Reeve turned to Sephiroth, worry creasing his brow. "Fair knows that Cait Sith is a highly advanced surveillance prototype, right?" Reeve had briefed the exuberant First on it himself but with the behavior on the train he wasn't entirely sure Fair had been listening.
"He didn't break it or take it apart," Sephiroth said, "so I assume he does."
Vice President Shinra was frowning at the monitor. "Is this how Fair behaves on his missions?"
"No," Sephiroth said, lines of exasperation forming at the corners of his eyes.
Reeve was grateful Fair had decided to go into Soldier instead of his department. He turned back to the controls, only half listening to the voices coming through Cait Sith as the two Soldiers and the suspect debated on where to go first.
His attention refocused on the information in front of him. "Cait Sith is transmitting the first batch of preliminary data." The others quieted for his summary. "Strife's temperature is running a little high, much like a First Class Soldier. His heart rate is slightly elevated but if Kunsel's presence is making him nervous, that easily explains it. Blood pressure is normal. I'm not detecting any abnormal electronic or bioelectronic signals."
"Other than the elevated temperature," Shinra said, "he's the average teenager."
"Apparently. We might have a better idea of that once we have data over a longer time range to pull an average."
Letting the database grow, he turned his attention to the large monitor. All three men must have been walking on a line because Cait Sith couldn't see them. At least they appeared to have decided on a first destination and were happily discussing the menu. Strife seemed to be a staunch supporter of the sole barbeque dish while Kunsel and Fair were trying to talk him into getting the special. They claimed it was better if you didn't know what you were getting and didn't know what it was when you ate it.
Reeve agreed with Strife.
"I'm gettin' hungry," Reno said unhappily.
"You can eat once this observation mission is over," Tseng said. "Pay attention."
"I am payin' attention. That's why I'm hungry."
Inside the restaurant, the three took seats at the counter, Strife the furthest in, Fair in the middle, then Kunsel. The video feet tilted startlingly as Strife laid Cait Sith down. They had a perfect view down the length of the counter. Fair's animated gestures repeatedly swung into view as he went on about some gym in Wall Market.
"The tournaments they hold are the absolute best outside of Shinra," Fair asserted. "They have them practically every night. After we use our Pharmacy Coupons we should go and check it out."
Kunsel leaned on the counter, putting himself in full view of Cait Sith. "Will we still have time for the arcade? They just installed that new game and I want to try it out."
Fair said, "You just want to see what the deal with the machine gun on the ceiling is for."
"Yeah, well not all of us are solely interested in squats and physical exhibitions."
"Well, what about that materia seller's shop? That place is pretty cool to browse around, even if the owner is a bit weird."
"What do you think Cloud?" Kunsel asked, face pointed somewhere slightly to the side of Cait Sith.
Fair swiveled in his seat, one arm disappearing while the other braced him against the counter. "What's with the weird look Spiky?"
"Uh," came the quiet sound from the possible terrorist. "Zack…are you, uh…kind of…into…cross-dressing?"
Whatever may have been said down in Wall Market was drowned out by Reno surging to his feet with a loud "What?" and knocking over his chair.
"Sit down," Tseng ordered with some amount of disgust.
On the monitor, Kunsel's mouth was hanging over as his face jumped back and forth between looking at Fair and looking at Strife.
"Seriously, Spike," Fair said, "what the hell gave you that idea?"
"Uh, most of the guys at that gym are into cross-dressing, including the owner, and…the man who owns the materia shop hands out tiaras to people who run errands for him. I know you like to do favors for people so I thought that you might have…uh…gotten yourself a tiara or something." Strife left it completely unsaid what hanging out at the gym with cross-dressers implied.
There was a very pregnant pause down in Wall Market and in the briefing room where Reeve and everyone else were watching. Then Kunsel burst out laughing. Reno did too. Then Cissnei started chuckling and even Tseng and Sephiroth each put a telling hand over their mouths. Reeve could tell from the Kunsel's motions that he started smacking Fair on the back, hard.
"That's fantastic!" Kunsel said through his laughter. "I haven't seen Zack go that pale in years."
Reeve wished he could see Fair's face but it was still out of Cait Sith's video range.
Fair's voice sounded half strangled when he said, "I don't cross-dress, Spike."
Kunsel leaned on the counter, obviously facing Strife even though the possible terrorist wasn't visible either. "Cloud, Zack here probably had no idea what the gym regulars or that shop owner were doing. This guy," Kunsel punctuated with another sharp smack to Fair's back, "only takes off his Soldier uniform when he's on vacation."
Again, Fair said, "I don't cross-dress, Spike." He sort of sounded like he didn't remember that he'd already said it once.
"Uh, yeah," Strife said, "okay. I believe you, Zack."
Kunsel started laughing again.
Then a plate was set in front of the Second. The view on the monitor spun. Strife picked up Cait Sith and moved it. In the new position, its eyes were mere inches from some bottle of red condiment. Nothing else showed on the monitor.
"Well that's informative," Reno said, scoffing.
Fair seemed to recover with the arrival of food and began telling some elaborate, most likely untrue story, about having to eat nothing but Gigahandi monsters for two months.
As they continued on, Kunsel arguing with Fair about the story's legitimacy, Shinra asked Sephiroth, "Does Strife's voice sound familiar?"
Sephiroth seemed to be trying to stare a hole in the video monitor. "I can't tell. Strife is speaking in a reserved, quiet manner. It's nothing like CS Delivery's mode of speech. But unless Strife speaks with more assertiveness or CS Delivery speaks quietly in the future, I can't make a comparison."
As silence stretched in the briefing room, Reeve tuned out most of the chatter Fair offered. It seemed that if he wasn't telling strange stories of his childhood, he was rambling about spam emails or the unclassified parts of his missions, mostly involving fights with giant birds trying to peck him to death and bouncy balls with attacks that only pretended to be elemental lightning.
Reeve took to watching the room's occupants rather than the screen. Vice President stared at the monitor with a glazed fixedness that hinted his mind was elsewhere. Tseng seemed to be having trouble paying attention as his gaze would wander from the screen until Strife offered one of his rare comments on Fair's litany or Kunsel's questions. Reno and Cissnei kept shooting each other significant glances after pointedly staring at various people in the room. If there were some hidden meaning in the subtle quirks of their expressions, he couldn't quite follow it but Tseng seemed to be ignoring their nonverbal conversation. Who knew what Rude was thinking or where he was looking with those sunglasses covering his eyes. For all Reeve knew, the Turk was asleep.
Sephiroth seemed to be the only one actually devoting his complete attention to surveillance. His eyes searched the image on the monitor as though somehow, the red grain of glass and condiment bore some secret for him to pick at.
Reeve sighed and started running the video feed through a series of filters on one of the smaller monitors in front of him to see if he could catch a reflection. He managed nothing but vague shadows even by the time the three of them finished eating.
Strife swung Cait Sith around in time for everyone in the briefing room to see Fair snatch the Pharmacy Coupons from the waiter behind the counter and hand them to his friends himself.
The image spun again and suddenly they had a view of the ceiling. Lights moved slowly across the screen at the speed of walking. Then they saw the top of a doorframe. All that remained were shifting ambient lights and the blurred grayness of the plate far above.
"Is the robot on Zack's buddy's shoulder?" Reno asked. The Turk kept lifting his chin to look at the ceiling then back at the screen, as though comparing the images.
"Most likely," Tseng said.
Through the speakers, they heard Fair say, "I never know what to get with these coupons."
"You come down here often enough," Kunsel said. "What do you use the rest for?"
"Well," Fair said, "there's this guy who's always in the bathroom at the bar so most of the time I get digestives for him. He gives me all this cologne that I don't really need so I give that to the perfume lady in Sector 6 and she gives me perfume that I give to a friend."
Vice President Shinra turned to Sephiroth and asked, "Does he always do things like that with his spare time?"
The general nodded, as no one really paid attention to what Fair did when he couldn't find the man in the bar. Sephiroth said, "Strife wasn't off base when he wondered if Zack was running errands for tiaras. Based on some of the stories he's told me I suspect the trade and barter system in the slums continues on as well as it does due to Zack's perpetual use of it."
The view on the monitor shifted and spun. The clerk in the item shop swung into view, right side up. Fair thrust his Pharmacy Coupon toward the clerk and demanded a Digestive. Kunsel selected a Disinfectant while Fair tried to force Strife to take his item.
"Think of it as another present Spike," Fair said.
"What am I going to do with a Digestive Zack?" Strife's arm came into view on the monitor, pushing the small item back at Fair.
"Use it the next time you get motion sickness."
"It's a Digestive, Zack. It's for helping settle your— It's for helping digestion after you eat. It doesn't have anything to do with motion sickness."
Kunsel was grinning in the background.
"But if you ate something and feel like you're going to puke, the Digestive will help you digest."
The view on the monitor shifted as Strife set Cait Sith on the counter. The screen now sported a sideways view of an open pamphlet for laxatives, complete with…stoppage informational diagrams and suppository insertion visuals.
Reno snorted and snickered. Shinra looked quite disgusted as he couldn't keep his eyes staring at the screen. Sephiroth actually appeared to be reading and examining, as though he somehow expected it to be useful for the situation.
"Disgusting," Cissnei hissed.
No one else showed any sort of reaction. Reeve still thought Rude might be asleep.
"Fine," Strife's voice came floating over the audio feed. His murmur to the clerk was too low. "Here."
"What's this for?" Fair asked, bewildered.
"The next time you end up covered in monster guts."
Kunsel's laughter rang clear through the monitoring. "That's awesome. You're great Cloud. You need to come out with us all the time."
"I don't need this Deodorant!" Fair yelled.
The images on the monitor lurched and nothing settled as the picture continued to swing rhythmically. Cait Sith was perhaps held in a free-swinging arm while the carrier walked. Reeve could tell when the robot went from the well-lit interior of the shop to outside but beyond that, details were difficult to discern. He would replay the images in slow motion later and see what he could discern.
"Cloud!" Fair's call was small, obviously much further away from Strife and Cait Sith. "Wait up, Clooo-oud!" Somehow, he'd managed to turn Strife's given name into a word with two syllables.
The image on the monitor swung wildly before coming to a halt, Cait Sith oriented sideways to put the ground along one side of the screen. A few food stands and a garish display of the Honey Bee Inn advertisements glowed under the bright yellow market lights.
"I'm sorry Spike," Fair's voice sounded clear over the audio feed, lightly laced with something akin to panic. "I didn't mean to make you so mad. I was just having a little fun."
Strife sounded petulant in his reply. "But you got offended when I tried to get you back."
"And that was horrible of me." The camera gave a little shake as though Fair had given Strife a little shake. "I promise not to do it again on purpose."
Whatever Strife's reaction was, it seemed to be a positive one because Kunsel's voice sounded next.
"Now that this touching moment of reconciliation has passed, can we go to the arcade?"
The image shifted again. It remained sideways but their view changed to give them a partial glimpse down an alley. They could see one arm holding a spray can and an odd, blocky artistic representation of General Sephiroth being drawn on the back wall of a vendor stand.
"Who's putting that on the wall?" Sephiroth demanded, talking over the top of Fair and the others.
"Unless Strife moves further, we can't see around the edge of that stand there," Reeve said.
"That gross misrepresentation needs to be removed immediately," the general demanded.
"It's Wall Market," Reno said, smirk playing across his features. "It'll probably have somethin' sprayed over it tomorrow."
Strife turned, the graffiti artist's arm and the work disappearing. With how Strife was walking, Cait Sith dangling in his hand, Fair's legs swung across the screen with every stride. It was actually rather disorienting and he wasn't the only one to have that opinion.
Vice President Shinra asked, "Is there any way to at least compensate for the robot's orientation and flip the image upright."
Reeve turned to the computer and input a series of codes. The monitor image corrected, showing only a slight swing in tandem with Strife's swinging arm. "I can manually correct it for now," he said, "but I'll need to build another prototype with an auto correction feature to make the transitions smoother."
"I prefer the uncorrected image," Sephiroth said, drawing everyone's attention. "It gives me a better sense of Strife's movements. If you're constantly changing the camera angle, I can't get a proper notion of how he holds his body." The general was frowning in concentration at the screen, then he actually turned his head sideways to restore the actual tilt for himself. "It's harder to visualize what he's doing."
Reeve looked at Shinra. The vice president seemed somewhat put out but he nodded anyway. Reeve removed the compensation programming from the data and the monitor image swung back around.
By this time, the trio had made it to the arcade. Strife placed Cait Sith on a rather high shelf, "to keep it out of the way and safe from being stepped on" as the ex-trooper said. All they could see on the monitor was Fair's black hair darting back and forth and waving as he jumped around while the three of them played whatever games they played.
But nothing useful happened. Absolutely nothing. Strife never spoke in the manner Sephiroth claimed he needed for confirmation. Strife never said anything incriminating. And they never got a decent video shot of any of the three people enjoying themselves down in Wall Market.
After the perfect view of Fair's hair in the arcade, the three wandered the souvenir stalls. All they had was an upside down video feed that occasionally gave them a view of Fair or Kunsel's knees. From Cait Sith's internal sensors, one of the robots legs must have been fastened to a belt because the other leg was dangling free.
The trio did end up going to the gym, with half a dozen more assurances from Fair that he didn't cross dress. Strife again put Cait Sith in an odd corner "to keep him safe and out of the way". Only this odd corner seemed to be slid partially under a stool with the camera angled toward the ceiling. Considering the robot was under a stool, everyone in the briefing room had an unobstructed view every time some muscle-bound gym rat decided to sit for a break. Everyone seemed disgusted in their varying shades of graying pallor. Everyone except Sephiroth, who seemed to still think he would get something meaningful or useful from the video feed.
After the gym, the trio visited half a dozen shops and it seemed that Strife accidentally found the most ridiculous things to point the camera at wherever they went. The worst part was that Sephiroth kept asking questions about it.
"Why is that balloon decorated like a Dorky Face?"
"Children find it endearing," Tseng said.
"Why would anyone wear a hat covered in artificial fruit?"
"Poor aesthetic notions," Vice President Shinra said.
"Why would a potion made of liquefied Hippogriff increase one's romantic partner's desire for intimacy?"
An awkward silence stretched before Reno said, "Some of the Hippogriff's around Mideel can cast Confuse. Some people think if you liquefy the birdies that can cast it you can use it as an aphrodisiac to get your partner a little more willin' to play."
Sephiroth's frown deepened. "Wouldn't Manipulate materia be a more effective means of eliciting that?"
The rest of them shared an uncomfortable series of glances as they wondered if Sephiroth realized exactly what he was suggesting.
"Why has no one arrested that boy for pick pocketing?"
"What boy?" Reeve asked.
"That nondescript child there." Sephiroth pointed. "The robot has caught him stealing seven wallets."
Tseng said, "I'll have someone look into it."
As the questions kept coming and the strange camera angles were starting to make Vice President Shinra look a little queasy, everyone but Sephiroth was pleased when Fair and the others decided to call it a night.
When the trio made their way back to the south entrance of Wall Market, Sephiroth asked, "Why does that woman have a live Mu living in her purse?"
And indeed, a willowy woman with vapid eyes and a brawny escort passed Fair and the others on their way out of Wall Market. A small round head belonging to an adolescent Mu peered around curiously from over the lip of the woman's purse.
No one had an answer for the general.
A small, exasperated sigh escaped the man and Sephiroth briefly touched his forehead as though it pained him. Sephiroth refocused his attention on the screen and remained silent.
Reeve couldn't help the slight pang at the quiet lack of comment. He knew the general asked because he didn't understand "quaint ritualistic behaviors" and was curious about them. Sephiroth's lengthy discussions on etiquette and customs with Angeal and Genesis were well known throughout the company. Sometimes the three Soldiers would sit for hours with a newly arrived crate of dumbapples and simply converse.
The forced concentration on Sephiroth's face reminded Reeve that Shinra Company's prized Soldier had recently lost his two best friends. Did Shinra Company even offer counseling for that? The only person Sephiroth seemed to associate with now was Fair. That association might only be because Fair happened to be another First and Angeal's protégé. Even then, the association with Fair couldn't really be called a friendship. They never socialized outside of work.
Sephiroth had essentially nothing in the way of friendship or family. And now, no one could even answer his question about crazy women carrying adolescent monsters in their purses.
Reeve wasn't sure if he could do anything about that but set the notion aside for further thought.
Turning his attention back to the monitor, he found Fair to be describing some sort of building to Kunsel.
"It's kind of weird," Fair said, "like someone just randomly pried up the floorboards and up popped a whole bunch of flowers."
Flowers?
Sephiroth had resumed his intent study of the screen and Tseng looked to be paying strict attention, his eyes slightly narrowed.
"So what," Kunsel started, "the flowers just grow on their own? Under the plate?"
"Gaia, no," Fair said, one of his arms swinging through Cait Sith's field of vision. "There's this amazingly awesome gi—"
The high-pitched shriek of feedback through the audio feed had everyone in the conference room cringing and in Reno's case, cursing. The video images from Cait Sith rocked violently and Reeve immediately started the commands to set the robot's motor functions on standby. If something was attacking the trio he would at least try to save his technology from the possible crossfire.
But then the screen stilled and Fair came into view on the monitor with a look of amusement and concern.
"That was a mighty sneeze you gave there Spiky. You're not getting sick are you?"
"No," came the quiet reply from off camera. "I guess it's just really dusty."
Reeve noticed a faint signal Cait Sith was detecting. It was odd, though, he couldn't pinpoint the source or the exact type of signal. It didn't have the right kind of pulse to be a beacon and the frequencies were skewed for a PHS. It was probably also too faint to be another robot. Perhaps some kind of surveillance. He set to running it through a series of identification algorithms but kept an ear open to the conversation in case anyone dropped clues.
"If you say so." Fair's smile widened. "You know certain people would be really upset if you got sick and didn't tell anyone. In particular—"
Another violent sneeze sent feedback screeching through the speakers.
"I think the dust got in my nose," Strife said.
A mechanical chirp brought faint surprise to Fair's face.
"Oh, sorry," Strife said, "just a sec'. I got an email." The side of a PHS flashed along the edge of the video feed.
Reeve immediately brought up another video window, visible to everyone on the large monitor, and pulled up the section of the image with the PHS in it. He slowed it down to see if he'd managed to catch a partial number or a screen on the communication device.
His heart sank a little when he realized the angle was wrong and too far to the periphery of Cait Sith's range.
"Pity," Shinra said. And the group left it at that.
Strife said, "I'm sorry Zack but I've got to go. I didn't realize how late it was."
Then Tseng's PHS rang. The Turk quietly excused himself and stepped out of the room.
Fair's face was the perfect picture of sadness. "I guess that means I have to share you with your other friends then?"
However Strife reacted to the question made Fair grin again. He reached forward and smacked Strife on the shoulder, if the way the video image shook was any indication.
"Don't be a stranger," Fair said.
"Of course not, Zack." There was a pause before Strife said, "It was fun meeting you, Kunsel."
"You too, Cloud," the Second said from somewhere off screen. "See you around."
"Yeah. Later," Strife said. Then the suspect turned another direction, both Soldiers slipping off the screen and set off at a jog through the slums, the video feed bouncing with his even pace.
Tseng stepped back into the room, appearing to be dialing another number on his PHS. He waited less than two seconds before the other end picked up. "Zack," he said.
That had everyone's attention.
"Go stop Strife. Ask him what he was doing in the Shinra Headquarters Exhibit Room between talking to you on the PHS and meeting you at Wall Market. We have him on surveillance speaking with a known explorer and business entrepreneur that recently deals in starting up entertainment businesses in the slums. Call me when you find him."
Sephiroth and the other Turks had all taken to their feet during the short conversation.
"Cissnei," Tseng said, "take another Turk, female if any are recovered enough from Junon, or someone much more muscular if they're male, and head down to Wall Market. Track down a man named Dio and get him here."
Without further explanation, the redhead sprinted from the room.
"What's the meaning of this?" Sephiroth demanded.
"Indeed," Vice President Shinra said.
"We've been shorthanded since Junon with so many people recovering in the infirmary. Review of headquarters video surveillance is on time delay right now. We just came across a stretch of the feed showing Strife approximately fifteen minutes after the PHS call with Fair with a man named Dio in the building near the Hardy-Daytona Exhibit downstairs. The recording has been sent to intelligence to see if the lip readers can get anything but Strife never faced the cameras when he spoke and from what I've been told, Dio's facial hair is making the process of understanding difficult."
Tseng's PHS rang again. "Do you have him?" The Turk frowned. "What do you mean you can't find him?" Tseng immediately put the PHS on speaker.
Fair's voice came over the line. "I ran after him. I know I went the direction he did. But I can't find him anywhere and he's not answering his PHS. He sent me an email that says he hasn't been gone that long and he knows he didn't drop anything so playing some silly game isn't going to get him to stay longer and that he's busy."
Reeve turned to his screen, and put a tracking display up on the monitor next to the still jogging image Cait Sith was projecting back. He pulled up the history for the last several minutes and a bright, dotted red line appeared on the map.
"Damn," Reno hissed under his breath. "The kid's windin' all over the place."
"One has to move like that through the slums," Sephiroth said, voice cold, eyes narrowed.
"He looks like he's headin' for Sector 7," Reno said.
"Zack," Sephiroth said, raising his voice to be heard on Tseng's phone. "Come back here with Kunsel. Strife is too far off the obvious track. If we send you to him he'll know he's being tracked somehow."
"Yes, sir," Fair said.
Tseng flipped the phone shut and edged toward the door. "Reno." The other Turk straightened from his slouch. "I'm heading down to the slums. When Cissnei brings Dio in, just question him on Strife. He's not being taken into custody. If he has evidence of anything Strife might be doing that's illegal, give him impunity if he'll turn on Strife. Just figure out what the two of them were planning."
"Where are you going?" Shinra asked, expression smooth and voice placid. Not exactly the most calming of combinations on the vice president in Reeve's estimation.
"The slums, sir."
"Wait until Strife reaches his destination," Shinra said, eying the Turk speculatively.
Tseng's sense of urgency drained and he put his PHS away. He resumed his seat and said, "Of course, sir."
Sephiroth and the other Turks sat also, turning their attention back to the video monitor. If Strife really was headed to Sector 7, they wouldn't have to wait long. He was already jogging through the Sector 6 park to the gate between the two sectors, the mog slide slipping past the moving camera.
Strife didn't go far into Sector 7. He only jogged past the pillar zone and into the first inn in the populated area. He climbed up to the second floor and went immediately into one of the rooms.
Reeve could barely bring himself to breathe under the charged atmosphere that flooded the briefing room.
Book in one relaxed hand, nonchalantly sitting at the one table in a corner of the room, was the red-clad gunman of CS Delivery's. Glowing scarlet eyes looked up at Strife's entrance.
"How did it go?" The gunman's voice was deeper than expected, but still quiet, like he didn't want to distract those around him with speech.
"It was pretty fun," Strife said. "Zack and Kunsel took me around to eat and to the arcade and gym. Other than that we just wandered. Kunsel is pretty funny. He and Zack are really entertaining together. Kind of like a comedy duo." Strife paused. "But Kunsel kept saying I was the funny one and wanted to bring me around to torture Zack."
The gunman's expression didn't change and the silence stretched between the two for several moments. Then those red eyes moved to Cait Sith and stared directly into the camera. Reeve knew the gunman couldn't possibly know he was staring down a handful of Shinra officials and military personnel but he shuddered nevertheless. That calculating, red-eyed stare unnerved him.
"What's that?" came the quiet question from the gunman.
"Zack gave it to me," Strife said, clearly lifting the robot higher and closer to the gunman for inspection. "He said it's name is Cait Sith."
The gunman's, eerie red eyes finally left the robot and a slight breath escaped Reeve's lungs. Eyes on Strife, the gunman slowly closed his book and set it on the table. "Leave it," he said. "It's only a short errand. We'll pick up our things before leaving."
"Okay," Strife said, the tilt of the camera angle indicating Cait Sith was simply set carelessly on the table.
Only some shuffling was heard over the feed. Reeve broke the stillness in the briefing room and turned to his computer, seeing if he could pick anything up with sensors. The prototype had very limited range but he might luck out anyway.
"Where are the others?" Strife asked, voice quieter with the distance between him and the receiver.
After a several second pause, the gunman said, "About their own business."
A door opened and closed then only silence came through the audio feed.
Reno shattered the quiet with an amused, "Well, shit. Zack's not gonna like that."
"Unfortunately," Vice President Shinra said, "even this is not conclusive of Strife's guilt in associating with terrorists. Nothing incriminating was said. Strife might not know what CS Delivery is doing. He might even still be under some sort of coercive force. He could think he's under their protection."
Reno scoffed. "Or the brat could be that asshole." Apparently the redheaded Turk was still quite sore about Junon.
"The only scenario this rules out," Sephiroth said, "is that Strife has nothing to do with CS Delivery. It's now rather obvious that the CS in CS Delivery's chosen name probably has to do with Cloud Strife but knowing it stands for Cloud Strife Delivery doesn't give us any additional clues. Of course it could equate to delivery belonging to Strife or that Strife is going to deliver something and any number of meanings could be put to just exactly what is being delivered. But it could also mean delivery of Strife. In that case, the differences in nuances of meaning could indicate Strife needs to be taken somewhere or that he's the one who needs to be saved."
That left contemplative silence hanging in the air.
Until Tseng stood. "Sir," he said, turning to the vice president, "I appreciate the need to follow through with this investigative lead regarding Strife, but I really need to get to the slums. Every passing moment drastically reduces the time frame I have to act. I have nothing to add to the investigation at the moment and this business needs to be taken care of now."
"What business is that?" Shinra asked.
Sephiroth's eyes were narrowed at the Turk.
"Plausible deniability, sir," Tseng said slowly.
Shinra eyed the Turk for a moment and slowly nodded his head.
Then Tseng actually ran out of the room.
Reeve turned back to his computer and pulled up the security feeds to the building. He searched for the clip flagged by security and played it on the large monitor next to the unmoving video feed from Cait Sith. There was no sound with the security video but Strife with his goggles and bandana were clearly visible next to a large, hairy man who wasn't wearing a shirt.
They were a few minutes into the unenlightening security video when a high pitched whine threaded through Cait Sith's audio feed and the video feed tinted yellow. Frowning, he ran a quick diagnostic of the robotic prototype's systems. His eyes widened then the audio and video feeds shut down with a resounding pop. Static played over the monitor and all his readings went dead.
"No," he ground out, fingers flying over the keyboard in attempt to revive the link.
"What just happened?" Sephiroth asked, voice sharp.
Reeve ignored the question, running a more complicated program to prove what he was seeing was wrong. It didn't work.
"Tuesti," Shinra said, voice authoritative.
Reeve's hands stilled on the keyboard. He stared blankly at the screen, letting the loss of the first Cait Sith prototype sink in. "Cait Sith was destroyed," he said flatly. "There was a build up of electrical charge and everything from sensors to transmitters fried. I hadn't modified Cait Sith for combat situations yet. He didn't have any defenses."
"What was it?" Shinra asked, tone noticeably less harsh.
"The only thing that comes close to the readings right before Cait Sith stopped transmitting is the monster attack Trine. The only monster we know of that has that ability lives in the frigid, glacial cliffs above the crater on the northern continent. It's called a Stilven. There wasn't anything close enough to Cait Sith's sensors to identify what attacked it. As a prototype it has an extremely limited range."
"If I remember correctly," Sephiroth said, "the Stilven is the size of a small truck. I doubt something that large and dangerous is wandering around the slums this far from its native hunting grounds and attacking robotic cats."
"Maybe someone's got an Enemy Skill materia then," Reno said. "Those things are damn rare. Professor Creepy Pants has one. The Turks sometimes make a game outta findin' monsters that might have magic the little thing can duplicate. I don't know if Trine is one of those learnable skills though. It's not on the list but there are a bunch of empty spaces in the creepy professor's materia still."
"Considering the other items CS Delivery has acquired," Shinra said, "it wouldn't be surprising to find that he had a rather full Enemy Skill materia on hand."
Sephiroth said, "And he clearly has contact with Strife and it's not unreasonable to think he would be able to detect the surveillance devices inside the robot. If he's trying to protect Strife, then he would remove any means of interference we introduce." The general paused and a hint of amusement entered his voice. "He doesn't seem to have a problem destroying Shinra Company property when he feels like it."
"But why is it that my Cait Sith had to come out as collateral damage?" Reeve lamented, burying his face in his hands.
"My condolences," Sephiroth said in a clipped, professional way, using the same tone one would normally use for polite agreement when someone else was complaining about extra paperwork. A hand patted Reeve's shoulder exactly two times. Reeve glanced sideways to find Sephiroth's expression as awkward as the attempt at consolation had been.
AN: Any and all comments, disclaimers, and notes are on my profile page. If I get asked a question enough times, its answer is there too.