By a Fraction of a Degree

A FFVII Fanfiction work by findthetiger129

Rated T for Violence and Language.

I do not own Final Fantasy VII, or any of the characters, trademarks or likenesses from Final Fantasy VII or its spin-offs That honor goes to Square-Enix.

On the Way to a New Future (Interlude)

Chapter 47, Tseng's Report (Case of Shinra, Phase 1)

February 24th [ ν ] – εуλ 0008

Tseng was working with a projector in the President's office while he waited for Rufus to arrive. The young man had been very busy in the last couple of months and he didn't want to take up too much of his time, but Rufus had been very curious to know what progress had been made on locating the strange man in the mako suit that looked like a SOLDIER uniform. He had been just as interested in locating Hojo. While Tseng had made some headway on that front, it would still be a long way before he could even consider having an answer to either of those questions.

That was when Rufus entered the room and took a seat at the President's desk. "So you're ready to show me what you've found?" he asked.

"As soon as the other Turks get here. They too have some reports to give on this matter," Tseng replied. Almost immediately, he heard the familiar sound of his subordinates' footsteps approaching up the stairs. Not long after he caught sight of Reno's fiery red hair, followed by the rest of him, as well as Elena and Rude.

"Sorry we're late yo," Reno said. "We got held up by some of Scarlet's robots. Apparently she's still ticked that she and Heidegger aren't allowed in on this."

"It's for the best," Rufus said. "The more time passes, the less I find myself trusting them to do their jobs properly. Heidegger certainly made a valiant effort at Fort Condor, but considering how easily we lost control of Mideel once the populous took it upon themselves to rebel, I feel he may have allocated his resources in the wrong place."

"And Zack did that?" Reno asked.

"To say he's become a charismatic leader is an understatement," Tseng observed. "But back to today's briefing. I've compiled a short presentation on what I've learned so far. Shall we begin?"

"Please do." Rufus took a seat at the desk.

He motioned that the other Turks should sit on three chairs that had been arranged below the President's desk, before standing in front of the projector with a remote in his hand. At the push of a button, the lights dimmed, and behind him, an image of the man in the strange uniform appeared. It was a still from footage that had been taken from the security camera during Hojo's escape.

After giving them a chance to take in the image, Tseng spoke. "As you know, I have spent an exhaustive amount of time going over this image piece by piece, trying to ascertain the origin of the man you see here. Thus far we have established two things. With creative wrangling of the resolution on the footage, we've been able to ascertain that he is indeed wearing a mako powered suit. Further, I was able to identify the symbol on the front of it." At the click of a button, the symbol appeared alone on the screen. "I found it again in a series of files in the Science Department. Most of it is encrypted to the point even I don't have clearance. I was lucky I was able to pull this out."

Reno made a noise that sounded roughly like a grunt of surprise and Tseng looked at him. "Do you have something to add?"

"Not really boss, just had a case of déjà vu. I could swear I've seen that logo before, yo."

"Where?" Elena asked.

"I don't know… but it kinda looks like the SOLDIER logo, doesn't it? Just a little?" Reno seemed thoughtful, which for him was an incredible feat.

"Maybe that's why it seems familiar, and it wouldn't surprise me," Tseng said. "The SOLDIER logo is a lot more angular and has more of a trident shape. This one is more rounded and looks more like the first symbol in the Wutaian way to write "Exit," or a shield emblazoned with a very wide and ornate sword. The current symbol SOLDIER uses may be based on this design or the other way around, but one thing I've discovered is that a few of our well known scientists have used it as shorthand in their notes, often in relation to a location labeled Deepground."

"Deepground…" Rufus repeated aloud. "I'd heard the rumors before, but does this mean they could be true...? What does this mean?"

Sometime in January, Tseng had been working in what remained of Hojo's laboratory looking through his computer for information when he stumbled on the logo in an encrypted file of Hojo's notes. Next to it, had been that word and a hastily written document detailing the effectiveness of cells called G-cells within a list of samples. It was hard to say what this meant, but the document was very old, probably dating back to the late 1970's.

"Those bottom dwellers in Deepground say they could have more luck testing the cells of Hollander's failure than his so-called success. I'd like to see them try. Even his subject "A" won't last forever. That buffoon's shoddy workmanship means they both have only thirty years at most, if my calculations are correct. My method should allow for much greater effectiveness…" The document then went into a comparison having to do with the difference between S-cells and G-cells that was outside of Tseng's training, though he was knowledgeable enough to know it had something to do with degradation, a subject that, thanks to his missions with Zack, he was very familiar with. The gist of it was that S-cells were much more stable and that he had no intention of sharing his opus with those idiots anyway…

Tseng considered the information he'd found for a moment before answering Rufus. "It sounds like some sort of facility. Based on how Hojo referred to it, I presume its somewhere underground. In the documents I've uncovered it sounds as though they were conducting experiments based off of Hollander's work with Genesis and Angeal."

"Zack's mentor, and the other rogue 1st class?" Rufus asked.

"Yes. Angeal was confirmed killed, by Zack himself. Genesis' whereabouts are unknown, though we confirmed that Zack was forced to kill Hollander in the time following his escape from Hojo's lab in Nibelheim. The bugs we placed in the Turk annex recorded him telling Dr. Rayleigh as much." He paced across the room deep in thought. "I've been searching for possible locations all over the world where such a facility as the one Hojo has written about might be, though I have found no official records of such a place existing…"

…Sometime in early February, Tseng had dug through the blueprints of the Shinra building, along with several other locations spanning across the world for extra facilities. He had found nothing. Even conducting a visual survey of several of the building's many basement levels (including several that descended below plate) had produced nothing. It was mind-boggling. When he'd broached the subject with Scarlet and Heidegger they claimed ignorance though he wasn't sure he believed them yet…

He looked back to where Rufus was sitting. "I was eventually able to get a series of encrypted logs from Hojo and Hollander's files. Hojo's seem to be more complete as there was an extra subject he was especially interested in. Most of them are too far gone to read, but apparently the subjects of interest were coded in the notes with a series of letters. In both Hollander's notes, I was able to find references to subjects labeled 'I', 'S', and 'C' as far back as the 1980's. Starting from year 2000, there were also mention of a subject 'T,' and later, beginning in 2001 there are mentions of a subject 'Cu.' Hojo's also refer rather irately to a subject refered to as 'L.' Saying 'one of those bottom dwellers stole my work.' He was very vague about what that was, but it seems he has a history of contention with these people."

"My father probably knew too. Did you find anything in his files?" Rufus asked.

"Yes and no. I found the same files as in Hollander's reports, minus the extra ones from Hojo, but with an official report about subject L in their place," Tseng returned. "All of them are heavily encrypted and I was only able to glean the subject matter on a rudimentary level. It would probably take a few months to crack at least."

Rufus frowned as he walked to the window. Tseng found himself wondering just how many secrets the man's father had hid. He was surprisingly paranoid about some things, if he hadn't even alerted the Turks about this place, not that Shinra didn't have a habit of not letting the left hand know what was going on in the right. Did Veld even know about it? Rufus turned around and walked back to his desk. "I suppose it's highly likely Hojo's hiding out with them then, in spite of his low opinion of these people of Deepground."

"It would seem that way. Perhaps they felt his knowledge was valuable and his arrest might reveal their existence, but that's merely conjecture. However, this isn't the only lead I've been pursuing either. I assigned Reno the task of investigating the mako suit the stranger was wearing, and we discovered something interesting." Tseng gestured to Reno that he stand and make the presentation personally.

Reno sauntered up to join him in front of the projector as Rufus looked on curiously. "What would that be?" he asked.

"The inventor. He's been missing since just after one of our other Turks ran a mission for him," Reno said. "Apparently, he clocked out to go home one day and the next he disappeared, like he never existed. There's no records of it yo, and the last man to see him alive was looking for him around the same time I was."

"Who was the last man to see him alive?" Rufus asked.

"Mao," Reno replied. "I ran into him near the man's apartment. It's been abandoned by now of course, but he was talking to the landlady just as I was going up to investigate the place…"

…It was headed towards later in the afternoon, sometime in mid-January as Reno was walked towards the stairs when he recognized a familiar man through the window of the landlady's office. After taking cover behind a pillar, he watched as Mao walked outside in plain brown leather travelling clothes, though his glasses and the scar along the side of his face had been a dead giveaway. His old colleague had looked back to offer his thanks to the woman as he walked out, his katana at his hip and walked down the street. Curious, Reno decided to follow him. Surely his presence could not be a coincidence, not when he'd just read a report Tseng had given him stating that Mao had been the last known person to see the Shinra scientist alive.

Creeping along the street like a red alley cat, Reno followed the swordsman behind another building and watched him lithely climb through a service exit leading down to one of the support pillars and a set of stairs to the slums. The trains were not the only ways to get to and from the plate. This was how they'd traveled between up here and Wall Market in the first place once their clearances had been revoked. It took several minutes for both of them to reach the platform leading to the support pillar's main platform and then another few to reach the bottom of the stairs. Afterward, Reno continued to follow Mao through the dirty streets, and soon he realized the man was headed for Wall Market. Not that it was easy, the swordsman hadn't been Tseng's second in command and the leader of the second division for no reason. He slipped along through the crowds like an eel through reeds, and his slender build allowed him to travel through while attracting little attention.

Reno blinked when he passed a series of neon signs flashing words in Wutaian and nearly lost the man, but at the last second, he spotted him walking into the bar where Elena used to work. After a moment, he followed him in, only to see him leaning against the bar, having just ordered a glass of Wutaian sake. The man looked up at him and grinned. "I knew it was you. You're getting sloppy."

Reno stepped over to the bar, ordering a shot of whisky before returning with "You're the one who let me follow you in the first place."

Mao sipped at his drink without turning to face him. "What if I wanted you to follow me?"

"And why would you want to do that yo?"

"Perhaps I simply didn't want you harassing the landlady when all she knows is that the guy you're looking for disappeared without a trace six years ago."

"And what do you know about it? You know Mao, all Shinra personnel are under orders to kill you or any of the others on sight. I could do it right now."

Mao kept his face serene as he filled his small cup with more of the rice wine. "I think you know better." He sighed with pleasure at the taste of the spirit. "They always did manage to carry my favorite here." His right eye tracked to where Reno stood just as the shot of whiskey appeared at his elbow and Reno saw the familiar glint at the edge of the man's grey-blue irises. He was dead serious. "This missing scientist couldn't have been taken by just anyone. If you're after what I think you are, you'd know that his project was highly classified. All but the highest level executives were forbidden knowledge of it. Unless Rufus gave the information to AVALANCHE, in which case we would have been ordered to retrieve it, it would have had to be someone else on the inside."

"That won't stop Shinra from trying to kill you," Reno said sadly.

"It wasn't intended to." The swordsman placed several extra gil on the counter as he sipped a final drink from the red wooden cup. "If you would kindly tell Franz that's for his tip?" There was a flash at his wrist, followed by an even brighter one enveloping the entire room, and the next time Reno looked, he was gone, the sake cup placed neatly on the bar…

"…I think it was an Exit materia, but whatever it was, he seemed to think we have someone inside Shinra who doesn't want us to find out about this stuff."

"Or it could be more than one person…" Rufus mused.

"I do have some suspicions about a few people, including Scarlet and Heidegger," Tseng said. "We'll keep an eye on them and see if we can't gain anything from that. There is one more thing about this that's a little more disturbing though. After doing some digging, I found that this disappearance is not unique either. Apparently a number of SOLDIERs and other personnel have disappeared in a similar fashion. Most of them weren't of particularly high enough rank to be noticed, but we're still investigating that angle."

"I suppose that's the best that can be done, for now. Tell me immediately if you manage to find more leads." Rufus turned his attention back to the projector screen. "Zack and this new alliance of his… 'GUARDIAN' as he's calling it, have not been allowing us easy access to our goal of controlling the world either. It doesn't help that a lot of our rubber plantations were down in Mideel and that's made it difficult to manufacture some of our supplies. Fortunately, Lord Godo has not decided to give them aid, but that could change at any time…"

He considered for a moment and then asked "What are the latest reports from Heidegger's troops on that front?"

Tseng hit a button on the remote, bringing up a map of the Western Continent. "After GUARDIAN's loss of Fort Condor, we have managed to sink several of their blockade runners cutting along the shore of the Western Continent from Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga. Gongaga has effectively been neutralized, they are still reeling from the loss of life rendered by the exploded reactor there. Cosmo Canyon on the other hand has proved difficult. While the air force has managed to drive the inhabitants underground, our ground troops going overland are having great difficulty due to encountering the forces organized by the being we know as Red XIII. His tribe has been utilizing guerrilla tactics within the canyons to ambush our armies and inflict heavy casualties until we're forced to turn back. With our remaining 1st Classes under SOLDIER Bradley stationed here to defend Midgar, we've only been able to send 2nds and 3rds, but even then, the men under Red XIII's leadership have been surprisingly apt at standing up to them. It would seem their troops have benefited greatly from Vincent Valentine and Freya's knowledge of firearms and tactical training."

"This can't continue," Rufus decided. "We must cut that supply line." They had won at Fort Condor, but had incurred heavy losses, even with Heidegger having decided to double their forces there upon learning Kunsel had joined the local leadership, not to mention they had lost a powerful materia to GUARDIAN. It had still been a frustrating victory to win, and it had almost cost them as much as they'd gained and to add insult to injury, Heidegger's attempt to blunder through had caused them to lose a large portion of their equipment. "We're going to have to be smarter on this assault, and we can't have Heidegger and Scarlet trying to muscle their way through this time."

February 26th [ ν ] – εуλ 0008

Elena wandered through the streets of the slums in plain-clothes that evening, careful that she wasn't being followed. She could very easily be brought in for treason if she was found out, and as clumsy as she could be sometimes, she had no intention of that happening. It wasn't until she had reached an old dingy bar in a corner of Sector 3 that she finally allowed herself to relax. The bar in Wall Market had been a favorite haunt of the Turks when they had been in their prime, and she'd even been able to snag a job there once, but now that Mao had been seen there, her former boss's establishment was under watch.

She visually scanned the area one more time before walking in and wading through the tables at which were seated a variety of seedy looking guys, who were drinking and playing cards mostly, to arrive behind another blond woman who was nursing a fresh glass of beer.

She took a seat next to her, and anyone looking at them could tell right away they were sisters. Elena also ordered a beer, just before Lou spoke. "Is the company working you hard these days?"

"We promised you wouldn't ask me about work," she replied.

"I know, but I was curious," Lou took another swig of her beer.

"I think I understand what happened a lot better now though," Elena said. "When you and everyone else left?"

Lou regarded her curiously. "What do you understand?"

"Shinra is a maze. Not even Rufus knows everything that's going on, and wherever we are, we're nothing but chess pieces lost on the inside."

"That's not a bad way to put it," Lou agreed. "Though I'm wondering when you got so poetic. You never had much time for metaphors when we were growing up."

Elena's beer arrived then and she took a sip, wrinkling her nose a little. It was definitely a bit watered down. Not nearly as high quality as you could find above plate, or even at Franz's place. "I was too busy trying to be better than you. And I did it. I was able to fight with Sephiroth and survive to tell about it after all."

"That you did, and I'm proud of you for that." She caught the hint of a smile playing at her sister's lips and in her own heart she felt herself swell up a little. It annoyed her. Was she really this desperate for praise that she'd risk coming down here to gloat? Lou continued, "Still, no matter how deep you get in this mess, never forget what's important, to you, to the company, and to the Turks. If it ever comes to a point where you have to choose a side, you'll know where to stand."

Elena took another swig of her beer. "I know. Though I guess I already made my choice when I put on the suit, didn't I?"

Lou nodded, almost imperceptibly before she drained her glass and stood up. "Even when you swore you never would." She smiled wryly, the closest thing to a hug she knew Elena would ever accept. "I'll bet most of us who had a choice felt the same way, when we first put it on." With that, the renegade Turk walked out of the bar, leaving some gil for her drink and plenty for Elena to think about.

"You be careful, big sis," she thought, draining the rest of her drink. "As much as I want to be better than you, I don't want to have to kill you to do it."

The Case of…?: Fragmented File #1

March 1st [ ν ] – εуλ 0008

Liz was trudging through the snow, with a snowboard over one shoulder and a backpack full of supplies on her back. The weather was only just starting to get slightly warmer now… of course, that only meant that the temperatures were slightly less way below freezing on a given day, but considering the location, this was excellent weather. An old hermit at the base of Gaia's cliffs had called in by radio for a set of supplies and she'd volunteered to take them since there was gil involved and she was a little curious about how things looked near the crater right about now.

She watched the air fog in front of the scarf covering her face as she trudged forward. The sky was clear, and it was almost noon. She was hoping she'd get to the hermit's place in time for lunch before heading back, though for now, her focus was simply not getting lost in the snow fields. The blanket of white under her boots only gave way a little as there'd been plenty of time for it to pack down hard, and had it been any warmer, she might have been tempted to let her hood down and let her hair flow free, but not quite.

All was quiet outside of her breath and footfalls as she walked along, until suddenly, she became aware of a new noise from over the horizon. A helicopter? She looked up and upon realizing she did not recognize the design, promptly dived behind the nearest snow bank, pulling out a pair of binoculars once she was sure she had cover. It had propellers like a helicopter, but she'd never seen one like this before. It appeared to be much sleeker in design than the military transport helicopters SOLDIER had favored, or even the B1-alphas the Turks had often used for their own missions.

One thing was for sure though. It seemed to be headed away from the crater. She waited patiently until it was out of sight before sitting down against the bluff to puzzle over this development. What would a helicopter possibly want in the Northern Crater at this point? Sephiroth was dead, and it was believed Jenova had been completely destroyed. There couldn't be anything of use there, unless Rufus wanted to try and use it as a site for a Mako reactor. But he couldn't possibly be considering that now, with the war going on, right? It would divert resources better used by focusing on GUARDIAN… But what if it wasn't Rufus? The chopper certainly hadn't carried the Shinra logo… just what was going on here?

Tune in next week as we go back to Cosmo Canyon! See ya then!