Chapter 23: Broken Dreams, Broken Cities
Elena's day continued with Reno being unsociable and her tiptoeing around him. They were in the common room, at Elena's newly issued laptop, trying to log in for the fifth time when the last member finally came back.
Click clack click, the keyboard sang as Elena typed in her ident.
"Okay… click that button, and then enter the ident again, then click on that cell, type in password. Click log in… what the hell?"
"It froze," Elena reported, although Reno could see it without her saying anything. He was getting irked. He jammed his fingers into the ESC key and DEL key angrily, repeatedly pressing them like someone with a tic.
"Er, I don't think that'll…" The blonde woman timidly said, but then the redhead sighed.
"There we go. This OS sucks."
"What is this for anyway?"
Reno gave her a blank look. "No fuckin' clue. Director said to do it, so I do."
"That's what the dumb kids say!"
"Yeah, well, the registration system changed three days ago to up the security, and the Director and DeVir made a manual 'cause I can't figure this out. No one told us."
"Without notice?"
"Yup. Even our main system. 'Course, the other sectors discussed everything about it… oh wait, heard the Intelligence got it just as bad as we did. Anyway." He flipped the page of a stapled stack of paper. "We're special tactics squad with half our foot stuck in the Armed Forces, and we're employees only on paper. Everybody hates us, and until a year ago we were stuck in a remote corner with barely even desks. You saw the other offices, right?" Elena nodded at that. "We always get told not to think we'd get the same treatment as they do. No matter how much we do, no one'll notice our work, 'cause we aren't supposed to exist, really. This is what you dreamed of." He paused, and the room was filled with the laptop making series of beeps as if it was protesting the inattention. Elena was staring at him when the door opened. They both turned. Elena saw a tall woman walk in, her long trench coat still on. The coat sparkled with droplets of water that decorated the surface, and her dark hair looked damp as she walked to the coffee machine. Her loafers made soft noises on the carpet. She went straight to the coffee machine without even a glance at them, picked up a mug with tiny engraved birds and plants, and poured the dark hot liquid into it. She stirred in some powdered creamer and sweetener, her back to them. Reno, who had been straddling the chair, turned and saw her.
"Hey, Arie. How was it?"
The woman turned around, and Elena saw that she had some Wutaian blood in her. Her blue eyes were intelligent, alert, her posture fluid, unlike the redhead, who seemed eternally hunched with his lankiness. There was an odd sensuousness about her full lips. Elena noticed silver stud earrings in her ears; Rude had an assortment on his ear, Reno a hoop. Was wearing earrings some rule in this department?
"My feet are killing me," she said as she crossed her legs. She swallowed the coffee. "Who's the new one?" Her eyes glanced over, then narrowed slightly. "Why are her eyes brown?"
"Some cases don't turn eyes blue. Super-rare, but it happens. Elena. Rookie. Like you were."
"We were all rookies once, Reno," she retorted. "What's that infernal beeping noise?"
"This shit system won't register. It keeps spitting back error."
"The system needs massive upgrades," Arien groused. "We're still running an outdated OS, while the rest of the company gets the newest every year. Lemme see."
Reno propelled himself away from the table as she walked over, coffee mug in hand. "How was the sector?"
"What do you think?" Arien put the mug onto the table and bent down to see the screen. "It's a total mess. Everyone thinks Shinra's a saviour, though. The PR department did a good job. Irony of ironies." She clicked on a radio box, scrolled down. "Fancy being called a saviour when we caused it in the first place. Ignorance is bliss."
"Hey, it was a job."
"I know." She turned her head to see the blonde woman, who was looking puzzled. "The Sector 7 plate incident? That was us. Or didn't you know?"
"What…?!"
Reno snorted. "You ruined this poor rookie's innocence, Arie. And you were one a few months ago! Thought you were gonna do things you'd rather have done."
"I was no innocent when I joined," she retorted, slapping on the ENTER key. "Here. You had the wrong settings." She picked up her mug. "Oh, and Jerry said your spare EMR's here." With a mannish wave, she walked out.
"What did she mean, she was no innocent?" Elena asked as she resumed typing in her ident number. Reno wheeled himself over, his chin on the back of the chair.
"She's from the Intelligence. Joined us a few months ago," he explained. "Section AA. You'll deal with them soon. They basically do the stuff we're too busy to do, so a lot of their work's similar with ours. She knew what was going on before she came here." And adjusted far too quickly, he added silently. Now that he was seeing a true-blue rookie, he was struck by the difference between Arien and Elena, and realised that the former had blended into the rag tag band of gangs far too smoothly to be called natural. The Turks were regarded as weapons, nothing more, to be wielded and discarded by the upper echelons, and Arien understood this… but he had a feeling in his gut that just because she understood it didn't mean she agreed. Which meant she'd only agree to be a weapon as long as it suited her.
Well, wasn't he the same?
Half an hour later, Elena was registered within the system, and Reno asked Arien - who had been looking for Tseng when she came back into the common room - to take her to the armoury, since she was going down there to receive her new assault rifle anyway. Arien smiled at the blonde woman and nodded.
"Oh, and can you pick up my rod?" Reno asked as he dug around his pocket for the slip. He handed it to her, who received it without a word.
"Anything else?"
"Er, yeah. Ask Jerry if he made the customisation." Reno winked. "Thanks, Arie."
The woman shrugged as she left.
Elena felt a bit of awkwardness talking to this woman. She wasn't much senior than she was in terms of career within the Investigation Sector, but she had a few years on her in terms of espionage. Arien seemed to know her way around Shinra Tower, and clearly knew a few people, knew what was going on. She was also quite tall compared to Elena herself. As they rode the elevator, they remained silent, until Elena, unable to bear the stifling lack of noise any longer, broke the silence.
"So, is Reno always like that?"
Arien, who was checking the slip Reno had handed to her, looked up. "Like what?" She asked.
"He doesn't seem… serious. Slovenly, even."
The woman gave a faint smile. "Reno? Yes," she replied, her voice controlled. "He gets things done, and that's what counts in this sector, so he's the ace, even if he's not wearing a tie and dyes his hair red and can't remember to wear the uniform properly. There are rules, but sometimes rules are broken if it gets missions completed. And well, if Reno's good at anything, it's achieving objectives."
"Rude seems more… capable?" Elena searched for the right word, failed to come up with it.
"Rude is more than capable, but in terms of capability as an agent?" Arien shook her head. "Reno's our ace for a reason… here we are."
The armoury was on the 38th floor of the building, and was quite possibly the busiest place; everyone who needed weaponry came here to be fitted, fixed, or otherwise equipped. The woman casually pulled out her ID and walked in, but when Elena tried to follow, the sliding doors slammed shut. Arien turned.
"You need to swipe your ID to gain access. It's a security measure," she explained through the glass. "Can't have crazy office girls trying to get Reno killed because they got dumped, can we?"
Elena laughed at that, imagining the redhead being shot at in the lobby by some angry woman who was screaming about being used. Elena fumbled with her own ID and slid it down the reader; the doors opened, and Elena stepped in, the odours of gunpowder and metals hitting her nose. To the back was a counter, protected by wire mesh. Elena followed as Arien walked to it.
"Hi, Steve," she said as she leaned onto the wood. "My assault rifle? And my Glock?"
"Slip?" The burly man with a buzz cut, his arms entirely covered in tattoos, waved his hand. It must be hot behind the counter; the man was in a T shirt. "Can't hand it over without a slip."
Arien reached inside her breast pocket. "Here you go."
Steve unfolded the piece of paper, squinting to read it. "Arien DeVir, Investigation Sector, Department of General Affairs… oh, you're a Turk now." He looked at her. "Still toting guns?"
"That's me, trigger-happy. Where's Jerry?"
"His son got sick so went home early. I got called in. He said you came down this morning to return the Beretta. Didn't like it?"
Arien scowled. "That stupid thing jams with every magazine. I checked the 'zine and it's clean, so I'm blaming the gun instead. Oh, and Reno sent me to pick up is rod. Here's his slip."
"That boy never comes down here."
"I think he's scared Jerry'd yell at him for abusing his EMRs."
"Well, he does. This is the fifth one this year. Hang on." Steve stood up from his chair. "Who's the blonde behind you?"
"Oh, she's new to us. She needs to be fitted." She drummed her fingers onto the polished wood. "Not sure what she'd prefer."
"Let me get your stuff first." The man disappeared behind the racks and shelves, returning with two cases. "Here you are. You need to sign them all out. And if Reno kills Heidegger with this rod…"
"It's my head on the plate. I know." She pulled out a pen from her breast pocket and signed the clipboard. "Elena, your turn."
"Anything you prefer?" The assistant weapons master asked as Elena stepped up to the counter. "Guns, gloves, anything?"
"She'll need a pistol," Arien said as she opened the case that had the inscription FN HERSTAL.
"I don't…" Elena began, but Arien shook her head, disrupting her flow of sentence.
"We all have one, just in case." She pulled out the STANAG magazine from the Styrofoam. "Steve, I'll need more mags." She snapped the metal back into the Styrofoam, then closed the lid. "And trust me, when you're out in the slums, you'd rather have more weapons than less."
5:20 PM.
"You're going to patrol Sector 8," Arien explained as she snapped the magazine into her Glock. "It's a tradition. Just make sure the mako reactor's okay, and then come back." She held an ice pack to her forehead as they sat in the common room; Reno was sitting some distance away, his wrist bandaged. Elena eyed her warily.
"What happened?"
"Reno high-kicked me in the head while sparring," Arien winced.
The man snorted. "And you nearly damn broke my wrist!"
"That's how Aikido works, Reno. It's to disarm, not attack." She put down the ice. "Your kicks hurt," she told the redhead.
"Yeah, that's because you haven't gone against Tseng. He tries to choke you after throwing you to the floor. That damn Wu Shu bastard."
Arien snorted. "Well, you should be good at it."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Arien paid scant attention to the blonde as she tested the temperature of the ice pack. She got up and went to the little freezer to exchange it. "Didn't you try to beat up Tseng? Thought you might give it a shot, since you were beating everyone else up in your Jeet Kun Do class? And got your rear handed to you on a silver platter?"
"What the… how the fuck did you know?!"
"Intelligence?" Arien closed the freezer door. "It was also in the personnel file. Along with everyone else's. It's out there for anyone above security level 9 to see." She held the new ice pack to her forehead. "Ow."
"You did martial arts?" Elena asked her. She didn't look the type; gun-toting pistol type, yes, but martial arts?
"My father made me do it," she said, sitting back down again. "Aikido's mostly defencive, and he figured it won't hurt to learn. It's five-thirty, Elena."
Elena looked at her watch, and then hurried out. The two Turks looked at the small woman as she rushed out, each nursing injuries. Arien looked at the clock; she'd need to head out soon. Reno was throwing the unattached EMR into the air and was catching it. The red Shinra logo shone in the afternoon sun.
"Oh yeah," Reno said suddenly. "Rude and I're gonna go out for drinks. Wanna come?"
"Me? And crash you boys' party?" Arien raised an eyebrow, but then thought of something. "Tell you what. I'd hate to have to pick you up at two in the morning, so why don't you just invite Rude over?"
"And do what?"
"I assume you two'll drink," she said, standing up and reaching over to the key rack for the company car key. "Ask Rude, won't you?"
Sector 8 slums were filthier than what she remembered, and as Elena got out of the station, lukewarm air hit her face like a touch of a man she did not like. The smell had nothing organic about it, and that was only to be expected, so close to the mako reactor. The perpetual dusk that filled the sector did nothing to increase visibility.
Filthy wind blew, caressing Elena's cheek. Her new shoes gritted down on the gravel as she walked. In hindsight, she probably should have been wary, but it had been a tiring day indeed, and with that in consideration, it must be said that it was not entirely Elena's fault she was ambushed.
Of course, that was why the new Turks members were always "chaperoned" by the senior members, this time included. Arien was trailing behind her, but Elena did not know. And that was how it was supposed to be.
So when she rounded the corner to be faced with what looked like half a dozen Shinra flunkies, all armed and ready to shoot, Elena froze. Which, in Elena's case, might have been fatal. She screamed when shots rang out, its explosions reverberating through the faint darkness. She turned and saw Arien, her long coat flapping behind her, coming in with her Sig held ready.
"Move out of the way!" Arien shouted as she squeezed the trigger. "Go!"
Elena saw another man come out with an automatic, but Arien threw herself onto the filthy ground, squeezing the trigger of the other pistol. The man howled in pain and went down. Elena was alert now, her head clear, the initial freeze blown away with a moment to clear her head. She pulled the pins from her grenades and threw it into their midst. Arien saw it and backpedaled hastily, squeezing her triggers as she retreated. The pineapple bomb exploded as the two women flattened themselves.
"Well, that's it," Arien said. "There are insurgents around here. That's all we needed to know."
Elena dusted herself off as she wobbled to her feet. There were scorch marks everywhere, and the men were dead… or unconscious. Either way, they weren't immediate threats, and with the limbs torn off like that, they won't be out to sabotage the reactors any time soon. It was time to go. Elena wondered why Arien had been there when there was an attack, but as the woman drove her back to the HQ, she decided not to ask.