XXXVII.

It had been a very long couple of weeks at the destroyed sector 7 in Midgar. In spite of all the dedicated individuals, there was just not enough manpower to make any real progress on the plate removal. Had the Shinra army still been in one piece, and if President Shinra happened to care, the plate would have definitely been removed by now.

But recently every effort to remove part of the plate, especially since Cloud's team departed, had resulted in terrible arguements over how things needed to be done. One group would say it was better to look for lost relatives first, underneath the collapsed metal, while another would reason that it would be better to remove the heavy metal first. The citizens of Midgar who didn't have the physical strength to work manually on the project were ready for the workers to give everything up due to lack of a knowledgable figurehead in charge.

Bill Triniman himself also did what he could to help the project. After he heard Cloud's team discussing it on their way back from the crater, he decided he could use his math and physics skills to predict the most efficient ways of removing the plate pieces from the ground. But Triniman was no leader; he just couldn't fathom how to get all these people working as a unit. That just wasn't his talent, man of details that he was. Besides, the energy it took to come up with a few calculations left no room to oversee any other aspect of the project.

Triniman shook his head at the mess of scraps that lay before him, holding hisnotepad of unintelligible calculations, a bright yellow pencil stuck behind his ear again. He felt cooler than usual today as the sun was finally hidden behind the clouds. Tempers were also a little better than normal, which meant that only a couple hot words were thrown around rather than the whole thing resulting in fisticuffs. Everyone's clothes, including Triniman's t-shirt, were a sweaty mess from the cleanup, and the dust began to settle as the fresh new shift volunteers arrived.

He knew this bunch coming toward him in the distance. They were once mid-ranking members of he Shinra military. They had each found jobs in the city through connections, good or bad, but still offered to help with the project in their down time once in a while just recently.

"How far'd they get today?" said David, an average-height guy with prominent muscles and short dark hair.

"Not very," answered Triniman. "Whole thing fell apart again over the same issues. Sad."

"Y'know, that's disgusting!," added Jed, a temperamental, strong, tall young man with ebony skin who was one heartbeat away from advancing into SOLDIER when the army collapsed. "Shinra could've had this cleaned up in a month at the most, and he sat in his mahogany-lined office smokin' his #%*^ cigars! What a crock."

"Would almost be nice if we had another President...a good President...there's a lot of those soldier-boys lookin' for some direction out there," said David.

"And some income, too," Luke Thorn added. Luke was mostly used as a spy in the military, and was well-respected and known despite his mid-rank. He was definitely up for a promotion or two had the system survived.

Triniman suddenly looked as if he had been struck by lightning. He tried to mop the dampness from the back of his head, then his beard as he thought. "I know someone who may be able to snap us into shape..."

"Who?" Jed asked for the three of them.

"He's a good kid...I had my life saved by him...in fact, we all did. I learned from all his buddies all the things he's done for this planet. He'll be perfect."

Jed gave a snicker as he lightly laughed. "Pretty impressive. So who is he?"

"Yeah, Bill! Out with it! We'll see him today about it!" David added impatiently.

"He's a boy by the name of Cloud Strife."

Jed lost his snicker in an instant. So did the rest of the young men. Jed's dark eyes turned toward David's bright sky blue eyes and locked there in shocked silence. Luke joined his dark blue eys in the other two's disbelief. There wasn't a sound any of them made until each bursted into loud guffaws, bending over, their shoulders racking with laughter.

"And why is that funny?" asked Triniman.

"Well, you see Bill," as Jed straightened, recovering from the laughter, "there are some people...some guys that...well-"

"-need to stay as an escort guard for a while until they figure out how to turn a Mako laser on!" David finished for him.

"He was that short guy with the...the what?" Luke couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Jed made a motion like pulling out huge locks of hair from his head. "That blonde HAIR, man! How could you forget the HAIR?"

"Ahh." said Luke as his mouth turned up into a snicker.

"Escort guard?" Triniman was sure that Cloud had been in one of the highest ranks in the military. He couldn't believe the boy had only been a lowly escort guard.

The three of them helped themselves to another round of laughter as Jed explained.. "That skinny little kid thought he was made for SOLDIER from the start. He really flipped out when he couldn't even pass a couple preliminary training tests! Ha, ha!"

"We haven't seen him for what? Three or four years?" Luke wondered.

"Gentlemen, I'm sure that was all in the past...you should get reacquainted with him. Why don't we all go over to his fiancee's establishment in sector 9 and talk?" Triniman found himself chuckling. "Just to humor me a little?"

The word fiancee drew out some oooh's and aaah's from the trio. So Cloud Strife has a fiancee? Get real!

"Alright, man. You got a deal. We'll humor ya." Jed laughed.

"I'll get a few more guys together to discuss this, then we can all be on our way," said Triniman.

"Sure man. We'll meet you. Ha ha."