lighting, and the red company logo on the walls. Mozo covered his floor with bright Costa tapestries and hung up big photographs of sunrises and flowers. Who would have guessed the ex-detective had such a colourful side? Knox brought his bookcase, his rugs from home, the photos of his family, and the little clay pots his kids had made in school. On Rosalind's shelves the books were neatly arranged according to height, colour, and subject matter, and her shoes stood smartly side by side on the door mat. Cavour had pin-up calendars from tire companies, and stacks of gun magazines tied together with string. Aviva's walls were plastered with posters of LOVELESS actors and singers from the slum's metal bands; her bed was heaped with cushions shaped like moogles, chocobos, and cats. New clothes, the price tags still attached, burst out of her closet.
Rude showed up on the appointed day with a guitar slung over his back. Aviva was delighted. "Play something for us," she begged him.
"Some other time."
Tseng's studio, from what brief glimpses they caught of it through the doorway, was like an office: laptop, printer, files; a pressed suit hanging on the bathroom door; and always a vase of flowers, yellow and white.
Mink and Reno brought their clothes.
The only other thing Reno brought to his new apartment was a toy helicopter that he'd bought from a kid in the slums. It had been soldered together from old copper wire and pieces of cooking-oil cans, and was so skillfully made that the blades spun round when he breathed on them.
He quickly found himself missing the balcony of his old apartment.
Still, it didn't take him long to re-wire the coded lock for the hatchway that gave access to the flat roof, and soon he was sleeping up there more often than not. Sometimes the little cat kept him company. It didn't seem to want to be with Reno, particularly; rather, they both happened to find themselves in the same place at the same time. It sat on the eaves with its back to him, beyond arm's reach, its tail curled round its forepaws, its face turned up to the clouds.
The one Turk missing was Cissnei, but that was just as well, Reno reflected. He had no idea where she was living these days. And that was just as well, too. He didn't want to degenerate into some kind of pathetic lust-crazed stalker.
She never called. She didn't email. So he didn't either. I can take a hint, he thought. Occasionally he saw her at a distance, walking through Fountain Square, or in the mezzanine waiting for the elevator. He always turned the other way, wondering, as he did so, whether she did the same when she saw him first.
About two weeks after they moved into the corporate housing, Tseng announced during one of the morning briefings that she had left Midgar to accompany Director Lazard on a global tour of Shinra's military bases. She would be gone, he said, for several months. Reno couldn't say exactly how he felt when he heard that. He wanted to feel glad. He was pretty sure he felt relieved.
The weeks passed. One blonde swimsuit girl replaced another on Cavour's calendar as April turned to May and then May to June, and it began to look as if the Commander had been overly alarmist in insisting they all move to secure quarters. Wutai was behaving itself. AVALANCHE had gone silent (though Veld insisted that what little information they possessed pointed to the likelihood of further attacks). Genesis, Angeal, and Hollander seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Deprived of his sim-room playmates, Sephiroth had been reduced to hunting monsters to keep his hand in. Midgar was quieter than Reno had ever known it. Fighting the occasional chimera bug, chasing a mugger, busting the odd street dealer had become major events, report-worthy. Better were the missions when he went with Rude or Mozo or Mink or Aviva to some godforsaken corner of the planet to chase up leads on AVALANCHE. The leads never came to anything, but at least he was flying.