During that first month in Midgar, every rookie Turk experienced flashbacks of the academy attack. It got easier to battle those specters during the light of day, but Alex could not escape them at night. Horrible nightmares invaded her dreams, where she would run through the burning building, desperately trying to find Flynn and Kitz as the walls crumbled around her. Sometimes Vincent was at her side, other times it was Lial, and for a brief moment she would feel invigorated and confident. But her nightmares fought dirty, sending wave upon wave of fiendish-looking Wutains with gleaming blades ready to skewer her and her friends. She would wake in a cold sweat, chest pounding as she peered wildly around her room searching for enemies. She wished there was someone in whom she could confide her fears. Seb was out of the question. Lial had offered, but she probably freaked him out enough on the nights she woke up screaming. He had his own worries; it wouldn't be right to burden him with hers.
Lial and Alex got along fine as roommates, though Alex expected she would never become as close to him as she was with Kitz and Flynn—the long, ever-fluctuating hours on the job and the strenuous nature of their assignments saw to that. Alex barely had time to breathe nowadays. She lived day by day, her mind set on whatever she was doing at the time, and so her first few weeks in Midgar passed in the blink of an eye.
By the end of her first week Alex had fallen into a routine: get up at the crack of dawn and patrol Sector 8 during the morning and then train through the rest of the day, stopping only to eat. Her mentor Seb pushed her relentlessly. He made her spend hours honing her marksmanship skills and repeating virtual training exercises until she finished without a mistake, and he constantly grilled her on job protocol. At night she'd drag her exhausted body into bed, turn on the reading light and study. Her brain was crammed with information: from company rules and regulations, to techniques for stealth assault and neutralization, to the Doyen-level Turk textbooks for the classes she should have taken at the academy. It would be past midnight when Alex slowly drifted asleep with a book still propped open on her lap. After a few hours of rest Alex would rise and do it all over again.
Seb warned her not to stray into other sectors of the city or the slums below. He knew kids from the country got taken advantage of before they became accustomed to their new environment. Plus, he didn't want Alex to shame the Turks by getting mugged by anyone stupid enough to try.
"Stick to Sectors 0 and 8. Never go too deep into Sector 7, especially after nightfall. You'll have enough street smarts to stand on your own two feet soon enough. By then no one will want to mess with you."
"Do you think so?"
He had smirked and dryly replied, "It's a possibility."
However, during the day Alex found that Midgar wasn't very dangerous at all, and she would explore the upper plates during her precious moments of free time, learning the intricacies of the sprawling metropolis. She found an amazing library in Sector 5 during one such venture. The librarian didn't seem to mind a Turk hanging about—though the man's nose was too buried in a book for him to pay much attention to her. As long as she steered clear of Sector 7, Alex didn't feel like she was disobeying her mentor. She could take care of herself, thank you very much.
Sometimes Seb and Alex dueled in the Turks' private gymnasium. Though Alex's primary weapon would continue to be a handgun, Seb insisted that she train additionally with a short-range weapon. Alex chose an electro-mag rod, feeling more confident with the baton-type weapon than a sword or something similar. Even though she wasn't particularly skilled with the rod, her mentor never took it easy on her. She needed to learn quick to avoid getting injured.
Seb himself used two spring-loaded "triple daggers" to fight. Alex had never seen such a weapon before and had great difficulty defending against it. At first appearance the weapon looked nothing more than a regular dagger, but when the wielder pressed a release the two spring-loaded sides came out laterally to form a "V" with the original blade in the center. This was a rather effective weapon for disarming an opponent, particularly if they had a longer weapon like a sword or a baton., With a quick twist of his wrist, Alex's electro-mag rod would be yanked out of her hands and she would be left defenseless. Seb would this technique countless times during their sessions and Alex still couldn't counter it.
"You're not changing your approach," said Seb after he had disarmed her for the seventh time in a half hour. "Widen your base of support, and prepared to guard against me when I come in like this. Try again."
During their breaks from training, they would sit and discuss exactly what it meant being a Turk. One of her first lessons was to always do what her superiors asked and never question them. Chain of command was important, and for the Turks it was the cornerstone of their lives. This principle wasn't founded on trust as much as the knowledge that if you were the weakest link, the chain could break and everyone would pay the price. As Seb succinctly put it, "You screw up, everyone dies."
Not everything in those first few weeks centered on job training. Being at the Shinra headquarters granted Alex opportunities to learn the identities of her fellow Turks and even meet a few of them. Well, "meet" was a bit of a stretch, but Seb would point them out whenever their paths crossed. The Turks would nod silently to each other, but that was it.
Alex already knew that most Turks did not share their real names, even with other Turks. Instead, some chose odd pseudo-names or names of their hometowns, but even that could be false information. Most Turks, however, used weapons as names. This had become somewhat of a tradition, which explained why so many Turks specialized in a particular weapon that would shape their identity. The duo who called themselves Katana and Zy were pretty cool, but Tonfa scared the crap out of her with his angry bloodshot eyes. Then there was Four, who talked to himself and didn't seem to notice when Seb nearly clocked him opening the door to the Turk's office.
The Turks were a notoriously mysterious and tight-lipped group, but Alex's mentor still seemed to know a little bit about everyone. For example, from Seb she learned the truth behind Strago's mangled ear. Before he became the leader of the Turks, Strago had fought a legendary Wutain samurai during the skirmish that sparked the rivalry between the Shinra Company and Wutai. Strago had gained the upper hand in their duel when the samurai threw sand into his eyes. While he was momentarily blinded, the Wutain tried to decapitate him. Luckily Strago had sensed to duck and the blow went wide, but the blade still managed to cut off the top of his ear and graze his scalp.
"That's cheating!" said an appalled Alex, but Seb had just laughed.
"In war there's no such thing as cheating. Fair or foul, if there's a way to survive, you take it."
"So that's why Strago has so much hair. He's trying to hide his scar?"
"Could be. Remember, you can learn a lot about a person just by their appearance. All of your senses are important, and you should be constantly aware of them. Instinct is vital for our line of work."
Alex gazed at her mentor's plain, uninteresting appearance and wondered. Seb liked being inconspicuous, but all the other Turks had eccentric hairstyles, tattoos or accessories that matched their personalities and made them easy targets in crowd. For all his stories, Seb never talked about himself and Alex was becoming increasingly interested in what sort of person her mentor really was.
The worst thing about her new life wasn't the rigorous training schedule or living in a noisy congested city. An awareness began to creep into her mind, and once she recognized what it was she couldn't ignore it. The fact was this: no matter what time of day or who she was with, people treated her differently. In the halls of the company building or in the streets, people would stop mid-conversation and stare until she rounded a corner. Many seemed to panic being in the proximity of a navy suit, like rabbits startled by the sight of a fox. One time a mother had hurried her two children into a store because she saw Alex approaching on the same side of the street; Alex could not get that encounter out of her head, and the memory made her feel awful. Other Shinra employees acted similarly around the Turks—actually, their attitudes were even worse.
Turks were outcasts both in the Shinra Company and Midgar. Throughout the rest of the world, like on the island of Mideel she once lived, many tales were told in awed voices of the Turk organization. In Midgar the admirers were few and far between. The majority of Midgar citizens had by now been disillusioned by the reality of what the Turks accomplished, and so they feared, mistrusted and even loathed the navy suits. The infamy was a burden. Everyday Alex heard spiteful words like "callous hell-raisers" or "murdering dogs" muttered wherever she went. Deeply disheartened, Alex asked Seb about it, but his response wasn't comforting.
"Some people flat out hate Shinra; they think our company is getting too powerful," he explained. "Others feel grateful for the services Shinra provides to make their daily lives comfortable, but they don't approve of Shinra's military branch. Still others feel safer with an army to protect their homes, but they criticize the other, more covert-operation groups like us or SOLDIER. Our department tries to keep our activities in the dark, but we can't squash all the rumors. The fact is that a bias exists, one that is not entirely unjustified, and people are going to despise us no matter what we do. Don't expect to make many friends."
"It doesn't seem like Turks are even friendly amongst ourselves," observed Alex gloomily.
Seb shrugged. "It's complicated. We're not ones for affection or sympathy. Hell, besides the president and his family we don't care about other Shinra people unless we're assigned to protect them. Its dog eat dog in this city, in the whole world for that matter. But know this: Turks will always watch each other's backs."
That was an odd combo, and Alex had a hard time working it out. Members of the Turks did not really socialize, but they were loyal to each other all the same. It was human nature to want to belong somewhere, she supposed.
Following that train of thought, Alex asked something that had weighed on her mind for a while. "Do you think what we do is… immoral? Is it wrong being a Turk?"
"I think morality is colored in shades of gray, and the colors don't always match to different eyes. In my experience, there's no such thing as sin or karma or whatever you want to call it. People are simply cowards; they see something is wrong but they won't want to dirty their hands and fix it, so instead they label the action 'immoral.' What we do is not always pretty, but we do whatever needs to be done."
He noticed she wasn't thrilled by his answer, so he sighed and added, "If it still bothers you, think about it this way: what you'll be doing will ultimately serve the greater good. Just do what you're told and try not to think about it."
At the academy they learned that not everything can be solved peacefully; sometimes violence was necessary to make things happen. If she was helping to make the world a better place, then she could make it as a Turk.
The greater good, thought Alex. She couldn't help but wonder for whom exactly 'the greater good' was for.
xxxxx
It was a surprise when she received her first paycheck. Alex never had money of her own—not more than the pocket change she would get to spend at the town bakery. She held the fragile slip of paper in her hands and stared in disbelief at the large sum printed upon it. Because of it, the world seemed to get bigger and more complicated. It was that day she learned her meals at the cafeteria were not on the house but compiled into a meal tab she had to pay off. There was also the cost of their new suits, and then monthly rent for the apartment and its assorted utility bills. Lial and Alex somehow managed to short it all out without getting too confused. Their victory over the challenges of adulthood left them exhilarated.
"What are we going to spend this on?" asked Alex when they agreed a shopping trip was in order to celebrate their first paychecks.
"Beats me. Sector 7 has a lot of nice shops. We could start there." They both looked around the empty colorless apartment and found their source of inspiration. The very next day they went to get new furnishings.
The weekend was spent in furniture stores trying to spend their money wisely and they were rather successful. Their living room now held a sofa and tv, and a snug reading chair by the windows. They also bought more plates, bowls, cups and silverware for the kitchen, and a throw rug for the hallway.
"This place is homier already," said Lial, delightedly circling through the television channels.
"It's a lot better than at the academy," Alex replied. She didn't want to spoil the mood, but she knew this place would never match the home she had shared with her father.
Lial and Alex made a pact that they would save money for food to last until their next paychecks. Alex realized she would need to go to the Midgar Bank soon and apply for an account to keep her income; otherwise, she'd likely spend it all. She was already planning next month's purchases: workout and street clothes so she wouldn't have to wear a suit when she was off work.
"Hey look, the chocobo races are on," called Lial. "Come watch with me, Alex."
"Okay, sure."
"Who are you going to root for? That green one looks awesome."
Alex had learned a lot about chocobos from Kitz and bet on the red chocobo, which was supposedly the fasted breed. They placed a bet on the outcome of the race, and thanks to Kitz, Alex's pick ended up winning and Lial got stuck cleaning the dishes.
xxxxx
Winter in Midgar wasn't as brutal as on the Wyld Mountains to the north, but the breeze still nipped at any exposed flesh and chased everyone indoors after sunset. A layer of frost had greeted Alex the past few mornings when she stepped out onto the cobbled streets. It was a grim reminder that snow was on its way. Alex looked up at the cold gray clouds and shivered.
Lial is lucky, getting away from the cold weather, thought Alex enviously. Her roommate left on an assignment with his mentor yesterday. They were with a team of surveyors looking into the construction of a mako reactor near Costa del Sol. The climate the resort town enjoyed would still be nice and warm this time of year.
A warm blast of air from the overheard heater greeted Alex when she entered the Shinra headquarters. Employees hidden behind mufflers and wool hats stepped aside as she passed through the lobby and took the elevator to the 58th floor.
She wondered if Lial was seeing any action—there had to be some probability if Turks had been assigned as bodyguards. Alex wished she and Seb could do something like that. A nice, easy mission. What gave her relief was the fact that she hadn't been assigned to kill anyone yet like she had imagined. She was sensible enough to know it was inevitable, but she wondered if she could when the time came. Alex had come to grips with the fact that she had killed more than a handful of men, but that had all been in self-defense or in the defense of her school. Could she kill in cold blood?
These training missions are definitely preparing me, Alex acknowledged as she walked the full length of the hallway, mentally priming herself to enter the Tactical Training Facility. The TTF was a simulation room used exclusively by the Turks. SOLDIER had a larger simulation room of its own, though entry was limited to second class SOLDIERs and above. Alex, who was learning to hate the TTF the more she used it, considered the new SOLDIER recruits lucky.
She swiped her ID and punched in the access code. A screen flashed a warning notification: "Shinra Electric Power Company Is Not Responsible For Any Injury Or Loss Of Life That May Be Caused By The Simulation Program." Alex was required to press the "OK" button before continuing.
The equipment locker on the side wall opened and Alex retrieved a regulation SimPistol from a shelf. Then the doors hissed open and Alex walked into the TTF, taking in a deliberate lungful of stale air. The simulation room was nothing but a fifteen foot cube made of metal paneling. Alex began jogging towards a corner, but as always the program initiated before she could see how the floor moved and kept her away from the walls.
"Greetings Alexa Spero," said a computerized female voice. "Now resuming previously saved session." The air shimmered with flickering cubic shapes and rows of glowing computer script, and suddenly Alex was in a dark expansive warehouse. Large metal crates that freight ships carried were haphazardly arranged throughout the space alongside stacks of smaller wooden boxes and canisters of fuel that took up the leftover spaces. The clutter created a formidable maze. The only light came from slits in the few boarded up windows near the ceiling.
"Priming TM-13B. Task: Neutralize all enemy units without detection. Time: Unlimited."
Alex stretched to loosen her muscles and waited until her eyes adjusted to the dark environment. This training mission had been the bane of her existence for the last three days. Seb refused to let her skip it, so she had no choice but to restart from the halfway checkpoint and keep trying until she finished. That was turning out to be easier said than done.
"TM-13B fully synchronized. Begin."
Well, here we go.
She ducked around a corner towards a conspicuous black canister she knew hid a silencer for her pistol. Most of the earlier missions had "treasure" boxes of some kind, though Seb warned her not to get used to them since the later missions had more realistic difficulty settings. She fixed the silencer onto her pistol and waited for the first guard to make an appearance.
He came around the corner, walking with a rigid inhuman gait Alex associated with the virtual enemies in the TTF. The guard never turned his head as he passed by her hiding spot, so it was easy for her to shoot him in the back. He dropped with a dull thud and Alex jumped over his legs and continued on her way at a fast pace, eager to complete the mission.
For the next part she had to be quick. Three guards walked clockwise around a square shaped area with a lone freight box at its center. The guards were far enough apart so three corners of the square were always monitored. Even with the silencer it was impossible to take them all out without one noticing her and sounding the alarm. The only way to get past them was by stealth.
The guards followed a set pattern to their movements. The middle and last guard would begin walking to the next corners and five seconds later the first wound move. She watched, synchronizing to the pattern so she could judge the precise time when all three were out of her range of sight. Once she was sure of the pattern she tensed, ready to sprint to the freight box in the middle. There she would drop into a crouch, slink around the edge, wait a few seconds, and then race to the other side. She had gotten past this area before. With luck, she could do it again.
At the precise moment she dove out from cover, her feet flying.
"Intruder! Intruder!"
Alex cursed and looked over her shoulder. She had forgotten about the guard on the balcony to the left. His shouts had roused the other guards and they were quick to surround her, their guns all pointing at her chest. Alex had time to fire a few rounds at the offending guard in exasperation before the world dissolved in grainy specks and the program restarted.
That was incredibly frustrating. How much time had she wasted? She berated herself for her careless mistake and once more took the path that led to the silencer.
This time when she got to the square she dispatched the guard on the balcony first, relieved that the trio of patrolling guards never bothered looking up. Within another minute she made it past them without detection.
Adrenaline pumped through her system. She took out a few more guards along the way and squeezed between two crates when a group of six guards walked by. After they rounded the corner she was off, as silent as a shadow.
Before long she made it to the final challenge—and the reason she still had not passed this mission. The back third of the warehouse was vacant of cargo, and the only obstacles remaining were the four guards stationed near the single door that was her objective. None of them moved but their gazes swerved constantly around the area, actively searching for any hint of a threat.
Alex surveyed the no man's land between herself and the door and recounted all her previous failures. Twice she had attempted to take out the guards from a distance before they could react, but the simulation would restart almost immediately. Next she had tried more stealthy approaches, either sneaking along the shadowy walls of the warehouse or atop the conveyor belt that ran the length of the right wall, but she was always caught. Hijacking the large crane had been a disaster, but not as big as a disaster as the time she had shot the row of fuel barrels nearby the guard post. The resulting explosion had blasted the building apart and made her temporarily blind even after the simulation ended. Had it been real, the blast would have killed her.
"There's obviously a solution. Come on, think!" she told herself.
The obvious problem was the mission constraints: she could not be seen. Four guards were too many to face at once. Maybe there was a way of drawing one or two away from the door and into the maze of cargo, where she could take them out away from the eyes of the other guards. That would make her job easier.
The control station for the conveyor belt caught her eye. She hadn't tried starting the conveyor belt before. Maybe she could get the remaining guards to investigate and leave the door unattended. Quietly she ducked around a corner and slipped through the shadows down the corridor of towering boxes. There was a chest-high crate blocking the control panel, but luckily it turned out to be empty when she tried to push it out of the way. The top of the crate popped off as she was moving it, but Alex managed to grab it before it crashed to the floor and alerted the guards.
All the buttons on the panel were labeled, so she had no trouble finding the switch that started the machine. The belt began moving, carrying its load of boxes in the direction of the startled security guards. One of them waved frantically towards the control station and to Alex's excitement two of the men started briskly walking over. Her idea had worked!
But then she realized she hadn't planned this far. Her enthusiasm turned to panic as she shuffled backwards down the aisle, wondering what she should do now. Both men were coming closer and she had no idea how to take both of them out at once without either seeing her. She decided to wait until they reached the conveyor belt controls and then take them out while they were preoccupied. Alex pivoted to her left and started down the far aisle. There she would have a perfect viewpoint of her adversaries' backs, if only she could get there in time.
Unfortunately, she had forgotten the reason why she shouldn't have gone that way: there was a motion detection camera. Immediately the security system went off, and an alarm light on the wall turned on and began to revolve, bathing her in red light.
"INTRUDER! INTRUDER!"
"End mission!" Alex shouted in frustration over the loud sirens that now echoed throughout the immense warehouse. A glint of green caught her eye before the world blurred and then solidified into the small bare simulation room.
She jammed the SimPistol into her holster with a growl of frustration. At this rate she was never going to beat this stupid level. Now she'd have to listen to Seb lecture again on her shortcomings. Lial had beaten this mission already, but she wasn't about to cheat and ask for advice. There was no choice but to keep trying until she finished or the TTF took pity on her, whichever came first.
I'm going to beat this damn mission if it's the last thing I do.
Alex checked her watch and realized it was getting late. The training would have to wait until tomorrow. She punched the Door Open button harder than necessary and walked out of the Tactical Training Facility towards the locker room, all the while mentally going through her session and trying to work out a new strategy for next time. She had to be missing something, it just wasn't obvious what that "something" was.
The women's locker room was much nicer than anything the academy offered. The lights were bright throughout the large room, all the faucets worked for the sinks, and there wasn't a single unsightly crack or stain anywhere. Alex took a quick shower and then blow-dried her hair until it was only slightly damp and pulled her curls into a ponytail.
A muted buzzing noise came from behind her. "Seb's checking up on me," guessed Alex.
Alex turned and quickly dug through her clothing to unearth her beeper, the slim and sleekest model available, courtesy of Shinra. The device was purely for one way communication, and it lit up and vibrated when she received a message from Seb or rarely Strago. There was no reason for her to have a PHS like her mentor, who sometimes had to check-in with headquarters. Rookie Turks were expected to do as they are told and come running whenever their superiors ask; a phone would get in the way of that long standing process.
The message was indeed a reminder from her mentor. Today, Shinra was holding a companywide intelligence briefing and Alex was supposed to attend. She collected her things and then proceeded down to the big conference room on the 50th floor.
Seb was leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets when she exited the elevator. "Tell me you've finished 13B by now," he said in way of greeting.
"Nearly."
"Still stuck on the guarded exit door?" He shook his head. "Come on kid, you're being too predictable. You have to think outside of the box for that one."
"And I need a load of luck," grumbled Alex.
"Well, you'll need to get some. Turks should have Hades' own luck if they want to live to grow gray hair."
Turks only ones Alex ever heard mention Hades, and sometimes Odin—if a child back home even whispered those names they would be grounded for a week. Alex thought it too creepy to speak of beings associated with death and misfortune, even if they were myths. Hopefully she would never become cynical enough to name them like her mentor.
"So, what'll be your next approach?"
Seb took poorly to "I don't know," so she frantically searched for an acceptable answer.
"I've tried killing them all, sneaking up to them, and getting the guards to come to me. None of those have worked," she said slowly. "I need to somehow disguise myself and get in close." Had her adversaries not been holographs, Alex could have disguised herself with a uniform of a fallen guard. What other options were there?
The Turk seemed disappointed. "I thought you were supposed to be smart. Keep thinking."
A second elevator opened and a bunch of employees filtered out and down the hallway into the conference room. Wanting to end the conversation, Alex made to follow them, but Seb grabbed her arm.
"You're alone for this one, kid," he told Alex. "Strago just gave me an assignment. I'm heading out in ten minutes."
"Really? Where are you going?"
"West," he said vaguely. "If all goes as planned, I'll be back by the end of the week. Keep up your training schedule—and hell, you better have passed that training mission by then."
"Whatever you say," replied Alex gloomily. "Good luck."
"Keep it for yourself; I work well without it."
What a hypocrite. She watched the Turk step into the elevator, feeling jaded about not getting to go. Lial and most of the other rookies had been on real missions. How was she going to get field experience if she was stuck in Midgar?
Alex walked despondently into the conference room. Rows of seats curved around a center stage, much like the lecture halls at the academy. The room was nearly full, so she took an empty seat in the back. A few employees nearby gave her a cautious glance and then shifted so their bodies were angled away from her. Alex tried not to take it personally. Instead, she concerned herself with trying to locate her peers. There were a few clusters of them around the room, but there were no available seats even if they had wanted her to sit with them. Someone in the front row caught her eye, but before she could get a better look the figure was obscured by two rather tall men in the second row.
A man in an expensive business suit and red tie walked onto the stage and stood behind the wooden podium. The room fell silent. The man on stage identified himself as Mr. Ander, the head of the Criminal Investigation Unit. The CIU was a branch of the Public Safety Department, whose main focus was policing the day-to-day activities in Midgar and providing security for Shinra facilities. The Turks normally dealt with international investigations, so Strago had clearly been annoyed when President Shinra deemed this situation required a more large-scale operation.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Shinra Company," the man said into the microphone. "After four weeks of thorough investigation, my team has unearthed a deep plot of sedition, extortion and fraud involving a number of former Shinra employees. This group was headed by Wilham Pier, who was killed during the attack on Shinra Academy."
Alex's mouth went dry. She hadn't known what this meeting was about, but now that she did Alex wanted desperately to sneak out. Why couldn't she be leaving with Seb right now? She'd give a year's salary to be anywhere else but this conference room, listening to a stranger recount what happened that miserable day.
Mr. Ander shuffled though some papers, cleared his throat and began his report. "We have determined that Pier and his associates were in league with Wutai and had been planning this attack for years. Earliest records have traced the plot back to the inaugural year of Shinra Academy, which gives evidence that Pier had most likely been a defector from the onset of his teaching career. A personal agenda against the president has yet to be confirmed."
Through her initial disgust, Alex found herself morbidly interested. She thought back to her Accepted year when she first met Mr. Pier. She hadn't liked him from the start because of his strict and ruthless teaching methods and for the way he seemed perpetually bad-tempered. Supposedly Pier had been a friend of President Shinra, but now that seemed to have been a deception.
"Pier and his associates had made a contract with the Wutain throne," continued Ander. "They promised Wutai top-secret technology stored in the subterranean laboratory underneath Shinra Academy. In return, they were promised a vast sum of money and protection from Shinra. As of now the identities of the other perpetrators will remain undisclosed."
"I heard they rounded up all the academy instructors for interrogation. They're keeping the lot of them under watch," whispered a balding man in front of Alex. "One man fled, but he was caught before he even got five kilometers. Poor bastard is holed up on the 33rd Floor."
The 33rd Floor served as the jail for criminals. Alex knew exactly whom they were talking about. The Turks handled the high profile interrogations and she got to sit in on a few. All of the interrogations had been quick, especially after Seb "persuaded" them a bit. The man in question Alex had seen at the academy but never met. It turned out he was involved in smuggling patrol schedules and jamming radar signals so the Wutains could cross the continent undetected. It still surprised Alex how nonchalantly her mentor had beaten a bound, defenseless man. Alex forced herself to watch the whole interrogation session, trying not to cringe as a convincing voice in her head told her this man was a criminal. Criminals got what they deserved, right? Besides, the Turks were just doing their job.
That man was partially responsible for all the students who died, Alex reminded herself. Let him rot in jail.
"The CIU's search in this incident is still ongoing. President Shinra would like me to remind you that any form of dissent, be it physically or verbally, will be dealt with the utmost severity. If anyone has any information concerning the attack or knows the identities of other people potentially involved in the crime, they are encouraged to step forward. Contact information for my office will be provided at the doors."
There were a lot of shifty eyes and low mutters following Mr. Ander's words. The employees seemed concerned about incriminate themselves should they give information and appear to know about the plot. On the other hand, if they distance themselves too much it would looks like they were hiding something. Suspicions were sure to run high in the following days. People were not going to trust one another, and Alex wondered if that's what Shinra wanted.
"Before I conclude, I will give a brief mention of the monument that will be erected in honor of the lives lost during the Shinra Academy attack. Were it not for the courageous efforts of our military divisions, the death toll would be much higher," said the man with pride in his voice. "A temporary memorial, which includes a list of the names of the dead, will be on display on the tenth floor atrium. Thank you for your attention. Have a good day."
The man stepped away from the podium and the noise level peaked as the audience gathered their things and stood. Alex did not rise. She sat in silence, musing about what she had heard. Nothing was mentioned of Mr. Goshawk. She was surprised that Shinra had not framed him—not many people would doubt the story of an ostracized Wutain who turned out to be a spy. She was even more surprised that they revealed Pier to be the orchestrator of the attack, since he was close to the president. The most concerning fact was that Pier hadn't been alone, and that his co-conspirators may still be at large.
If it weren't for Goshawk, they would have gotten away with it, thought Alex. And she couldn't forget that she and Vincent owed their lives to the old man. He should be recognized for his service, not the military who were barely involved in the aftermath. He was a hero and deserved to be remembered. Alex wished she knew more about Goshawk and the life he had led. What had taken him across the world and deposited him at Shinra Academy? She would love to find out.
The room was emptying quickly as people left for an early lunch break. Alex's gaze wandered to the front of the room, and the individual she saw earlier wiped those curious musings from her mind.
So it hadn't been her imagination; it really was him! Alex tried to contain her excitement and she barely prevented herself from jumping up in joy. Instead she waited impatiently, her fingers drumming on her thighs as she watched the line of employees filling out of room. She must have looked manic, but she didn't care. At last the person she was waiting for came up the aisle towards her.
She caught his attention with a wave of her hand, and he nearly dropped the suitcase he was carrying. His eyes were wide behind his thick glasses as his mouthed her name in surprise. Alex's smile was huge as she stood up and rushed to hug Kitz.
I'm mean for ending it like this, aren't I?
Next chapter~ Alex is reunited with two friends, and there's a plan to break into Shinra's personnel database. And Alex goes on a date? Stay tuned!