Author's Note:

Reno: So, after almost a month of no updates, we're back!

Reeve: Finally.

Reno: What the hell was up with Tyramir?

Reeve: Change of job, sickness, domestic problems, and writer's block. That, and he hates writing Aeris POVs. Apparently he had to rewrite the last chapter three times before it was presentable.

Reno: Haha, sucks to be him.

Reeve: Yep. And he doesn't even own anything Final Fantasy related.

Chapter Twenty Five

The Cat Cage

Reno finally had Cait Sith in the cage, and he was now sitting idly, one leg up on a desk, wondering what to do. The Turk response was obvious. The Turk way of doing things would be to take the doll to Rufus right away and pick up the paycheck, no questions asked. Forget curiousity, forget the bullshit, forget about everything but the money. That was what Tseng had always said. But Tseng was dead. Rude would have just shrugged and taken Cait in, too, but he had left the Turks. So now it was just Reno and Elena, and Reno ran this operation. And quite frankly, he didn't give a damn what Elena thought.

"So, do you want to tell me just what the hell is going on around here?"

The cat eyed him suspiciously, and something in Reno's head clicked. I'll be fucked. He's looking for a motive. He didn't expect this from me. He's intelligent.

"Close the door," the Cat said, and Reno gestured to Elena. The door shut a moment later, taking away what the emercency lights had lent them. The room was dark, but he could see well enough. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his pack of smokes and liter, produced one, and lit it up. He took a drag, and put the smokes and liter away.

"Awright," Reno said, putting on his 'game face', the one he used for interrogation. Turk trick Tseng had taught him. Act all civilized and badass at the same time, makes people worry. Too bad Rude wasn't here. The way that man could just stand there and not even look at you and make you nervous... he was a great fixture in an interrogation. All Reno had no was Elena. He took another drag, and continued, "Read your file, Cait. You're supposed to be a doll. Controlled by a person long distance via a microchip implant. Twenty five in your line. It's possible for all to be controlled at once via one implant, but not recommended. Supposedly dangerous. Just ask Reeve. The original design was by Professor Gast, and was followed up by a young and blossoming grease monkey named Tolliver Reeve. After making the first functioning Cait Sith unit, he was noticed by President Tobias Shinra, and promoted to the lab. And oddly enough, he proved himself even further not for his mechanical and electronic genius, but from his ability to keep the books balanced. First science whiz to ever manage that, supposedly. Kept the department on budget, and kept a nice little paper trail saying how it was doing. Reeve got promoted again, and eventually became a Shinra executive. How 'bout that? Notice anything funny in that file, 'Lena?"

Elena sighed, and asked, "Why are you bothering talking to the robot?"

"Pay attention, rookie, because I'm about to show you why I make the big bucks. See, in the file, and schematics of the Cait Sith unit, it says that it's controlled long distance. I took a peek, and I'm no tech head, but I know my fair share of doohickeys and eletronic wing-wongs. So I took a gander at the robot's AI profile, and know what I found?"

The woman grunted, obviously impatient, eager to go on and find out what Reno was patting himself on the back for. "What?"

"The Cait Sith doll doesn't have an AI program." It wasn't Reno who answered it.

The red-haired Turk grinned and pointed at the caged prisoner. "Bingo. So that means something's up. Now, I'm not an idiot like everyone around here seems to think, so I sat back and tried to figure it out. Rogue AI implanted by an enemy of Shinra? Doubt it. Too much effort for something so small. Virus? Nah. Never heard of the virus that could mimick an AI. But there's something obviously going on, but what?

"So then I thought, 'Why did the robot order Reeve to get attacked, but specified only his legs and arms be broken?' I mean, if I were gonna piss off Shinra by attacking on of their execs, I would have just killed him."

Cait Sith groaned. "Are you going to let me tell the story, or are you just going to go on about how smart you are?"

Reno took another puff from his cigarette, his grin spreading even further. "Sure thing, cat. You tell me what's up, and I'll try to see if I can poke any holes in your story. Pay attention, 'Lena. You might learn something."

Elena made a sound of disgust, but she seemed interested now, as if actually curious at to what was going on. Reno caught something like a smile on the cat's face, and something in its eyes... hope? The Turk had never been one to give hope much stock. He had always hoped for a better life, and what did he get? A life as a Turk. Well, it'd been fun, and it did attract the ladies, and the pay was nice, but... He shook his head, and said, "Hey, cat, you gonna tell us or what?"

"I'm Reeve."

Elena snorted, her interest immediately dissolved, but Reno leaned forward, having somehow, subconciously, expected the answer. "If you're Reeve, then why'd you really get promoted to the Board of Directors? Why did you suddenly become Mr. Fancy Exec instead of Head Lab Boy?"

"I... uh..."

"Spit it out, cat. I already know. Shit, I'm a Turk. I knew all of your dirty secrets. You think we get paid just to whack people? Who do you think told President Shinra?"

The cat gulped. "The records for the Science Department were balanced, and it said we were perfectly on budget. But we weren't. We had more than used up what money was alotted to us. So, I... uh... hacked the Shinra database and kind of made up a new sub-department to give money to, and put the Science Department's debt into it."

Content with the answer, Reno was almost willing to let Reeve go. But instead, he said with a vicious grin, "And how'd you manage that?"

"I broke into the Turk security database and went looking for videos of the executives entering in their own passwords so I'd have the ability to use their logins."

Elena choked at that. The Turk security database was supposed to be infallible, unbreakable, and most weren't even supposed to know it existed.

"Which brought the Turks straight to you once we found out our security had been breeched. You know what I wanted to do when I found out someone had cracked my network?"

"That was yours?" Cait Sith asked, surprised. "It was really good, but I--"

"Yeah yeah, I know how you broke in. Tseng's password. Fruity bastard was always unoriginal. I mean, 'home'? Come on. But that's besides the point. When I told the President, he was impressed. Fucking impressed. Didn't say, 'Sure, Reno, you can sodomize him with your 'mag-rod' like I suggested. So, my curiousity is fulfilled. Now, what to do with you?"

"We need to turn him over to Rufus," Elena stated firmly.

"Yeah yeah... I got that already, rookie. You just want your paycheck."

"No, I mean... we have to tell Rufus that this is really Reeve. But wait." She turned to the cat, a questioning look in her eye. "If you're Reeve, then who's ... well, Reeve? And how did you get like this?"

Cait Sith sighed, and answered, "I went down into the basement to revive the Cait Sith units. It was something for me to do after Rufus told me the truth about my past. That, and I guess it was a way to confront what I'd forgotten. So I tinkered with the diagnostic machine, the central computer, and got it running. It did a check on the implant, and started doing a diagnostic followed by a self-repair procedure. Joke was on me, though. Turns out it was sending a program to act as a modem. So I got shunted off into my body, while the jackass who set up the modem protocol got put into my body."

Reno took another drag on his cigarette. "And who might that have been?"

"Hojo."

Reno choked on the smoke, letting out a large, disgusting cough that nearly turned into vomiting. "Hojo? That psycho is on the loose? You're kidding, right?"

"No. That's why we need to get to Rufus right away and warn--"

Cait Sith was interrupted as Elena picked up his cage and started marching him towards the door. Reno, surprised at this sudden action, nearly fell off the chair he was sitting on trying to stand up and catch up with them.

The two Turks, with Cait Sith in tow, made their way through the Shinra office, heading towards the medical lab, intent on reaching Rufus before Reeve, or Hojo, was healed and put into a position to start to hurt the company, or Rufus. It was difficult to find their way around, though, because both were still unused to the Junon office, and more, because the power was still off, shut down earlier by Cait Sith.

After an hour of nearly blind searching, the trio found a hallway with the lights on, a section powered by another generator. Racing to the light, Reno nearly tackled the first Shinra guard he saw and demanded, "Is Rufus still in the medical lab?"

"I'm, uh... unsure, sir. I think so, but there's been some activity down at the helipad."

"Gotcha, medlab. Thanks."

It took a minute to reach the medlab, and when they did, both Elena and Reno were panting from the exertion of having ran the whole way. Reno opened the door, and winced as it slammed against the wall. Rufus was gonna bitch about that.

"Mr. President!" he yelled, "I have something to ... tell ... you..."It died on his lips before he could finish.

Reeve, pulling on his shirt, standing with a circle of doctors hovering around him, frowned at Reno, that condescending look in his eyes. Reno wanted to punch the mad scientist right in the mouth. It was definitely Hojo, alright. No one else could have that superior look.

"What is it, my dear Turk?" Hojo asked.

"Uh, we, uh..."

Hojo glanced over at Elena, and saw the cage in her hands. "Ah, you captured the robot. Perfect. Guards, if you will?"

The two guards at the door, as well as two on the opposite end of the room, weapons in hand, all moved forward. Reno's first reaction was to fight, but realized he'd probably get the cat and Elena killed if he did. No, this required smarts. Come on, smarts, plan. Quickly.

Reno grabbed the cage from Elena, and the cat yelled, "Hey! Watch it!"

Striding up to Hojo, he lifted the cage to his face. "This is a prisoner under Turk custody. We're supposed to deliver him to Rufus."

"I'm sorry," Hojo said in that tone that just screamed arrogant asshole, "but the President just left. He oversaw my healing, and then departed straight away. Something about a 'problem with the Planet', didn't get specific. He left me in charge."

Reno nearly gulped, but managed to control himself enough not to. Well... shit.

"I believe," Hojo continued, "that Turk policy states that if you cannot deliver your prisoner to the President, you have to deliver it to the Vice President instead."

"Normally, yes, sir," Elena said, stepping forward. "But under Article Three, Section Two, Paragraph Three, it states that 'All specialty bounties are delivered to the President only. In the event of only the President's death is the prisoner to be relinquished to any of lesser authority.' Rufus placed a specialty bounty on this robot's head, so by the rules, we have him until Rufus either returns or is pronounced dead."

Nodding, Hojo clasped his hands behind his back and turned away. "I understand. Do with him what you will. Rufus said that he was going 'south.' If you hurry, you may... no wait. He took all the helicopters and vehicles with him as an escort. I'm afraid you'd have to go afoot to catch up with him."

"We'll wait for him," Reno growled.

"Do so. But make sure the cat is locked up and under guard at all times. I have other assignments for the Turks, and as such, you will be very, very busy."

So, he's trying to keep us from talking to the cat, eh? Well, too late. Or maybe he knows we already did and he's trying to keep us from making any plans with him? Just you wait til Rufus gets back, asshole. You can't play this game forever.