A Final Fantasy VII fan fic
Final Fantasy VII characters and locations from said game are owned by SquareSoft.
By Pretty Sabine
Rated R for nudity, language, and violence
Dedicated to Kristen Gupton-Williams
Who writes under the name - Ksipesh
Check out her awesome FF7 Fan Fic
'Guilt's Cost'
Chapter Two
It was very cold out, particularly for a young woman dressed only in a cloak. It was winter and there was snow on the ground. The raggedy group stood a block away and a block behind the nightclub which was now completely surrounded by law enforcement personnel.
Tifa couldn't keep her teeth from chattering she was that cold in the thin cloak that fell just barely past her waist. "Go to Tifa's and get her some clothing," Reeve ordered.
A young lad of eighteen turned as if to take off immediately on the task. His name was Eddie and he was about six feet tall, had a slight frame and was fairly attractive.
"Wait!" Tifa ordered. "What'd you thinking, Reeve? There'll probably be cops all over my house right now. If you're going to be in charge of people at least think about what you're telling them. And now to think apparently I've joined your lamebrained schemes. I bet you had something to do with that raid to get me to go with you."
Tifa stared at him suspiciously. "You didn't have anything to do with that raid, did you Reeve?"
Reeve flushed greatly because of Tifa's rough talk. "No, Tifa, of course not."
"If you want to get me something before we go, go get me a bottle for the road," Tifa instructed Eddie.
"No way," Reeve said suddenly harsh in his tone. "Tifa, I've been watching you for months and you're an alcoholic. Now you have to do something about this alcohol problem or you won't be able to come with us. Where we're headed it will be dangerous enough without dragging along a drunk."
"Of all the God damn nerve - you little creep," Tifa hissed. "I never asked to go along with you on any of your misguided schemes in the first place. In fact, I specifically asked you to leave me alone. Now you insult me and call me a drunk? Well, fuck you! And take this crummy cloak, I'll find myself some clothes to wear."
Reeve was thoroughly chagrined when the cloak fell over his head. He may have been fortunate, at least he didn't have to look at Eddie's eyes popping out of his head so far it's a miracle they weren't dangling down his cheeks.
"Tifa, wait," Reeve pleaded, his voice cracking. "I'm sorry, take your cloak, Eddie, go get her some liquor."
Taking the cloak from Reeve and covering herself, Tifa expressed, "Screw it! Let's just get out of here before we get stopped."
The truck was well hidden. It turned out to be also well hidden from them as Eddie couldn't quite remember where he had parked it in the early afternoon as it was now dead dark.
Oh, I can see it's gonna be a laugh a minute with this guy around, Tifa thought cynically.
They finally managed to find their truck. Then they couldn't get it started. It was too cold out and then Eddie flooded it attempting to start it too quickly despite the temperature. He then set about attempting to grind the battery down to a nub.
"What a minute!" Tifa exclaimed. "Stop grinding away or we'll never get out of here. Do you have any tools?"
"Right there in the bag," Eddie answered.
"You keep your tools in a paper bag? Oh never mind, pop the inside hood mechanism," she directed while stepping down out of the truck.
Tifa walked around to the front of the truck. The wind was whipping her cloak around something fierce and the cold temperature was bitter on her bare skin. As she bent down to release the outside hood latch, Tifa thought, Good thing there's nobody around or I'd be putting on another show.
Tifa took the tiny screwdriver and made some minor adjustments on the carburetor. She decided to leave the top off. After no longer smelling the odor of gasoline, she gave Eddie the high sign to gently attempt to turn the truck on. This time with the adjustments Tifa had made, the truck's engine caught and it started.
Tifa quickly replaced the top half of the carburetor and screwed it down. She dashed to the truck almost completely frozen by then. Throwing open the passenger front door, Tifa insisted Reeve move to the back of the truck so she could ride shotgun. The buxom young woman had already decided she had observed as much of Reeve's dysfunctional leadership ability as she desired to see for one night.
At least they have blackout windows on this truck, Tifa thought as she directed Eddie to leave the general vicinity but to remain well within the speed limit. After doing so, she asked Eddie to stop at the first Bank of Midgar cash machine that he observed. Luckily most of the banking in the slums was done in the evening or the wee hours of the morning, as the Midgar inhabitants who banked were unable to usually reach the financial institution during banking hours due to actually being involved in gainful employment. This meant there were cash machines every couple of blocks.
Eddie spotted one and pulled in close to it by the curb. Opening the truck door, Tifa took a quick glance around and not observing anything or anyone suspicious she jumped down from the vehicle and dashed to the slight alcove that was built around the cash machine.
Even though the dark-haired woman did not have her cash card with her, there were other legitimate ways to withdraw her money. In fact, generally speaking the personalized cash card only came into play if and when a person were asked if they had any proof they were entitled to be withdrawing from the machine. Usually this would either be when a law enforcement officer questioned someone who they thought was acting in a suspicious nature around one of the machines or if the card holder had gone to one of the bank's many branches with a complaint regarding their banking transactions with one of the machines.
This had changed initially when too many people were having their wallets pickpocketed or their purses stolen by the myriad and always over active thieves and robbers in the Midgar slums and then the victims having their bank accounts emptied out before they could even report it to the police and their banking service. The only thing that Tifa needed was her pen number which she had memorized and the ability to give a thumb print.
The idea of electronically collecting the person's thumbprint by having them press their thumb on the screen had so far worked fairly well. Without it, victims were being tortured by criminals to tell their pen number. Of course some lowlife idiot got the idea of cutting some poor person's thumb off and taking it to the cash machine in an effort to illegally remove the money.
This failed to work because the designers had programmed it to be able to discern between a live thumb and a 'dead' one; in other words whether there was blood flow thought it. Unfortunately they had forgotten to make this public knowledge in time to save the person's thumb!
Of course the robbers could still attempt to drag the victim to a cash machine after torturing them for their pen number, but it was highly unlikely that they would try this because it would attract no end of attention to drag a bleeding, moaning, half dead person to a banking machine.
Tifa quickly transacted her business and withdrew twenty-five thousand Gil. There was more money in the account that she wished to withdraw, but again the process involved another safeguard. A person could only remove a maximum of twenty-five thousand at any one machine in a twenty-four hour period. Again this was to prevent a person from being forced to empty their whole account by a criminal.
Since Tifa wasn't certain exactly how much she was worth, although she realized it was considerable, it would involve some time to collect it all. Hurrying back to the truck, she directed Eddie to locate another banking machine as efficiently as possible since time appeared to be of the essence.
An hour and ten minutes later, Tifa had been successful in completely emptying her account at the Bank of Midgar. Even she couldn't believe the amount of money she had saved since becoming employed as an erotic dancer as she sat staring at over three hundred and twelve thousand Gil currently in her lap.
Now that's what I like to have dancing in my lap, Tifa thought sardonically.
"Here," she ordered thrusting the cash into Reeve's unwilling hands. She had half turned in her seat and was looking toward the back of the truck.
"T - Tifa," Reeve stammered. "I don't want to be in charge of this much money," he explained fearfully.
"I don't care what you want," Tifa retorted angrily. "You always wanted me involved and now you got me. Surely your organization has some sort of bank account?"
"Yeah," Reeve finally agreed as if against his will. "But not in Midgar."
"That's the first bright thing you've said today," Tifa offered as faint praise. Turning to Eddie behind the steering wheel, she commanded, "Let's just get the hell out of here."
Eddie pulled the truck back on to the street and was soon driving down a main thoroughfare leading eventually to the Midgar suburbs and then completely out of the area of the huge city. Tifa very carefully stepped from her seat in the front of the truck past Reeve and lay down in the very back.
"What are doing? If you're tired, you can lie here, I'll move," Reeve graciously offered.
"I'm pulling this tarp over me," Tifa wearily explained. "Then pile some of that junk on top of me," she ordered waving her hand aimlessly at the collection of odds and ends that had gathered at the rear of the truck.
"Tifa, if you're that cold, we'll figure something out. That stuff is nasty back there."
Tifa shot Reeve a withering glance. "In case we get stopped by anyone, maybe this might fool them. Let's hope so anyway," she explained before pulling the tarpaulin completely over her.
Fortunately for all concerned the authorities had not yet realized they should have set up roadblocks not believing that Tifa would be able to escape their grasp that easily and quickly. Reeve gently pulled the tarp down off Tifa's face after she failed to respond to his telling her they were out of danger and was surprised to observe she had fallen sound asleep.
Reeve was slightly surprised to realize how sweet she looked when lost in sleep after how ferocious she had been all evening. He remembered back to when Scarlett would complain that Tifa had great big iron balls, but actually he now realized she should have said nerves of steel.
Returning to the front seat of the truck, Reeve informed Eddie of their new destination.