CHAPTER 3: THE ARROW HAS LEFT THE BOW OF THE GODDESS
In which we hear Tseng's thoughts on the Board of Directors, Rufus makes his first appearance, and Reno reminisces about his teenage years.

Commander Veld was running late. By the time he and Tseng arrived at the meeting, the rest of the Directors, six men and one woman, had already taken their seats and were silently reading the documents being displayed on the table monitors. Everyone looked up when the two Turks came in. "Ah," Scarlet murmured. "Our favourite gangster and his pet guardhound. I feel safer already."

"Perhaps we could get started now," said Hojo.

Tseng made no sound as he followed Veld across the room. The expensive deep pile broadloom, red as ripe tomatoes, that carpeted the floor from wall to wall, absorbed his footsteps. He took up his customary position behind Veld's chair, and soon everyone forgot he was there – everyone, that is, except the President, who, after all, signed Tseng's paychecks, and Lazard, who sometimes turned a smile his way, or posed a question designed to draw him into the conversation (which was something Veld had forbidden. Tseng was there to make mental notes, not to participate).

Lazard Deusericus was one of the few points on which Tseng and his Commander found themselves unable to agree. Veld had an almost visceral antipathy for the young Director of SOLDIER; he considered him incompetent, declared that he dressed like a pansy, and did not trust him. Tseng did not trust Lazard either, on principle, but that was business, nothing personal. He believed the man had more backbone than Veld was giving him credit for. Lazard's apparently genuine friendliness made him difficult to dislike. More crucially, he was the Department's sole reliable ally on the Board.

But was friendship all that Lazard was after? If so – if he truly believed it was possible for someone in his position to befriend a Turk – then he did not yet perfectly understand the way his father's world operated. Or did he have some deeper and more sinister motive behind his overtures of friendship? Was he plotting to overturn the world his father had made? And was he on the lookout for fellow travellers? Veld suspected as much. The bizarre emails Lazard occasionally circulated through the company network fuelled these doubts, reinforcing the Commander's conviction that this illegitimate son of the President had inherited neither his father's intelligence nor his common sense.

Next to Lazard sat Palmer, a man whose purpose on the board continued to elude Tseng. His post was a sinecure; the Old Man was the one who really ran the space program, in close association with Scarlet, whose weaponry workshops made the mako-powered rocket jets. Still, Tseng supposed that every court must have its jester, and Palmer was the fool who made Old Shinra look like a king.

The woman sitting on Palmer's left was a different proposition altogether. After Reeve, Scarlet was probably the most intelligent person on the Board – and unlike Reeve she was a highly focused, goals-oriented, ruthlessly efficient thinker with no time for sentiment. As the Commander had once phrased it, she had balls of tungsten carbide. Though Tseng personally found her repellent, he would not underestimate her, nor make the mistake of inferring too much from the low cut dresses and red stiletto shoes she favoured. Scarlett's appearance was entirely strategic. She was the least flirtatious, least manipulative, most direct woman he had ever met - and the coldest. Get on the wrong side of her, and she would make a formidable enemy.

The same could not be said of the man who sat next to Scarlet. Heidegger, Director of Public Safety Maintenance, was wearing his green Field Marshall's greatcoat. The shape of his head always put Tseng in mind of a battering-ram. Vanity had made Heidegger stupid; resentment made him aggressive, but with his fondness for parades and square-bashing, his taste for prepubescent girls, and his hatred of Veld, Lazard, or anyone else perceived as a threat to his position, Heidegger was so predictable that he was the least dangerous of them all.

Of Professor Hojo, the less said the better. He was, regrettably, untouchable.

Next to Hojo sat Midgar's visionary architect, Reeve Tuesti. Outwardly he seemed, at first glance, to resemble a younger, finer-featured Veld, with his tawny skin and thick, soft brown hair brushed back from a wide forehead. But Reeve's focus was permanently distracted. When he wasn't busy building castles in the air, he passed the time playing with toy robots, and sometimes tumbled absent-mindedly into bed with one of his star-struck interns.

Tseng thought Reeve suffered from a moral defect that made it impossible for him to think of himself as anything other than a good person. Veld thought Reeve was willfully blind. As long as he was living his dream, it didn't matter either way, but if anything were to burst Reeve's bubble, self-interest alone would probably not be enough to keep him loyal.

Next to Reeve sat President Shinra, dressed in a velvet suit the same colour as this carpet on which Tseng was standing. His manicured fingers toyed with a fat cigar. His small eyes were bright blue. His remaining hair was yellow. He was a very happy man. He said so himself, all the time, at press conferences and at company rallies and in board meetings like this one, and it seemed to be true, but in any case Tseng was not paid to have opinions about the President. To Shinra's left sat Veld, and so back to Lazard; Tseng's survey of the boardroom was complete.

Meanwhile the meeting had, as usual, degenerated into an argument about money. Veld was trying to put his case for a twelve percent increase in the Turks' budget, and Heidegger kept shouting him down. Raising the budget for Administrative Research would mean cuts in programs elsewhere. The alternative would be to raise the tariffs again, but both Reeve and the President opposed this, arguing that the public's faith in the company was their biggest asset, bigger even than Sephiroth.

Scarlett's fiefdom was safe from cutbacks; the peace with Wutai was too new and too fragile to permit economies in weapons development. All the same, she opposed Veld's request on principle. The last thing the Shinra Corporation needed, she asserted, was any more Turks. Administrative Research was already too big for its boots, having grown so far beyond its original remit of providing support for the Science and Urban Development Departments that it was now encroaching on territory that belonged by rights to Public Safety.

"Damned right," Heidegger snorted. "It's not like they do anything my army couldn't do. What we need is a return to the good old days. When the Turks were just one man and his dog."

"From the looks of things," said Scarlet, who had remembered Tseng's presence and was glaring at him, "They still are."

Lazard of course was making positive noises in Veld's direction. More funding for the Turks would mean more resources for SOLDIER, a program whose future had not been entirely certain since the defection of Genesis and Angeal the year before. And that would make Hojo happy, because Administrative Research fed his monster factory and SOLDIER took the products, and so a growth in either department, or both, inevitably allowed Science to expand.

Veld's PHS rang.

"Take it outside," said the President.

Veld took Tseng with him. There was nothing left to hear that had not been said and heard before. The President would come to a decision in his own good time; he might well have made up his mind already. Tseng often wondered what the real function of the board meetings was. Entertainment? Nostalgia? He closed the double doors on their bickering, and turned around to see young Rufus Shinra, white and gold, fifteen years old, sitting on a blue velvet banquette in the hallway, apparently absorbed in a game on his PHS.

"Natalya?" said Veld into his phone. "You're breaking up."

Next to Rufus lay his companion and guardian, the cat-like cuahl Dark Nation. An ugly animal, Tseng had always thought: angular, hairless, with dappled bluish-black skin and a fleshy scarlet crest resembling a second tail sprouting from the back of its head. Claws that could rip a man's throat out; teeth that could pierce steel. Not the kind of pet a father would normally give his child.

"Speak up," Veld barked into the phone. Gesturing for Tseng to stay with Rufus, he went further down the hall, his phone pressed to his ear.

"He doesn't want me to overhear his conversation," said Rufus. His eyes remained fixed on the PHS screen, thumbs clicking rapidly. "You're supposed to distract me."

Ordinarily, Tseng would have been willing to make time for Rufus. Arrogant and aggravating as he could be, the boy was also bright and observant: conversations with him were often interesting, and occasionally informative. But Veld's lieutenant couldn't take his eyes off his Commander, who was now down at the end of the hallway. The tension in Veld's posture made Tseng feel uneasy. He couldn't make out Veld's words, but the tone of his voice was plain to hear: it sounded, from this distance, angry.

Rufus said, "He'll get his money, don't worry."

"You shouldn't eavesdrop," Tseng rebuked him.

The boy put down his game and turned his head to give the Turk a look, cynical and coldly amused, that would have made his Old Man proud. "You're a fine one to talk," he retorted.

Unlike his older half-brother, this boy never made the slightest attempt to ingratiate himself with his father's senior managers. He spoke to the board members as if they, not he, were the children. He was rude to Scarlett, gave Heidegger orders, snubbed Palmer, sneered at Hojo… He did, however, treat Reeve with a certain amount of deference, and spoke respectfully to the Commander – to his face, at least.

Rufus said, "You know, Tseng, don't you, that my father intends to announce my appointment as Vice-President some time in the next couple of weeks?"

Tseng nodded. The Commander had told him this in confidence the day before.

"Yes, you always know," Rufus smiled. "That's why I like talking to you. I don't have to watch what I say. Of course, you understand that my old man has an ulterior motive. Morale in SOLDIER has been weakened by the loss of Genesis and Angeal. Sephiroth only takes orders when it suits him. Lazard is looking a little incompetent right now. My presence on the board will encourage him to try harder. Don't you agree?"

Rufus' voice was on the point of breaking: once or twice as he spoke it squealed like a rusty hinge, and Tseng had to work to repress a smile. He glanced down the hallway. Veld was standing with his back to them, phone clamped to one ear, finger in the other, shoulders hunched. From the looks of things, Natalya was having some kind of trouble.

"Tseng?" prompted Rufus.

"That's a reasonable interpretation," Tseng replied. " But don't get your hopes up too high. Being Vice-President is a ceremonial post. I'm not even sure you'll have an office."

"An office means nothing. Palmer has an office. Mayor Domino has a whole floor. The important thing is that everyone recognizes what being Vice-President means. I'm the designated heir. My bastard brother may not find it easy to accept that."

Rufus paused. Tseng offered no comment.

"However," Rufus went on, "If he's truly loyal to this company, he'll swallow his pride and accept me as a player in the game. On the other hand, if he's not as loyal as he pretends to be, my appointment may push him over the edge. Personally, I doubt SOLDIER would follow him if it came to a direct conflict with my father. It would all depend which way Sephiroth jumped. But whatever happens, we need the Turks up to full strength right now. So your Commander will get his money and his recruitment drive."

The boy paused, waiting for some reaction from his audience. Tseng was prepared to be generous. "I'm impressed by your command of company politics," he said.

Rufus cocked an eyebrow. "You're easily impressed, then. I think the whole thing's blindingly obvious."

"You look just like your father when you do that," Tseng replied.

Rufus' face fell: he tried, but failed, to conceal his irritation, and his failure irritated him further. Turning away, he picked up the PHS and carried on with his game, no longer the precocious prince, but an ordinary sullen teenager.

As happened so often when he dealt with Rufus, Tseng was left wondering what was really going on inside that blond head. The boy obviously grasped the rationale behind his appointment, and seemed to feel no resentment at being used as a pawn in his father's boardroom games. But Tseng doubted Rufus had been given a choice. What fifteen-year-old in his right mind would voluntarily spend his days sitting in a stuffy office listening to a bunch of paunchy middle-aged executives squabbling over budgets and corporate strategy?

The thing about Rufus, though, was that while he was happy to tell you what he thought - or what he wanted you to believe he thought – he never spoke about what he felt.

What did Rufus care about? What made his heart beat faster? What did he want? That was what Tseng did not know. But then again, what was left to want when you had everything money could buy, and the prospect of limitless future power? Rufus' life was the envy of millions: tennis parties, tea parties, dance parties, hunting parties, birthday parties at Costa del Sol and Icicle Inn… A hectic round of closely guarded, carefully vetted fun. Down in the filing room on the 47th floor the Turks kept one whole wall full of reports on where Rufus went, what he did, what he ate, whom he talked to, whom he danced with, and why he laughed or frowned. He could not stir a step outside the building without a bodyguard at his side. For a while Reno had been the chief babysitter, albeit under protest - the stiffly decorous parties Rufus attended were not the kind of parties Reno enjoyed – but he'd been pulled off that assignment about four months ago, after the memorable afternoon when, entirely on his own initiative and without asking permission, he'd taken the boy down to the Wall Market and tried to buy him a whore.

("But the poor little buttoned-up shit. I felt sorry for him, Boss.")

Tseng had answered Rufus' call that day, the self-possessed childish voice on the other end of the line demanding, firstly, that a helicopter be sent at once to collect him, and, secondly, that the presumptuous red-headed pimp never be allowed anywhere near him ever again.

("What's with that kid anyway? I really thought I was doing him a favour. Most boys his age would jump at the chance.")

These days, Rufus' bodyguard was usually Natalya or Rosalind.

Tseng's reflections were shattered by the sound of the Commander's voice. Veld was shouting into the phone, "Natalya? Natalya?" unaware, or not caring, that Tseng and Rufus could both hear him. "Nats! What's happening? What's that sound? Nats? Are you there? Answer me!"

Fear gripped Tseng's throat.

"It doesn't sound too good for your colleague, does it?" said Rufus.

Tseng turned to look at him. The boy had schooled his features into a pretense of concern. His eyes, however, were shining.

Reno woke with a start. Shit! He'd nodded off at the controls of the helicopter. The Chief would kill him. With his free hand he pushed at his goggles, and then realized, as he came fully awake, that he was not strapped in the pilot's seat but crouched in the darkness of the punishment cell – and fuck, he hurt.

Served him right, though. He'd been sloppy. Careless. He was lucky not to be dead. And like the Chief always said, it wasn't enough for your head to know where you went wrong. Your whole body had to learn the lesson: every nerve ending, every muscle fibre. That way, you didn't make the same mistake twice. Your reflexes wouldn't let you. The Chief liked to say, the first time you screw up, it's your fault. The second time, it's mine.

Turks did not make mistakes. That was the Chief's first lesson. SOLDIERs were mutants with mako in their veins and they could afford to screw up because it was practically impossible to kill them. Heidegger's grunts were like ants; if one or two snuffed it there were plenty more milling around to plug the gap. Turks were few in number and they were human, relying on their wits, their discipline and each other to get the job done. Each one of them, as the Chief liked to point out, represented a precious investment of time and money and years of training.

When the Chief said Don't get wasted he meant it both ways.

Reno could just imagine the email:

To: All Staff

From: HR

Subject: Squandering Company Assets

It has come to the attention of the Human Resources department that some employees have been careless with [company property- deleted] their lives, in direct contravention of the Company Handbook's Health and Safety Policy Directive on Risk Management, blah de blah de blah. The Shinra Corporation would like to take this opportunity to remind all employees that the Company [owns them- deleted] cares for their welfare….

Not that Reno had ever read the Company Handbook. But he quite liked the fact that there was such a thing. He didn't like filling out requisition forms, or expense claims, or evaluation sheets; he didn't like having his inbox spammed with complaints about stolen coffee cups, or roundrobins sharing inspirational clichés; he got restless in meetings that went on for more than five minutes; he loathed having to file anything, let alone alphabetically. But he liked the orderliness and purpose that forms and meetings and folders and deadlines invoked. He liked having a stationery cupboard, and not only so that he could steal from it. He liked the busyness of business. He liked being part of something big.

Commander Veld was the first person who'd ever hit him as if it mattered – as if he expected Reno to learn something. To improve. Growing up under the plate, kids got swatted all the time whether they deserved it or not, and Reno had learnt early on to roll with the punches. Nature had formed him for a thief, light-fingered, nimble, and stealthy; he could have picked pockets for a living, but had preferred to raid the plate for electronics he could fence in Sector Five. It was more challenging, more of a thrill. In the end he'd got cornered dismantling the security cameras around Reactor Three; he'd already taken most of the cameras from Reactor Five and pretty much stripped the train station, too, and so (he should have seen it coming: trouble had been closing in on him all day, and he was fast running out of bolt-holes) they sent this big tall skinhead in sunglasses after him (go Rude!), who looked intimidating but turned out to be just a punk not much older than Reno. Rude didn't even try to chase him; it was like he already knew it would be no contest. He just dropped a Stun on him (cheater) and hauled his unconscious fifteen year old arse all the way up to the floor between floors, and when Reno came to his senses there was the Chief sitting across from him – only Reno hadn't known his name then or even who he was – and there was Tseng, and Natalya, and Reno had never seen them before either, though he recognized their notorious dark blue suits. On the table in front of them was a security camera in pieces, right down to the last coil and pin.

"Make it work," said the beat-up old guy with the scar down his cheek.

This day is getting progressively weirder, thought Reno, but at least I'm not dead yet.

He put the camera back together. It worked.

"You're quick," said the old guy.

Then he took off his belt and beat the crap out of Reno.

"That was for getting caught," he said.

Later he took Reno up in the helicopter. They went above the clouds and Reno saw for the first time that the sky was blue. When they came back down to earth, the old guy told him, "We've had our eye on you for a while. You've got talents we could use. Basically, the job is security. We're the President's bodyguard. We also take care of VIPs, monitor the activities of groups and individuals hostile to Shinra, protect company secrets, and oversee the transfer of data. Covert ops and corporate spying, to be blunt."

"Cool," said Reno, who had understood the words bodyguard and spying and practically nothing else.

"Sometimes we have to kill people," the geezer added.

So that was what this was all about. Shit. Think fast, Reno. "Hey, it was self-defense," he protested. "Both times."

The old guy smiled. Not exactly a pretty sight. "I know what it was. And you made a good job of it. For an amateur. It's taken his friends a while to work out who did it. We were impressed. So, tell me – did you enjoy it?"

Reno stiffened. "I'm not some psycho whackjob, if that's what you think. I told you, it was him or me – "

"The first time. The second time, you were paying off a debt, weren't you?"

How the hell did this guy know all this stuff? There was obviously no point in lying (damn) so Reno came clean, "Yeah, that's right. Like I said, him or me. I did what I had to do. I'm just trying to get along, man, same as everyone else. What's it got to do with you, anyway? He didn't work for Shinra…" Reno tailed off as a sickening thought hit him. "Did he?"

The old guy shook his head. "He wasn't Shinra material. There's no room in this company for idiots who go looking for trouble. That's why I'm offering you the job. You're the one who's still alive. Pretty impressive, considering who's after you. So. What do you say?"

"Can I say No?"

Reno was being sarcastic, but the chief-guy gave him a straight answer. "Right now you can. If you're not interested, I'll drop you back down where we found you and you'll never heard from us again, as long as you keep your mouth shut about this interview. But before you decide, I want you to be very clear about one thing. Once you join us, there's no going back. We are the guardians of this company's secrets, and we know why they have to stay secret. That's our priority. Your own life – my life – is of secondary importance. Shinra expects absolute loyalty. In return, you'll be looked after for as long as you live. You'll want for nothing. You'll have total job security. You can never be fired. But you can never quit, either. If you turn out to be incompetent or untrustworthy, I'll shoot you myself."

Reno thought the Chief's words over. The offer sounded fair. He liked things black and white anyway. No bullshit. It kept life simple. And considering what was waiting for him back under the plate, he really had no other options left.

But he didn't want this old guy to think he was easy, or anything, so he stalled a little longer, asking, "What's the pay like?"

"Better than SOLDIER."

'Brains beats brawn, huh? Do I get to fly helicopters?"

"I think you'd be a natural. Oh, and one more thing. You like the girls, don't you?"

Fuck, they really had been watching him. Perverts. Reno wasn't sure where the old guy was going with this one, so he decided to hedge his bets. "I like a lot of things," he answered.

"Well, that's fine. Your private life is your own business, as long as it doesn't compromise corporate security. But I want you to understand that I don't allow office romances. This work can get very dangerous, and we depend on each other too much to allow emotions to cloud our judgment. You need to get that straight right from the start."

"Hey, man, you can't shoot me for being a chick magnet."

The Chief's smile twitched again. "Nor would I. A twelve month posting on Goblin Island usually cures even the most hot-blooded romantic."

"OK. Hands off the lady Turks, I get it. No problem. I mean, no offense, Chief, but that suit isn't exactly a turn-on. Speaking of which – do I have to wear it?"

The Chief laughed out loud at this. When he laughed, his face became that of someone completely different, as if the he'd suddenly turned into his own nicer, younger twin. The sight threw Reno off-balance, somehow. He'd been thinking he'd got the old guy sussed: that this was a man he needed to be afraid of, a hard man, and that that was good, because the Turks couldn't do what they did unless they felt a healthy fear for the Chief who gave them their orders. Reno's own father had been the same… at least, Reno felt pretty sure he remembered his dad had been a man like that (loud voice, heavy fists) though the memories were getting blurrier as the years went on.

But the sudden softening of Commander Veld's expression, the warmth in his laugh, suggested there was more to him than met the eye, and this hint that the Chief might be in some sense putting on an act had been unnerving to Reno. People with hidden depths made him wary.

Six years ago, that had been.

The cell door opened, and his little cubicle filled with light – soft, artificial light, bright enough to make him blink. He couldn't tell who was standing in the doorway.

"Let's go," said Tseng, holding out a hand.

They were alone. Cissnei had already been released and sent wherever: home, a mission, the cafeteria. Reno's first thought was that he wished he could have seen her. His second was the realization he was starving.

"How do you feel?" asked Tseng.

"Hungry. Et cetera. You know."

Tseng took from his top pocket a small green pill, a more portable form of Cure materia recently developed by the science department, and held it out to Reno.

Reno stared at it. "What's that for?"

They didn't usually get offered the Cure after a punishment. The rule was: you brought it on yourself, so grin and bear it.

"The Commander needs you to fly him to Costa. It's urgent. Take the Cure. Then I'll explain."

The familiar pins-and-needles sensation began at the tips of Reno's fingers and toes, gathered strength, rushed stinging up his limbs like iodine under his skin, hit his heart the way he imagined a bullet would feel, and then swiftly dissipated in a warm glow. As his bruises healed, his memories of the punishment cell and the recent beating blurred and retreated into some distant past as if through an infinite line of mirrors, though whether this was a side-effect of the materia or a trick of his own mind, Reno did not know. It was something the Turks did not talk about.

"Up to flying?" said Tseng.

"You need to ask?"

"Then let's go." Tseng set off at a fast pace; Reno stretched his legs to catch up, asking, "You're coming too, Boss?"

"Not with you, no."

Something in the texture of Tseng's voice made Reno glance sideways to take a good look at his face.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"There's been a new development. Possibly a threat to the company. We don't know who they are yet or what they want. The Commander wants you to take him to Costa so he can talk to the Legend. Charlie usually hears everything that's going on."

"Yeah, and if we're lucky he'll feel like sharing. So where are you going?"

"Icicle Inn."

They had reached the elevator. Tseng pressed the call button. Reno saw that his hand was trembling.

"Boss, what's happened?"

"Natalya's dead," said Tseng, and covered his eyes with the hand that would not stop shaking.

"Dead? No, that's not possible. She's in – "

"Icicle Inn, yes. And they were there too. Whoever they are, they killed her."