Colors of War, Chapter 10: Failure Means Giving Up
The Turks were in lousy shape, the worst they had been ever since Cavall Turk founded the espionage company. Everyone was grim, depressed at the very least; Iridalan was particularly thunder-faced, and Diera missed the rest, because the medics (who had not, due to obvious reasons, participated in the fall of La Contresiera) shut her in one of the rehab cells and drugged her to within an inch of her life. Not necessarily in that order, anyhow.
They discovered, fairly soon, that Diera went through drugs very quickly. Her system simply metabolized the chemicals too quickly for the effects to last more than five minutes, at the highest concentration they were sure not to kill her. So they settled for drugging her senseless and locking her in. She bounced back fairly quickly, but her madness was quiet rather than incendiary, a dreadful sort of stillness that suggested unmentionable thoughts and painful results. The medics switched off the surveillance lines after the first few days of nothing, preferring to concentrate on monitoring the other traumatized members of the force.
Diera had a long time to think, in the cold, sterile greyness of her temporary accommodation. Solitude does wonders for one's concentration. Or at least she thought it did. The truth made no difference.
The truth. Her mouth twisted, out of place on an adolescent body. She had seen the truth.
People lied. The truth set nobody free, only bound you close and tight with chains and pain.
You want to be free?
:I am free.:
No, you're just a puppet, like every other one of your kind. Poor, blind thing.
:What do you know about it? Shut up.:
Oh, what I know about being imprisoned would fill all the minds of the world a hundred times over, puppet.
:You've done this before, haven't you?:
Silence. Diera raised her head, her eyes bleak as she waited for the whispering voice to give an answer. She didn't know what or who it was, but it didn't 'feel' like one of the ultra-moralistic Cosmo Canyon people. No, this was amoral, hopeful even, just a voice of persuasion. It sounded a lot like her own voice; she was beginning to wonder if there WAS some truth in the Contresieran romantic theory of past life regression, after all. The only thing that rang false about this voice was the insistence of the thing to call her a puppet, which rankled. Even if it was her subsconscious speaking, she doubted that she thought of herself that way. So where was it coming from…?
But did it really matter? :Who cares. I don't. Just following the orders is enough for me. I don't want to think, anymore…:
Is it really enough? Then would you follow an order I gave you? Are you prepared?
:……who are you?:
But the voice was silent.
Diera sat on her thin lumpy bed, thinking.
--
"Raistlorne? You okay now?"
There was a long, thoughtful silence, then… "No." Her voice was muffled by her knees, and she was curled on her pallet, facing a corner of the room. "I'm not sure if I ever will be."
The medics exchanged exasperated looks. Finally, one of them decided, "You can't be too out of it if you're aware of that, Raist. C'mon, There's a debriefing tomorrow. You should get cleaned up." The stout, iron-faced woman picked the girl up by her arm, setting her on her feet and gently shoving her out of the door. "It'll make you feel better about everything."
Diera's look said plainly 'I don't think so', but she agreed to take the bath, chasing the anxious medics out as they tried to oversee her bath. She wasn't body shy, but this was a time for privacy. There was something meditative about sitting in hot water that smelled of mint and menthol, soaking out all the encrusted blood and thicker bits. Things really didn't seem all that bad. It wasn't the killing that bothered her, really; it was killing so many people in a short length of time. Or so her theory went. The obvious solution was to avoid killing from now on. As a Turk one couldn't really expect to cut out every trace of blood forever, but she could try. Surely killing one at a time wasn't too bad?
Hands dragged her from the hot water, and people were scolding. She pressed damp hands to her head, feeling as if the voices pounded a merciless path straight through her skull. Nausea curled in her gut, and someone dragged her over to the privy hole as whatever she had left in her gut spilled from her throat, hot and stinging. She retched until she had nothing left to expel, until her head spun and prickled with the onset of tears that she blinked fiercely back. Someone laid a shockingly cold wet cloth on the back of her neck and another pressed itself to her forehead, bringing a strange sort of clarity. Her stomach still ached, and she hurt all over, but she saw clearly for the first time in a long while. There were no operative Turks among the people who surrounded her, only medics. Karla Barichon, Jaysen Hati, Delia Manchester- recently recruited, not yet gun-holders, she thought dimly, pulling herself upright against the swirl and rush of the ever-present headache. "What was that?" she croaked, still tasting blood and vomit.
Delia eyed her narrowly, her tawny brown eyes intent. "You were in the water too long. Heat exhaustion." She lifted a vial full of some pale green liquid to Diera's lips. "Drink up. It'll put your stomach right."
"Drugs?" Diera muttered hopefully, sniffing the open mouth of the flask.
"Nope. You run through them too fast. This is a herbal remedy, maybe you won't be sick in half an hour or so." Faintly disappointed, Diera obediently drank, making a face at the taste. "You know, you don't look thirteen at all," Delia commented absently, capping the flask and stowing it in one of the kits propped on the sink. It earned her a blank look from the younger girl. "I mean, really. Don't you know your own age?"
"We aren't that big on birthdays, you know?" It was sarcastic, but laced with weak disbelief. "Am I really thirteen? Since when?"
"Your birthday passed when you were in the cell," Jaysen supplied, "And the one before that you were at Cosmo Canyon, and the one before that you were at Nibelheim…" He trailed off at the expression on his (ergo) senior's face. "Hasn't ANYONE celebrated your birthday before? Other than just noting it on the records?"
"Mostly with guns."
Karla passed her a towel. "Dry off before you catch chill." For a few moments the medics politely looked away, letting a steadier Diera towel herself down. She groped for her underwear, Jaysen having to pass it to her, then spent half a minute trying to do the hook on her bra. Karla hooked it for her when a look of incandescent frustration settled on the too-young face, and all three older people backed away. Nobody wanted to take chances with a sick, angry Turk. It was usually detrimental for one's health. Right now, Diera looked on the verge of bursting into tears and wrecking the tiny bathroom. "Uh- Raist, you know the way to the bedroom, right, so we'll be getting along now." Hastily, the medics fled, towing their cases, and locked the door behind them.
A scream of rage split the air behind them, angry, hating. They ran faster.
--
The alarm woke her from a sodden, exhausted sleep. It took her several tries to find and smash the annoying device, but then memory returned- people pulling her out of the cell- and she knew it was time to tuck all the pain away. Pain had no place in a working society. She washed up again, in the shower this time, and changed into the comfortable tank top and shorts, fastening the holster of her gun firmly over her hips, and glared at herself in the bathroom mirror until she had regained an approximation of her former smiling self. Appearances were important. Very important.
An illusion you maintain to hide from yourself.
The thought slid into her mind and was gone, but Diera scowled. The voice was back again. Damn.
Keeping her mind firmly on getting to the main office without breaking something helped to shut the suggestive, whispering voice out. And then she stepped into the office, and raised her eyes, and had to blink.
From a thriving force of over two hundred seniors, at least, only about fifty or so remained, including Uncle Iri. Silk gave her a brief two-fingered salute, beckoning her to a seat beside him. Everyone looked grim, drawn. Angry. Haunted. Dangerous. "Shinra?" she whispered, almost afraid to hear the answer. Her world had crumbled so swiftly that Vincent and Lance seemed like a distant dream.
Iridalan's anger flowed around him, a palpable thing. "Shinra," he said meditatively, "has been a very bad man. He has just forced me to retire three-quarters of my qualified work force. I am so not pleased that it is. Not. Funny." Diera silently agreed. She had had many uncles and aunts among the working force of whom she was VERY fond, and most of them were gone now. How many places in the world were there for Uncle Iri to isolate the retirees? "Unfortunately, our contract is not up, so we can't storm his mansion and kick his ass." He started pacing the inside of their circle of seats, limping slightly. His silvering hair, cut close to his scalp, bristled fiercely, almost sparking with frustration. All eyes were on him, Diera included. This was their Leader, in the height of his fury. It was a majestic, somehow disheartening sight, because Iridalan never got worked up like this unless he was in deep shit. (This was discovered by looking at a few of the more senior veterans' sick looks.) "I wish I could say I knew how to get back at them, but I don't, so I want suggestions."
"The nastier, the better," Uncle Arvill muttered, but there was no answering burst of mirth. It was deadly serious.
Nobody spoke for some time. They were thinking, if one of the sharpest minds in the business has run up against a dead end, what else is left? Then Diera remembered Hojo and Gast. "Is there anything stopping us from shoddy work?" she said quietly, looking around. Iridalan's stony glare made her wince. "It was just a suggestion."
"Personal revenge is not an excuse to slack off, Raistlorne. I suggest that you learn that, quickly. No, what we want is to work around the contract…" Frowning and rubbing his chin fiercely, the Leader made a circuit of the chairs, stopping in front of his youngest Turk. Diera peered up at him, trying to anticipate his thoughts. "How sneaky are you feeling, girl?"
"After Contresiera?" She bared her teeth at him. "Very. Do you need a poisoning?"
"Tempting, but no. Shinra's expanded too much for us to just eliminate the heads. What we can do is outside of our contract." He started pacing again. "I've gone over the contract a hundred times. We're bound to serve the Shinra in any way necessary, to the exclusion of any other employers. That clause is really vague; it doesn't say anything about what we do outside service to the company, as a company. Thus, it is theoretically possible for us to run the odd job and work against them at the same times." Pausing, he scowled again. "The problem is actually doing it in such a way that they can't pin it on us even if they ask me directly."
"So just 'ignore' anybody doing their private thing," Diera supplied, purple eyes alight with an absolutely evil gleam. "After all, we're only bound as a company… we have our private lives… and do they have any good idea exactly how much of our resources exist outside the official offices… you can truthfully say that you have no knowledge of a contract break. We're such honorless dogs, after all." Her sneer was artfully affected. "We don't report everything, so nobody will have any concrete evidence."
Iridalan's grin was fanglike. "Smart girl. Now, use your discretion. And don't talk to me about this ever again. You all get that?"
"Yes sir!" they chorused, smirking, and filed out. Diera remained in her seat, though. Iridalan frowned at her.
She arched an eyebrow at him. "What?"
"Isn't that my line?"
"Nothing stopping me from staying, is there?" she replied defensively, rocking her seat back. "How about you? What're you going to do now that Doros is gone? Is the Recruiter that important?"
He blinked. "Are you applying for the job?"
"No. I'm too young. I just wondered, that's all. You never stopped me from asking questions, before."
"That was before you insisted on growing up, whelp." The Leader gave her a quick, affectionate ruffle. "Why didn't you stay small and cute?"
"Since when have I ever been small and cute?"
--
Author's Note: I think I'm suffering writer's burnout. Nothing more frustrating than writer's burnout. Ye gads. Apart for that, I think my quality of writing has actually gone down exponentially. It seems to write like an especially horrible Mary Sue. (shudders) I need reviews! Is it as horrible as I think it is? And special thanks to SepSora for giving me two whole reviews! (cries happily) There, now most of the inconvenient fill-ins have been done away with. We'll be entering normal canon territory from now on, and Seph should make his maiden appearance in the next chappie. Wish me luck!