Author's Note: I hope you like this chapter. It's one of my favorites.
Chapter Fourteen
"Crawl through the hole again, Claire," Claire muttered to herself. "The freakin' hole is pretty small and it'll be quicker with just one person." She rolled her eyes, biting off any additional irritated comments. She could see the light at the end of the tunnel now.
She reached the opening and hauled herself out, careful to avoid the swirling eddies of the green light. She didn't need no more stinkin' visions. Then she pulled Rufus's cell phone from her bra. It was a spiffy phone, sleek and thin and almost weightless. Besides the sweat and dirt it even looked brand-new. She snapped it open, jabbing the 3 with one finger.
How had she been delegated to messenger anyway? Wasn't she better than this? The phone started ringing, and she reminded herself that she couldn't complain. Every job needed to be done, and if things went south in the Umbrella facility, it would at least be nice to know someone was coming to pick up the pieces.
"Sir! Where are you?" a man said, his voice somehow subservient while making an irrefutable demand.
"Tseng?" Claire inquired. No way was she delivering the message to the wrong person. Although, now that she thought about it, maybe she should have asked who "Tseng" was before she crawled through the hole . . .
There was a heartbeat of silence. "This is Tseng."
Claire thought that was a weird way of answering, but let it go. "Right, well, I have a message to deliver from Rufus Shinra."
There was another pause, and she heard Reno yapping in the background. Apparently they thought she had kidnapped Rufus and were tracing the call. That was nice. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Do you want me to give you the message now, or shall I wait until Reno's done hooking up the trace?"
"You may deliver your message now," Tseng said, voice dripping acid in Reno's direction.
"Right," Claire said. "First, the authentication code so you know that I'm not an enemy." She rattled off the 16 digit code Rufus had given her. And then rattled off the word-for-word message he'd given her, including the location of the Umbrella facility, the crawl-space she was going to revisit shortly, and what Rufus's plans were while he was waiting for Tseng.
"He's going to do what?" Tseng repeated.
"He – we," Claire corrected. "Are going to turn Hojo into a dead pancake."
"He said that?"
"No, I paraphrased a bit," Claire said. "He said 'take care of things once and for all.'"
"I see," Tseng said. "And now for some questions – who are you? How do you know Rufus? Tell me everything."
"Right," Claire said. Rufus had given her directions on how to answer these particular questions as well. "My name is Claire Redfield. I'm a member of the Turks –"
"No. You're not," Tseng said. He sounded confident, almost angry that she would even suggest such a thing.
"Actually, I am," Claire said, frowning.
"I would know if you were a Turk, Miss Redfield," he said. With her name, all of Reno's background noise died. "Unless there's something that you want to tell me." His voice was deathly quiet now.
Claire swallowed, wondering again just who the hell Tseng was. And exactly how low on the totem pole Reno and Rude were. When they had recruited her they made it sound like they were high on the chain, but the more people from the Turks that she ran into the less certain she was. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think of some way out of the mess without getting Reno and Rude in any more trouble than she might have already gotten them into.
"Claire," Tseng said, her name ice on his tongue. "When I ask my Turks a question I expect a prompt answer. You're new, so you probably don't know all the details. But mark my words, when I ask something, I do not tolerate half-answers, hesitant answers, or dodgy responses. Do I make myself clear?"
Claire's mouth opened and closed, her mind blanking. Chris had always warned her something like this would happen if she joined the military. But she was in the mafia. Somehow she'd expected things to be . . . different.
"Claire?"
"Yes, uhmm . . ."
"Yes, sir," Tseng supplied. "Now, when did you join the Turks and what did Reno tell you?"
"To keep an eye on Cloud and his ilk," Claire said. "And I joined approximately a month ago. Maybe a day or so more or less."
"To keep an eye on Cloud? And I suppose some others: Mikey, Sam Wysteia, and the like?"
"Yeah," Claire said. "Sir."
Tseng exhaled sharply. "Yeah, sir?" he repeated. Claire imagined him shaking his head.
"Yes, sir," Claire corrected. "And now, although I suspect that you're supposed to initiate the end of the conversation, I am under orders to return to the radio-free-zone promptly." That wasn't actually true, but she could maybe pass it off as an implied order. She didn't have time to deal with the tender-footing of her job.
And if things went bad inside, she wouldn't have to worry about the job at all.
"No, that's quite all right," Tseng said, switching to a brisk, professional tone. "But mark my words, Claire, you had better keep the President safe. You're his prime bodyguard, and whatever else you think you're supposed to be doing there, he is the primary objective. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," Claire said, suddenly quiet. When he put it like that she was even more anxious to get back. The thought of someone getting hurt on her watch wasn't comforting.
"Good. We'll be there as soon as possible. But that won't be too soon." In the background, Claire heard Reno commenting that at least they had the Tiny Bronco. "Shut up, Reno," Tseng ordered. "Claire, you have your orders."
"Yeah," Claire agreed. "Talk to you later." She hung up without another word. If they had the Tiny Bronco, Cloud and Vincent were probably skulking around somewhere. That was just great – the Vincent part genuinely and the Cloud part sarcastically.
She thought about that, and called Tseng back.
He answered promptly. "Report."
"Cloud Strife is floating around the area," she said. "With Vincent Valentine. I don't know how Cloud got here, but Vincent came on the Tiny Bronco." She craned her head up, staring at the lip of the hole. "Just thought you might like to know."
"Understood. Get back to the President." He hung up.
Claire let out a breath, tucked the phone back into her bra and headed back into the hole.
** Earlier . . . **
Cloud and Vincent discovered that Tifa's bike was gone. Then when they hit the beach and the Tiny Bronco was missing. Cloud crossed his arms. "I guess Claire took off."
Vincent made to check his cloak for something, then frowned. "She's gone."
"I just said that."
Vincent shot his a dark glance. "No. I mean she's gone. She was right here."
"With us?" Cloud said, suspicion marring his features. "What? Did you cast mini on her and hide her in your pocket?"
Vincent shook his head. "No. She was attacked by a Touch Me just before you reached the clearing. I thought it would be best not to mention it."
Cloud rolled his eyes skyward. "Vincent . . . "
"She was safe."
Cloud shook his head. "No. Hojo wants to get her pregnant with Sephiroth. If he gets his hands on her –"
Vincent held up his hand. "No. She's a frog right now. She doesn't know how to get back – "
"Everyone –"
"She doesn't believe in magic, Cloud. And I'm more worried about her getting kicked in the woods. She's capable, but inexperienced. She refused to attack a goblin because she thought it was a mini-man."
"But that's stupid," Cloud said. "Even a child knows that goblins aren't little-men. They're dangerous and –"
Vincent was already heading away from the shore. "I have to find her."
Cloud swore – some of the darker, angry words he'd picked up from Zack Fair during the war. Nothing like the childish rage that Barrett always spit out or the vulgar obscenities Cid was found of. This was a real paint-peeling curse. Enough to make a gremlin blush at the least.
He stole a glance around the shore, noticing, rather belated that his submarine was tied up. Maybe the Turks had taken that too – Tseng and Elena, maybe. But then again, Tifa had said it was someone new.
Regardless, he had to find the girl. It would be too much if he had to deal with Sephiroth yet again.
They returned to the clearing where Cloud had left the Turks in an unconscious heap. Besides an abnormal amount of Touch Me's, it looked fine. But a closer inspection revealed scuffled footprints – as if a woman and man on a chocobo had been repeatedly turned into a frogs and then back to humans.
"Who are you with?" Vincent murmured.
"It doesn't matter, does it?" Cloud asked. "It looks like they're together."
"Claire doesn't have a boyfriend or a lover," Vincent said sharply. He stood up, and strolled off. "They went this way."