It was late evening when Reeve decided to stop reading and closed the file in front of him. It was the end of another long day in the middle of a very long week and he was exhausted. He pushed the file aside as he reached into his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Saki. He was not the type to drink, especially at work, but a week like this called for something strong. He proceeded to pull out a glass, filled it halfway, and drank it in one gulp. He then stood up from his desk, walked over to the balcony door and stepped out. His office overlooked the ocean and the cool breeze was welcoming on such as warm day. As he stood outside watching the crimson sky grow dark over the sea, he couldn't help but think about everything that had happened over the last few months.
It had been eight months since they destroyed the Mt. Nibel reactor and Tifa went missing. During the first three weeks they all helped search but it was like her and her abductors disappeared into thin air. They checked every city and town, even the abandoned town of Modehiem. Leaving no stone unturned, they searched every building and location that ever had a link to Shinra or Deepground with no success. They even checked uninhabited areas like the Midgar ruins and the Northern Crater.
Overtime many of their friends had to abandon searching to get back to their responsibilities. Barret had Marlene and Corel, Reeve had his organization to run. Reeve felt bad that he was one of the first to give up searching but he told Cloud to call him if he ever needed anything.
After Reeve and Barret left, Cid and Vincent stayed with Cloud for another two weeks. Yuffie joined them as soon as Shelke was discharged from the hospital. Shelke went to stay with her sister in Healen to recover while Barret took Marlene and Denzel to Corel with him after he abandoned the search.
On the fourth week they started to run out of places to look. Cid stopped by Junon to gather supplies when Reeve decided to board the airship to check in on his friends. He would never forget how tired and drained they looked, especially Cloud. It was obvious he was taking this the hardest, and rightfully so. Reeve could tell everyone was losing hope, they also had their lives to get back to, but nobody wanted to say anything to Cloud. As if sensing their thoughts, he thanked them all for their help and decided to take Fenrir to go look on his own. Everyone offered to continue searching with him, but he didn't want to burden them anymore. Reeve hadn't seen Cloud since that day over six months ago.
Reeve would have liked to do more to help his friend, but he had been so overwhelmed with his own problems over the last few months. After the attacks on Edge, Junon, and Corel the WRO was under pressure to find the people responsible and had been receiving a lot of bad publicity for failing to catch them. They did manage to capture the three SOLDIERs who attacked his friends outside the Mt. Nibel reactor but after weeks of questioning the suspects, they continued to insist that they knew nothing of the attacks on the three cities. Although there was no evidence they were involved, they were still charged for the crimes. It was believed that holding them responsible would settle the masses who had been growing discontent. Unfortunately, the press got news of the defendants' story and the lack of evidence against them which angered many people who felt they were innocent and made the WRO look incompetent. To try to make things right, Reeve tried to ensure they received a fair trial. The trial had commenced last week in Junon and had been flooding the news daily.
To Reeve it felt like the criminals had more citizens supporting them than the WRO right now. Although there were always people who had opposed his organization, it seemed that recently the public opinion has been shifting against them. What was once viewed as an army that protected the people was now considered an army that can't protect the people from terrorists and can't even locate the real criminals responsible. The attacks produced many casualties and many of the administrative staff resigned as they no longer felt safe in their work environment. Now, with the recent protests in Junon, more WRO personnel were walking out daily. This left the WRO seriously understaffed and he was in the process of a massive hiring with very few people showing interest.
He even had to shut down his smallest office in Corel in order to fill staff in other locations. Since the Corel oil refinery project was finished, they no longer needed WRO personnel in that area anyway. With the way things were going Reeve, didn't think the World Regenesis Organization could take any more bad publicity.
To make matters worse, Barret had been dragging Reeve into his problems with Corel. Since the oil refinery had been producing product, Corel had been increasing its transportation of petroleum to cities far away like Edge and Kalm. However, to do this they had to transport the product by sea. The original plan was to use the Junon harbor like every other import, but once the environmental activists heard that there was going to be an increase in petroleum products passing through their city, they put a stop to it.
Since Junon is a sustainable energy city that uses solar, wind, and ocean power many of the citizens oppose all nonrenewable energy sources; especially anything that takes from the planet like coal and oil. Not only had the activists manage to petition the Junon government to boycott Corel from using their harbor, they have been actively trying to convince Kalm to boycott the petroleum as well. With the Junon harbor out of the question, the new plan was to build a harbor near Kalm, but the activist had been successful in trying to convince the people of Kalm to reconsider.
For the past week Barret had been pressuring Reeve to stop the Junon activists, but as long as they were not breaking any laws there was nothing he could do. Junon was a democracy and if the people of Junon decided they did not want to use oil products then there was nothing more he could do. Reeve could understand where the activists were coming from and he was surprised that Barret could not sympathize with them since he was once in their shoes when he fought against mako production.
It didn't help the image of his company that he promoted and even invested in the oil refinery project making the Junon citizens look less favorably on the WRO. If things got any worse, Reeve was considering moving the main headquarters to their Edge location since the WRO was starting to feel like it was no longer welcomed in coastal city.
Suddenly, Reeve's wondering thoughts were snapped back to reality with a knock at the door. He turned to see Yuffie peek her head into his office and entered as soon as she saw that Reeve was alone. Reeve exited the balcony and walked back over to his desk.
The young ninja was wearing a white blouse and navy-blue skirt with knee high boots. She had been working in an administrative position for almost a year now and it still surprised Reeve how professional she could look and act when she tried.
"Another late night?" Yuffie asked, sitting down on the chair in front of his desk.
"I don't plan on staying much longer," Reeve informed her as he sat back down.
"I was just about to leave and wanted to see if you needed anything."
"Thanks, Yuffie, but I'm fine," Reeve replied. "I can't thank you enough for coming to Junon. I know you still have work to finish back in Edge, I really appreciate all your help."
"Think nothing of it, Reeve," Yuffie responded, shrugging off his compliment. "I know things are getting a little crazy around here. Sorry to report that the latest bunch of applicants are not very promising."
Yuffie hated working in the Junon headquarters. The Edge office was more modern and new feeling. Since the Junon office was just an old renovated Shinra base, it felt institutionalized and was a constant reminder of Shinra. To this day the building continued to harbor minor reminders of the Emerald Weapon attack.
Since she arrived in Junon, Yuffie had been tasked with the assignment of interviewing anyone who applied for a position with the WRO. They only had ten applicants apply within the last month since the positions were posted with most of them being young men from smaller communities looking for work as peacekeepers. Unfortunately, the last three they hired turned down the job the very next day when they learned of the protests. Reeve couldn't help but wonder if the protesters pressured them to turn down the position.
"Well, if you're recommending anyone you can send me the file in the morning," Reeve advised his young friend. He was not in the mood to do any more work tonight.
The WRO only had half of the staff it had last year thanks to the attacks eight months ago and the massive walkout. The Junon location suffered the most and had to temporarily relocate staff from Edge to Junon so it could at least function with a skeleton crew.
"One of the applicants today use to work for Shinra on the 27th floor," Yuffie informed Reeve trying to give him some positive news. "I think she was an assistant or something, it's on her resume."
"That's promising," Reeve commented. They seemed to have the most success hiring ex-Shinra employees since they had the experience and required very little training.
"It's funny how most of the people who stuck with us are ex-Shinra," Yuffie commented in passing. "I guess they are used to the bad publicity." As soon as the words came out of Yuffie's mouth, she regretted it. She was just trying to lighten the mood, but she felt bad comparing the WRO to a company like Shinra.
"I'm sorry Reeve, I didn't mean it like that," Yuffie tried to apologize.
"That's okay," Reeve reassured his friend. What she said had some truth to it. Reeve was learning the hard way that even when you try to do the right thing and help people, you can't please everyone.
"Well, it's getting late, I should head back to the Inn," Yuffie informed Reeve. "Don't work too hard, okay?" She gave him a concerned look before getting up from the chair.
"I won't be staying much longer," he assured her. "Have a good night Yuffie."
The Junon detention center was a cold and sterile institution. Build only three years ago it was nowhere near as bad as some of the prisons Alex had come across in his lifetime. The worse being the Corel Prison, if you wanted to call it a prison, it was more like a concentration camp.
The young man with the short dark hair got up from his bed and walked over to the thick metal cell door. He peeked through the small opening between the door and the wall.
"Hey James, you up?" the young man yelled through the crack, waiting for a response.
"Yeah," he heard the voice of his friend say from two cells down.
"Remember the time you got yourself stuck in that Corel dump then Henry and I had to come rescue you?" Alex reminisced.
It was almost ten years ago when his friend wasted all his money betting on the chocobos so he accused the owner Dio of rigging the races and even tried to start a fight with the Gold Saucer owner. James had a bad temper and it took five security robots to take him down. It earned him a one-way ticket to the Corel Prison. Luckily Alex and their friend Henry found out and 'borrowed' a Shinra helicopter to rescue him. He didn't even know if Dio found out about the escape, but their boss did, and they were suspended for a week.
"Yeah," James replied, remembering the event all too well.
"I bet you never thought you'd wish to be back in that dump," Alex commented smiling.
Although the Junon Detention center was cleaner and a lot safer than the Corel Prison, it was boring as hell being confined to a little cell twenty-four hours of the day, except for one-hour yard time and shower. At least with the Corel Prison you could walk around and keep up on your fighting skills.
Alex could hear James laugh at his comment. "Yeah, where's a helicopter when you need one?" he joked.
"Shut the hell up!" another prisoner yell at the two men from down the range.
"You shut the hell up!" a woman's voice yelled from the cell across from Alex.
Being only a detention center for prisoners awaiting trial, it was common for women and men to be held in the same area since they were all in single cells. The cell range they were on held twenty-five cells with less than half of them occupied.
"Thanks Kat," Alex yelled at the woman.
"No problem hun," Katerina replied.
"Bitch," they could hear the other prisoner mumble under his breath.
Before Katerina could respond, they were all startled by the sounds of yelling and gunfire coming from another room down the range. Hearing the commotion, all the prisoners got up and tried to peek out through the little glass window in their cell doors. After almost a minute of gunfire and yelling there was silence. A few seconds later they could hear footsteps approaching along with the sound of keys rattling.
Being in one of the closest cells, Alex was the first to see who it was.
"About time," Alex said recognizing Weiss from the Mt. Nibel reactor. Weiss was with five other men Alex did not recognize and they were all holding guns.
"Who is it?" James asked from his cell, unable to see down that far.
"That spikey haired guy from Mt. Nibel," Alex called back to his friend as Weiss tried to find the key to his cell. The incident at the Mt. Nibel reactor happened so fast they never got to find out Weiss' name.
Weiss frowned. He didn't like being referred to as 'that spikey haired guy.'
"Ask him why it took over six months for him to show up!" James yelled out.
"You can ask him yourself in a second," Alex yelled back, stepping out of his cell a free man. It was obvious Weiss could hear James, but his friend was a little slow sometimes. "Cells three and six," Alex said, informing Weiss which cells contained his colleges.
Weiss handed the keys to the man next to him directing him to open the doors. The man opened them freeing Katerina and James.
"Hey what about us?" the prisoner in cell number four asked.
They all looked at Weiss who shrugged. "Sure," Weiss said to the man with the keys. He was always a fan of chaos and what better than releasing criminals back into society.
"Not that one," Katerina stopped the man just when he was about to unlock cell number five.
"Ahhh hey lady, I'm sorry I called you a bitch," the man whined, realizing he was not going to be freed.
As soon as the prisoners were freed, they all took off towards the door Weiss and his men entered from.
"Are we going to follow them?" Alex asked Weiss. It was the only exit since there was a sold cement wall at the other end of the range.
Weiss held out his hand and one of his men handed him a big strange looking gun with a wide barrel. Weiss pointed it at the concrete wall at the end of the range and switched it on. It charged up then a red beam of light burst out of the gun and hit the wall. Everyone around them could feel the heat from the laser like beam. The concrete the beam hit appeared to heat up and melt leaving a perfectly shaped circle.
"I love this thing," Weiss said, handing the gun back to his henchman.
The group then proceeded to retreat through the newly created egress leaving the one prisoner alone in his cell.
"Bitch…" the prisoner said out loud after everyone was gone.
Less than half an hour after Yuffie left, Reeve decided to call it a night. He got up from his desk and walked over to his coatrack to fetch his suit jacket. He locked his office door and walked down the empty hallway towards the elevator. He was likely the last one left in the building apart from the night security guard.
Reeve pressed the button to the elevator and waiting for it to travel from the ground floor. When it finally reached him, he entered. As the elevator descended, he looked up at the security camera and noticed that the red light on the camera was not blinking. This meant that the light was either broken or the camera was off. He made a mental note to talk to the night watchman about it on his way out.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, it opened, and Reeve came face to face with four men dressed as peacekeepers pointing their guns at him.
"What is the meaning—"
Reeve sentence was suddenly cut short when one of the men shot a tranquilizer dart into his shoulder, rendering him unconscious.