"Graveyard shift, huh?-Excuse the pun. You're in luck, cause we're here to relieve you guys."
The Shinra military policeman peered at the newcomers, cautious. In the blue body armor with the facemask down, the two young men were identical to himself and his partner. Something about this man's voice, though, and the way he held himself, was somewhat less than professional.
"You're twenty minutes late. Let's see your ID."
Grudgingly, the relief guard dug out his wallet.
"You sure take your job serious for a guy guarding a roomful of corpses at midnight."
"I don't recognize you…this seems to check out, though. Still doesn't explain why you're late…Private Jones."
"Eh, the trains were stopped again. I think they had another jumper. You know how it these days, suicides left and right. You step outside and get hit by a falling body. It's the modern world with all the technology, you ask me; rots your brain. Anyway, you know our relief will show up an hour late too. Nobody wants to be down here."
"That's true," the guard admitted, then, sounding at once very tired: "Alright, I won't report you. Have fun, boys."
He and his partner walked off, striking up a normal conversation.
"You heard about the race?"
"Hell, yes. I had three hundred riding on Maiden's Delight. Lost every gil."
"Well, you win some, you lose some…"
The moment they vanished into the darkness of the long Graveyard tunnel, the newcomer tore down the crime scene tape and, clutching the knob to keep it from squeaking, opened the apartment door. He and his partner slipped in.
"Aw, lifestream take me," gasped the man, tearing off his mask. "It stinks like a bugbear's armpit. Carlos, gimme some light."
A flashlight blazed, illuminating the man's stubbled cheeks, his bright, deepset eyes, and dirty red hair. It also illuminated bloodstains on the walls and floor of the room, many in the shape of late members of the 13th MP brigade.
"Fucking slaughterhouse," said the man, shaking his head. "Never had a chance."
Carlos, a boy with a nervous face and large eyes, nodded.
"Hey Reno?"
"Yeah?"
"D'you believe in ghosts?"
"I believe there's enough to be scared of without ghosts. Now, you know the drill. Watch the door, and if you see or hear anybody coming, give a yell."
"I don't get it. What makes you think we can find this thing when," his voice quavered briefly, "the Turks couldn't?"
"I told you. This guy spilled to his girl at the Honeybee. I guess they were both Wu-Tai, so she caught him in an unguarded moment or whatever. She told the Don, the Don owed our boss a favor, so he clued us in."
"So where is it?"
"I don't know."
"But…!"
"Relax," said Reno. "He told her it was someplace…shameful, like the state of my life."
"Now you tell me! The hell's that supposed to mean!"
"I got an idea…" Reno gingerly picked his way between the dark stains and dents in the floor, holding his nose with two fingers. When he reached the bathroom door, he turned back. "Hey, Car. You know why they call our employer the Rat King?"
Carlos shook his head.
"Well, who wins a war?"
In the sharp mix of darkness and light, there was something unnerving about Reno's hollow-cheeked face as he grinned.
"I d-dunno."
"The rats do," said Reno. "They chew the bones of the losers. Then, someday, they eat up the winners too. The Turks think they're dirty; they don't know what dirty is. To get ahead in this world, you got to be willing to go…" He knelt by the toilet. "Right…" He plunged his hand in and, with a slight grimace, reached. "Down…" He tugged; something came free. When he pulled out his dripping arm, something was clenched in his fist. He opened the fist, and it glowed dull red. "…to the bottom."
It looked like a quarter slice of a blood orange. Reno tossed it to himself as they walked down the skyway between sectors six and seven of the plate. They'd long since ditched the stolen uniforms at a safehouse.
"C'mon, man, cut it out," Carlos pleaded.
"You saying I aint got a steady eye? You saying I might," and with a wink, Reno pretended to fumble, then caught it just below his waist, "slip up?"
Carlos wiped sweat from his face with both hands. "I wish I had your guts. I'll just be glad when this is over."
"Eh, eh, c'mon now. There was nothing to it, am I right?"
"If it's Turks," said Carlos, in childlike earnest, "it's serious."
"Turks? What Turks? A bunch of pricks in suits. I could take them all if I was…on fire! Hey kid, once we drop this off, let's hit the Honeybee. Tell the Don thanks, from his old pal the King."
"Reno, you know I got a girlfriend."
"Sure I do. You won't shut up about her. Now you can have two."
"Aw, shut up.-Anyway, what do you figure it is?"
Reno shrugged broadly and tossed the object from one hand, over his head, into the other.
"I figured it was a materia. Looks like a Summon. But like a fourth of one."
"Can you even do that? Cut up a materia?"
"Sure, if you want a big boom. How you think those reactors work?"
He cut his head at the giant bulk of the no. 6 reactor, floodlit, visible behind the grimy glass enclosing the skyway.
"Maybe it's just a big ruby."
"That's my guess. We'll never see a gil of what it sells for, but we did the job. So how about that Honey…?"
The skyway was deserted so late at night. No birds or bats flew in the soot-thick Midgar sky, and the mere suggestion of sound and movement caused Reno to look up.
"What's that?"
"Wh-what?"
"I swear a bird just flew over us."
"Quit trying to scare me!"
"Aint nothing scary if it is a bird; aint you seen birds in zoos? Maybe one got loose. It won't last long…there, right there!"
It looked like a swallow. As they watched, it darted across an arc light and swooped down, moving gracefully parallel to the glass outside.
"Poor little guy," said Reno.
"Um, what should we do?"
"Nothing we can…do. Wait."
Reno squinted. No mistaking it. It was headed straight at them. And unthinkingly, he had just tossed the jewel back up into the air.
Tseng and Rude sat in one of their regular haunts on the Sector Six plate. Soft blue light played on their faces, broken by the shafts of a slowly revolving ceiling fan. Five whiskeys had a balancing effect. Tseng got quiet, absentmindedly turning the glass in his hand, his head sinking between his shoulders as if each glass doubled its weight. Rude didn't get talkative, but when he spoke, he sounded relaxed; at times humor even crept into his voice.
"You're doing it again," he said.
"Huh?"
"That thing with the napkin. You always do that."
Tseng looked down. Unconsciously, he had folded the cocktail napkin into the shape of a tiny crane.
"Well, goddamn."
"Wow. How d'you make them so small?"
"Didn't I ever tell you?" He held the paper crane in the palm of his hand, looking at with some gentleness in his bleary eyes. "This is the first trick you learn at the Imperial Academy. They call them Paper Gods. First term, the dorms are full of the things."
"They teach you that in school?"
"Wu-Tai magic. Enchant them, and they act like real birds. Carry messages, fetch items, things like that. For the war model, make them out of sheet metal. They'll slit your enemy's throat."
Rude's eyebrows rose over his shades.
"That's some trick."
"That's all it is."
"Well…come on. Let's see it."
Tseng shook his head. His eyes drifted to the window, where the night looked very still and black, like a painting.
"Nah. I don't do that trick anymore," he said, and curled his fist around the crane.
"Oh shit, shit, shit…my first big job and some bird…! What the fuck!"
"That was no bird," said Reno.
He pounded the glass wall. The paper airplane, or whatever the hell it was, already reduced to a white speck, looped back toward the lights of Sector Six.
"What do we do? I mean what do we tell him?"
"You wait here, and if I'm not back in half an hour, go tell him I won't show my face again til I've got the thing."
"What are you…!"
But Reno had already leapt up and gripped the parapet with both hands. He swung up, balanced on the rail-thin glass, and took off running.
From this high it was just possible to keep the bird in view. It was headed downtown though, toward the Shinra building, and getting further away every second. Fate smiled on Reno. The number twenty-train, right on schedule, roared underneath him, and after a second's hesitation he jumped. He hit metal with a crash that rocked the car, and sent lances of pain all through his body. Getting to his feet, woozy with shock, blinking back tears, he saw the bird now traveling directly alongside them, two or three car lengths ahead.
Reno loosed his nightstick from its leather holster. A souvenir of his brief law-enforcement career, it was socketed with two cheap, black-market materia: Lightning, and Sense. He ran his thumb over the latter and it glowed bright yellow.
Hazy images filled his brain. Suddenly, he knew where the bird was headed. The train would take him there.
"Come…come…that's a good boy."
The paper crane, bearing the weight of a large, wedge-shaped jewel between its wings, settled on an outstretched palm. It was the delicate, white hand of a girl.
She breathed in a huge sigh of relief. Immediately, the bird seemed to loose animation. Controlling it had been a huge effort. Then her eyes sparkled with a mixture of greed and contentment as she handled the jewel.
"Come. To. Mama."
She slipped it inside her green raincoat. Underneath the coat, her skinny legs were conspicuously bare. She looked perhaps thirteen, but had the intelligent expression of a much older woman. Although the jewel was safely out of sight, she cast intense, paranoid glances in all directions.
She was standing in alley between two great black lumps of buildings. It stank of garbage. Even on the plate, the back alleys and rear exits were caked with grime.
She had nearly made it to the street when the footsteps caught up with her.
"Hey! Hey!"
She walked faster, keeping her head down, but in a moment her pursuer was in front of her.
"Where you going in such a hurry?" asked Reno.
He was breathing raggedly, and his rust-red bangs were plastered to his forehead.
Instead of playing innocent, something in his manner, in the way he loomed over her, caused the girl to flare up.
"Looks to me like you're the one in a hurry. Where's the fire, huh? I'm just minding my business."
"The hell you are, you little sneak. Now where's the stone?"
"I d-don't know what you're talking about."
With an audacity all the more shocking because it seemed completely innocent, he tore open her coat. The jewel had been secured in an inner pocket. It bounced out, and he snatched it before it hit the ground.
"Just found this lying around, huh?"
"What…that cheap glass thing! It was a prize in a cereal box."
"Oh, cut the cute stuff. I don't know who sent you, and I don't know how you did that magic trick, but…" Reno peered more closely in the dimness. He gripped her face by the chin, digging his thumb in her cheek, and turned it back and forth. "You're Wu-Tai."
"So what if I am!"
"I got it. You're that girl from the whorehouse. You set us up, just to get your hands on this thing."
She turned bright red.
"Wh-whorehouse! You….you take that back, I'm twelve!"
"Oh, like that means anything nowadays. But, I believe you. On second thought, your scrawny, flat ass wouldn't last ten minutes at the Honeybee…"
The girl's leg shot up, but Reno was quicker. The instant before it made contact with his groin, he clenched his own legs together, pinning it there. She tore it loose and tried to run; he grabbed her waist.
"Rape! Rape!"
"Oh for crying out loud, who'd want to rape you! Look, I won't ask who you're with. Just get lost."
"No way! Finders, keepers. You can't prove it's yours."
"Well, it's mine now," said Reno, holding it over his head, "what're you gonna do about it? Huh?"
A loud voice stopped them both cold.
"What's this?"
Slowly, almost at the same time, they turned around. Two men in dark suits stood at the end of the alley.
"Oh," said Reno, and breathed in, "shit."
"Heaven's sake," said Tseng, whose eyes were bloodshot, but whose voice and posture were steady. "If you've got to rape someone, at least don't make it a kid. That's twenty to life."
"Nobody's raping anybody! She stole my…thing!"
"Oh yeah, how did I manage that when you were all the way…over…there…"
The girl clapped a hand over her mouth.
"You see? You see?"
With ponderous, drunken gravity Tseng said: "Allow me to inspect the article in question."
Rude jostled his shoulder. "C'mon, sir, let it go. I'll just give him a good kick in case he was trying to rape her. Scumbag probably deserved to get robbed."
"Who's a scumbag!"
"You are, my friend, and if you keep giving a Turk that attitude you'll be a lot worse."
But Tseng, holding the glowing jewel in both hands, gaped at it in abject disbelief.
"Where did you get this?"
"I told you, she stole if from…"
"Where did you get it, asshole?-Rude, grab the girl," he added, seeing that she was edging away. Looking somewhat uncomfortable, Rude complied. "I said. Tell me. Where. You. Got. It."
Reno stepped back. All at once, the fight seemed to go out of him, and he scratched his head.
"You now what? It's not worth it. You guys want it so bad? Take it. Now, if you'll excuse me…"
Rude, holding the girl with one hand, grabbed his wrist with the other.
"Hey! Hey watch the hands, I'm a concert pianist, you big bald queer!"
He slugged Reno. The smaller man fell like a stack of papers, but got back up just as quickly, rubbing his jaw.
"I'm not bald," said Rude. "I shaved my head."
"Oh, so the queer part don't bother you none?"
"That's hate speech. I'd be playing into your hands if I got mad."
Reno laughed, then coughed, and spat a globule of blood into the gutter. "Alright, alright, just stop spewing that whiskey breath all over me. Hell…you're so drunk you can barely stand up."
"That never stopped a Turk from carrying out his orders."
"Heh. You guys got class, I'll give you that…okay, I'll come quiet, but let the kid go. She's a pickpocket, she don't know anything."
The girl didn't look grateful. She glared at him, pure venom in her eyes.
"What does that make you?" asked Tseng, stepping forward.
"Me?" Reno dusted off the front of his suit. "I'm a big wheel down here. I'm surprised you haven't heard of me."
"You work for yourself?"
"Of course."
"And you just happened to come into possession of this…artifact."
Reno shrugged. "It was a prize in a cereal box."
Tseng turned to Rude. "We're taking in this comedian, and the girl too."
"Hey!" yelled the girl, squirming in his grip. "I didn't do anything! Arrest this guy for trying to rape me, why don't you!"
"Aw, please," said Reno, "come back in a few years, then we'll see."
Tseng muttered to him as he frog-marched him out of the alley: "You haven't the slightest idea what you've just become involved in."