Chapter 4
"Sir?"
Rufus let out a small sigh as he heard the confusion and disbelief in Tseng's voice that he himself had felt when he had received this letter. He reached up and lightly rubbed at his left eye, even after two years he had still not regained full sight in it, and it occasionally still greyed out when he was stressed or tired. The Geostigma had not aided matters.
At this particular moment in time, he was both tired and stressed.
It was far too soon after the 'Reunion' to be asking them to work again, but there was nothing else Rufus could think to do. If the threat was real then everything that had been gained in the few short hours after this latest incident could be undone.
"I have no idea if it is authentic." He said, leaning back in his wheelchair. "But it is a threat, and we would be remiss if we did not look into it." He said, wishing, and not for the first time, that he could get up and pace; a situation like this deserved some amount of pacing. But his doctor had already warned him against putting more strain on his spine, his stunt with the building had thankfully not done any more damage, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Sir." Tseng said, sounding unruffled and calm in a way that Rufus had always admired, and had grown to depend on in the past few years. "Wouldn't it be better to hand this over to the WRO? They would have far better resources and more manpower for the task."
Rufus looked up, meeting Tseng's eyes. He had soon realised that he could not treat these people, the only four of the entire ShinRa organisation to stand by him, as he had in the past. He owed them a debt of gratitude, because of their loyalty, which was not bought; though he paid them a fair amount for their work. After all, none of them had been paid to find him when he had been taken from the hospital a mere three months after Meteor had been stopped.
Tseng, Reno, Rude and Elena had become, in the past two years, as close to him as anyone had ever been before. Oh, there was still a clear divide, he was the boss and they were is body guards, but that didn't stop Tseng joining him for a drink and a quiet talk on matters of a literary nature, or Elena bringing him his very own packet of homemade sweets she made for everyone at least one a week if she had time, or Rude offering up the answers for the crossword no matter how often Rufus ordered him to stop, or Reno switching the sugar for salt when it was his turn to bring Rufus his morning coffee.
He was never sure if it was a good or bad thing that the formality between them had dropped so much. At times, usually when the pain of his psychical therapy was becoming too much, or when his greying vision was making it impossible for him to read or write, or just when his entire situation would hit him, he believed that he was getting too close, that they had forgotten their places, and he reacted accordingly.
It hadn't worked yet. Tseng would just ruthlessly push him on; force him not to give up. Elena always made sure to have everything exactly as he liked it, everything within easy reach so he would not become frustrated by his lack of mobility and the slowness of his recovery. Rude who would quietly take his pen and take down his dictated notes, and was becoming very good at it and it was often joked now that he should have been a secretary. Reno, Rufus had been surprised to learn, could be still and seemed to enjoy the times he could read aloud, especially if it was a novel of some kind.
He was incredibly lucky to have them, and he knew it. Which was why he hated that he had to get them involved in this.
"This is a problem created by ShinRa, by my father and his board of idiots." Rufus said, looking back down at the threat. "If we ever hope to make up for what…" he shook his head. "If I ever hope to make up for what my father and I did to this world, then I can't afford to just hand my problems out to anyone else. If I didn't have too, I wouldn't even be asking you."
Tseng gave a quiet chuckle. "You know we wouldn't let you go out and deal with something like this on your own." He said, and Rufus felt his lips twitch upwards his silent thanks for the support. "But may I suggest contacting the WRO, just in case we do need some help?"
Rufus nodded. "I'll call Reeve and let him know that there may be a possible situation, but I would like this to be dealt with as much in house as we can manage."
Tseng nodded his thanks, gathering the file and the threat letter up. His lips twisted wryly as he looked at them and then at Rufus, who knew exactly what he was thinking. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to brief them Sir? I'm sure everyone would benefit from your motivation."
Rufus let out a laugh, the mirth in it surprising him given the situation. "No Tseng, I think I feel a migraine coming one."
There was a look of amusement in Tseng's eyes, though his features were carefully blank. "Of course you do Sir." He turned away, pausing momentarily at the door to look back and say. "Don't worry Rufus, we'll deal with it."
After he left Rufus gave his left eye another rub before resting his chin on the hand, contemplating. He sighed again and reached across to the phone, dialling the number for Reeve's office at the WRO. Tseng was right, no matter how much Rufus wanted to keep this in house, there was the possibility of a wider threat, and the WRO was the only organisation currently equipped to deal with it should it come to it.
*x*
Reno had been looking forward to a little downtime. And after everything that had happened only a day ago he felt that he; and the others of course, fully deserved it. Which was why he was muttering to himself in annoyance; tugging at his once neat tie loose and slumping into his seat. He had been about to head out and get completely and utterly plastered, after which he intended to stumble home and sleep for a good long time. But just as he was about to leave his PHS had rung, and despite his gut feeling to just leave it, he had answered, cursing the fact that Tseng and Rude had drilled it into his head to never be out of contact.
More than once in the past a perfect night with a willing body had been ruined by one of them knocking on the door to check up on him because he'd dared to turn off his PHS, or just outright refused to answer. It wasn't a rare occurrence for any Turk; after all, they had been the dark side of ShinRa, the group sent out to do the dirty jobs. Retaliation against members of the Turks was high, and Turks would just turn up dead. Eventually it became a habit for all members to call each other up, and if the call went unanswered it was your sworn duty as a Turk to find out why.
Even before he had become a fully fledged Turk, Reno had been subjected to this rule, in fact, he couldn't really recall a time when there wasn't someone checking up on him. Of course, now he got to do the same thing to Elena, who had replaced him as the youngest Turk. He smirked as he remembered her face when he had walked in on her latest tryst to try and ease the epic crush she had on Tseng. She'd chosen well, the guy could have passed for him, as long as he never spoke. She'd refused to speak to him for weeks, but it had been completely worth it.
So he had answered the call, and he could tell by Tseng's voice that the downtime he really wanted was cancelled, for the foreseeable future; which, seeing Tseng's face now looked to be a long, long time.
Rude was polishing his sunglasses, his eyes uncovered for once, all silent and mysterious. Reno fought back the desire to roll his eyes at his partner's pretence, all of them knew better, Rude was about as mysterious as a piece of buttered toast, and if you got him drunk enough he definitely wasn't all that quiet either. But outside of each other they had an image to maintain.
His eyes flicked across to Elena, who had seemingly yet to manage to create an appropriate image, but in truth her bumbling, girl next door approach was a stroke of genius, no one ever believed her capable of being quite as ruthless as she could be. He, however, much preferred it when she was being herself; it was much more fun teasing her then. She flashed him a smile when she caught him looking and pushed across a plate of biscuits.
This was another reason he liked her, she always seemed to have an endless supply of homemade sweets and cakes, something he had most definitely missed out on as a child.
"We have a new assignment." Tseng said.
Reno looked up, his sigh spraying crumbs over the table, eliciting an 'eww!' from Elena and a stern look from Tseng, Rude was just ignoring him, his partner was far too used to him nowadays. "Already?" he asked, slumping further into his seat.
Tseng simply shook his head, also too used to him. It seemed that he would need to do something very unexpected soon or they would begin to take him for granted.
"The President has received a threatening letter."
That made Reno take notice. Someone was threatening Rufus? Not a smart idea. Did people just not learn?
"What kind of threat?" Rude asked, slipping his glasses back on.
Tseng slid the letter across the table; Rude read it quickly and passed it to Reno. As he read it, Reno realised it wasn't a typical threat. There was nothing about kidnapping, there was the obligatory reference to killing, but not just specifically targeted at Rufus. In fact it seemed a little too global. He passed the letter to Elena and sat up straighter, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.
"This is a big threat." He said.
"It mentions 'Clone', what does that mean?" Elena asked.
Reno smirked, and spoke up before Tseng had he chance. "Well Elena, a clone is something that is made to be an exact replica of something else; this can be a plant, or an animal, or even, very rarely a person." She really should learn not to say things that gave him such easy opening for teasing.
"I know what clone's are! I just meant why does the person writing it mention it? What sort of clone is his looking for?" she snapped, glaring at him.
He smiled back sweetly before turning his attention back to Tseng. "Human cloning. That's never been properly sanctioned right? That insane episode with the Geneses Clones is about as close as it ever came, right?"
Tseng sighed, and Reno went on immediate alert, Tseng did not sigh that particular sigh unless he was about to impart information he knew would not be well received. Three files fanned out, one for each of them. There was no explanation forthcoming, so Reno opened the file and groaned.
On the first page were three pictures, of those three psycho reunion freaks. He had hoped that this particular chapter had been closed. He had helped direct people to Aerith's church alongside Cloud, and he doubted the other man would have been as calm and collected if Kadaj and his gang had not been dealt with.
These three were dead. They had to be.
The rest of the pages were filled with odd bits of information, about Henderson Labs, the cloning process, a short piece of information on Soldier Clones and Assassin Clones, and an equally short piece on three doctors. Dr Henderson, Dr. Gray and Dr. Jameson. It wasn't a lot to go on, and explained very little.
"As you can see we don't have that much to go on. But the President believes that we should look into this. The threat that the supposed Dr. Jameson makes might be a bluff, or it might be someone using his name as a joke of some kind; but I think we all know enough about scientists who worked for ShinRa to be suitably wary. He claims to have created a weapon that can kill hundreds, all without leaving a mark or a trace." Tseng explained.
"You forgot to mention the part where he's going to lay the blame on us for it." Reno pointed out. Other than directly threatening the President or one of his fellow Turks, the single thing that could rile Reno up was someone blaming them for something they hadn't done. It might not have bothered him so much before, when ShinRa had been a massive worldwide corporation; after all, it was easy to ignore what people were saying then. But now, when they were only five against the rest of the world, he was not about to take any shit.
Tseng nodded, clearly as unhappy as Reno about this. "That is what makes this particular assignment difficult. He wants us to return his Clone to him, our problem is that we don't know which of the three are his, or even if any of them are still alive."
Elena shifted and Reno slid his eyes over to look at her, and had to snicker when he saw that she was about to actually put her hand up. She aborted the movement and glared at him, clearing her throat instead. "Why now? What brought this wacko out now?"
"Elena!" Reno snickered, trying to copy Tseng's disapproving look. "Such language!"
She let out a frustrated sigh. "Reno! Could you be serious for five minutes! I swear if you don't shut up I'm going to poison your next batch of cookies!"
Rude was smiling, and Tseng was a hairsbreadth from rolling his eyes at their antics. Reno was pleased. To anyone who didn't now them, or understand how they worked, he knew this would look strange, like he wasn't being as serious as he could be. But what no one but his fellow Turks (and Rufus of course) knew was that it was infinitely better for him to be teasing and making light of the situation.
Reno was always serious about his job, being a Turk was his entire life, and despite all the dark things he had done in the past, he was proud of them as a group. More so of Tseng, Rude and Elena than the deserters, who'd just left, no warning and no care for what they'd left behind. The others knew he was serious, but they also knew that the image he projected when on the job was a necessary one, it was how he, and they, monitored his mental state, because it wasn't unusual for him to get so engrossed in an assignment that he lost focus completely, and when that happened he dropped the façade and he got reckless. Depending on the situation they knew then whether to pull him out or just get out of his way.
He had pasted on his mask like a second skin the instant he had finished reading the threat, readying himself for the complications that he knew would follow. So, in keeping with this persona he flashed Elena a cheeky smile before turning a sly look to Tseng, waiting for his answer.
"There was mentions of what happened on the news." Tseng said, looking at each of them. "No footage, but the three were mentioned and their striking resemblance to Sephiroth. The WRO are set to make a statement about the incident, hopefully that will be enough to quell the rumours and the like from spreading too far. It's likely that this Dr. Jameson heard the mentions on the news and put two and two together."
"There isn't enough information." Rude said.
Reno smirked, easy and carefree. "Come one Rude, we've done more on less."
Tseng shook his head, drawing Reno's attention back to him. "No Reno, he's right, we don't have enough information. That's why we're splitting the assignment. You and Rude will get out there and look for the clones, even if you find their bodies it might be of some use to us. Myself and Elena will try and find as much information as we can on this Dr. Jameson, with any luck we might be able to locate him and end this without too much trouble."
Reno sat up ramrod straight. "How come you get the fun job!?" he demanded to know.
"You hate paperwork." Rude reminded him.
Reno waved him off. "Not the paperwork thing, Elena can do the paperwork." He ignored Elena's spluttered protest at that. "But why do I not get to go deal with the mad Doctor?"
Tseng smiled. "I'll make you a deal Reno, if you can find Kadaj and his gang, be they alive or dead, before Elena and I find his location, I will let you deal with the mad doctor. Agreed?"
"A race?" Reno asked, his eyes shining, it wasn't often Tseng allowed such competitiveness.
Tseng nodded and Reno slumped back into his seat again, satisfied.
"Do you really think they're still alive?" Elena asked, a slight tremble to her voice, reminding Reno with a painful ache in his chest, that she had been hurt by those bastards, as had Tseng, but Elena was the baby of the group now, and anything done to her sent a rush of protectiveness through Reno, cleverly hidden because it wouldn't do for her to know that he would happily disembowel someone who hurt her, it might make her think she could get herself in trouble more often.
"If they are, then it'll be time for some payback." He said. "I owe that long haired one a good beating." He pushed himself to his feet. "That everything?" he asked of Tseng.
Tseng nodded. "For now, but keep in contact." He warned.
Reno waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. Man it's like having a mother."
"I take full credit for your knowing what a mother is like." Tseng replied, shaking his head and standing himself. "Go, and keep it to yourself. The President doesn't want anyone outside of us to know about this."
Reno sketched a salute, grinning. "Get your ass in gear Rude, we gotta a race to win!" and without waiting for Tseng's dismissal, he left the room, and the lodge, knowing Rude would be close behind.
"Reno?" Rude asked when he finally joined him outside, making Reno look round at him, smirk firmly in place though his mind was already working hard on the case, and what he'd come up with so far was somewhat worrying.
"Nothing Rude." He lied.
Rude didn't call him on the lie, he knew better. Reno thought better when he didn't have to cover up the lies he told, Rude had learned to just let him get on with it. It wasn't a concrete idea yet, which was why he didn't want to mention it. He'd think on it some more before he brought it up with Tseng.
He took the steps down from Healin Lodge two at a time and made his way to the car, waiting impatiently for Rude to open it. His keys were confiscated by Rude every time he got a new set, a fact that was very unfair he felt, but Tseng had refused to take his side on the matter, citing that it was better if he just stuck to piloting rather than driving. He could have hotwired the car if he wanted to, but like Rude had learned when it was best to leave him alone, he had quickly learned that the car was a topic that was better not broached with Rude.
Besides, the ride into Edge would give him the time he needed to think before all his energy was channelled into finding Kadaj and his gang of freaks.
