Chapter Two; The way we are now
The Turks hot-footed it down the narrow street, skidding round a corner, Reno had just reached the uneven staircase when he remembered something that made him stop short.
'The computer drive! It's still back there!'
Rude slapped a hand against his shaven head in a gesture that was worse than any swearword. Reno ducked behind a concrete pillar to avoid a hail of bullets that peppered the pavement with a patina of scratches. He checked his gun and cast a grin in Rude's direction and shouted over the explosions;
'I've still got some juice left in this thing! You phone Tseng and get the car running, I'll go get the drive!'
'What!' Rude shouted after Reno's retreating back, but he had already turned a corner into the gathering darkness. He hesitated, not sure whether to run after his partner, but shook his head and dashed down the lengthy flight of stairs, flipping his black phone open as he ran.
Reno turned sideways to peer around a column and smiled his slow lazy smile, the gleam of a professional who enjoys his job too much forming in his hooded eyes.
Kicking off from the crumbling brick wall, he launched himself across the street, pulling his arm up and furiously smashing down on the trigger of his materia-powered gun. A stream of glowing bullets found their mark in the shadowy attackers, tearing unseen bodies to ribbons. He turned in mid-air and landed feet-first, straightening against the opposite wall from where he had came from. Wasting no time, he whirled round and cleared the distance through the attackers' rundown compound with his boneless run.
Fuhito looked up, pushing his glasses up his small nose, he cocked an eyebrow at the taller man observing the battle through a paneless window. Gathering up the papers discarded by Elfe a few minutes previously, he left the room silently. Crossing the corridor to stow away the plans in a safer place, he stopped short. Casting his mind back a few moments, he suddenly recalled the gunfire that had been so raucously rending the usual silence, and was half relieved and half worried to see that they were now silent. To his calculating mind, this warranted two possible outcomes; either the infiltrators had been justly dealt with, which he doubted, or those annoying Turks had annihilated their troops with commendable speed. Through the process of deductive reasoning, he decided that Sears would have to deal with the returning Turks that he felt sure were now in the building.
Having calmly explained the situation to both Sears and Elfe, who had appeared apparently from nowhere when the subject was brought up, she had volunteered to go after the Turks, and Sears had gone to gather his remaining dispensable weapons. Fuhito returned to his room, and waited for his comrades' inevitable return. He felt little remorse about it; he had seen those two Turks around this neighbourhood before, and they seemed to be as well adjusted as any murdering lowlifes could be. When he was still studying at Midgar UU; a scholarship for a double major in Applied Science and Physical Processes, he had seen them in the bar he was working in to pay his reduced fees. Younger, of course, but not noticeably so; the little skinny one seemed to be stuck at age 19, and that hulking great bouncer type was ageless. They must have been newly recruited back then, and while no physical change had taken place, some increase in skill must surely have occurred.
He sighed and dumped the papers he had been still holding on his desk. They dislodged a sheaf of Elfe's earlier ideas for the safe annihilation of the Mako reactors; a plan that they agreed would bring Shinra down for good. Fuhito bore no ill will towards most of the Turks; unlike the others, he recognised that they were true professionals, they did what they were told and expected nothing less than due payment for it. And they tipped well in bars and didn't bother the regulars.
He tucked the scribbled sketches back into their box and silently glided over to the shuttered window. Opening the blinds slowly, so as not to attract attention from any troublemakers that were out on this clear and cold night, he peered through the pale starlight and would have stifled a cry, if he were stupid enough to make one in the first place. The redheaded, pale, skinny frame of the eternally 19-year-old Turk stood, quickly deciphering his carefully assembled locks that protected the computer drive; that essential piece of coding equipment that siphoned Mako from Shinra itself to the main power source for their compound. As he watched, the last code was shuffled into place by nimble fingers, and a sticklike arm grabbed the cylinder of metal inside. Tucking the small power-pack into his navy jacket, the boy turned and, smiling, started off in the direction he had come. Fuhito felt strangely unmoved. Subconsciously, a part of him knew that Sears and Elfe would soon catch up with the miscreant, and another chided him for having so much faith in others. However, his suppositions were rewarded. He saw the figure return, walking slowly backwards. On the other end of whatever was holding him up, was the thin sword of Elfe and Sears' gun.
Then, with what he noted with a certain detachment was an unusual agility for any human being, the redhead pulled a long-barrelled mako gun from his belt. Leaping over Elfe's calculated sword thrust, he swung the black barrel to aim at her head, an expression halfway between anger and joy crossing his aquiline features. Fuhito felt a jolt of alarm; she had yet to recover balance from her earlier miss, and the Turks were not known as bad marksmen. Almost in slow motion, he gripped the windowsill as the boy pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The light of the materia lodged in the release mechanism of the gun flickered and died. The Turk lowered his arm and stared at his useless weapon for just a moment too long. Sears raised his arm and fired. He shot to kill, Fuhito knew, but he did not underestimate the Turk. The boy realised just as the trigger clicked, and threw himself sideways. As he landed, a delayed splash of blood stained his jacket at the shoulder, creating a spreading black stain over the crumpled navy. Sears slid over to the fallen figure, his broad-jointed thumb pulling back on the release system of his well-worn handgun.
Levering himself up on a thin elbow, the Turk shot a stick-thin leg upwards at Sears' hand, knocking the slim firearm from his thick fingers. Picking himself up like a spider unfolding he set off at a desperate pace, one arm hanging useless at his moving side, frozen fingers still clutching the equally useless gun. The others followed suit, Sears' calm one-shot reverie broken as he ducked to snatch the pistol from the dusty cobbles and fired volleys at the retreating Turk, too angry to even aim. Fuhito was mildly amused to see some hit their mark; he had never seen anyhting wrong with a little light sadism as far a 'enemies' were concerned. He counted as they ran past his field of vision. One, shoulder. Two, the elbow of the same arm. Three, clipping his skull, drawing a pin-line of blood. Four, a spinning shot that knocked the gun almost out of his hand. Five, six, seven, clipping his limbs, opening jagged tears in his suit. Eight, smack on target in the right hand, warranting a surprisingly minimal response from its owner. Nine - Fuhito moved into the adjacent room just in time to see the boy had cleared a truck parked in the middle of the street in two strides, fetching him a quick shot that buried itself somewhere below his ribs and drew a cry that was audible from the window. He disappeared behind the truck's flat wheels and appeared again, half-running, half-stumbling around the corner leading to the steps, and his only exit.
Fuhito shrugged and turned back to his room. If the Turk made it to whatever transportation he had waiting; and he was doubtful that he had returned without backup, then they would probably get away. If not, then Shinra had lost the upper hand. Either way, things would hardly change.