A/N: FINALLY!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Franklin was starting to get nervous. He'd been detained by ShinRa for a little over three weeks now with no interaction from the Turks or the President. He was given adequate living quarters, food and water. But it was the waiting that was slowly driving him insane.

When would they come?

What would happen once they came?

What was going to happen to him?

He should have known he'd be discovered. He should have known President ShinRa never intended to disband the Turks. He should have known the Turks would find him. He should have known all these things and more; and the fact remains that he did. His arrogance and greed, however, overpowered that knowledge and kicked it to the wayside.

And now, his ulcers were bleeding with the horrible anticipation of the whole thing. Interrogation was the logical next step. He could deny anything and everything they rightfully accused him of but it would be futile. He was guilty as all hell and they knew it. He knew they knew it. He could make it easy on himself or he could go out with a fight.

And Edmond Franklin didn't get where he was without being a ruthless, cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch. He had one trump card to play and by Ifrit, he would play it with everything he had.

Two days later, they came. It was the two he suspected would be there; Joel, the street rat mechanic from the slums and Rude, the bald muscle who'd been with ShinRa longer than even Franklin himself. Insides rolling with nerves, he was lead away by the two large men and thrown into an interrogation chamber. The bald man adjusted his leather gloves while the other closed the door and removed his jacket. Joel cast Franklin an almost apologetic smile.

"We all know Rude doesn't talk much, so it'll pretty much be you and me doing all the verbalization, got it?" he asked. "The big man usually lets his fists do the talkin' anyway."

Franklin swallowed hard as Rude cracked his knuckles and popped his neck. The trump card was risky...but he didn't have much of a choice. He could use it...he would use it.

"Okay, so look...we know you did it," Joel began tossing the tie on top of his jacket. "That's a given. We know it was for money. We've seized your assets."

Not all of them, Franklin thought smugly.

"Even the ones in Kalm."

Damn.

"And Icicle Village."

Shit.

"And Wutai."

FUCK!

Franklin cleared his throat. "Your organization certainly lives up to it's reputation," he commented dryly.

Joel smirked as he sent a fist to Franklin's face. "Didn't tell you to talk yet, Asshole," he snarled. "Now, we're on our way to confirming who exactly was your partner at Data Nex, Inc. We've got your crooked cop friend. He sang like a bird when I shoved an EMR up his ass on full charge. But you know what, Franklin? We really don't wanna have to do that to you, Man. I mean, you were a loyal employee for years. We'd kinda like to take that into consideration during this little Q & A session, ya know?" Joel squatted down in front of the seated man and flashed him a charming smile. "So why doncha be a pal and tell us who the person you've been corresponding with is?"

Franklin plastered on a fearless, bored face. "I'll tell you what...Joel, is it?" he began in a condescending way. "Why don't we just forget this little incident ever happened? I'll put in my resignation with ShinRa, sign a confidentiality waiver, and relinquish my pension and we'll just pretend this was all a bad dream."

Joel sucked in air through his teeth and shook his head. "Now, I wish we could do that, Buddy, but you know, it's really not according to our policy to just sweep stuff under the rug like that, understand?" he replied, shit-eating grin still in place. "So ya got one more shot, Pal...who's your contact at Data Nex, Inc.?"

"No, my boy, you've got one more shot," Franklin answered, looking down his nose at Joel. His eyes shifted to the big man standing by the door, watching in silence. "How's your son, Rude?"

A dark eyebrow arched over expensive black plastic. Franklin smirked. "I'm sure he's snuggled tightly in his mother's arms right now, correct?" he continued. "Zack, is it? Yes, I believe that's his name."

"What about him?" Rude asked, deep voice echoing off the walls.

"Listen, I'm not a stupid man," Franklin explained. "I knew there was a good chance the Turks would discover it was me. So here's my back up plan. My contact knows when I'm supposed to be in touch with them. That is in exactly one hour. If I don't get in touch with this person at exactly two o'clock this afternoon, this person knows to abduct that new little bundle of joy of yours and hold him until I'm freed."

Joel chuckled and rose to his feet. "He claims he's not a stupid man and yet he just threatened your son," he commented with a shake of his head. Gesturing with his hand, he stepped aside. "Have at 'em, Man."

Rude's face had turned red with rage as he calmly walked up to Franklin and grabbed him by the neck. "That's the worst damn thing you could have said," he growled. "You obviously don't know shit about the Turks. And if you think for a minute that my girl would let anything happen to our little boy, you got another thing coming."

Franklin swallowed hard. "You can't kill me!" he said, panicked that his last resort failed to work. "You need the information I have! You can't get that if I'm dead."

"Uh, actually..."

Rude turned and saw a blond in a Turk uniform enter the interrogation room. Ram smiled and held up a device. "This is a memory extraction generator I've been working on," she explained. "I can remove vital information from a person's neurological network up to seventy-two hours after the time of their death. And that is a significant amount of time to get the information required from you, Mr. Franklin."

Franklin didn't have time to respond to that. Rude snapped his neck in the second Ram finished her sentence.

Joel shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. "Well, that sucked," he grumbled. He turned to Ram. "You're making the forced information retrieval part of my job description boring."

"Get over it, Grease Monkey," she replied, inserting two needle like objects in Franklin's skull. "Keep up with innovation otherwise you'll be left behind."

Joel and Ram both looked up as the door to the interrogation chamber slammed shut.

Rude had left.

The information needed from Franklin was retrieved in less than twenty minutes. In another thirty, Torr and Revan had infiltrated Data Nex, Inc.'s headquarters. While Revan had infected the servers with a virus that would completely wipe out any and all information on each computer hooked up to the Data Nex, Inc. network, Torr had found Ken Adams, the Vice-President of Data Nex, Inc. Using Manipulate materia, he made Adams take a cheap .22 revolver and shoot himself in the temple. No suicide note was found when the police came to investigate.

Paul Lay and Richard White, the owners/operators of Gaia Records were also found dead after,apparantly shot by a former music client called Times Up: Reconciling Killer's Souls. They had been storing the money Adams was paying to Franklin for ShinRa's alternate energy secrets in their business account before transferring it to Franklin; keeping a twenty percent profit for themselves. Because of their involvement with stealing ShinRa's secrets, their lives became forfeit.

Rude had gone home early, needing to make sure that all was well with his family. The only thing of note that happened while he was at work was that Courtney Stevens had shoved Andria into a locker at school. That had been resolved when Andria sent an upper cut to her face.

With the alternate energy secrets safe within ShinRa once again and all employees confirmed loyal to the company, life at Turk HQ resumed it's seeming normality.

For now.

A/N: That's the last fucking time I do a story arch without an outline! Data Nex, Inc., you nearly won this round. But I triumphed over you! Yes, I did! MWAH HA HA HA!