Chapter 5: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished 2: Nothing to See Here, Just Looking for a Lost Mailer
Veld retraced his steps to the point where he had crashed into the mail cart, but there was no sign of it or the woman pushing it. He walked all the way back to the elevators. Nothing. He found a receptionist and inquired about the location of the floor's mail station.
It turned out there were four, one per quadrant. He checked each, starting with the closest. Still nothing, though a random man who looked like a stereotypical accountant turned up at one to put a mailer into one of many outgoing slots for different destinations. He gave Veld a curious look, no doubt wondering why a Turk was going through company mail. Veld glared back, daring him to say anything. The man left.
Veld again returned to the location he privately termed "the scene of the crime." He looked around for hidden cameras. Many areas of Shinra were under constant surveillance. Particularly on Floor Fifty. While the infantry was quartered elsewhere, the engineers, computer programmers, analysts, managers, and assorted bureaucrats that controlled and organized all the details of accounting and finance, schedules, planning, and a myriad of other critical roles for the army worked in the giant cube farms crammed onto the floor. Many of them managed highly restricted information. There would be cameras around the cubes.
But in the hallways? Well, there should be a few to monitor comings and goings.
There. He located one in a corner of the ceiling. The angle would probably be terrible, but it was better than nothing. He flipped open his PHS and... Who to call? Tseng? Reno?
Tseng. It would be less painful. Veld punched in his subordinate's number.
"Tseng speaking," came the polite answer.
"Yeah, this is Veld. Please don't ask any questions, but I want you to pull up any footage you can find for the past hour for the camera at..." He paused, looking for an identifying column number. "The camera at column 50C-38. Also, locate the mail subcenter where interdepartmental mail is routed from this floor."
"Yes, sir." The other end went quiet aside from the sound of tapping on a keyboard.
Veld gave heartfelt thanks that Tseng was such a consummate professional.
A few minutes later, Tseng came back on the line. "I have done a fast review of the camera footage. I presume you are interested in the collision it recorded?" His voice held a note of what sounded suspiciously like amusement.
Veld sighed. "That's it. Can you identify the employee pushing that cart and which mail room she worked in?"
"Unfortunately, I only have a view of the back of her head. However, there is an excellent view of you, sir." The amusement was unmistakable now.
Veld revised his positive opinion of Tseng. At least Tseng hadn't made any comments about how his boss had sprawled on his backside or the way he'd dropped the hot potato of an envelope, so Veld felt he had still made the correct choice of contact. Reno wouldn't have been able to resist making tasteless jokes.
"Fine," sighed Veld. "Did the woman pick up all the mailers that fell on the floor?"
Tseng was silent again, probably fast-forwarding through the recording. "Yes, she did. She then went on her way."
"Okay. What about the mail subcenter?"
"The center designated for handling all interdepartmental mail from floors forty-one through fifty is located on floor forty-eight at column 48Y-10," Tseng said precisely. "Sir, is this about—?"
"Yes, it is," Veld interrupted brusquely. "Meet me in the mail subcenter ASAP." He hung up before his subordinate could ask another obvious question and again headed for the elevators.
Shinra's interdepartmental mail system had a reputation for being slower than garden slugs drunk on spiced beer in Mideel. Veld had never appreciated that fact quite so much as he did now. It meant he had a decent chance of running that damned magazine to ground.
Somehow, Tseng had arrived at the mail subcenter before Veld, even though Veld only had to go down two floors and Tseng would have traveled over fifty from the sub-basement levels where the Turks' operations center was located.
"Sir," Tseng said, waiting outside the dingy double doors. "Do you think we will find the item here?"
And that was as close to censure for carelessness as Tseng would ever express to Veld's face. "I sincerely hope so," Veld told him.
The interior of the mail subcenter seemed to confirm all the jokes and stories about the state of interdepartmental mail. The room spread out like a great cavern, enormous and lit only by harsh overhead fluorescent lights. Racks and racks of sorted mail occupied one quarter of the space, and a few long work tables filled with computers and stacks of envelopes took up the east side. On the opposite side stood a number of mail carts. Near the door were several large bins that came up to Veld's waist. They were full of empty envelopes.
Shockingly, only two people appeared to be on duty—sorting mail by hand.
"I believe Shinra needs to allocate more budgetary resources to the mail department," Tseng murmured.
"Check for cameras. Maybe there'll be some footage that can help us," Veld said. He then raised his voice to get the workers' attention: "Hello. Can we talk to you?"
Both workers looked up and stiffened at the sight of the black suits. "Um, hello?" one man said cautiously. "What can we do for you two gentlemen?"
"There's nothing to worry about. I'm just looking for a lost mailer." Veld thought it couldn't hurt to downplay the issue a little. These men were obviously made uncomfortable by the two Turks, and he wasn't going to blurt out the truth, anyway. He very carefully did not ask for their names to avoid spooking them.
Despite his care, they did spook a little. One man's jaw dropped. The other looked incredulous. They glanced at each other, then looked back at Veld. The man who had spoken gnawed his lip. "Do you know who it was addressed to?"
A perfectly reasonable question. Veld glanced at Tseng. Tseng merely said, "It was not addressed to anyone at all. The last address line was completely blacked out. It was put into the company mail by mistake."
Veld added, "It would have arrived from Floor Fifty, if that helps."
The first man put down his work and moved to a table that had four baskets sitting on it. "Here, looks like only four misaddressed mailers have been found for that floor so far. You're welcome to take a look at them."
"Just four?" Maybe this would be easy.
"Just four so far," the man corrected. "We've still got to go through the rest of the morning mail." He pointed to the loaded mail carts. "The last one from the end is the last one to come from Floor Fifty during the morning shift. We haven't gone through them yet."
This might take a while, Veld thought with resignation. "Thanks, you can go back to work."
Tseng sidled a little closer to him and spoke quietly, "No cameras."
Before arriving in the mail subcenter, Veld would have considered that news preposterous. After seeing the state of the place for himself—the clear result of corporate neglect and an obvious deficiency of funds and resources—he only sighed. Trust Shinra to skimp on things it didn't consider important or visible enough. "Let's get to work sorting, then."
This time it was Tseng who sighed.