The Heroic Misadventures of the Shinra Executive Board Members
Chapter Two: Reeve's Rescue Mission
"We have the fat man.
You can have Palmer back
if you send 30,000 gil to:
1495 46th St.
You have two days."
The receptionist stared at the paper that had appeared on her desk, and was a little frightened, never having been the recipient of a ransom notice before. She wasn't exactly sure what proper procedure for this was, however she assumed that this was Heidegger's responsibility. This was the sort of job that the department of peacekeeping handled, wasn't it? Sighing, she considered sending a fax of the paper to Heidegger, but remembered his unique way of dealing with paperwork: the insufferable horse of a man would merely shuffle papers around his desk until they became old and obsolete enough to be thrown away. A fax would surely just be ignored.
A phone call would never get through, as she also knew that the man kept his phone off the hook on the assumption that if it were really an emergency, he would be able to smell the smoke or someone would be running into his office to inform him about it. Therefore, a phone call was also out of the question.
That left e-mail. And so, she tried to e-mail the head of the peacekeeping and military division of Shinra, titling the subject line "URGENT: Palmer being held for ransom." She sent a brief note describing the paper she had received. After sending the message, she decided that it was better safe than sorry and had a secretary copy the ransom note and take a hard copy up to Heidegger's office.
Now, Ralf Heidegger hated work, but he loved creating the illusion that he was very busy and very productive. Part of this illusion was maintained by the way he cycled papers through his desk and eventually into the trash bin; another part of this illusion was to keep his e-mail inbox empty. And Heidegger hated e-mail.
So when a little window popped up on his computer screen declaring that he had a new e-mail message, he laughed, "GYAHAHAA," and mashed the delete button on his keyboard a bunch of times because once is never enough.
It was about this time that Rose Scarlet realized that in order to implement her plan to equip satellites with cannons in order to annihilate Shinra's opponents from space, she would need to get in touch with Palmer. However, she was having trouble locating the man, even though she had looked in all the usual places: he was not in his office, in either of the cafeterias, in a vending area, and he wasn't even hiding being a pillar in the president's office in one of his foolish attempts to eavesdrop on the president.
Perhaps her peers knew where to find him. First, she tried Heidegger, but he neither knew nor cared, although he did notice an e-mail message popping up on-screen while she was there and slammed his fist on the delete button a few time. Scarlet sighed and shook her head, trying the head of the science department next.
Scarlet never cared much for Akio Hojo, finding the man to be somewhat obsessed with his work to the point of creepiness, and she entered the lab with a certain wariness, unsure if she would be attacked by some sort of vicious escaped lab animal. Instead, she was greeted by one of Hojo's lab assistants who lead her to the department head promptly. "Hojo," the head of the weapons manufacturing department began, her voice dripping with impatience. "I need to find Palmer. I don't suppose you've seen him?"
Hojo looked up wearily from the notes he was taking on his current specimen – Scarlet wasn't quite sure what the current specimen was, just that she hoped she never met anything with that many tentacles in a dark alley at night – and frowned at the woman, his facial features becoming severe. "No, I have no idea where he is." He hesitated a moment before his shoulders started to shake from amused giggles. "Why don't you stay a while though, Miss Scarlet? I've got some experiments I'd like to try with F1346 here."
But the woman was already gone.
Richard Reeve looked up from some blueprints as Scarlet entered his office and he frowned a bit, his stomach turning as he saw the ugly look on her painted face. Scarlet in a good mood was difficult enough to handle, but clearly Scarlet was not in a good mood. "Can I help you Rose?" he asked, keeping his tone light and hoping he didn't look terrified.
He did look terrified, but that lightened Scarlet's mood, and she almost laughed at him, his orange tie, his goofy beard and his worried expression. But annoyance won out over amusement and she walked to his desk, heels clicking against the paneled wood floor. She leaned forward a bit over his desk, giving him a nice view and tapped her manicured nails against his desk. "I need Palmer, Reeve. No one's been able to help me, but I'm sure that you can."
This was bad; if Scarlet was trying to use her feminine wiles on Reeve, he knew he was in serious trouble if he couldn't deliver what she wanted. And right now, she wanted the rather large head of the space exploration program, a person whose whereabouts Reeve could not begin to fathom. He swallowed a bit, finding himself staring into her breasts. "I'm not really sure where he is," he admitted a bit weakly. "I saw him a few hours ago in the elevator, though. He was headed down to the lobby, I think. Maybe he went home early."
"Home early? Why on earth would Palmer do that?"
Reeve blinked. Why wouldn't he go home early seemed like a better question, but he thought about it for a while and realized that Palmer was paranoid enough to believe that if he went home early, he would miss out on an opportunity to get more funding for his department. The man never took a sick day for the same reason. Scarlet was right; Palmer was not likely to head home early. "Well, he did seem upset about something," the head of urban development offered, although he knew that he was probably the cause of Palmer's less than perfect mood, having brought up the issue of departmental gil allowances. "Although I can't imagine what upset him."
Scarlet pursed perfectly crimson lips in thought. She was annoyed and wanted her intergalactic artillery as soon as possible. And waiting for Palmer to come back from some stroll that he randomly decided to take was too much waiting for her. "Well, then, Richie, since you were the last one to see him, you are the most likely to be able to find him. I'll be waiting in my office for him, so whenever you do manage to bring him back to the office, tell him to see me."
The engineer blinked a bit as Scarlet sauntered out of his office, dumbfounded. She expected him to find Palmer and fetch him back to talk to her? What was he, a dog? He shook his head, bending over to continue his work. Scarlet could just wait indefinitely then. He'd just laugh when she stormed back into his office and glared at him with those crystal blue eyes of hers, slap him across the face with that perfectly manicured hand...
He sighed, pushing himself up from his desk. Who was he kidding? He'd been on the wrong side of one of Scarlet's slaps before and never wanted to repeat that experience. He was duly cowed, and he'd do his best to find Palmer. It wasn't as if the President was likely to approve his projected building plans for Sector Eight anyway. He locked his office door behind him and headed for the elevators, resisting the urge to hang his head in shame. He really did feel like a fool, running errands for Scarlet out of fear of a slap.
Upon arrival in the downstairs lobby, Reeve asked the receptionist if she knew where Palmer had headed off to. The receptionist frowned, and wondered if this was in relation to the ransom note, but as she could only assume that Heidegger had everything under control, she simply answered Reeve's question. "I think he was looking for a food store. I gave him directions to the nearest Huge Chocobo grocery store, but..."
"But?" He quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Well, the directions I gave were from the rear entrance. He left through the front. I'm not sure if he just ignored my directions or what. He didn't even head down to the garage for his car, either."
Reeve frowned, figuring this was a case of Palmer getting himself lost. He asked the receptionist to repeat the directions, trying to picture in his mind where those directions would lead if one was leaving out the main entrance of the Shinra, Inc. building. He did know the layout of Midgar quite well, having been a pivotal player in the design and upkeep of the city. "That would put him out by Rick's Ice Cream shop and those two Asteroidgils coffee houses that are right next to each other, wouldn't it?" The receptionist merely shrugged at him, not really having any idea what he was talking about.
With another sigh, Reeve thanked the receptionist and turned to walk out of the building, headed to Rick's Ice Cream shop, hoping beyond all hope that Palmer would have gotten tired from his walk and rather than wander the city aimlessly stop to eat some ice cream. Although the space man had left hours ago, Reeve still held on to the vague hope that Palmer would be filling himself up with frozen treats by the time he arrived.
What Reeve didn't expect upon his arrival was being clubbed in the back of the head by two thugs.
The muggers looked down at the man they had just laid flat and nodded approvingly. This one looked rich, too, and with the payout for the ransom for the fat man which was surely on its way, they'd be set for life. Dragging Reeve's prone form into a side alleyway, the thug leader pulled Reeve's wallet from his pocket rifling through it. "Damn! It's another Shinra VIP. We just got ourselves another hostage to ransom off!"
Oh yes, this seemed like a very lucky day for the thugs.
((Chapter two! Poor Reeve. A note on the names: Since everyone but Scarlet seems to be referred to as their last names, I figured it only made sense that Scarlet was also being referred to by her last name. So I gave her a first name. Yeah, it's Rose. She had awful parents. Poor Palmer wasn't in this chapter, but rest assured, the next (and possibly final) chapter will have our brave hero in it!))
