It must have been around two in the afternoon when Vincent strolled into the Turks Lounge. Linden was slouched in a chair watching the TV, as he had been for the past few days. His arm was still in a sling, although the plaster had come off. The doctors at the hospital had warned him against using it quite yet, so he was restricted in the kind of duties he could perform. His usual role of personal bodyguard was obviously out. Normally he'd have been stuck on surveillance, one of the most tedious and loathed jobs around, but for once things were surprisingly quiet on that front. News of Elton Sullivan's unfortunate accident had rapidly filtered through the criminal underground and it seemed that most people were, for the time being, maintaining the lowest of low profiles.

"Afternoon boss." The slumped Turk raised his unbroken arm in a vague acknowledgement, his eyes never leaving the screen. Thankfully Vincent was in a good mood having just returned from lunch with Lucrecia, and decided to let this blatant display of apathy pass. Besides, he would probably have felt the same way if he'd been the one unable to do much for a few weeks. "I pulled the stuff you wanted. It's all on the table."

Now that was more like it. Vincent walked over to the table in question, where he found a series of manila files spread out. Each one contained several sheets of paper, and had a label on the front. The labels all had names. Co-incidentally, these names matched with those spilled from the mouth of one Mr Sullivan. He picked up the nearest one marked 'Devlin Kirke' and leafed through it. "They're all here?"

Linden snorted in derision. "What do you take me for? Of course they're all bloody there. Just because I've got a broken arm doesn't mean I forgot how to do my job."

"Touché." Vincent's' mouth quirked up in a brief smile.

He wandered over to the wall, where a large notice board was fixed. On this was a huge, spidery web of photos, labels, tags and string, woven together to form an intricate map. Everything pinned onto the board represented a snapshot of the lawless fraternity the Turks dealt with. A person's name and a few choice pieces of information was neatly written on each piece of paper. Occasionally, a name label was cross hatched in red – Elton Sullivan was one of these. Others, like Mak Xu, were almost blacked out. One or two had a green pin stuck in them. Others had red pins. These labels were linked together by pieces of string, joining names with other names. The strings had tags wrapped around them, again with information scrawled on them. This was more along the lines of 'worked for' and 'accepted bribe from', giving a quick appraisal of the relationship between the two people named on the labels.

Vincent pulled a red pin from the bottom of the board and stuck it firmly into Devlin Kirke's label. The board had been his idea, created as a way of keeping track of the vast network of the people they associated with. There was a definite system to it. Green pins marked Turk grasses, people who could be pumped for information should the need arise. Red pins marked potential hits, meaning that life was likely to take an unpleasant turn for Mr Kirke. A cross hatched label meant the Turks had paid a visit but had been lenient. A black label indicated they'd paid a visit and hadn't.

Preston Drake, the fourth member of the elite group, emerged from the training room at the far end of the Lounge, wiping a towel across his face. He wasn't wearing the usual Turk attire, but rather a plain white gi with a black belt tied round his waist. Following him out was a smaller and older man, similarly dressed but without so much as a drop of sweat on him.

"Good session?" enquired Linden from his chair. Preston gave him a withering look.

"I'm knackered" he replied shortly. "The Sensei is a hard taskmaster."

The second man smiled warmly. "It is always a pleasure to teach you Turks" he said to Linden. "Do not forget that your lessons will continue once your arm has healed." He turned to face Vincent. "And I believe that I will be seeing you tomorrow, Mr Valentine."

Vincent tried hard not to wince. Whilst he greatly enjoyed practicing the martial arts and had become very skilled over the past few years, he still felt like he'd had all hell knocked out of him after a lesson with Master Tzu. Every time he thought he'd managed to get the upper hand, the wily old teacher pulled something new out of the bag. "I look forward to it, Sensei" he replied, hoping he didn't sound too pained. If it did show through, the karate instructor politely ignored it, giving them a quick bow before leaving the Lounge. Vincent and Linden watched in amusement as Preston collapsed into a chair, covering his face with the towel and let out a long moan.

"I'm dying" he complained. "I swear on my mother's life that I am about to die."

Linden grinned evilly. "Your mother is already dead" he stated bluntly, and just to prove a point, he leaned over and poked his colleague in the ribs.

"Argh, stop that." Linden obligingly ignored him. "I will have to kill you."

Poke, poke. "Nah, you wouldn't hurt an injured, unarmed, defenceless man." He continued his assault. Preston pulled the damp towel from off his face and looked towards Vincent. "Tell him to stop it" he pleaded, as the finger relentlessly jabbed at him. "I hurt all over and I can't even feel my legs."

Vincent rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "And I thought you were both big enough and ugly enough to look after yourselves" he sighed. "Preston stop whining and Linden stop behaving like a two year old. Honestly, I feel like your mother half the time."

Linden sulkily ceased his offensive. "What's got into you today?" he asked. "For someone that normally goes round looking like Mr Tall-Dark-And-Broody, you seem remarkably chipper." Vincent quickly turned his attention back to the board. He hadn't told the Turks about his recent lunchtime dates with Lucrecia. He wasn't stupid after all, and he knew what would happen once they got hold of that little juicy piece of information. So he'd carried on meeting the scientist for lunch every other day or so, without informing his colleagues of his whereabouts. No-one had picked up on anything out of the ordinary, since the leader of the Turks was often away on business.

"Nothing." He took a sudden intense interest in arranging all the little pins. Linden however was not fooled for a minute.

"Uh uh, no, you're hiding something" he reasoned. "You look guilty from where I'm sitting. So what's got into you? Money? New car?"

"No, and no" answered Vincent, stone faced.

"You're not a very good liar are you?" Linden thought for a minute. "You won a bet?"

"No."

"You killed someone?"

"No."

"You got laid?" He broke off for a minute, and a wicked leer spread across his face. "Perhaps" he speculated, "I should have rephrased that question. Should it be who have you got into?"

He should have just kept up his monosyllabic replies, but some part of Vincent took umbrage to Lucrecia being referred to in such a vulgar fashion. So instead of maintaining his cool, the leader of the Turks spun around, vehemently voicing his innocence. "I haven't done anything of the sort, alright?" he protested, before cursing himself for falling victim to such a simple trap.

A broken arm didn't stop Linden from jumping out of his chair and whooping, pointing at his superior in victory. "AH-HA! That's as good as a confession! So, it is a woman then! Who is she?"

Preston had also perked up, although he seemed more disinclined to move. "Ooh, is it that one from Weapons?"

"No." Vincent tried to resume normal, single word service and outright denial, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle here. Still, he wasn't going down without a fight.

"Jancis from Reception? She was giving you such a come on the other day…"

"No!"

Linden walked over to Vincent and dragged him away from the notice board. "Look" he said soothingly, "you know that we'll find out sooner or later, so you might as well just save yourself the hassle and tell us now. After all, you're awful with women and you need us to give you advice on how to handle her."

"I need advice from you?" Vincent asked incredulously. "I get this from a man who's last girlfriend, and I use the term loosely, hung around for all of four days before doing a runner? This man is going to give me advice on my love life?" He smirked. "I think I was doing pretty well on my own, as it happens."

Preston leaned forward. "You still haven't told us who she is" he reminded everyone.

Vincent decided that in the face of this bombardment, there were times when you just had to roll over and surrender. "Do you promise not to interfere?" he asked. Both Linden and Preston swore on their mothers (those living and dead respectively) that they would not. "Alright, alright. Her name is Lucrecia Crescent, she's a biologist from the Science department."

The leer re-appeared on Linden's face. "A doctor eh? Has she got a little nurses uniform? You know, like the kind you can get in that shop in Sector Four?"

"Pervert."

"Reasonable request!" Linden retorted. "Alright, so you said you haven't done anything. Why not?"

"Because" explained Vincent patiently, "I am a gentleman and not as lecherous as you are. She's a friend, we've just gone to lunch a couple of times, that's all."

"Where?" Silence greeted this particular question. "Vincent, where did you take her?"

The leader of the Turks, one of the most feared men on the continent, was reduced to looking sheepishly at his shoes. "The Marlin Restaurant" he mumbled. "But that was only because…"

Linden resumed his pointing. "Marlin? You took her to the Marlin? You must really like her then. Hoo hoo, this gets better and better…"

oOo

Lucrecia and her lab partner, Davram Kincaid were conducting an experiment on some cellular debris when the human hurricane burst in through the door, surprising the two soldiers standing guard over it.

"Alright Crescent!" demanded Christa. "Spill the beans! I saw you having lunch with someone and I want details!"

Lucrecia tried furiously to suppress a blush, but got the distinct impression she was failing. Abysmally. "It was just lunch" she protested to her colleagues as casually as she could manage. "There's no law against having lunch with someone, is there?"

Davram briefly looked up from his Petri dish. "That depends entirely on who it was with" he stated, before returning to his study.

"And" continued Christa "why it was in the Marlin Restaurant. One of, if not the most, expensive places to eat in the whole of Midgar!"

"How do you know about that?"

Christa smiled. "I had to go into town earlier. I was walking past and happened to see you sitting there with a mystery man."

"Just a guy…" Lucrecia ventured. "I met him in the lounge the other week, and he seemed nice."

"Just a guy?" Christa rolled her eyes. "Dr Crescent has a date for the first time in millennia, at the Marlin Restaurant no less, and she says he was 'just a guy'… Honestly, I don't know what to do with you. Who was he?" Lucrecia laughed in spite of herself. Her friend was always the first with office scuttlebutt, and now she had struck gold she wasn't about to let it go.

She made an attempt to gather up her dignity. "I've had dates" she replied haughtily. "And recently. Well, fairly recently anyway. In the past few years, certainly. And this wasn't a date, it was just… lunch."

Christa didn't look fazed for a second. "Rubbish" she observed, his back might have been facing me but you weren't, and I saw the way you looked at him. You're smitten!"

"I am not!" Lucrecia retorted automatically, but she couldn't help a smile tugging at her lips. Well, he was very handsome…

"Now who is he?"

The petite scientist shrugged. "Like I said, I met him a few weeks ago, when I went for some food. He's really nice, very good looking…" She saw Christa grin at that little comment. "And he'd even read that article I wrote on the Cetra. He works for Shinra, though I'm not sure exactly what he does. Think he's one of the paper pushers from upstairs. At least that's what it sounded like."

"Upstairs, eh?" Davram had for the time being lost interest in his cell samples and was more concerned with his lab partners' tale. "That's probably why he could afford a place like the Marlin. Which department is he? We can root him out for you…"

"I think it was Administration of some kind." Lucrecia thought back to what he had told her. "That was it, the Department of Administrative Research."

Silence greeted her statement. She looked round, and saw her friends' faces blanch. Davram's mouth was hanging slightly open, and Christa was positively choking on something. Both their eyes were wide with alarm. "What?" she asked. "I don't understand. Why are you both looking like dead halibuts?"

Davram was the first to regain control of his voice. "Administrative Research?" he asked. "You're sure that was it? Administrative Research?"

"Well yes." She couldn't see what all the fuss was about. "What's the big deal?"

"That's the Turks, you idiot!" blurted Christa. "The Department for Administrative Research is the bloody Turks!" Now it was Lucrecia's turn to be stunned into silence. She'd just been having lunch with a…

"Which one?" asked Davram quickly. All pretence of interest in his work now evaporated. "What was his name?"

Lucrecia was rapidly getting flustered. "Hm? Oh, er… Vincent… That's what he said. Vincent from Administrative Research…"

Once again, her colleagues were reduced to a shocked hush. Christa shook her head slowly, sinking onto a lab stool. "Oh God, 'Crecia…" she murmured. "You do know who that is, don't you?" No immediate response indicated that she probably did not.

"That's Vincent Valentine" Davram breathed. "Valentine, as in leader of the Turks… You have to be kidding me. Please tell me you're kidding me."

"What?" was all the amazed Lucrecia was able to say.

"Did you just mention Mr Valentine?" All three whipped their heads round, to see one of the soldiers standing behind them. He was a young man of about twenty, blonde hair and smart uniform. "Sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing. You were talking about Mr Valentine, of the Turks?"

Christa nodded mutely. Lucrecia managed a wan smile. "You… know him?"

The soldier nodded proudly. "Sure, everyone knows Mr Valentine" he said respectfully. Lucrecia, Christa and Davram exchanged glances.

"But aren't the military and the Turks… different?" Christa ventured. The young man nodded.

"Yes, but the Turks hold military rank as well. Mr Valentine is technically a General in the army, what with him being leader of the Turks and everything. He trains us sometimes, taught me how to shoot." He swelled with pride. "He said I was good, too. Imagine that! From the best Turk ever!" With that, the soldier departed, offering a friendly smile. The three scientists stood for a moment, collecting their wits.

"So let me get this straight" said Davram after a while. "You have just had lunch with the leader of the Turks, and you didn't know it."

Lucrecia looked sheepish. "I didn't know it was him" she answered. "He didn't look like a… And he was really nice… I didn't know who he was…"