.
50. Reno: Bodyguard
Reno blew out a breath to lift a lock of hair hanging in front of his eyes. It wafted as long as his lungs took to empty, and then flopped back down. He waited ten seconds, listening to the noises around him to make sure nothing had changed. Nope, nothing to report. Just more of the same – as long as 'same' meant 'boring as hell'. He sucked in a new breath and blew it out again. He did this three times before someone elbowed him in the ribs.
"You're not even trying to look professional."
"I'm bored," he whispered back.
"Can't you take anything seriously?"
"Depends. Has anything interesting happened yet?"
Sandan surveyed the scene. Her face twisted up in a grimace that contradicted her reprimand. "Does another round of photographer troglodytes count?"
Reno blinked. "Troglo-what?"
"Troglodytes. Very stupid and annoying people. Don't strain your brain, darling. It'll turn the same colour as your hair, and then you'll have an aneurysm, which means I'll be forced to do your share of the workload as well as my own. And considering how mind-numbing this assignment is, if that happens, I'll never forgive you."
Reno smirked. He knew better than to read too much into the 'darling', since everyone was 'darling' to Sandan. In another life she was probably some refined lady who enjoyed afternoon tea with crumpets and hunting in red coat, bugle and boots. In this one, however, she wore her dark suit with style, and managed to exude an air of elegance despite the gigantic messy ponytail that trailed halfway down her back. You could never mistake Sandan for a girl who'd grown up without money. On poor people, dishevelled looked like you'd just crawled out of bed. Only the truly rich could make it look classy.
Reno looked down at his own untucked shirt. He was pulling in more per year than he'd ever dreamed when he was growing up on the streets of Midgar, but on him, scruffy was just scruffy. He couldn't even remember where his tie was, and could read the history of his last few meals in the multi-coloured blobs on his front.
Why was it he never cared about that kind of shit when he was partnered with Rude? Rude was always perfectly dressed, but Reno didn't care how he compared with the big bald lunkhead. He kind of liked the visual combination of them, actually – people had a tendency to underestimate one of them when they saw the other, and that was a mistake he and Rude had taken full advantage of over the years. Plus, it would never even occur to Rude to say anything about Reno's appearance.
Put him with Sandan for an assignment, however, and suddenly Reno started noticing random, useless stuff like the shine of his shoes. He didn't even care about that shit when Tseng was around, for fuck's sake, and Tseng was almost as well-groomed as Rude even when beating seven bells out of thugs in back-alleys.
Come back Rude, all is forgiven.
It wasn't unheard of for Tseng to send them on separate assignments, but it was unusual for those assignments not to be solo jobs. Tseng knew when not to mess with a good thing, and Reno and Rude's partnership was the definition of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
Still, Reno had come to trust Tseng's judgement as much as his own. More than his own, actually, for reasons he didn't like to go into. Tseng was a strategist. He could plan several steps ahead of both the competition and his own side, and saw all the different outcomes of a single action when everyone else was still bunching their fists. It was why Reno had been a Turk longer, but Tseng had advanced to Head of the Department when Veld was killed.
That whole, and his own actions during it, still stung a little. It was only thanks to Tseng's iron-clad reputation that the Turks who had sided with Veld hadn't all had more than their contracts terminated after he was assassinated along with his daughter – and Reno had his own doubts about how accurate the reports of Veld and Elfé's deaths were. The then-rookies had put their lives on the line to help Veld save his only family, and barely escaped a more lethal punishment thanks to Tseng's excellent debating skills – plus his concession about Heidegger having a larger role in the Administrative Research Department. That had been a wrench, but in order to save his people, Tseng had made the sacrifice and effectively hobbled himself as leader. Those he'd 'rescued' had, for the most part, been even more loyal and hard-working as a result; determined to prove themselves worthy of working under Tseng.
Weird, how such an unemotional guy could inspire such ardent loyalty. Kind of like Veld himself. Except that not everybody had remained loyal to Veld when he needed them, had they? Guilt was a foreign emotion to Reno and he didn't like it much. He'd vowed a long time ago never to make the same mistake twice. As a Turk, mistakes got you killed. If you survived one the first time, you didn't deserve to survive if you were stupid enough to make it again.
Tseng knew what he was doing. That didn't make Reno's current assignment any less tedious, though. Playing bodyguard to Rufus Shinra was grunt work, especially since the President had also set several other gun-toting members of his employ to safeguard his son during this press conference, and had brought in outside help as well. Reno would have been insulted if he'd cared enough, but truthfully the only thing this detail filled him with was revulsion at the long hours of standing around doing nothing and unable to entertain himself since he was, effectively, on display along with the rest of Rufus's crew.
President Shinra had tried to kick up a stink when he heard Sandan was part of the Turk dispatch Tseng had chosen, but quietened when Rufus, for reasons unknown, told his father it was fine. Sandan's behaviour had been exemplary since the AVALANCHE episode, but that still stood out on her record like a severed finger in a plate of éclairs. Yet if it bothered Rufus that she had been part of the group who kidnapped him to preserve their own safety when helping Veld and Elfé, he never mentioned it. Nor did he react to her with anything other than polite acceptance when they met again. Reno just couldn't figure the kid out sometimes. Rufus was odd, but odd in the quiet way that makes you uneasy but unable to explain it; like waking up in a darkened bedroom and suspecting you're not alone in your house. It freaked Sandan out, Reno could tell, though she'd retained her usual bubbly attitude. Only someone who knew her could tell she was uneasy around Rufus.
It escaped Reno why these kinds of events even took place. Press conferences? It wasn't like Shinra had any competition for business, or needed voters to keep them in power. He supposed it was more to keep the masses from getting any uppity ideas by presenting the company with a human face. Civil disobedience was costly to put down without turning it into a fully-fledged revolution – and the public was more likely to respond to an attractive young man like Rufus than his grizzled old pa. Too bad for them they didn't know the kid's pretty face concealed a ruthlessness that made even President Shinra nervous – another reason Reno suspected Rufus had been sent out, away from his nervous father's side, to play nice for the cameras.
Who does the old man think he's fooling? Reno wondered. He knows the clock's ticking and Rufus could probably run the company better than him already. A big claim for someone so young, but not an unfounded one, in Reno's opinion.
He watched Rufus smile and wave like he was some empty-headed rich boy who'd killed off all his brain cells with hairspray and champagne. The photographers snapped away happily. Their captions would be inane as the curve of Rufus's lips, and about as truthful. Never trust appearances. Reno knew that one better than anyone. It had been Veld's most oft-repeated rule for how to be a Turk, right after 'don't die'.
"You know," Sandan said slyly, "if you keep staring at him like that, the gossip rags will have a field day. Before you know it they'll be penning your torrid illicit love story, casting you as some sort of antiheroic piece of rough, beguiled into giving up your wicked, wicked ways and turning over a new leaf by the young master's youthful innocence, and then hey presto, before you can say 'star-crossed lovers', you won't have a shred of street cred left to your name and all the criminals will laugh when they see you extending your big stick."
Reno linked his hands behind his head, pressing his elbows together so his words were hidden from the cameras. "You are so full of shit."
"Maybe I should sell the rights to the story myself." She was smirking. Her eyes danced with glee just a shade off malicious. "Reno the Rentboy. Or Reno the Keen-o. It's your own fault for choosing such a phallic-looking weapon."
"And a shotgun isn't?"
"I'm a woman. It's allowed. I'm just competing in a testosterone-laden world, darling. You carry around a metal penis-extension that spits sparkles."
It was the most insulting way he'd ever heard his electro-mag rod described, but rather than irritate, it just made him smile. "Talk about not taking anything seriously, yo," he muttered. "Ain't you meant to be the professional one between the two of us?"
"I'm here to keep Rufus safe, not your ego."
"Yeah right." His smile vanished. "Like he needs us. This trip is bullshit. Probably Heidegger just wants to yank our chains; make sure we know who's in charge. He knows Turks aren't built for this kind of slow-lane crap. I'll bet Tseng got up his nose about something again, and the bastard undercut him to show him who's boss."
"I think you mean 'went over his head," Sandan corrected softly, her forehead pleated in an uncharacteristic frown. "'Undercut' means they both put in a bid to provide a service and Heidegger was the cheaper one."
"Damn right he's cheap! A cheap, nasty-ass, second-rate phoney," Reno grumbled.
"Don't hold back, darling. Say what you really think." Sandan didn't rebuke him for insulting their boss in public. She sighed. "Doubtless you're right, though. This whole thing reeks of parsimoniousness."
"The hell? You eaten a dictionary?"
"You could do with improving your vocabulary, if you don't want to become a troglodyte yourself, darling. All this effing and blinding doesn't make you sound big or clever, you know." She shook her head. "It's only when you start looking for it that you realise how rife the Turks are with power politics."
"Didn't used to be." Not while Veld was in charge, Reno added silently.
Actually, there probably had been power politics going on then, but Veld had taken care of all that with minimal ramifications for his agents. Now it was all different, though.
Another unexpected stab of guilt went through Reno – twice in one day? He must be getting sick or something. His eyes slid sideways, taking in Sandan's profile. She had fought for Veld, even if, for whatever reason, they had lost him in the end. Reno knew she wasn't the type to hold the past over anyone. They'd worked together before and it had never come up. Still, the fact lay between them like something a dog had left behind. Sandan, a rookie with barely a wrinkle in her new suit, had stood up for Veld and risked everything for him. Reno, the veteran who owed the guy for pulling him off the streets and giving him a life beyond the gutter, had not. He had remained loyal to Shinra, while Sandan had remained loyal to the Turks.
Never make the same mistake twice, Reno. Veld's voice floated back to him through the years. If fate's kind enough to give you a second chance, don't screw it up with your own stupidity.
Sandan shrugged, cupping her elbows with her hands. "You never know. Maybe this trip won't be as mind-numbingly dull as we think. Maybe something interesting will happen, and we'll be putting our names down first for future instalments of smile-and-wave-for-the-monkeys-with-the-cameras."
Reno snorted. "Yeah right. So far it's been a real laugh-riot."
As if on cue, one of the photographers darted forward and knelt on one knee, camera pressed to his face. He waved a hand, gesturing Rufus forward. Rufus shook his head but waved guilelessly, right before he crumpled to the ground, a patch of red blossoming on his white suit. The report of gunfire sounded an instant later.
"Shit!" Reno cursed, swinging into action without a moment's hesitation. His training and experience dictated his actions faster than his conscious mind could compete with, and he gave himself up to the momentum of instinct for the next few moments.
He whizzed forward, trusting Sandan to have his back. She was long-range, whereas he was an up-close-and-personal kind of guy. He had his EMR out before he'd taken three steps, had it charged with a fresh pulse by the fourth, and by the seventh was up to his neck in the commotion.
The crowd had flung themselves backwards, away from the source of the noise. Cameramen and reporters all tried to get away, even though they clearly weren't the targets. One man, however, wasn't fighting to get away. His movements set off Reno's mental alarms. They were too calm, too at odds with the unexpectedness situation – unless it wasn't unexpected for him.
Two shots flew past Reno's head as Sandan took no chances. The guy, just raising another fake camera, cried out as his left knee and right elbow turned to red pulp. In the unlikely event she had called it wrong, he wouldn't die, provided he got medical help. The camera-gun clattered uselessly to the floor, as did he.
"Secure the perimeter!" Sandan shouted in a voice that brooked no argument. She barked out orders even though nobody had actually put her in charge, and Shinra's people followed them without question.
Instead of rushing to Rufus alongside the other Shinra drones, Reno vaulted them and made straight for the remaining threat. The best defence was a good offence, no question. Sandan would secure an outer circle to prevent more threats getting in, but the one already inside the circle was his.
The EMR smashed the fake camera into the air. Reno's strike carried on to connect with the face of the prat behind it. One crushed nose later and the guy was on the ground, spurting blood and semi-conscious. The whole thing had happened inside thirty seconds – about as much time as it took Reno to form the thought 'I hate irony'.
The shooter tried to get up. Reno booted him in the crotch. Usually he would've gone for the head, since an insensate tag was easier to tie up than a struggling one, but head-shots were tricky. Too much force and they were dead, and with his system full of sudden adrenaline, mistakes were all too easy to make. It probably wasn't a good idea to kill someone in full view of the media, when right now they'd be colouring their write-ups to favour the brutally-attacked Rufus and, through him, Shinra. A crotch-kick was satisfying, and the guy wouldn't die from it, but the pain would make a good tongue-loosener.
"Who are you?"
The guy levered up an arm and gave him the finger. Reno was impressed and insulted at the same time. This dude had cojones, no doubt about it. Too bad for him.
Reno flipped him onto his front, yanked his hands behind him and straddled his back. Turks didn't carry handcuffs, but Reno held tight as he eased the joints as far as they'd go, knowing his own weight would be crushing the guy's chest as well. It looked like he'd just apprehended him and was holding him until someone else took over, like any paid-by-the-hour bodyguard. The rest of the press had fled backwards as Sandan secured the perimeter, and now couldn't hear anything above their own hubbub.
"Wrong answer," Reno whispered close to the guy's ear. "Try again?"
Sandan had the second assassin, who appeared to be trying to get away despite the overwhelming odds against him. Whoever these guys were, intelligence clearly wasn't a job requirement.
"Shin … ra … tool …" the guy panted.
Although spouting tired old rhetoric was, apparently.
"Aw, you're hurting my feelings, yo." Reno applied more pressure. His guy yelped. "You just tried to kill the son of a very powerful man. That really pisses me off, not to mention the dude who signs my pay cheques. If he gets hold of you, this will seem like a walk in the park. I'm not too keen on you making me look bad by forcing him to get his hands dirty, though, so let's get the details hashed out now. Start talking. Who are you?"
"Shinra … must … be … stopped!"
Reno sighed. "Cute. I guess we're gonna do this the hard way." He nodded at one of the hovering grunts, who had handcuffs hanging from his belt. He snapped them obediently around the shooter's wrists, and then backed off at Reno's head-toss. "First it'll be you, me and my associate over there in a soundproofed room. Then it'll be my boss. Then it'll be his boss. Then it'll be the president. That's assuming you survive the first round and still look human enough not to get swept up with the rest of the garbage. There's more you can do with an electro-mag rod than just hit and taser people, yo."
The shooter spat out blood and phlegm. There was broken tooth in the mix as well. "You can't stop an avalanche once it's started to slide," he gurgled. "Not until it's taken out the whole damn mountain."
Reno went cold. AVALANCHE? Again? He'd had enough of those fuckers the last time.
The guy on the ground started to laugh. He craned his face up to look at Reno, eyes, nostrils and throat lit by an unearthly light. The blood on the ground was bubbling.
Reno's eyes went wide. "Fuck!" He turned and ploughed into the Shinra goons, grabbing Rufus and dragging him of the platform. Rufus was alive, having only been shot in the shoulder. That made a lot more sense now – more than the assassins just being really crap shots. Reno didn't even care that he'd grabbed the kid by his bad arm, just carried on moving like a rugby player breaking free of a scrum. "Move it! Take cov-"
He didn't get any further. Whatever the assassin had swallowed before making his move had finished preparing his gut like Rude's best homemade bomb. The explosion wasn't big enough to take out a building, but it was enough to kill or mangle anyone standing too close.
No wonder he wanted Rufus to get closer for his picture, a part of Reno's brain thought as the blow-back picked him up and hurled both he and Rufus through the air like a pair of kites with tangled strings in a gale. Incapacitate the kid, and then blow him up. The rest of Reno's brain was more occupied with thoughts like Ow! and This is gonna hurt! with a dash of I'm still alive? when they finally came to a stop.
Several chaotic seconds passed. Reno was aware of noises and knew he should get up, but he couldn't process what those noises were, and the signals from his brain to his limbs were all diverting to the wrong places. When he tried to stand, his back arched. When he tried to push himself up on his elbows, his legs jerked convulsively.
"This is humiliating," he tried to say, but it came out sounding more like "Thith ith hooomilllll…"
The world revolved even though he was no longer spinning. His back throbbed. He thought he'd used his body to shield the kid, but everything was too fuzzy to check. His vision greyed at the edges.
Damn it, I must've hit my head or something. See, this is why I don't play the fucking hero, or antihero, or whatever, Reno thought, remembering Sandan's teasing. Had that really only been a few minutes ago? The greyness bleached to white in alarm. Sandan! She was with the other fucker. There was only one blast, right? But if they both swallowed this shit –
A groan from beneath him let Reno know Rufus was alive. Likewise the quiet words, "Grateful as I am to you for saving my life, it would seem a good idea no to suffocate me when you've gone to the trouble of keeping me alive."
The whiteness retreated and the world came a little more into focus. Reno cussed and tried his best to roll sideways. He had taken the brunt of the blast, but had managed to fetch up lying on top of the kid-billionaire in a very compromising position. He attempted to unhook Rufus's foot from around his neck, failed, and hoped Sandan couldn't see. She'd never let him forget it. The more time passed on without a second explosion, the better he felt about her chances of survival. With a little luck, however, she was taking care of everything else while he looked after their objective.
"Reno, you pillock."
Irony is having a field day.
"Y'say th' nicest thinnnnnngs," he slurred, relief tasting even weirder than guilt, as Sandan hauled him upright and off Rufus. "G'back … secure perim … prim … terrrr …"
Rufus lay there, apparently working through the pain of his own injuries before even attempting to get up. Any other kid would've been crying, wetting his pants in fear, or at least asking questions about what the hell was going on. Rufus, however, just looked up at both of them with a quizzical expression.
"You saved me."
"All part of the service, sir," Sandan said smartly. Only Reno noticed the subtle mockery to her words. Gore stained the pristine collar and cuffs of her shirt.
A thought niggled at the back of Reno's mind. He tried to grab onto it, but it slipped away like smoke. She shouldn't be here helping him. Who was making sure there weren't any more explosions, or fairy lights dancing above people's heads, or … wait, fairy-lights?
Oh fuck.
"I thought the Turks weren't bodyguards," Rufus replied, equally smartly.
"Only for people we like."
'Quizzical' turned to 'blank'. Reno tensed, concentrating with an extreme exertion of willpower that always surprised anyone who thought he was just a lazy bum with a bad attitude. Had Sandan gone too far with that smart remark? Rufus wasn't exactly known for his sense of humour, but saving the guy's butt was bound to get them some leeway, right? Crap, but you never could tell. Rufus was a Shinra, after all, and incomprehensible beyond that as well. He had 'crazy and powerful' practically written into his DNA. What was to say putting your life on the line for his would get you any kind of margin for being a smart-aleck? Maybe Rufus thought this kind of thing really was just part of their job description.
"We're whatever we need to be according to the situation, sir," Sandan amended, clearly also reading into Rufus's silence. "Turks always get the job done."
A strange light flickered behind Rufus's eyes. A spark of something – the germ of an idea, perhaps. "Is that so?" Anarchy around them, and he was making small-talk with the hired help? This kid really was strange.
Reno breathed in. There was a curious grinding deep in his chest. Fuck, he must have broken a rib or two. The fairy-lights became brighter, more insistent and colourful.
Or three or four, he thought, as he tried to get up and the pain intensified. He grunted, pitching forward until Sandan caught him.
"Reno?"
He tasted blood. It was his own. Not good. Definitely not good. Stars exploded in his vision. As they faded they uncoiled an ill-timed bout of nausea. Throwing up on Rufus Shinra; definitely, definitely not good! Funny as hell, but likely to get me canned –
"Hold tight. Looks like the med team are already on their way over to tend Mister Shinra," Sandan said when he tried to get up again. She pushed herself onto her knees to better support his weight in the awkward position, the abrupt movement putting her head and shoulders above him. "Just stay conscious so you can tell them where it -"
Another shot rang out. Reno was aware of fresh screams and automatic gunfire as the military idiots President Shinra had sent along opened fire on the crowd. Clearly they thought it okay to loose bullets on civilians now that Rufus was no longer between them and the potential threats. No wonder Shinra has such piss-poor public-approval ratings, despite giving the Planet all the power it needed with none of the pollution of fossil fuels.
Reno's mouth was fuzzy and his stomach twisted. Stars exploded anew, dying to black embers. The embers grew, and he watched, numb, as they overtook his sight until there was nothing else. He registered something wet sliding off the side of his face, but couldn't see it. Sticky but scratchy, strands caught in his mouth like his hair always seemed to when he conned Rude into springing for a pizza with the works while they were on duty ...
He had already passed out before his face hit the ground.
He came to some time later. He knew it was later, since he was no longer on the ground and the faces around him had changed – for good or ill. He was in a bed, or at least on a gurney. The ceiling was retina-stabbing white with a strip-light that attempted to make his brain liquefy when he first opened his eyes. He shut them, picking up sounds and smells before trying sights again. Antiseptic. Beeping. Shuffling footsteps. Someone coughing. The scent of lemons? Some kind of floor cleaner, maybe –
"Reno."
He cracked his eyes again. The half-moon of whiteness faded and resolved into a face. "Yo, boss-man." Damn, it felt like he'd chewed his way through a cat's litter tray. A used litter tray.
Tseng's hands were linked behind his back. He didn't bother asking whether Reno was all right. The question was too stupid. He didn't even go for the milder option of asking how Reno felt. Tseng was Tseng – instantly all business, and expecting everyone else to be as well. He knew what Reno would want to know even before Reno did.
"The second shooter got his weapon back in the confusion of the explosion."
"Yeah." Reno's throat was scratchy. "I guessed. Is Rufus –?"
"Alive. It's likely the first assassination attempt wasn't meant to be successful in the way assumed. It was to manipulate Rufus into position and force you to let your guard down. While you were dealing with the living bombs, apparently having neutralised the threat, the medical team weren't removing him from the scene. Sandan's shots disallowed the second shooter's attempts to swallow the last component, but she didn't stay with him to make sure he was completely unarmed. He was aiming for Rufus while he was vulnerable, but missed."
Reno breathed out. Then he wished he hadn't. Someone had hit him with a cure spell or something, but it still hurt like hell. So did the realisation that had started as he fell unconscious. He thought he knew what had hit him in the face – even more with Tseng's clipped words – but like a masochist he still asked, "Sandan?"
Tseng did something too long to be a blink.
Reno turned away. "Fuck."
"She should have stayed with the second shooter," Tseng said, no emotion in his voice. With Tseng, that was more indicative of how he was feeling than if he'd started crying or tearing up the place. "It was sloppy."
She'd been too concerned about Reno, made a beginner's mistake, and it had cost her. The thing sliding down Reno's cheek as he went into La-La Land had been Sandan's notorious ponytail.
His gorge rose, but half-heartedly against whatever drugs they'd pumped into him. There was an IV and a wire stabbed into the crook of his elbow. He must have been torn up pretty bad. "Fuck," he said again, unable to come up with a better eulogy.
Suddenly he turned back to Tseng. "Was it AVALANCHE? The bastard on the ground said they were from AVALANCHE. Is that bunch of eco-terrorist fucktards back?"
Tseng's nostrils flared slightly, but otherwise he gave no indication of his thoughts. "We're looking into it."
"But it could be them."
"It's possible."
Reno shut his eyes. Despite only just waking up, he wanted nothing more than to sleep. He was suddenly so tired it was like he hadn't caught any zees for a week.
AVALANCHE had already taken so much in their screwed-up quest to rid the Planet of Shinra. Like they thought they could actually succeed in that no-brainer? Reno had thought them neutralised, but it appeared he'd been wrong.
Never make the same mistake twice.
Now it appeared they'd claimed one more, and were poised to cause fresh anarchy the Turks could ill-afford with their ranks so thin. Sandan had survived AVALANCHE the first time, maintained her job against impossible odds, and clawed her way back into Shinra's good books, only to have it all snatched away again now. The quirk of fate was bitter as month-old coffee.
I fucking hate irony.
Turks didn't have regrets and didn't linger over death. That was what Veld had taught them. Getting killed was a risk of the job, which they all knew when they put on the suit. Reno remembered his early lessons well, but in that tired, achy moment, he threw them all out the window and spent a moment just cursing the cruelty of chance. Sandan hadn't deserved to die just for caring more than a Turk should in the field. Reno wasn't some romantic hero who had secretly loved and now wanted to avenge her. However, he had respected and liked her, and losing her over something so stupid was a fresh blow after all the others he'd suffered since AVALANCHE and their doomed quest first reared their dim-witted heads.
If the chance comes to pay those fuckers back for all they've done to the Turks, he thought savagely, I'll fucking take it, no matter what the cost. To me, or to anyone else. AVALANCHE needs to pay, and I'll be damned if I let anyone else get their licks in before I do.