Chapter 21: Damage Control
"Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Fucking shit on a fucking shingle. Fuck fuck fuck." Reno slammed a large bundle of tabloids down on Tseng's desk. Behind him, Rude carried another stack of the newspapers. He placed these on the desk more gingerly.
"Tell us how you really feel, Reno," quipped Cissnei, leaning against the wall. She didn't even look up from her PHS.
"We bought out as many as we could find, but they're all over Midgar now," Rude informed Tseng. "They're selling online, too."
"Three guesses as to where that fucking picture came from," Reno added venomously. "Though you should only need one."
Tseng stared at the piles of Midgar Mirror tabloids, utterly silent. He placed both hands flat on his desk and remained motionless, keeping his breathing rhythmic and controlled.
Her attention caught by Reno's ire and Tseng's overreaction—at least, it was an overreaction for Tseng—Cissnei came over to take a look.
"Oh, dang, they blurred out the interesting parts," she commented. "I suppose they had to in order to print the thing, but what a waste. They've covered half the picture in all those silly headlines, too."
Tseng narrowed his eyes and glared at her.
Ignoring him, she picked up a copy from the top of the stack closest to her and flipped through it. "Ah, there we go. Still strategically blurred for decency's sake, but at least the rest of that pretty skin is unobstructed." She scanned the text. "Inventive story about our three favorite Firsts. I wonder if any of it's true?"
"Let us hope that none of it is," Tseng gritted out through clenched teeth.
"Now, come on, Tseng. You haven't even read it yet." She set the tabloid back down on his desk, opened to the article and the embarrassing photo. "They got his pseudonym and the name of the porn magazine right, at any rate. Oh, they got the age wrong. Seems everyone gets that wrong, but he does look older than fifteen in that picture so it's understandable."
"I suppose we should read it to make sure there's nothing too objectionable in there," Reno muttered. "Or nothing too true."
"Aside from the centerfold, you mean?" Cissnei said brightly.
"Yeah, yeah. Smartass."
"I wonder if he's naturally that hairless, or if they made him shave everywhere?" she said, directing a sly, devilish look at Reno and snickering at the way he sputtered. Tseng and Rude both flinched. "Almost everywhere," she amended, grinning evilly at all of them. "We already know they didn't shave one spot, though that's blurred out. They might have required a bit of trimming there, though..."
"Trimming what?" came the voice of their boss from behind them and ending Cissnei's games. Guiltily, they all turned to stare at him. Steaming coffee mug in hand, Veld walked over to Tseng's desk, looked down, and blanched. "Oh, crap," he groaned, drooping in defeat.
"Reno's language has been a lot more colorful," Cissnei told him.
"And Cissnei's been having way too much fun embarrassing her co-workers, yo," Reno snapped.
"So I gathered," Veld said dryly. With compressed lips, he set down his coffee, picked up a copy of the tabloid, and flipped through it. "Damn it."
"Understatement, boss."
Exasperated, Veld let out a long and noisy breath. "Damn, damn, damn. The porno must have escaped out into the wild." So much for all their precautions and non-stop searches. "How widespread is this thing?"
Rude said, "From what we saw, it appears to be everywhere."
Reno held up his PHS to show the Mirror's digital page, adding, "There's an online edition, too, and it seems to be selling really well."
Tseng said, "Since it's online, the entire continent almost certainly knows something about it. And it might already have spread farther. We'll have to do a deep dive and analysis of just how far."
"Viral, baby," Reno said.
Veld let out a long-suffering groan and rubbed his face. "All right, so this means there's no hope of suppression at this stage. Conference room, everyone. We need to do some brainstorming."
The Turks had several fully equipped conference rooms arranged around their command center. Veld led his current team into the nearest, which was dominated by a large meeting table with multiple computer stations, comfortable chairs, and an array A/V and other specialized equipment. All the conference rooms were linked with the operations facilities and company-wide surveillance systems for data extraction and display as needed.
Once everyone had settled into the seats, Veld set his coffee on the table, sat down at its head, and announced, "Okay, people, we're going to discredit this whole centerfold thing." It was really the only option available.
"Indeed?" said Tseng.
"Yeah. We'll make the world believe the image is fake. We'll bring in the IT, Cyberweapons, and the PR and Propaganda departments just like last time, though this time we can't wipe history so thoroughly. That's why we need to discredit everything. No one can believe it's anything other than an attempt by our enemies to insult and malign Shinra. Now, ideas for direction?"
"It could be fruitful, assuming we can garner as much or more visibility than the Mirror has," mused Tseng, thinking through the possibilities. "SOLDIER First Class Hewley is widely known to profess honor and pride. Only an enemy of the company would strike at him in this particular way. It's too pernicious to be anything else."
"Or so our own story needs to go," Veld agreed. "We've even got a head start. Hewley's public reputation will automatically make our story more believable than the Mirror's article. Plus, Shinra owns a number of subsidiary media companies that will be useful for disseminating our own information."
"Will we utilize our tabloid?" Tseng asked.
"I think we have to. The PR and Propaganda Department can spin our story to Shinra's benefit and plant it there, in The Shinra News, and in other media outlets."
"We have our own tabloid?" asked Cissnei. "That's so cool. Think of the disinformation possibilities."
"Yes," Tseng acknowledged cryptically.
The left corner of her mouth turned up and she gazed at him speculatively. "I gather it's already been useful?"
"Yes."
"What's it called? Have I seen it? Don't be so secretive!"
Reno and Rude also looked interested.
Tseng sighed.
"It's fine, Tseng. They've all got authorization as of now," Veld said, "Or they will once I submit the paperwork." He explained to the others, "It's a compartmentalized asset kept on a need to know basis for plausible deniability. Its name is The Gaia Express, and yes, I'm sure you've seen it. It's displayed everywhere you can buy a magazine. Most of the time it operates independently as a regular tabloid, though it publishes one or two minor articles favorable to Shinra in most issues."
"I have seen it!" Cissnei exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "It's actually not as bad as most of them."
"Can we use it to blame the whole mess on AVALANCHE?" Reno broke in with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Veld hid a smile behind one hand. Reno had been terribly frustrated at their lack of progress in curtailing AVALANCHE's activities. He'd find turning popular opinion against them incredibly satisfying.
"You always want to blame everything on AVALANCHE," said Cissnei.
"Hey, if it works, go for it, yo. Gotta tell you, I hate AVALANCHE." Reno folded his arms across his chest and slumped back in his chair.
"Never would have guessed."
"What about just getting the Mirror to print a retraction?" Rude asked pragmatically.
"That might add fuel to the fire," said Tseng. "But very few people truly believe most of the nonsense The Midgar Mirror prints, anyway. Coercing a retraction is a danger, but perhaps a necessary one."
Veld shook his head and said, "Let's use a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer. Sure, we could lean on the Mirror's management to get the retraction, but that leaves too much of a trail back to Shinra."
"Especially if Reno and Rude beat the retraction out of them," Cissnei snickered.
"It'll work," Reno insisted. "It always works."
"We aren't going to beat a retraction out of the management of the most popular tabloid in Midgar," said Veld in a long-suffering tone. "They'd just print a series of articles about it in retaliation. Subtlety, Reno, subtlety."
Reno grumbled and slouched deeper into his chair.
Tseng suggested, "We can plant evidence that the photo was faked. The Mirror's editors and management will believe their experts missed something. They were probably in a rush to get their own story out before anyone else. Once they realize their information was wrong—"
"They'll do nothing!" Reno burst out. "They're a freaking tabloid. When has false information ever been a problem for them?"
"Calm down, Reno," Tseng said coolly. "We will reinforce the fictional nature of their information with our own sources, such as propaganda in social media, more honest news sources, and prominent articles in The Shinra News and The Gaia Express. The public already considers Hewley a SOLDIER icon. This...misstep...won't change that opinion so easily. The public will prefer to believe our story rather than the idea that Hewley isn't perfect. Shinra has far more resources than the Mirror for manipulating public opinion. They will come around due to pressure from their own readers if they want to maintain their sales numbers."
"Sounds good," said Veld. "Our own experts can create a copy of the picture containing subtle traces of manipulation. We then plant it, supplying the Mirror with incontrovertible evidence that the picture was edited to put Hewley's head on someone else's body. Our own articles in the other media sources should prompt the Mirror's people to take another look. They'll double-check their copy and discover they screwed up."
Rude said, "We need a primary copy of their photo in order to manipulate it, though."
Veld nodded. "Yes, we'll have to break in and obtain a copy of their copy." He smiled.
"IT or Cyberweapons?" asked Tseng.
"Probably not. If the Mirror's personnel have even two brain cells to rub together, they're keeping their master copies somewhere safe from hacking. Chances are their master won't be on a connected server." Veld took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. Not only was it bitter, but it had gone cold. He set it back down and sighed. "But Cyberweapons can try their own tools first, so we don't risk a physical break in if it's not necessary."
"You don't expect them to succeed, do you, boss?" Reno asked, drumming out a popular music rhythm with his fingers on the table.
"No," said Veld. "We need to assume the worst. We'll probably have to get into the Mirror's offices to retrieve a copy of the evidence. You three," he nodded to Reno, Rude, and Cissnei in turn, "start prepping the equipment you'll need so we can begin immediately in case Cyberweapons fails. Plan to grab copies of their masters, basically what they've got stored on private servers. Disturb nothing. We don't want to do anything to create suspicion. After we have it and modify it, we can replace it everywhere."
"Sounds like this is going to be complicated, yo." Reno scratched the back of his head. "Be easier to just burn the damn building down, get rid of all the evidence in one nice big fire."
"We won't be burning the building down," Veld said with a quelling glare at him. He turned to his cool-headed second in command. "Tseng, we need to outline this."
Tseng stood up and went to the whiteboard, an outdated term for the large, touch-enabled digital display that took up an entire wall of the conference room. He used a stylus to list out the steps. As he wrote, the whiteboard's software digitized his handwriting to plain text.
"So," he said, writing precisely, "these are our steps. One, contact IT and Cyberweapons with instructions to infiltrate the Mirror's servers and obtain a copy of the centerfold image. Two, should they fail, break in ourselves and locate the picture manually. This is risky for the usual reasons. Three, alter the image file to include one or two subtle defects that indicate it was manipulated and cast doubt upon its authenticity."
Veld checked on the computer in front of him and said, "No more than one or two defects, at most. According to our files, the Mirror's digital forensics team is top notch. We want something so subtle that it might have been missed by even sophisticated software and only shows up on, say, the third or fourth pass with deep exploration routines."
Tseng inclined his head and continued, "Four, replace the image on their servers. This will mean another break in, either digitally or physically. To be determined per the outcomes of Steps One and Two. Five, get our own story published in other media outlets, starting with The Gaia Express and The Shinra News."
"So far, so good," said Cissnei. "Seems pretty straightforward when you list it out like that. But there are still a zillion copies of that picture out in the world now. Anyone with good enough tools to check them will know they're real."
"Those public online copies can be easily altered by release of the SEPNET worm."
"The what?"
"Another compartmentalized asset," explained Veld. "A specialized worm developed by Cyberweapons with multiple means of spread and infection. Properly loaded, it tracks down and either updates or removes whatever inconvenient data we wish from any connected device. It was used to eliminate unwanted digital copies of the original centerfold six years ago, and we will deploy it again to modify every copy it finds so they appear fake."
"What if non-Shinra experts discover our worm?" asked Rude.
"No one noticed it last time. I'm sure the hacking geniuses have improved their tools since then." Veld shrugged. "By the time anyone does notice something odd, the damage will be done. I believe the worm self-deletes after it completes its function and propagates to other servers, so finding it should be impossible. We need to mention that issue to Cyberweapons, though."
"At least we already have effective networked malware agents tailored for this particular kind of problem," Tseng mused. "I'll coordinate with Cyberweapons about SEPNET's release. But the image has been widely disseminated and exists in hardcopy, not just digital format. Mitigating the damage from public awareness will also require extensive public relations efforts."
"That's where the PR and Propaganda Department and our tabloid come in," Veld said. "I'll get in touch with them. The Gaia Express will print our own story, complete with analysis from digital experts proclaiming the picture was edited. They'll make sure it's even more widespread than the Mirror's. The Shinra News will publish an even more sober, analytical account of the fakery involved. We'll also have Propaganda start planting doubts about the Mirror's veracity in other news outlets and online in social media after we substitute our altered image. They'll make sure everyone alive knows that picture's a fake and the story's a pack of lies."
"Veracity?" Cissnei sniffed. "Like Tseng said so politely, it's not like anyone who isn't a gullible moron doesn't know that most tabloid stories are packs of lies."
"The key word is 'most,'" Rude said cynically.
"Be honest, Rude," said Reno. "Most people are morons and believe the stupidest chocobo shit. They love conspiracy theories like this."
Tseng said, "The occasional inconvenient truth the tabloids print is what helps feed belief in the lies."
Cissnei burst out laughing. "So now we're calling this story an inconvenient truth? There's, like, maybe five true statements in the entire thing."
"It does include an inconvenient truth, though," Tseng said with a sigh. "At least, there's enough truth in it to make the rest of the fiction seem believable."
"Lies repeated often enough will lodge in even a sensible person's mind and build doubt," Veld said. "It's a matter of exposure as well as cleverness in placement. That's why we're going to get the Propaganda experts working on countermeasures."
"What about spinoff stories?" Cissnei suddenly asked. "You know there's going to be a lot of interest."
Everyone looked at her curiously. Veld said, "What do you—? Oh." He heaved a deep, frustrated sigh.
Cissnei explained, "Unless we can suppress this really fast, the media is going to want to know more. The Mirror itself hinted that they'll be looking into Angeal's background. They'll probably be contacting everyone he knows. Other media might, too. To them it just smells like money."
Veld ground his teeth. The circumstances of the Hewley family's exile to Banora were classified at the highest levels, and the company did not want anyone digging into it. Veld himself didn't know all the details. "I'll increase the Turk presence in Banora," he said. "Make sure no visiting reporters get anything worthwhile. We'll put some filters on communications, too." A number of the townsfolk were still indebted to Shinra, so a few words with them should also keep them quiet.
"What a mess. It's going to be a long haul," said Reno, scratching his head unhappily.
"It is, though the other departments will do most of the real work." Veld folded his arms. "We have to be thorough and we have to outlast the furor raised by the Mirror. Might be a month or more before we get the public perception where we want it, depending on whether the Mirror wants to ignore the new evidence, milk the story and battle our version of events." In that case, it might be necessary to drive The Midgar Mirror out of business. Veld hoped it wouldn't go that far again. The last time had gotten rather messy, despite being a smaller operation.
"What a pain. Idiotic-empty-headed-oafish-musclebound SOLDIERs," Reno grumbled.
"Just the one, Reno," Cissnei corrected him.
"You think something this dumb hasn't happened to the others? Maybe not porn shots, but they're all idiots just the same," he replied dismissively.
In fact, Veld knew Reno was correct, and that there had been other sanitation operations in the past to keep certain famous SOLDIER reputations sparkling clean. Compared to Rhapsodos's never-ending dramatics and Sephiroth's arrogance, routine lack of tact, and unmistakable contempt for public attention, Hewley was easy—if only because he didn't generate PR problems nearly as often. Veld was certain this operation would be just as successful as the others.
Eventually.
"What of the original magazine?" Tseng asked. "Do you believe The Midgar Mirror has it?"
Veld let out a long, slow breath through his nose. "Dunno. Could be that whoever does have the magazine just sent the Mirror that picture. In any case, we'll need to be certain." His gaze took in Reno, Rude, and Cissnei. "You can look for it during one of your break-ins at the Mirror. However, you can't steal it until after we're finished planting our own evidence and other countermeasures, and after PR and Propaganda have public opinion under control. We need a muzzle on the Mirror first, assuming they've even got it."
He grimaced as he took another drink of his cold coffee. "Remember, for all phases of this operation, be thorough, leave no evidence. No slipups. But do nothing until we're ready. Understood?"
"Yes, sir!" Reno gave Veld a cocky salute. Rude nodded once.
Cissnei grinned like a shark. "This'll be fun!"
"Are we doing anything about the hardcopies, sir?" Tseng asked.
Veld nodded his head in resignation. "Just like last time. Everyone will have standing orders to buy out or steal every copy of that miserable tabloid that they can find. We're going to make it disappear, or at least mostly disappear." He sighed heavily. "Again."
Reno groaned as though he was expiring on the spot.
Rude consoled him, "It should be easier this time. It hasn't been floating around for a couple years like last time, so it won't have spread as far."
"It'll be all over the world," Reno protested. "The Mirror is sold in every major city on three continents."
"Then our operatives all over the world will have their work cut out for them," Veld said, adamantly. "I'll write the orders as soon as we're done here."
Tseng updated the whiteboard then saved a copy of the list he'd created. "I will send this to everyone on this team."
"Good," said Veld. "Everyone needs to review it for holes and submit refinements. There are bound to be things we missed. Let's get to it, people. Dismissed."
Note: I don't plan to get too involved in the mechanics of the SEPNET worm. Suffice to say that it is loosely modeled on the real-world Stuxnet worm, except it's a lot more invasive, has multiple methods of spread and infection, and its effectivity is enhanced by magic.