Author's Notes: Holy God, chapter 7. Somehow, this one feels so significant
to me. It's probably because I've pretty much reached the point of no
return in my story, or at least it seems that way to me. I've reached the
point where things aren't planned out quite so linearly in my head and it's
a crazy wonderful, exhilarating kind of feeling. Thanks to everyone who's
reading this. I hope you've been enjoying so for. I think that things are
just about to get 'interesting'.
~Salvation (7)~
Someone had once told Elena that life was like a constantly changing story. At the time, she had thought that it was pretty stupid idea. If all of her life was a story, who was the sick fuck who was writing it? Once upon a time . . . yeah, right.
To say the least, she had lost her faith in fairytales a long time ago. It wasn't precisely any one person's fault, really. She could think of a thousand and one wonderful, nameless, wretched people who had contributed to that specific aspect of her moral make-up. Life wasn't a fairytale. There were no happy endings.
She understood how life could be seen as a story though. It was like the most evolved and complicated of tales, she supposed, because it branched off in so many ways. Her story, Tseng's, Reno and Rude's, they all seemed to blur together. She sometimes wondered what happened in their own novels when they walked away from the office at night. Funny to think that in their stories she was just another blip on their radars as they moved on in their own personal narratives.
Take Reno's, for example. How much did it matter to him that he had walked over to Elena's to cheer her up? Was it just some random footnote one of his page, or did it make up a full chapter?
The funniest thing about all these intertwined novels though was that Elena sometimes felt like she was reading from somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, she had the idea that there were pages and pages of unread words waiting for her, somewhere. She wondered where they all started; Reno's, Tseng's, hers. Where was the point that they all began?
If she were to think about it - she usually didn't, for very obvious reasons, but if she *were* to think about it - Elena would probably decide that her story started when her mother died. Before then, she really only had glimpses and half-forgotten memories. They were like blurry snap-shots in her mind. Sometimes, Elena half-suspected that they were all the deluded imaginings of one lost little girl but some nights they seemed real enough. Of her mother, Elena had no clear picture beyond the vague impression of a kind smile and a loving face. She had seen a photo of her mother once, ages ago. She had looked a little bit like Elena. Elena couldn't remember her though and so the only image that she had in her mind was really of that sweet smile. The photo meant nothing compared to that.
Her story didn't start with that smile though; it started at her mother's death. In some ways, that should've been enough to warn her about her story's future. Nothing with such an opening could have possibly been the fairytale dream that so many little girls believe their lives to be. There had never been a knight in shining armour for Elena and she was no princess. Princesses don't stand in doorways wearing too much make-up hoping without hope that maybe the next john won't be such an ass-hole and that they won't get too busted up this time.
All in all, it wasn't a very happy story. Nobody would ever want to read it.
Why should they want to though? Sometimes, the hardest thing for Elena to understand about these individual stories was how easy it was to get caught up in them. It was incredible. Everybody was always wrapped up in his or her own little novels. Did they ever take the time to consider somebody else's? Sometimes, her story seemed so very pressing at times. How often had she been too caught up in her own problems to notice somebody else's? In a way, she supposed that was the nature of human cruelty. Well, that was a flawed example because humans weren't necessarily cruel. Oh, she had met some awful, awful people in her life. Too many, really. The worst ones were always the ones that were supposed to be good. That had been an easy lesson to learn for Elena: nobody is good just because they should be. The police weren't always there to protect you. Priests weren't always high and holy. Parents weren't always kind to their children.
No, in so many ways what made people cruel was their own unique sort of blind indifference. She knew that most people were probably relatively good, simple people but everyone was always so obsessed with their own stories that they just didn't have time to notice someone else's. It was a harsh reality but it wasn't something that people did intentionally. When you are starring full-face into the sun, sometimes it hard to see that little dot on the edge of the horizon.
Too many stories ended inexplicably short in the world. How many of them could've ended differently had those people had just one more chance? Elena wasn't in the habit of handing out pity though that didn't mean that she was as hard as she should be. She supposed that some people would argue that everything had a meaning, that it was all part of some grand Purpose. Elena couldn't really believe that though. She couldn't understand what purpose had decided to drive her life and if it was part of some grand scheme she didn't really want to meet whatever was pulling her strings.
By the same token, she had never looked for anything to 'save her' in some melodramatic miracle. It wasn't that she didn't think that she was unworthy of the 'saving'; she just realized that there were people who deserved miracles more than she did. What did she deserve, lost child turned hooker turned Turk? Nothing more than what she had, that was for sure.
So, why was she always craving something more? Why was she always looking between the cracks in her paragraphs searching for something else?
Maybe it was because that she found no meaning in her story that she was so desperate to find something in his. He wasn't exactly helping her though. Then again, maybe he didn't notice that she was looking. Maybe she was just another footnote on his page, an afterthought added in at some odd point in a chapter. Maybe she was little more than a passing phenomenon, barely worthy of the distraction, hardly memorable and soon forgotten. When his story seemed so incredible, so captivating, so wonderful, how could hers be of any interest?
Funny how she could be little more than a punctuation mark in his story and yet he be so integral to her own. Maybe that was why she never told him no at night. It was so easy to say yes over and over and over again. His story seemed to add meaning to hers, if only for a while. It didn't matter that she didn't matter to him; he was everything to her. God, how she loved and hated him for that.
In some ways, it seemed to Elena that her life now was really two separate stories running side by side. In one, she was very much the Turk she said she was. Her days made up her first story. They were the Company's days where she sweated and slaved for it without complaint. She had no regrets; she knew better than that. Still, she could laugh for hours at the irony of it all. It was a sick, sick world that had made this her haven. It was sick that as she washed her hands and watched the others die that this was always, *always*, the better place to be. But she had no regrets.
Her nights were her other story. In so many ways, they were his nights. It was funny, really. She could imagine that that part in her novel could've been written using the same paragraph over and over again. They were together. She felt everything. He felt nothing. Over and over.
It never ceased to amaze her that her story could have so little time devoted to her. During the day, she was the Company's. During the night, she was his utterly and completely.
Sometimes, Elena tried to imagine her story's ending. She supposed that all people did that eventually. She never could though. Well, in a way, she supposed that it would end the way all Turk stories ended eventually: a sudden conclusion, written in blood. That was the cost of the leash she had bought herself. But she had no regrets.
Reno had told her that Turks were always honest with each other but that was a lie, wasn't it? How can you be honest with people when you can't even be truthful with yourself? So: she had no regrets, Tseng had no regrets. Did Reno? Did Rude? The truth was - and it was such a dirty, dirty word truth – the truth was that sometimes she felt like she was drowning in regret. Some days she was sure that she would. It was easier to say that she had none though. Repeat something enough and you believe it to be true, Elena knew. Thus, she had no regrets. There was nothing regrettable about her life. Her life was an open book written in golden ink with a loving tenderness and sealed with a flowery kiss.
The truth? Her life was written on the back of a paper bag scribbled down in black ink that faded to red somewhere along the line. Her life was an aberration, an afterthought, a lucid man's delusion. But she had no regrets.
Tonight, the night was Elena's. It was one of the few nights where she wasn't still slaving for the Company or with Tseng. Instead, she was just sitting by herself in her living room. The television was playing but she wasn't really listening to it. The colour images flashed across her face but they didn't leave an impression. Tom was curled up on her lap and she was stroking his back absently. It was a little bit past eleven o'clock.
The shrill ring of her PHS started Elena out of her stupor. She fumbled around in her purse until she found the offending object.
"Hello?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Yes, of course. I understand. I'll be right in."
In one quick, fluid motion, Elena got up off her couch, grabbed her jacket, rang a hand through her hair, and headed out of her apartment. Tom was left alone, slightly dazed, with the television still whispering faintly in the background.
When Elena walked into the Turks offices she saw Reno a little bit ahead of her and she called out to him.
"Reno, what's going on?"
He turned around to look at her and shrugged.
"Tseng sent out the call to me and Rude too."
"So we're all here?"
He nodded.
"You know what that means, don't you rookie?" His eyes were sparkling a little.
"Mission." Elena said simply. Reno nodded.
"What else?"
She paused to consider this for a moment. Then, she nodded at Reno.
"Okay. Let's go."
They both walked off to meet the others together.
The conference room was really too big for its purpose. One large executive type table, the kind that could easily seat eight or ten people, dominated it. The only other feature in the room was a screen that could be pulled down when slide photos needed to be shown during a mission briefing. Elena had always found the room a little ridiculous because even if Heidegger and the President were to appear at a mission briefing they would only need room for six people, still not enough to warrant the overly large table. As it was, Tseng was standing at the far end of the table with Rude sitting on his left. When they entered the room, Reno glided off to take a chair beside Rude and Elena moved to the right side of the table.
Rude acknowledged her with a casual nod, as did Tseng. Elena took her seat and automatically opened the unmarked file folder in front of her chair. Inside, there was a photo of a middle-aged man clipped onto a brief personal description of him. There was also an additional shot of a body lying face down in what looked to be some sort of a trash heap. On the second page of her briefing there was the image of another man but this one was horribly obese. She scanned the other papers too. There were several pages of building plans, what looked to be like a reactor output schedule, and a few more pages of timetables and additional information.
Tseng cleared his throat quietly once and all their eyes turned to him immediately.
"Two days ago, a body was found outside the Sector Four slums. It was identified to be that of John Kelger, a researcher in the Shin-ra advanced mako weaponry project. Mr Kelger had last been seen two days earlier, leaving the Shin-ra head office around six o'clock.
After his identity had been established, an investigation was conducted to learn more of the circumstances of his disappearance. It was then that the development team realized that partial plans to several mako powered artillery guns and shells had been removed from Mr. Kelger's office."
Elena was nodding slowly. She could see where this was going. She could almost imagined Scarlett's agonized screeches at the news.
"Needless to say, it was quickly concluded that Mr. Kelger had taken the plans with him from the office when he had been last seen four days earlier."
Elena wondered how the man had managed that. Shin-ra guarded its secrets better than a raven protected its personal bits of shine.
"It is suspected that he intended to sell the plans to this man," he gestured to the picture shown on the second page of their briefing, "Joseph Harraway."
"Fat Joe." Reno said, nodding to himself. Tseng nodded.
"Fat Joe. He's known as a private weapons manufacturer with a base set up in the Sector Five slums. It is suspected that he took the plans from Mr. Kelger and then disposed of the evidence."
Elena looked at the image presented in her briefing. 'Fat Joe' seemed aptly named. He was a huge man with pale, maggoty skin and sunken eyes. Easily three hundred pounds, his neck was too huge for his head, given him a misshapen appearance. Elena recognized his type: too caught up with life's pleasures. Men like him always left Elena feeling a little bit nauseous. Too often, their idea of pleasure was very closely related to another person's pain.
"Our objective is this: we need to infiltrate Harraway's stronghold in the Sector Five slums, locate and retrieve the blueprints, destroy all traces of Harraway's operation, and then eliminate him as well."
Oh yes, Elena could picture Scarlett signing off on this. Total eradication: that was very much her style. She could just see her and Heidegger standing over the files, laughing as they consigned their Turks to it. Something was bothering Elena about this entire situation though.
"How do we even know that Harraway still has the blueprints? He can't be stupid enough keep them with him in Midgar."
Reno was the one that answered her.
"Fat Joe's not stupid but he's too damn proud. He's probably living up the fact that he pulled one over on Shin-ra. Besides, he'll want his own team working on those blueprints. He's a paranoid son-of-a-bitch. There's no way he'd never let something of that value out from under his eye."
Tseng nodded at Reno's assessment.
"It is exactly his paranoia, however, that he will have to contend with."
He gestured to the building schematics.
"Harraway spends a great deal of money maintaining his own personal security network. Hallway cameras, alarms at all crucial entrances, motion detectors . . ."
"Sounds like home," Reno joked. Rude snorted.
"In any case," Tseng continued, "It is top of the line equipment and will be very difficult to bypass."
"But. . ." Rude said, the tiniest of smiles peeking at the tips of his mouth.
"But none of that is going to be functioning when we move in."
Elena's eyes widened at that and then suddenly it dawned on her.
"The Reactor."
Tseng nodded.
"All reactors have a specific maintenance schedule that they follow. During a maintenance cycle, all output is cut for the duration."
"It's too easy." Reno said suddenly. Again, Tseng nodded.
"Naturally, Harraway is aware of this slight flaw in his security grid. He owns his own personal generator."
This time it was Reno's turn to act surprised.
"His own generator."
"It's not mako driven of course but Harraway has arranged his entire security grid to be able to switch from its mako energy source to an older fossil fuel driven generator."
"That must've cost him a fortune." Elena mused.
"It did but it is effective."
"So, what? What's the benefit of the reactor cutting its output if Harraway can just switch on his generator?"
This time, Tseng smiled. It was a knowing smile, a smile that seemed to be saying 'check mate'.
"There is a ten minute window between the cross-over sequence."
All three Turks nodded at once. It was a short time frame but it wouldn't be impossible.
"We must use that window to destroy the back-up generator. With the main system down, we will be able to move relatively freely throughout the compound. Once the generator is destroyed, we destroy the main computer, here," he taped his blueprints, "in the central computer nexus. Then, we find Harraway, assassinate him, plant our charges, and go."
"Boom," added Reno.
"Boom." Tseng confirmed. "We're going to be divided into two teams on this one. Reno and Rude, you take the southern entrance, here. Elena and I will enter will be going in from the roof. We'll move in and destroy the back up generator. At the same time, you two will head to the central nexus and plant charges there. Elena and I will go after Harraway. When you are clear of the compound, send us the all-clear signal. If you do not receive our confirmation within two minutes, detonate regardless. Understand?"
Reno and Rude both nodded.
"The reactors were designed to have twenty minute maintenance cycles. Thus, Elena and I will have a maximum of ten minutes to destroy the backup generator but if we do not detonate before those twenty minutes are up, then the security grid will be back in place. Our charges will all be located and disabled before we have time to detonate. So, if either of our groups are out without confirmation of the other and it is within ten seconds of our red line, we detonate. No excuses and no exceptions."
Again, they all nodded.
"I want silencers and hand weapons only on this one with materia only to be used at the absolute necessity. Stealth and speed are the essence of this mission. I do not want this to degenerate into a firefight. Our window is too thin to afford mistakes."
Tseng took a moment to consider his Turks then. They were all looking at him with hard expressions and determination. It made him proud.
"Are there any questions?"
They had none.
"Good."
As a unit, the stood and headed out of the conference room. They would be leaving soon but first they had to visit one of the locked rooms in the Turks offices: the Artillery Room.
The Artillery Room was perhaps the most unobtrusive looking room in the entire Turks floor. When you entered it, there was absolutely nothing in it except for blank white walls. There was, however, one keypad beside the door, coupled with a number pad. Tseng walked up to it, swiped his key card, and tapped a series of numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, a low humming sound could be heard, the soft music of machinery. Then, miraculously, a number of near-invisible panels in the walls opened up revealing rows upon rows of weaponry.
Elena had always liked the Artillery Room. There was something about so many things appearing out of nowhere that fascinated her. She knew all of the room's contents by heart. There were rows of handguns and extra rounds, silencers, and attachable sensor scopes. There were also all manner of heavier equipment like shotguns, automatic riffles, and even some submachine guns, each conveniently placed beside its choice ammunition. Most admirable were the lines of sniper riffles though. Each were state of the art examples of weaponry. They were easy to handle, fast to assemble and dismantle, and each had been custom made for each of the Turks. There were rows of special ammunition as well, depending of the type of shot needed. Some were just ordinary bullets while others were specially designed to exit a target's body and then literally disintegrate as soon as they came in contact with any sort of substance more durable than human flesh. These were particularly useful in assassinations that Shin-ra did not want to be readily affiliated with. There were, however, times when identification was a necessity and so there were also specialized bullets marked with the Shin-ra logo to be used as a message of sorts.
There were also special parts of the room designated to house equipment for stealth missions: night vision goggles, near-invisible communicators, tracking devices, untraceable poisons, efficient hand weapons, and miniature explosives. Of explosives themselves, there was an endless supply. Some were small, obsolete looking objects with enough firepower to disintegrate entire city blocks. There were, of course, the more traditional kinds: grenades, remote mines, and C-4.
Lastly, there was the materia wall. Shin-ra had access to the most specific and effective materia. They glowed faintly, their colours identifying their purpose: fire, lighting, cure, heal, destruct, barrier, and many others.
Each Turk moved about the room with a calculated efficiency and the once quiet room was filled with the soft clicking noises of weaponry being assembled. Rude choose two 12-round hand guns and equipped them with their appropriate silencers. He tucked them into holsters he had strapped against his chest and took with him a few extra cartridges. He also secreted a few throwing knives up the sleeves of his jacket and equipped fire, lighting, and cure materia.
Reno took his EMR of course and a few back-up power packs. He too took a 12-round handgun, silencer equipped. He selected a few elemental materia but, unlike Rude, declined to use any curative magic. He counted on Rude for that.
Tseng assembled his weaponry with a practiced efficiency. He took two handguns strapped to his chest, a long, thin knife strapped against his leg, and some elemental and defensive materia.
Elena too chose two handguns but she, unlike the others, selected a few of the miniature explosives that the Shin-ra weapons division had concocted a few months ago. There were no bigger than small marbles but when they connected with their targets at a certain force they exploded with a surprising yield. She preferred them immensely to the too bulky hand grenades. For her materia, she selected some elemental and curative materia but she also took some status-based materia as well. Mystify was a personal favourite of hers.
Each one of the Turks took with them some of the tiny communications equipment that consisted of an earpiece and one tiny microphone that could be place in the cuff of their jackets. They also each took a pair of night vision goggles which would give them an edge in the darkened hallways of Harraway's compound.
Finally ready, they all filed out of the room and headed to the final door in the locked part of their offices. Hidden and concealed from outside view, a single elevator that opened only for them linked the Turks floor with the ground level and all other parts of the Shin-ra headquarters. Not only did this allow the Turks easy access to their own level without drawing the attention of the outside public but it also linked them to all other levels in the building. Very few people realized this but the entire building was set up with secret corridors running between walls. Sometimes necessity took the Turks on missions very close to home indeed. Spying was an accepted company policy.
This time, however, the Turks headed into their personal elevator and selected the rooftop level of the Shin-ra building. There, a helicopter would be waiting for them. From then on, it was just one short flight until they reached Sector Five and Harraway's compound.
~~~
Responses:
Jess Angel: Thanks again for the review Jess Angel. Your constant 'pat on the back' reviews are very kind. I'm glad that you liked the first little bit about Reno. I was really happy when you pulled out that little line about Reno's eyes because I was rather proud of that one *blushes*. I'm glad that you liked Detox too. Tseng/Elena moment was a little bit odd to write but I'm generally pleased with the way it turned out.
As for Tseng and Elena. . . well, I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't quite what you were looking for. I admit I sort of avoided the 'Tseng and Elena getting back together' moment but I really wanted to move this story along. It still turned out more introspective than I imagined it would though. No book this time 'round though. It'll definitely come back though, if not in the next chapter then definitely in chapter 9. ^_^
Heather Cat: *waves back* So glad you thought of little old me! Yeah, I just might have bent a few rules by having a flashback within a flashback. Glad you enjoyed it though. I'm also happy to hear that you like the whole Tseng, Elena, and Reno relationship. As for where I'm going with all of this. . . it is my secret! Mwahahaha! *winks*
~Salvation (7)~
Someone had once told Elena that life was like a constantly changing story. At the time, she had thought that it was pretty stupid idea. If all of her life was a story, who was the sick fuck who was writing it? Once upon a time . . . yeah, right.
To say the least, she had lost her faith in fairytales a long time ago. It wasn't precisely any one person's fault, really. She could think of a thousand and one wonderful, nameless, wretched people who had contributed to that specific aspect of her moral make-up. Life wasn't a fairytale. There were no happy endings.
She understood how life could be seen as a story though. It was like the most evolved and complicated of tales, she supposed, because it branched off in so many ways. Her story, Tseng's, Reno and Rude's, they all seemed to blur together. She sometimes wondered what happened in their own novels when they walked away from the office at night. Funny to think that in their stories she was just another blip on their radars as they moved on in their own personal narratives.
Take Reno's, for example. How much did it matter to him that he had walked over to Elena's to cheer her up? Was it just some random footnote one of his page, or did it make up a full chapter?
The funniest thing about all these intertwined novels though was that Elena sometimes felt like she was reading from somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, she had the idea that there were pages and pages of unread words waiting for her, somewhere. She wondered where they all started; Reno's, Tseng's, hers. Where was the point that they all began?
If she were to think about it - she usually didn't, for very obvious reasons, but if she *were* to think about it - Elena would probably decide that her story started when her mother died. Before then, she really only had glimpses and half-forgotten memories. They were like blurry snap-shots in her mind. Sometimes, Elena half-suspected that they were all the deluded imaginings of one lost little girl but some nights they seemed real enough. Of her mother, Elena had no clear picture beyond the vague impression of a kind smile and a loving face. She had seen a photo of her mother once, ages ago. She had looked a little bit like Elena. Elena couldn't remember her though and so the only image that she had in her mind was really of that sweet smile. The photo meant nothing compared to that.
Her story didn't start with that smile though; it started at her mother's death. In some ways, that should've been enough to warn her about her story's future. Nothing with such an opening could have possibly been the fairytale dream that so many little girls believe their lives to be. There had never been a knight in shining armour for Elena and she was no princess. Princesses don't stand in doorways wearing too much make-up hoping without hope that maybe the next john won't be such an ass-hole and that they won't get too busted up this time.
All in all, it wasn't a very happy story. Nobody would ever want to read it.
Why should they want to though? Sometimes, the hardest thing for Elena to understand about these individual stories was how easy it was to get caught up in them. It was incredible. Everybody was always wrapped up in his or her own little novels. Did they ever take the time to consider somebody else's? Sometimes, her story seemed so very pressing at times. How often had she been too caught up in her own problems to notice somebody else's? In a way, she supposed that was the nature of human cruelty. Well, that was a flawed example because humans weren't necessarily cruel. Oh, she had met some awful, awful people in her life. Too many, really. The worst ones were always the ones that were supposed to be good. That had been an easy lesson to learn for Elena: nobody is good just because they should be. The police weren't always there to protect you. Priests weren't always high and holy. Parents weren't always kind to their children.
No, in so many ways what made people cruel was their own unique sort of blind indifference. She knew that most people were probably relatively good, simple people but everyone was always so obsessed with their own stories that they just didn't have time to notice someone else's. It was a harsh reality but it wasn't something that people did intentionally. When you are starring full-face into the sun, sometimes it hard to see that little dot on the edge of the horizon.
Too many stories ended inexplicably short in the world. How many of them could've ended differently had those people had just one more chance? Elena wasn't in the habit of handing out pity though that didn't mean that she was as hard as she should be. She supposed that some people would argue that everything had a meaning, that it was all part of some grand Purpose. Elena couldn't really believe that though. She couldn't understand what purpose had decided to drive her life and if it was part of some grand scheme she didn't really want to meet whatever was pulling her strings.
By the same token, she had never looked for anything to 'save her' in some melodramatic miracle. It wasn't that she didn't think that she was unworthy of the 'saving'; she just realized that there were people who deserved miracles more than she did. What did she deserve, lost child turned hooker turned Turk? Nothing more than what she had, that was for sure.
So, why was she always craving something more? Why was she always looking between the cracks in her paragraphs searching for something else?
Maybe it was because that she found no meaning in her story that she was so desperate to find something in his. He wasn't exactly helping her though. Then again, maybe he didn't notice that she was looking. Maybe she was just another footnote on his page, an afterthought added in at some odd point in a chapter. Maybe she was little more than a passing phenomenon, barely worthy of the distraction, hardly memorable and soon forgotten. When his story seemed so incredible, so captivating, so wonderful, how could hers be of any interest?
Funny how she could be little more than a punctuation mark in his story and yet he be so integral to her own. Maybe that was why she never told him no at night. It was so easy to say yes over and over and over again. His story seemed to add meaning to hers, if only for a while. It didn't matter that she didn't matter to him; he was everything to her. God, how she loved and hated him for that.
In some ways, it seemed to Elena that her life now was really two separate stories running side by side. In one, she was very much the Turk she said she was. Her days made up her first story. They were the Company's days where she sweated and slaved for it without complaint. She had no regrets; she knew better than that. Still, she could laugh for hours at the irony of it all. It was a sick, sick world that had made this her haven. It was sick that as she washed her hands and watched the others die that this was always, *always*, the better place to be. But she had no regrets.
Her nights were her other story. In so many ways, they were his nights. It was funny, really. She could imagine that that part in her novel could've been written using the same paragraph over and over again. They were together. She felt everything. He felt nothing. Over and over.
It never ceased to amaze her that her story could have so little time devoted to her. During the day, she was the Company's. During the night, she was his utterly and completely.
Sometimes, Elena tried to imagine her story's ending. She supposed that all people did that eventually. She never could though. Well, in a way, she supposed that it would end the way all Turk stories ended eventually: a sudden conclusion, written in blood. That was the cost of the leash she had bought herself. But she had no regrets.
Reno had told her that Turks were always honest with each other but that was a lie, wasn't it? How can you be honest with people when you can't even be truthful with yourself? So: she had no regrets, Tseng had no regrets. Did Reno? Did Rude? The truth was - and it was such a dirty, dirty word truth – the truth was that sometimes she felt like she was drowning in regret. Some days she was sure that she would. It was easier to say that she had none though. Repeat something enough and you believe it to be true, Elena knew. Thus, she had no regrets. There was nothing regrettable about her life. Her life was an open book written in golden ink with a loving tenderness and sealed with a flowery kiss.
The truth? Her life was written on the back of a paper bag scribbled down in black ink that faded to red somewhere along the line. Her life was an aberration, an afterthought, a lucid man's delusion. But she had no regrets.
Tonight, the night was Elena's. It was one of the few nights where she wasn't still slaving for the Company or with Tseng. Instead, she was just sitting by herself in her living room. The television was playing but she wasn't really listening to it. The colour images flashed across her face but they didn't leave an impression. Tom was curled up on her lap and she was stroking his back absently. It was a little bit past eleven o'clock.
The shrill ring of her PHS started Elena out of her stupor. She fumbled around in her purse until she found the offending object.
"Hello?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Yes, of course. I understand. I'll be right in."
In one quick, fluid motion, Elena got up off her couch, grabbed her jacket, rang a hand through her hair, and headed out of her apartment. Tom was left alone, slightly dazed, with the television still whispering faintly in the background.
When Elena walked into the Turks offices she saw Reno a little bit ahead of her and she called out to him.
"Reno, what's going on?"
He turned around to look at her and shrugged.
"Tseng sent out the call to me and Rude too."
"So we're all here?"
He nodded.
"You know what that means, don't you rookie?" His eyes were sparkling a little.
"Mission." Elena said simply. Reno nodded.
"What else?"
She paused to consider this for a moment. Then, she nodded at Reno.
"Okay. Let's go."
They both walked off to meet the others together.
The conference room was really too big for its purpose. One large executive type table, the kind that could easily seat eight or ten people, dominated it. The only other feature in the room was a screen that could be pulled down when slide photos needed to be shown during a mission briefing. Elena had always found the room a little ridiculous because even if Heidegger and the President were to appear at a mission briefing they would only need room for six people, still not enough to warrant the overly large table. As it was, Tseng was standing at the far end of the table with Rude sitting on his left. When they entered the room, Reno glided off to take a chair beside Rude and Elena moved to the right side of the table.
Rude acknowledged her with a casual nod, as did Tseng. Elena took her seat and automatically opened the unmarked file folder in front of her chair. Inside, there was a photo of a middle-aged man clipped onto a brief personal description of him. There was also an additional shot of a body lying face down in what looked to be some sort of a trash heap. On the second page of her briefing there was the image of another man but this one was horribly obese. She scanned the other papers too. There were several pages of building plans, what looked to be like a reactor output schedule, and a few more pages of timetables and additional information.
Tseng cleared his throat quietly once and all their eyes turned to him immediately.
"Two days ago, a body was found outside the Sector Four slums. It was identified to be that of John Kelger, a researcher in the Shin-ra advanced mako weaponry project. Mr Kelger had last been seen two days earlier, leaving the Shin-ra head office around six o'clock.
After his identity had been established, an investigation was conducted to learn more of the circumstances of his disappearance. It was then that the development team realized that partial plans to several mako powered artillery guns and shells had been removed from Mr. Kelger's office."
Elena was nodding slowly. She could see where this was going. She could almost imagined Scarlett's agonized screeches at the news.
"Needless to say, it was quickly concluded that Mr. Kelger had taken the plans with him from the office when he had been last seen four days earlier."
Elena wondered how the man had managed that. Shin-ra guarded its secrets better than a raven protected its personal bits of shine.
"It is suspected that he intended to sell the plans to this man," he gestured to the picture shown on the second page of their briefing, "Joseph Harraway."
"Fat Joe." Reno said, nodding to himself. Tseng nodded.
"Fat Joe. He's known as a private weapons manufacturer with a base set up in the Sector Five slums. It is suspected that he took the plans from Mr. Kelger and then disposed of the evidence."
Elena looked at the image presented in her briefing. 'Fat Joe' seemed aptly named. He was a huge man with pale, maggoty skin and sunken eyes. Easily three hundred pounds, his neck was too huge for his head, given him a misshapen appearance. Elena recognized his type: too caught up with life's pleasures. Men like him always left Elena feeling a little bit nauseous. Too often, their idea of pleasure was very closely related to another person's pain.
"Our objective is this: we need to infiltrate Harraway's stronghold in the Sector Five slums, locate and retrieve the blueprints, destroy all traces of Harraway's operation, and then eliminate him as well."
Oh yes, Elena could picture Scarlett signing off on this. Total eradication: that was very much her style. She could just see her and Heidegger standing over the files, laughing as they consigned their Turks to it. Something was bothering Elena about this entire situation though.
"How do we even know that Harraway still has the blueprints? He can't be stupid enough keep them with him in Midgar."
Reno was the one that answered her.
"Fat Joe's not stupid but he's too damn proud. He's probably living up the fact that he pulled one over on Shin-ra. Besides, he'll want his own team working on those blueprints. He's a paranoid son-of-a-bitch. There's no way he'd never let something of that value out from under his eye."
Tseng nodded at Reno's assessment.
"It is exactly his paranoia, however, that he will have to contend with."
He gestured to the building schematics.
"Harraway spends a great deal of money maintaining his own personal security network. Hallway cameras, alarms at all crucial entrances, motion detectors . . ."
"Sounds like home," Reno joked. Rude snorted.
"In any case," Tseng continued, "It is top of the line equipment and will be very difficult to bypass."
"But. . ." Rude said, the tiniest of smiles peeking at the tips of his mouth.
"But none of that is going to be functioning when we move in."
Elena's eyes widened at that and then suddenly it dawned on her.
"The Reactor."
Tseng nodded.
"All reactors have a specific maintenance schedule that they follow. During a maintenance cycle, all output is cut for the duration."
"It's too easy." Reno said suddenly. Again, Tseng nodded.
"Naturally, Harraway is aware of this slight flaw in his security grid. He owns his own personal generator."
This time it was Reno's turn to act surprised.
"His own generator."
"It's not mako driven of course but Harraway has arranged his entire security grid to be able to switch from its mako energy source to an older fossil fuel driven generator."
"That must've cost him a fortune." Elena mused.
"It did but it is effective."
"So, what? What's the benefit of the reactor cutting its output if Harraway can just switch on his generator?"
This time, Tseng smiled. It was a knowing smile, a smile that seemed to be saying 'check mate'.
"There is a ten minute window between the cross-over sequence."
All three Turks nodded at once. It was a short time frame but it wouldn't be impossible.
"We must use that window to destroy the back-up generator. With the main system down, we will be able to move relatively freely throughout the compound. Once the generator is destroyed, we destroy the main computer, here," he taped his blueprints, "in the central computer nexus. Then, we find Harraway, assassinate him, plant our charges, and go."
"Boom," added Reno.
"Boom." Tseng confirmed. "We're going to be divided into two teams on this one. Reno and Rude, you take the southern entrance, here. Elena and I will enter will be going in from the roof. We'll move in and destroy the back up generator. At the same time, you two will head to the central nexus and plant charges there. Elena and I will go after Harraway. When you are clear of the compound, send us the all-clear signal. If you do not receive our confirmation within two minutes, detonate regardless. Understand?"
Reno and Rude both nodded.
"The reactors were designed to have twenty minute maintenance cycles. Thus, Elena and I will have a maximum of ten minutes to destroy the backup generator but if we do not detonate before those twenty minutes are up, then the security grid will be back in place. Our charges will all be located and disabled before we have time to detonate. So, if either of our groups are out without confirmation of the other and it is within ten seconds of our red line, we detonate. No excuses and no exceptions."
Again, they all nodded.
"I want silencers and hand weapons only on this one with materia only to be used at the absolute necessity. Stealth and speed are the essence of this mission. I do not want this to degenerate into a firefight. Our window is too thin to afford mistakes."
Tseng took a moment to consider his Turks then. They were all looking at him with hard expressions and determination. It made him proud.
"Are there any questions?"
They had none.
"Good."
As a unit, the stood and headed out of the conference room. They would be leaving soon but first they had to visit one of the locked rooms in the Turks offices: the Artillery Room.
The Artillery Room was perhaps the most unobtrusive looking room in the entire Turks floor. When you entered it, there was absolutely nothing in it except for blank white walls. There was, however, one keypad beside the door, coupled with a number pad. Tseng walked up to it, swiped his key card, and tapped a series of numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, a low humming sound could be heard, the soft music of machinery. Then, miraculously, a number of near-invisible panels in the walls opened up revealing rows upon rows of weaponry.
Elena had always liked the Artillery Room. There was something about so many things appearing out of nowhere that fascinated her. She knew all of the room's contents by heart. There were rows of handguns and extra rounds, silencers, and attachable sensor scopes. There were also all manner of heavier equipment like shotguns, automatic riffles, and even some submachine guns, each conveniently placed beside its choice ammunition. Most admirable were the lines of sniper riffles though. Each were state of the art examples of weaponry. They were easy to handle, fast to assemble and dismantle, and each had been custom made for each of the Turks. There were rows of special ammunition as well, depending of the type of shot needed. Some were just ordinary bullets while others were specially designed to exit a target's body and then literally disintegrate as soon as they came in contact with any sort of substance more durable than human flesh. These were particularly useful in assassinations that Shin-ra did not want to be readily affiliated with. There were, however, times when identification was a necessity and so there were also specialized bullets marked with the Shin-ra logo to be used as a message of sorts.
There were also special parts of the room designated to house equipment for stealth missions: night vision goggles, near-invisible communicators, tracking devices, untraceable poisons, efficient hand weapons, and miniature explosives. Of explosives themselves, there was an endless supply. Some were small, obsolete looking objects with enough firepower to disintegrate entire city blocks. There were, of course, the more traditional kinds: grenades, remote mines, and C-4.
Lastly, there was the materia wall. Shin-ra had access to the most specific and effective materia. They glowed faintly, their colours identifying their purpose: fire, lighting, cure, heal, destruct, barrier, and many others.
Each Turk moved about the room with a calculated efficiency and the once quiet room was filled with the soft clicking noises of weaponry being assembled. Rude choose two 12-round hand guns and equipped them with their appropriate silencers. He tucked them into holsters he had strapped against his chest and took with him a few extra cartridges. He also secreted a few throwing knives up the sleeves of his jacket and equipped fire, lighting, and cure materia.
Reno took his EMR of course and a few back-up power packs. He too took a 12-round handgun, silencer equipped. He selected a few elemental materia but, unlike Rude, declined to use any curative magic. He counted on Rude for that.
Tseng assembled his weaponry with a practiced efficiency. He took two handguns strapped to his chest, a long, thin knife strapped against his leg, and some elemental and defensive materia.
Elena too chose two handguns but she, unlike the others, selected a few of the miniature explosives that the Shin-ra weapons division had concocted a few months ago. There were no bigger than small marbles but when they connected with their targets at a certain force they exploded with a surprising yield. She preferred them immensely to the too bulky hand grenades. For her materia, she selected some elemental and curative materia but she also took some status-based materia as well. Mystify was a personal favourite of hers.
Each one of the Turks took with them some of the tiny communications equipment that consisted of an earpiece and one tiny microphone that could be place in the cuff of their jackets. They also each took a pair of night vision goggles which would give them an edge in the darkened hallways of Harraway's compound.
Finally ready, they all filed out of the room and headed to the final door in the locked part of their offices. Hidden and concealed from outside view, a single elevator that opened only for them linked the Turks floor with the ground level and all other parts of the Shin-ra headquarters. Not only did this allow the Turks easy access to their own level without drawing the attention of the outside public but it also linked them to all other levels in the building. Very few people realized this but the entire building was set up with secret corridors running between walls. Sometimes necessity took the Turks on missions very close to home indeed. Spying was an accepted company policy.
This time, however, the Turks headed into their personal elevator and selected the rooftop level of the Shin-ra building. There, a helicopter would be waiting for them. From then on, it was just one short flight until they reached Sector Five and Harraway's compound.
~~~
Responses:
Jess Angel: Thanks again for the review Jess Angel. Your constant 'pat on the back' reviews are very kind. I'm glad that you liked the first little bit about Reno. I was really happy when you pulled out that little line about Reno's eyes because I was rather proud of that one *blushes*. I'm glad that you liked Detox too. Tseng/Elena moment was a little bit odd to write but I'm generally pleased with the way it turned out.
As for Tseng and Elena. . . well, I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't quite what you were looking for. I admit I sort of avoided the 'Tseng and Elena getting back together' moment but I really wanted to move this story along. It still turned out more introspective than I imagined it would though. No book this time 'round though. It'll definitely come back though, if not in the next chapter then definitely in chapter 9. ^_^
Heather Cat: *waves back* So glad you thought of little old me! Yeah, I just might have bent a few rules by having a flashback within a flashback. Glad you enjoyed it though. I'm also happy to hear that you like the whole Tseng, Elena, and Reno relationship. As for where I'm going with all of this. . . it is my secret! Mwahahaha! *winks*