Two hours later we were all sitting in the armoury waiting for the all clear command. Tedious and dull, but necessary. Last time there'd been a problem with rioting, and they'd sent a squad down to keep in under the control. The slightly timid commanding officer had given them all riot batons to deal with the mobs, but some bright spark forgot to mention that the rioters were profession mercenaries with large guns. D Squadron got its ass kicked, and ever since then, Intel had to be checked, double checked , and checked again. Or so they said.

The two others in my squad, Jennings and Fox were both cleaning their rifles, safety checking grenades, and various other things to keep them busy. Me, I'd checked all my stuff minutes after we were issued with it, and it was unlikely that my gun had jammed up in the trip from floor fifty five to fifty four. Then again, you never know.

Reno leant against the wall in the corner, head down and arms folded. Cool as a cucumber. None of us were really sure why a Turk had been attached to out unit, Shinra Corp. usually preferred to keep its own with its own. Rarely did employees mix with members of SOLDIER, and vice versa. But once the Mako tests were over, that would all clam down.

Personally, I was relieved that I was going on this mission, as eventually we troops would be getting Mako showers, not the unlucky punters off the streets. It would be fascinating to see the results of showering gone wrong.

'Hey, Hudson!' Jennings jeered, swinging his rifle over his shoulder like some kind of buster sword, 'How would you like one of those crazy arm things, huh? That'd be so cool!'

I frowned, and returned to the briefing notes that I was flipping through. Reno lifted his head and sighed.

'Jennings, you just don't get it, do you? Why do you think they scrape the bucket and come up with a load of SOLDIER grunts, a.k.a, you guys, to take out that freak? You saw what it did to that shrink on surveillance, right?'

'Yeah,'

'And you read those briefing notes?' He pointed at the file in my hands.

'Sure,' Jennings replied, letting the rifle fall down to his side.

'Well read 'em again, cowboy,' Reno jeered, toying with his stun prod, 'Cause your badass monster deteriorates over time, at least according to that file. What we saw happened hours ago, so by now, that freak with the tentacle strapped to his arm may even be normal. But it's unlikely…' He stood up, and I felt a speech coming on. He always acted like there was a high ranking officer in the room, constantly fishing for compliments.

'What I believe,' Reno began, 'Is that our target will have died already due to the fact that he isn't used to the Mako. His body will have tried to reject it, and by doing so, he probably lost a couple pints of the red stuff. This is a clean up job,' he leant back against the wall and pointed at the elevator doors to the Research Level. 'When we get the all clear, be prepared to grab a mop and start cleaning up a pretty big mess.'

I shrugged and finished reading the last pages of the briefing files. What Reno had said was totally out of context, and an exaggeration. If we were lucky tonight, we may just get some action.

Pretty soon, the door went green light, and Reno got a radio message from Intel, telling us to go in when ready. Perfect.

'Alright, Jennings. Fox. Hudson. Get in there, and kick ass,'

I stopped dead in my tracks just outside the elevator.

'Huh? You're not going with us, Reno?'

He grinned, and stepped into the back of the lift.

'Relax Hudson,' He replied, 'I'll be in contact by radio,' and with that, he hit the button on the pad, and began ascent to a safer level of the HQ. Fox summed up all our sentiments by spitting on the ground.

'Damn,' he snarled, 'knew that guy was too high up to muck in with us,'

'Bloody Turks,' Jennings muttered, 'Well, the next in charge would be….,' He grinned at me, 'You, Hudson, you lucky thing!'

'Whatever,' I shrugged. 'Let's move out.'