Chapter Sixteen

Tidus woke early the next day, blinking in the light of the rising sun as it filtered through the curtains. He sighed and rolled onto his back, stretching his entire body as far as it could for a moment, before throwing the covers aside and rising to his feet. He then promptly dropped to the floor and began his routine of pushups and sit-ups, silently so as not to disturb Yuna. She slept on obliviously, her faint snores accompanying his deep, regulated breaths.

Five minutes later and sweating lightly, he hauled himself up and went for a quick shower. By the time he climbed out of the stall, the sound of the coffee grinder in the next room alerted him that Yuna was up and about.

"Good morning," she greeted him with a yawn as he emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed. "Café?"

He came forward and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. "Merci."

She poured him a cup. "So, are you going to tell me about this plan of yours?"

Drinking deeply, Tidus mulled his words over carefully. "We can't call them back on the satellite phone, right? It's only wired for one-ways. So we have to get their attention. They need to contact us again so we can arrange a trade of some kind."

"Yes," Yuna agreed with a sigh. "Though I wish I knew what makes you so sure they will agree to this. Even if we do manage to give back the file, what will stop them from killing us anyway?"

"You're absolutely right. That's probably exactly what they plan on doing," he said with a firm nod, not sounding the least bit surprised. "So we need to plan this carefully and give ourselves an out. If things go south, we need to be able to get away fast. They don't seem too shy about attacking us in public, but maybe we can find a way to make that work to our advantage."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "One thing at a time. How do we get their attention?"

He took another sip before replying, "Well, I'm pretty sure they have cameras everywhere, or at least access to them. The trick will be finding out a way to alert them where we are. Then we give them a signal that we want them to call us, and we talk."

"And in the mean time, they learn where to send more assassins to take care of us."

"They won't have enough time. Once they get in touch with us, we'll keep moving. We stay one step ahead, just like always."

Yuna smiled faintly at him before pushing her mug away and rising to her feet. "I'm going to get cleaned up. Can I trust you to come up with a brilliant scheme in the next twenty minutes?"

He smirked back. "I'll do what I can." Then, watching her disappear into the bathroom, the smile dropped from his face. He knew exactly what had to get done. And Yuna was definitely not going to like it.

000

Rikku didn't walk so much as she bounced; her distinctive blonde ponytail could be seen bobbing up and down between cubicles as she made her way towards the surveillance room, her designer heels clicking rhythmically. With an equally fashionable purse tucked under one arm and a Starbucks latte in the other hand, she cut as trendy a figure as one could get away with at the normally somber and business-like atmosphere of SIN's headquarters.

She arrived at the main entrance to the surveillance room just in time to run into Auron, who was on his way out to grab his own coffee.

"Good morning, Auron!" she chirped.

"Good morning, Miss Welsh," he replied with considerably less cheer than the young lady. He eyed the drink in her hand, wondering if she actually needed all that sugar and caffeine to maintain her sunny disposition at all hours of the day.

She flicked his arm admonishingly. "Hey now, if I get to call you by your first name, then you should call me by mine. From now on, I only answer to Rikku."

"Fine. Rikku. Is that Japanese?"

"Yep! On my mom's side. She's half and half. I think I take after my dad's side more, though."

"Ah." He held the door open for her as he made his way out.

Unperturbed by her colleague's brevity, the young psychoanalyst in training breezed into the already buzzing room. Reliable as clockwork, Seymour could be seen prowling around like a caged tiger, grey eyes flicking over each computer monitor he passed.

"Good morning, Seymour," she greeted. He fixed her with an icy look that clearly said 'not in the mood; back off'. Holding up her hands peaceably, she continued on her way to her desk. Her job was moving along slowly, since the agent and his companion were limiting their use of her credit card, and it was difficult to track their transactions. They had only used a few times since this whole mess started, and aside from those train tickets to Zurich a few days ago, the card had only been used to withdraw a sizeable amount of money, which would no doubt last them a while. But now that they no doubt had the cash that was stored in the bank vault, she doubted they would resort to using her card again any time soon.

Others in the office were tasked with tracking their movements via satellite, as well as tapping into security cameras located throughout the city. Even then, however, Raines and Savard were keeping a low profile. They hadn't gone near any major public transit venues, and seemed to stick in larger crowds where they would be less conspicuous. It was a giant pain in the ass – namely Seymour's ass – and it meant long hours of unpaid overtime and an agonizingly slow process. It also meant dealing with their boss's unflinchingly bad temper at any and every given moment.

The one advantage to having such slow-moving progress was that Rikku found she had a long time to sit and think. Lately, she had been thinking a lot about this crisis, and the man responsible for it. Tidus Raines had intrigued her from the very first moment she had laid eyes on him. She had been young then, hired almost immediately after graduating from MIT with a degree in Brain and Cognitive sciences. Tidus had been young too, as she recalled – and cute. She had been there when he first showed up with an interest in their program, a decorated young soldier who was hungry to expand his military career by volunteering his services to SIN. Fiercely competitive and certain that he could be a valuable asset, he had made a striking case for himself.

Rikku remembered how impressed the supervisors had been when watching his training. He moved with surgical precision, hitting fast and hard, with a mind like a steel trap. No scenario was too risky or difficult for him; sooner or later, through sheer ingenuity and force of will, he would find a way to complete the mission. Even when it looked as though he had been truly and utterly cornered, where giving up seemed like the only reasonable option, he would shock all observing by managing to escape, recover, and come out on top. He outperformed all the other test subjects, and he was always ready to push himself further. Rikku had never seen such focus.

In all the times she had personally examined him, he had seemed perfectly willing to do what was asked of him. Then when his training ended, and he was given actual missions, she had begun to question his dedication – something she had never thought would happen. He started second-guessing himself, and his orders. He started asking questions, and when he wasn't satisfied with the answers, he became frustrated, and even insubordinate on a few occasions. Rikku had warned Kinoc that this type of behaviour could and most likely would compromise future jobs. The man's response, of course, was to double Raines' salary. The idea of disposing of such an accomplished soldier was apparently unbearable to him. And as far as Rikku knew, that had been enough to at least temporarily do away with Tidus' concerns.

Yet this failed mission and subsequent catastrophe o SIN's hands led Rikku to figure that a bigger paycheck wasn't going to cut it with him this time.

"Daydreaming already?" Auron's gruff voice rocked her out of her reverie. Blinking, Rikku sat up a little straighter and realized for the first time that he computer was signaling her that another transaction had just been made.

"Hey!" she called, waving at Seymour at the back of the room. "Savard's just swiped her card again."

In a shocking display of speed and agility for a man of his age, Seymour appeared at her side, leaning in to examine the data being transferred. A crease appeared between his brows.

"Opera tickets?" he queried.

Rikku shrugged, looking baffled. "Apparently they plan to see Tosca this Friday night at the Zurich Opernhaus. Lucky them."

"This is deliberate," Auron cut in grimly. "Raines is trying to get our attention. He wouldn't risk using her card otherwise."

"Let's get a satellite imaging in there," Seymour barked, motioning to a few of the techies hovering near a monitor. "Get as close as you can."

Someone – Rikku was pretty sure his name was Ken, or Kyle, or something – jumped right to it, punching in the opera house's coordinates. The satellite shifted and honed in on the city, gradually zooming in closer and closer to that exact location. As the image came into focus on the giant display screen, the team could see milling crowds on the sidewalk outside the theatre, as well as in the parking lot. There was undoubtedly a performance happening that night.

"Closer," Seymour ordered, his eyes darting rapidly over the screen. "Hold it there – right outside the main entrance. Open the search program."

The room fell oddly quiet as the program started to run, scanning and processing each face that passed across the camera's field of vision. Then the software picked up on the specific features it had been designed to locate, and brought up a positive hit. The satellite enhanced the image, showing a familiar blond individual standing just outside the main gates of the opera house. He was holding something in his hand, clearly on display for any hypothetical cameras to pick up on.

"What is that?" Rikku asked, frowning at the screen.

Seymour straightened his posture and exchanged a look with Auron. "It's the satellite phone."

His colleague nodded. "Looks like we've got a phone call to make."