A/N: Okay, so, this is going to be the last post this year. It's busy Christmas, what can I say? I'm expecting to start posting again on January 4th, assuming nothing goes wrong between now and then! Of course, this also gives me the chance to write ahead somewhat further than I am now (which isn't much), so there won't be a danger of my not having chapters to post!

For anyone who hasn't watched the FFVII 'Honest Trailers' on YouTube: "FFVII—the only game where you increase your skills by playing with your balls."

Phoenix: Thank you for the review!

Problem Night

Vincent had just gotten back to the office—and blinked in surprise when he saw about half the Turks currently in Midgar working late. Since it was about one in the morning by then, he was very puzzled by why, but right then, he happened to see Sly jump out of a vent near Reno's desk—carrying something shiny in his mouth as he scrambled over to the desk. The raccoon stopped right in front of the red haired Turk, right on his paperwork, and took the thing out of his mouth with one paw to offer it to Reno, who just stared at it stupidly.

Making his way over, Vincent eyed the thing—and had to ask incredulously, "Is that a memory stick?"

"Looks like," Reno agreed, just eying it warily. "Gold-plated (1). Er...who in the buildin' uses gold-plated anythin'?"

"Well, take it and see what's on it," Vincent offered.

Reno did as told, and as soon as he took it from Sly's paw, the raccoon climbed up onto his computer screen top. Quickly, the red haired Turk put it in the slot on the computer tower and accessed it—and gaped as he saw what it had on it. "Looks like Science Department data—on the Sephiroth copy, yo."

"Really?" Vincent blinked, stepping around the desk to look at the data. Sure enough, the records seemed to be notes on things like the growth and the power of the Sephiroth clone—on The Nightmare. "Well, okay. Make a copy, then make sure it gets back there. If you can, right to where Sly took it from."

"Sure thing," Reno agreed, doing exactly that. "But...how, yo? I mean, I know 'e can get in from vents, but this shoulda been under lock 'n' key, not out where Sly coulda gotten it."

"Keys are shiny, too, and I think he wants to learn how they work in the hopes of getting his collar off," Vincent commented dryly. Sly actually gave him a dirty look, really making him think these raccoons had somehow mutated to be smarter than normal ones.

"Glad Cloud took care o' that for me, then, yo," Reno commented dryly in amusement. "I'll see if I can get it back, then. Thanks, yo."

"So...why are half of you still awake and working at this time of the night?" he asked curiously, turning to scan the room.

Giving a random wave which wasn't quite dismissive, Reno said, "Lakis 'n' Eonna're tryin' ta finish a record for a case so it's done an' over with. Anki always takes a night about once a month ta compile data for 'er cases, done or not. Donnel's got insomnia tonight, so he's puttin' in extra work on a case that's been botherin' him. Derin was workin' on some hackin' at a time when no one would notice, an' ended up with extra work from Genesis an' Kunzel. I was just tryin' ta finish my last two reports I'm due, but that ain't been goin' all that well."

Vincent pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly and asked, "How does finishing a couple of reports end up being so difficult?"

"Er...'Cuz one of 'em wasn't one I figured out 'cause o' any sort o' logic, an' the other one's got bits an' pieces of notes all over my desk, an' I haven't found 'em all yet," Reno admitted with a bit of a blush.

Sighing, Vincent asked, "Could you at least arrange to have one drawer all your case notes go into so they aren't quite so hard to find?" How had Reno become the Second in Command of the Turks in the future if he was this disorganized?

"Tried that," the younger Turk answered with a shrug. "Just meant I couldn't tell which note went with which case, yo." That made Vincent's shoulders sag, but Reno then went on, "But found a tactical loophole in the Wutai Assault while I was lookin'."

"Something that's imminently dangerous?" Vincent asked, looking up in surprise. "Do I need to forward it to Veld?"

"Um...Probably?" the red haired Turk offered with a surprised blink. "It's 'cause no one actually defined what ta do with anyone other than killin' 'em. I don't think our troops'll be bastards about it, but the hole basically otherwise says 'kill everyone'. I'm not sure if that's what the President meant or was just careless wordin', though."

"Make a copy of the terms and what they effectively translate to, then forward it to me. I'll see that all our command people are aware of this wording flaw and can put in their own terms," Vincent nodded. "I don't think it's wise to draw that to the President's attention, though, or he might just decide to enforce it."

"Sure thing," Reno agreed, then pulled the memory stick from the computer tower and put it in his pocket. "I'll get on that, get it ta ya, then get this back ta its home."

"You do that. Did anyone leave any messages for me?" he asked. Well, at least that answered the question of why Reno was Tseng's Second...

"Kariya just said ta call 'im when he left. Dunno if he meant whenever ya got in or at a reasonable time o' day, though. Didn't sound urgent, so ya could probably wait 'til seven or eight in the mornin'," Reno told him absently, working on the data he had to put together.

Since the man had already spoken with him about the trip for Rufus—which he agreed was a good idea—that meant something else had come up. Whether that was for his Turk mission work or the undercover one, he didn't know, but he was sure the orange haired man wouldn't be bringing it to his attention unless something was wrong. If it wasn't urgent, waiting until about seven in the morning was probably a good idea—any normal, sane man would have been sleeping at one in the morning.

"Shelke? What's the matter?" Eonna suddenly asked in confusion, making everyone look up at the door, where Eonna and Lakis had been about to leave—

Only for little Shelke, all of seven years old, to be standing in the door of the room, dressed in her soft pajamas (mostly blue with green designs), rubbing her eyes with one hand and holding her new, stuffed green chocobo around the neck with her other arm. He'd known both of Kariya's daughters came by every couple days and spent an hour or two visiting, but he hadn't heard of either coming alone or this late at night. She was obviously tired and sleepy, but when Lakis crouched in front of her and touched her shoulder gently, she looked up with clear eyes, tiredness aside.

"What's the matter, Little Mage?" Lakis asked her gently, a nickname the Turks had given her when they realized she was very good with magic—Genesis level 'good with magic'—even though she didn't like fire much.

"It felt like someone was there, and I got scared," she answered quietly. "I don't want to be alone, but Shalua's already sleeping. This was the first place I thought of."

The others all blinked, then Eonna reached down to gather the seven-year-old in a hug. "I've just finished for the night, so you can stay with me overnight, all right, Little Mage?" the woman asked. "We'll talk about it more and I'll get you some hot chocolate, and we'll see if you can sleep after that. Sound all right?"

"Yes," the girl agreed, leaning on the woman. "Thank you."

Lakis rose when Eonna did, and the woman led Shelke out by the hand as Lakis turned to look at Vincent questioningly. Knowing a Turk's thought processes, Vincent nodded, giving him permission to see if he could find any trace of whoever had been watching the girl. Risking her safety wasn't something any of them wanted to do, not when she was in very real danger the Turks had to work hard to mitigate. Even without the Restrictors directly, her having SND was an attraction to plenty of bad people, even the President himself.

The nod got one in reply from Lakis, and the younger man headed out. Vincent may have even wanted to send others to search as well, but Turks also knew too many hounds would scare off the prey. And even if Lakis wasn't the oldest Turk there, he also was far from being a rookie, so he'd be able to handle whatever came up. As a Mage, that was more true in some ways, but he could also handle something resistant to magic, something most people didn't realize until they ended up on the receiving end of his dagger.

Turning back to the room, Vincent made his way over to Derin, who was scowling, and asked, "Something the matter?"

"Yes," the black haired Turk bit out. "Someone is hacking our PHS's—nearly all of them, to greater or lesser degrees." He paused to tap on his desk as he glared at his computer screen. "The problem is, it's either the President or it's someone he gave the codes to. Even if I change them out, that would just earn us reputations as traitors, and Tseng was really clear on that point—an overt action like this would be dangerous. Even if we're doing it on the premise of a security breach."

"Even though it is one, and we can legitimately claim to not know the source?" Vincent asked in surprise. That should have been one hole they could close with relatively little repercussions.

"If they weren't Shinra's secure PHS's, then we could make that claim," Derin said flatly. "But as things stand, there are six people who have copies of the code, and only four of those can actively use them. Two are the engineering execs, two are the hacker Turks, one is Veld, and one is the President. Veld and the President can't use them directly, as far as I know, but he's been known to hire hackers—lots of them, in fact. About ten percent of the company employees got caught hacking, in fact.

"He hasn't asked Scarlet or Reeve to do any checking in on us—we'd probably have been warned now that we've adopted them both—but that wouldn't stop him from asking someone in their departments. They'd even do it without telling their department head in exchange for some extra money, and one of my first suspects would be Santos after his behavior. Since the President hasn't asked the Turks, which is what he should have done, we have a problem—we're the ones being spied on. Deliberately."

"So does that mean he actually suspects us of something, or is he just being a paranoid bastard?" Vincent asked slowly, thoughtfully.

The question made Derin pause, then frown. "I don't actually know. If he suspects us in particular of something, he's not overtly showing it—he's actually having about half the company, across the board, hacked. In that regard, he may suspect something's off, but doesn't have anything tangible to base it on, so it's probably paranoia right now. Unless someone said something detrimental enough for him to take exception to it. By when this started, I actually think the trigger has to do with the Restrictors, Heidegger, and Palmer all betraying him in some way."

"That's logical. We deal with a lot of very sensitive information which could be an issue in the wrong hands—people jumping the gun just as much as them getting caught doing something wrong. We're not investigating anyone in the top ranks except Palmer, but the President is being kept apprised of that case's progress. Anything else needs to be kept with us until we have the final target, so could you create a block we can activate only when we need something kept absolutely quiet until we're sure of our target?" the undead Turk asked.

Derin blinked. "You mean, just let him listen the rest of the time, even when we know it?"

"You as much as said he's getting this discussion from our PHS's," Vincent answered dryly, and Derin gaped. "Unfortunately, he is currently our boss, so he actually has the right to listen if he has reason to suspect something. Unless he tells us the 'what' he suspects, we can just circumvent specific details of some cases in the meantime. Turks all mostly know what would qualify, so it's a reasonable compromise."

Sitting back, the younger man eyed him for a long time, then asked, "You're sure that's the approach you want to use, Sir? Or that Veld will agree?"

"You could call him and ask him," the other Turk answered in amusement. "But yes, I'm sure this is the best option. So, can you make something?"

"I'll need some help to do it," Derin answered. "Probably Ansha and Cloud both, if you want it done in a reasonable time. But yes, there's at least three different ways to work it for that purpose."

"Do that, then. As long as both Cloud and Ansha are here, they can work with you on it," Vincent agreed with a nod, then sighed faintly and picked up a pen and found a blank paper on Derin's desk to write a note. "Still, I have to ask, how much is being taken on average?"

"Probably around a third of everyone's data, somewhat randomly and some people's being taken more often than others'. My guess is that people who spend more time on their PHS's get theirs taken less often than those who spend less time—that means the current hacker isn't an expert and only feels comfortable doing it when no one's looking at it. For the sheer number of Shinra PHS's being hacked, that would leave them pretty limited in taking any one person's, too—that a third's being taken probably means that's their current 'job' and they aren't really doing anything else," Derin offered, watching Vincent write in surprise.

"Fair enough," the man agreed, then pushed the note over to Derin. It said: Make sure you erase the discussion Reno and I just had about Sly hijacking a memory stick from the Science Lab. And if you can, make your device have a trigger to blank out certain words or sentences, things you know for sure are things we want hidden. He then added, "We'll have to be cautious of our case discussions until you're done, then."

"There's that," the younger Turk agreed in annoyance, but grabbed the pen from Vincent to write in reply on the same sheet, Don't you think the hacker would notice a change in discussion topics after a month or more of listening to us? Or maybe the President would notice. "Since neither Ansha nor Cloud will be here until morning, I'm going to bed for awhile. We'll start when all three of us get here in the morning."

"You do that," Vincent agreed, then took the pen back and returned, Point. But, both of them also know from this discussion that we're going to be preventing them from listening to some very specific data. It will then be assumed it's case-related because we're not letting them have it. We can easily take advantage of that.

Derin gave him an annoyed look, but grabbed the pen and paper both and gathered his things to leave, so Vincent turned to scan the room again. Anki was still working steadily but her active stack of folders had shrunk noticeably since he'd come in, Donnel had apparently stopped to look oddly at a photo, and Reno was writing rapidly on a report form—he must have found what he needed for at least one of his reports. A Turk looking at a photo with any sort of strange expression always meant something was wrong, so he sighed faintly and made his way over to the pale red haired man.

"Something the matter?" he asked, leaning over the younger Turk's desk to eye the photo. It looked like it had been taken during the smuggler attack on Kalm's port, which had been before Vincent and Cloud had joined the Turks in Midgar.

For another long moment, Donnel was silent, but then he pointed to one man's arm, and to an icon on his sleeve. "This man is one of the terrorists in the attack on Kalm," he began. "But this one in particular is one of their leaders. He's also wearing Corneo's mark—and his is rather...distinctive. If this is true, then the smugglers were just a branch of Corneo's operation. It would explain a lot if that was the case, though."

Blinking, Vincent looked closer, seeing something like a bee with a gem in blood red for the mid-section of its body and a gun crossed over it (2). That was indeed Corneo's mark, and only people in his ranks could wear it, even though Corneo himself didn't. "And exactly what is it explaining to you?" the older Turk asked curiously. "Besides how many crime circles Corneo has a hand in, anyway."

Donnel's gaze lifted to his and he answered, "Corneo has certain markets in the Slums because Shinra lets him have them in exchange for his cooperation. Part of the agreement is that he also doesn't touch any of Shinra's goods, and these smugglers were hijacking Shinra's goods—it's the reason I was investigating in the first place. By default, that means Corneo circumvented the agreement by making it look like it was someone else's fingers in Shinra's pie, not his. And I know already how much the President doesn't like people stealing from him."

"But, because the President made the deal directly, your course of action needs to go to the President," Vincent finished, and Donnel nodded. "That means I'll have to do that, since Veld's not back yet. Leave me that photo and any others you find which show that mark on the smugglers. I'll take it to him in the morning. Try not to stay up the whole night, please."

The younger man's lips quirked in amusement. "I wasn't planning to. There's one other I have to go back to, but there were only a half-dozen more photos for me to go through, so I should be done and gone in about half an hour. Whether or not I'll sleep then, I don't know, but I can try."

"Is there a specific cause for your insomnia?" the older Turk asked curiously.

Shrugging, Donnel set the photo aside and replied, "This time, not really. This happens to me sometimes—I just can't sleep. Admittedly, though, sometimes it's nightmares. Of something or other. I have a lot of nightmare fodder."

With a sigh and a nod, Vincent agreed, "We all do, some more than others."

"And you and I count amongst the worst," the younger man answered with a wry grin. It was more of an ironic look than a happy or amused one, and Vincent didn't blame him. If he'd ever been a slave (which other Turks had implied), he really hadn't been treated much differently than Cloud or Vincent had in Hojo's hands.

"Unlike me, though, you actually still need sleep to function properly," Vincent told him in an amused tone, and Donnel just shrugged and turned back to the photos.

"Like I said, I'll be done in about half an hour, then I'll at least try to sleep," the younger Turk shrugged again. "Unless, of course, you want to stay and chat so I can't get my work done. Then it'll take longer for me to finish and get to bed."

"Point," Vincent agreed, feeling highly amused. In the background of his mind, Chaos also seemed to find the response amusing, which made him remember something he wanted to ask. "Before I go, just one last thing, if that's okay, Donnel?"

"What's that?" Donnel asked curiously, looking up again to blink at him.

"Why do you treat me like a completely ordinary person, even knowing what I am?" he asked the younger man, head tipped to the side as he watched his response.

He was surprised to see the younger Turk draw a blank before Donnel asked, "Why wouldn't I? You're still human, and you still have your own thoughts, feelings, hopes—your own soul. You could have all the strength in the world, but it's irrelevant if you really don't use it unless it's to help or protect people. I'd be a lot more worried if you went around randomly slaughtering people, but you don't, so—you're human."

"Are you saying you don't see me as dangerous?" Vincent asked in bemusement.

"No," the red haired man answered flatly, surprising him. "You're plenty dangerous, just like Turks and SOLDIERs are plenty dangerous. I'm saying it's how you use it which makes the difference. I can't speak for others, but someone who restricts their power of their own accord is far more human and trust-worthy to me than someone who doesn't. I don't need to worry about you mis-using that power because you've already shown you won't, so 'what' you are is a non-entity to me. Is that sufficient?"

Blinking, the undead Turk gave a nod and answered, "Yes, it's fine. It's just very rare for people to see me in that light, so...Thank you."

Donnel gave him a bit of a smile and waved him off, saying, "You're welcome. Now, find someone else to check on so I can finish this, please."

At that, Vincent had to give an out-right snort of amusement, but he turned to check on others—only to face Reno, who said, "You've got the data, an' I'm headin' out ta return Sly's latest victim. Only one o' my reports is done, so I'll finish the other in the mornin', yo." The vividly red haired Turk then turned and headed for the door, and a look around the room showed that Sly had apparently disappeared again as well.

Behind him, Donnel snorted and replied, "It is morning, dumbass. It's just not nine yet."

Sighing as Reno flipped Donnel off on his way out, Vincent said, "You don't have to name-call to point that out, Donnel." The other Turk bit off a laugh, but didn't reply, so Vincent turned to look around the room again. Derin (and Rogue) had gone while he'd been talking with Donnel, so that left Anki.

The woman looked up at him right then and said dryly, "No, I don't need your help. You can leave. Unless you're planning to wait around for Lakis to get back?"

Blinking, the older man had to take a moment to think on that, then he gave a nod and said, "I'd better wait for him to report in. If you're fine on your own, I'll see about some of my own paperwork in Veld's office. Let me know if anyone else turns up or has a message for me."

"Will do," Anki agreed, so he headed for the office and took Veld's seat.

Once there, he checked what Reno had sent him, saw what he'd meant, and wrote his own note on it as he forwarded it to the frontline commanders in Wutai. It didn't take long, so his next task was the rest of the work he got periodically during the day. It could generally go in two categories, 'very urgent' and 'not as urgent,' and once he'd established those, he could work through the 'very urgent' ones first.

One of those was going to be an investigation in the Slums regarding the activities of a Sector 2 gang, and it might actually be the ideal time for Verde to take Rufus into the Slums for a tour. Of course, in that kind of circumstance, he'd have to send someone else with them—Rude, maybe? He'd largely been avoiding the Turks he'd previously known, though that hadn't really worked well with Reno, so now was a good time to stop doing it to Rude, too.

Some time later, a knock on the door made him look up at Lakis, then check the time—it was now four in the morning. "So, did you find anything?" he asked of the other man.

"I did," Lakis agreed, stepping into the room and sitting. "It's not enough to know who it was, but up on the edge of the roof of the building across the way which faces Shelke's room, there were a few cigarette butts. Someone obviously spent quite awhile there, probably without moving much. Under the circumstances, my bet would still be the Restrictors, and the nice thing is that they couldn't have seen her get in the elevator and come up to our office from there. Though, they probably realize she felt them."

"Which could be good or bad," Vincent agreed. "Do you think the best option is to put a guard on Shelke, or did you have something else in mind?"

"We know they're in town," Lakis answered dryly. "We found one of their hideouts, or maybe it was just a meeting place and we disrupted a meeting. Either way, they have more than one or they'd have needed to leave town, so our best bet is probably a sting. There are places where we could watch that rooftop from without being seen, and because I didn't disturb anything there, chances are, they'll come back—by the looks of it, they left before I got there. If we can follow them from their watching point to their base, the rest is easy."

Sitting back in his seat to think on that for a minute, he realized it was probably viable, so gave a nod. "If they come back reliably at least three times, I'll have Doriss divert to help you track them the fourth time. Of all the Turks, she's the one most likely to bypass their notice in a city, so I'll let her know she might be suddenly pulled in to a stake-out meant to turn sting. Once you've got their base location, we'll call in the sting on full terms—SOLDIER and Turks."

Lakis gave a nod. "It's Deepground and the Restrictors, so that makes sense. If I'm going to have a night watch for awhile, I'm going to sleep during the day until I'm done. Good?"

"Unless there's something we urgently need your help with, go ahead and do what you need to so you'll be functional," Vincent agreed. "Thank you for your help, and go get some rest. You'll need it."

Rising, the brown haired man said, "I'm sure of that, too. Unless something very odd or game-changing happens, I'll only report back in once I've got the pattern and at least three reliable hits. Good night." Lakis then paused to eye the faint morning light coming in from the window and said, "Well, morning, but that's a greeting, not a parting, so..."

"Unnecessary syntax lessons," Vincent smirked in amusement, and Lakis laughed, then waved and left.

Once he'd gone, Vincent sighed and muttered, "What a bloody busy night..." And things were probably not going to get better until after they'd gotten worse for awhile.

Notes:

(1) For the record, a friend of mine is a geologist, and she went to some sort of convention once where they were handing out shiny, gold-plated (probably fool's gold, though) memory sticks to all the attendees. She then gave it to me, and it's shockingly weighty. Yes, that means I actually OWN a 'gold-plated' memory stick. XD I store my personal copies of my stories on it—including this one.

(2) This is completely made up as far as the mark goes, but seriously...It's Corneo. Deals aside, I sincerely doubt he'd leave alone a lucrative business venture, even if that meant breaking an agreement with Shinra. The problem is Shinra's possessiveness of his goods, and while Corneo made an effort to cover his tracks, well...Of course, if things had happened the same way as the first time through, Corneo wouldn't actually be getting caught now, so he wasn't exactly WRONG on this...