Just A Job

Chapter Three:

Women, Reno officially decided, carry an awful amount of crap around with them. He had spread the entire contents of the little waitress's handbag across the coffee table in the Turks' Private HQ and the only item of interest was her wallet.

Reno and Tseng had been very surprised when they followed the blonde – who Reno now knew to be named Elena – out the back entrance of Steam with the intent of carrying out the red head's "plan", only to find some drunken fool had beaten them to it. Reno had found himself quite impressed with her ability to hold off such a large man, and also with how calmly she appeared to do it. But what he liked most about her was that she had carried out her threat.

She had disappeared pretty quickly after realising she was being watched, but Reno could hardly blame her. The two Turks had checked the body and, as suspected, he was dead. The bullet was a direct hit to the chest. Whether that was intentional or simply luck was anyone's guess, but it was a neat shot all the same.

Reno's attention had been drawn away from the dead man and his superior, who was crouched collecting the girl's discarded bag and pistol, when light flooded the alley. Two of Steam's managers and Reno's favourite brunette barmaid, Candy, stepped noisily out of the doorway, obviously drawn by the gunshot. The trio froze the moment they spotted the scene.

The red head knew what it must have looked like: a pair from Shinra's most dangerous unit standing over a body in a dark alley in the middle of the night… He knew what he would have assumed. He felt Tseng straighten up behind him, then take a step forward to be standing within Reno's peripheral view.

The movement had snapped the three Steam employees out of their frozen state.

"Whoa…" said the manager closest, taking a step back and holding his palms up. "We didn't see anything, okay!"

Before Reno could think of a response, the manager who had spoken ushered the other two inside and the door slammed shut, plunging the alley back into darkness. The red head turned to look at his companion.

"Boss?"

Tseng shrugged. "It looks like he's our now. We'll drop him off at the Midgar Morgue when we pass it."

Leaving a Turk caller card, a simple slip of paper with a blue 'T' printed in the left-hand corner, in his breast pocket to inform authorities not to follow through on the cause of death – Shinra controlled everything in Midgar, including the police and detective forces – the body was dropped off and the two Turks had returned to the Shinra building. That had been about an hour and a half ago.

Tseng and Rude had both left for the night, which left Reno to study the contents of the handbag alone. Apart from her wallet, there really was absolutely nothing of interest: a hairbrush, an assortment of clips and hair ties, lip gloss, tissues, pens, a loose key Reno assumed to be a house key, old receipts and other scrunched up paper balls littered the table in front of him, while Reno rummaged through the neat, black purse.

Tseng had not specifically said not to go through the girl's private belongings, so Reno had chosen to ignore the subtle hints implying that he shouldn't and let his hands dive into the leather bag the moment his superior had walked out the door. He had no qualms about admitting his lack of shame, reasoning that going through her handbag can teach you a lot about a girl; despite the fact that he had learned very little. He now knew her name, address, and that she carried around an unnecessary amount of useless junk, information which told him nothing concerning her suitability for the Turks.

Glancing over at the wall clock, Reno was surprised to discover it was even later than he had thought: nearly 2AM. Holding the bag open at one end of the low table, he swept his arm across the surface and roughly pushed all the items off the edge and into the waiting pouch and tossed it carelessly into a corner. He would badger Rude into going down into Sector 3 with him sometime the next day. It wasn't as though his comrade would be busy – he only had Ancient Duty.

Standing up with an exaggerated groan, Reno shuffled over to the office's single desk where a black briefcase waited with his orders for the next day. He had Shinra Duty, where he could be doing anything from standing behind the President during a meeting to look intimidating, to an assassination job. The red head grinned widely at the tangle of wires and explosives that greeted him when he unlocked the briefcase. This was why he got into the business!

But a quick skim over his mission brief, however, caused his grin to falter.

"Holy shit…" he murmured. This explosion was going to be a lot bigger than anything he had done before, his expression forming into shock as he read further into what he was expected to do.

Blowing out a deep breath, Reno carefully squashed everything back into the case and pushed it to the corner of the table furthest away from him. Moved back to his original position on the couch, he kicked off his boots and decided that he would think about it in the morning. Yes, in the morning…

……

"Get up, Reno," a voice from somewhere ordered. It couldn't possibly be time for that, already!

"Too early… Still asleep…" Reno mumbled in response, throwing an arm over his face when the inside of his eyelids flashed red from the outside light.

He grunted in surprise as the soft surface on which he was resting suddenly became vertical and he tumbled off, sprawled unceremoniously onto the floor. Rubbing his face, Reno sat up and gave the bald figure that held up the back of the couch a scowl.

Unsurprisingly, Rude said nothing and dropped the cheap piece of furniture back onto the carpet, only barely missing Reno's fingers. Snatching his hand to his chest, the red head glared at Rude's back as he went about his own business. Only when he was satisfied that Rude knew he was annoyed did the he use the coffee table to push himself to his feet and take a look at the clock.

"Argh, Rude!!" he groaned upon seeing that it was only just after 6AM. "Why the hell am I awake!?" Dropping back to the floor beside the couch, Reno buried his face into a cushion.

"Because you have a mission today, Reno," said another voice from the other side of the room. Raising his head, Reno realised that Tseng was already seated behind the desk, looking as sharp and refined as usual despite the disorderly towers of paper that surrounded him.

"Are you guys always here this early?" Reno asked in groggy disbelief upon seeing both of his associates awake and working. He was sure to never be here until the absolute latest moment every morning.

"No," Rude answered from across the room.

Reno waited a bit for Rude to offer a little more information. Apparently, though, he seemed content with that answer. "O-kay… So, why are you here?" he directed his question towards Tseng.

"The President has allocated each of us with a task for today," the Turk leader explained "Assuming you read your mission brief last night, you must be ready and are to report to the helicopter launch pad by 1300 hours. Rude and I will drop you on the pillar and scout the perimeter, it's believed the Ancient will be somewhere in that area too."

"Really? Why?"

"The description you gave of the man who escaped with her yesterday matched that of a mercenary hired by the rebel group, AVALANCHE. It is Shinra's intent to frame these terrorists as the cause of today's explosion. Information has been carefully leaked to the members to ensure their presence and we expect that Aeris will be among them."

"Oh…" Reno replied as his early-morning brain struggled to take all that in. "Meaning we have until 1 o'clock, right?"

"…Right," Tseng said and went back to his paperwork.

Reno's face brightened. "Well, that means we have plenty of time to pay a visit to Elena!"

"Who?" Rude asked after a moment.

"The waitress from last night."

Tseng looked up sharply. "You looked through her bag, didn't you?"

The red head grinned, only slightly sheepish. "Oh, come on! We would've looked through it eventually, anyway. 'Sides, now I know exactly where to find her."

Tseng just rolled his eyes – an action Reno knew he only ever indulged in when around people he truly trusted – before lowering them back to the desk.

"So, Rude," Reno wandered over to the tall Turk, who stood silently by the coffee machine as though contemplating whether or not to pour himself a cup. Reno grinned up at his friend and batted his ginger eyelashes. "Care to join me for a romantic stroll down to Sector 3?"

Rude stared, his expression not changing. "How about a non-romantic train trip to Sector 3?" he answered flatly, his tone indicating that he did not think the shorter Turk's joke to be funny, or unfunny, just stupid.

"Yeah, or we could do that," Reno said, hopping out of Rude's way as he brushed past to collect his sunglasses and scoop up the girl's bag from the corner. "I don't imagine you'd be coming, eh, Boss?" Reno directed at Tseng, the piles of paper not much shorter since the red head had woken up.

Tseng looked mournfully at the messy mountains and sighed. "No…"

"Aww, too bad," Reno said sympathetically. Office Duty truly sucked.

Tseng made a sound in back of his throat but didn't look up again. Taking that as his cue to leave, the red head followed Rude into the hall and pulled the door shut behind him.

……

Elena stared at the crack in the ceiling above her bed and sighed. She wasn't even sure how to feel about the whole situation. Should she feel bad for murdering that man? Or relieved that the world now had one less disgusting slob? What if he had had a family…?

"Pff… I doubt it," she said aloud and rolled off the bed. Still dressed in her new clothes, though minus the shoes, she dragged her feet into the kitchen. Perhaps coffee would make her think more constructively.

'What am I gonna do?' she thought as she spooned instant coffee into a mug. Drawn between hopelessness and anger, she couldn't berate herself enough for being so stupid as to have just dropped all her things and then fled. Her pistol… Her wallet – although the change compartment was quite empty, it had her bank card, license and various membership cards – had been in that bag, along with the key to her apartment.

Breaking into her room really hadn't been all that difficult. 'Though,' she thought sulkily, 'I guess I am an official criminal now.' After pulling the screen off of her bedroom window – her apartment conveniently being on ground level – Elena was able to use the tiny blade, that was thankfully still hidden in its home-made pocket in her bra, to pry open the rusted lock and slide the window open.

Just as she was raising the mug to her mouth, a loud knock on her front door caused her to jump and spill some of the steaming contents down her front. Gasping as the coffee soaked through her top and stung the skin underneath, she forgot about her previous anxieties and yelled out "Just a second!!" to whomever was outside. Her worries were quick to return though after she had scrambled around and found a damp cloth, which she pressed to her chest, and the burning pain subsided.

Who would want to see her…? It was still only very early, so Candy wouldn't be up. Nerves began to flutter in her stomach. Maybe it was the police? Those Turks had handed her things in and now she was going to be arrested! 'I don't want to go to jail!' she thought, frantically walking around in circles.

The sound of a key in the lock caused her to freeze. She watched the door with wide eyes and jumped back in surprise when it finally swung open. The red haired young man who stumbled in first she recognised from last night, but the tall man behind her she had never seen before. Nevertheless at the sight of their blue suits, one neat and pressed and one not-so-neat and pressed, her heart leapt into her throat.

"Morning," the red head greeted, strangely cheery.

Before she could stop herself, Elena was pouring out excuses. "I swear I didn't mean it!" she explained desperately. "He attacked me first! It was either me or him; I was just acting in self defence! He had a weapon too! I just didn't know what else to d-"

She snapped her mouth shut and leaped back when the red head took a step forward and held up his hand. Her own hand immediately went to the stiff shape in her bra strap, ready to slip the small blade out if either of them became hostile; she had heard a lot about the Turks and really was not at all sure of what to expect. They had originated as Shinra's scouts for potential SOLDIER candidates, but after General Sephiroth won the war so many entries came flooding in that they were hardly needed and their other 'lines of work' became more prominent.

'Maybe that man worked for Shinra!' she thought with sudden fear. It was not unknown for the Turks to be assigned as detectives for Shinra-related crime.

"We have something of yours," the red haired Turk said slyly, side-stepping so that she could see her leather bag hanging from the hands of the bald man still standing silently just inside the door. Unsure of their intentions, she remained still and looked two and fro from sunglass-covered eyes to cunning green.

"Reno, stop stalling," the taller Turk commanded gruffly from the door.

The red head's eyes darted to glance ever-so-quickly at his companion, before they settled back on her. Tilting his head back he flashed her a toothy grin. "We have a proposition for you," he stated.

Suddenly confused, Elena didn't move. Maybe they were here as SOLDIER scouts… Or perhaps he was just playing with her. He seemed to take her lack of response as a sign to continue, "The Turks have recently been looking for a new recruit, preferably a female. Your little display last night impressed both my superior and I enough that we've decided to offer you the chance for some professional training."

Okay, now she was really confused. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she found her voice, but even then the closest thing she could say to a word was: "Umm…"

The Turk just gave her a smirk. "You don't have to answer right now. My name is Reno, this is my partner Rude," he waved his had toward the taller Turk. "Here's a business card with all the info you'll need. Just give us a call within the next two days sometime, or we'll drop by to pay you another visit."

Elena looked up nervously from the card he had handed her at his last few words. "…Okay," she agreed quietly.

A brief nod from the bald Turk was all she received before he gently dropped her bag on the floor by the door and disappeared into the hall. The red head who had introduced himself as Reno remained for a moment longer; Elena held his gaze for a few seconds, then he walked out with what she thought sounded almost like a satisfied "Hn."

The blonde stared down at the business card as she listened to the retreating footsteps, but a sudden thought occurred and she was out the door before she even realised it. "Wait!"

Both Turks spun around. Reno, who was still closer to her door, kept walking backwards but his curious expression was evidence that he was listening.

"I mean, what about… last night?" Elena asked. The card in her hands was already becoming crumpled as she twisted it in her hands.

"Well, I guess that depends on you," the red head answered with a satiric smile. "That's the whole fun of working with the Turks: you can get away with murder."

……

Rude was waiting for him outside the apartment block when Reno stepped back out onto the street. He was rather pleased with the way that had gone. Before he had heard her voice call out, he was almost certain that there would be no one home. He couldn't imagine that she would have simply returned home, unless she had nowhere else to go. Another bonus: no personal restraints.

He had no doubt that she would eventually call them, especially after his little threat. She had openly admitted in front of the pair of them that she had been responsible for the murder, despite all the excuses, which meant she was now probably squirming with the direful thought of being sent to prison.

"So…" Reno queried after waiting in silence at the train station for what he considered to be a long enough time to finally need to say something. "What did you think?"

Rude merely shrugged. Reno supposed that his companion had not seen the girl in action the night before, and her pleading display just before hadn't really been quite as impressive as what he had seen. Oh well. If it didn't work out she could always be a secretary, or something. There was never a shortage of paperwork.

……

End of Chapter Three

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