CHAPTER 5: NEW RECRUITS
In which Cissnei is redeployed, the rookies play a mini-game, and Tseng gives Reno a fat lip.
[revised 19.9.10, from a previous version that I wasn't satisfied with]
The funeral the next day was brief. Lazard sent a wreath, as did some of the SOLDIERs who had gone on past missions with Natalya. The flowers were silk and paper. The Turks burned these, together with her body, in the incinerator. They put her ashes in an urn, to be taken at some suitable time to her birthplace in Mideel, as she had once requested. Then they all went back to work.
A fortnight later, Rude and Cissnei returned from Icicle Inn, having made no progress with their investigations. Reno and Cissnei were immediately dispatched to Junon, to investigate reports of suspicious individuals asking question in the docks and the old city. Again they found nothing. Returning to Midgar, Cissnei barely had time to shower and change before she was back in the helicopter and on her way to Wutai, this time with Rosalind.
Always Cissnei. Why? Reno's subterfuge antennae were twitching. It was as if the Commander were keeping her out of the office on purpose. What was he planning? What was up?
Meanwhile, Tseng was also on the move, from Corel to the Mythil Mines and down to Wall Market, to make his preliminary assessments of the candidates Veld had selected. All three passed muster, together with a fourth, late entry from Icicle Inn. Tseng gathered them together at the Academy in Junon, and the Commander flew down, accompanied by Rosalind, to put them through their paces.
Three of the candidates were acceptable. The fourth, the boy from Madouge Corner, was quick and strong, but scored poorly on the intelligence test. Veld handed him on for assessment by SOLDIER.
("So there's an intelligence test now?" said Rosalind. "Was that brought in because of Reno?")
Three was an unusually large number of trainees to take on at one time. Until they learned the ropes, rookies were hard work. But the Department was desperately short-staffed, and Veld did not want to pass on any of them. All in their different ways had promise. Natalya, in her final mission, had done well.
A month after her death, therefore, Tseng gathered the team together for their customary morning briefing, and announced that the new recruits they'd been awaiting would be coming in for an orientation that afternoon.
Reno cheered. "It's about time we had a rookie to do the filing."
"Three rookies, no less," Mozo reminded him. "One for the filing, one for the stock-taking, and one for the sandwich run. Man, who knows - we might even be able to have a day off."
"I wouldn't count on it," said Tseng. "Moving on to the next item, Cissnei's been transferred to SOLDIER -"
"What?" cried Reno, sitting up in his chair. "She's left us?"
"Not permanently; she's still on D.A.R. payroll – "
"But she only came back a month ago. What's she gone upstairs for?"
"She's been appointed to the new post of Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer – "
"What the –"
Tseng quelled Reno with a look. Then, after glancing round the table to make sure they were all listening, he went on, "It's something the Commander's been considering for a while. Recently we've been undertaking a large number of joint missions, and he and Director Lazard have decided we need a point of common contact. Cissnei was selected because of her low profile. She's been away from Head Office for quite a while; and after the mass desertion last year, and the success of the current recruitment drive, most of SOLDIERs rank and file are pretty new."
"You mean you choose her because they don't know she's a Turk," Mozo interpreted, which prompted Rosalind to ask, "So she's under cover?"
"Not exactly. But Commander Veld and Director Lazard think she'll find it easier to be accepted by SOLDIER initially if no one draws attention to the fact that she's one of us. I'm sure I don't need to remind any of you that there hasn't always been a history of – how can I put it – mutual confidence between SOLDIER and this department – "
"Like that's our fault," Reno muttered.
Tseng ignored him. "For the time being, therefore, we'd prefer to keep Cissnei's identity as a Turk under wraps. You are not being asked to lie if someone asks you a direction question about her. Our aim is to build trust, and lying would defeat the purpose. But use discretion. And please refrain from talking about her to the new recruits. We don't know yet if they're going to make it past probation."
Briefing completed, Tseng gathered his papers and left. The others dispersed to their various missions, leaving Rude, Reno, and Rosalind in the office, together with the little cat, whom nobody had ever succeeded in evicting. It lay on a pile of unfiled reports in the corner of Rude's desk, its paws under its chest, purring contentedly.
Reno was meant to be filling out a requisition form for the components he needed to upgrade the bugging system at the residence of the envoy from Wutai, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate.
First he clicked his pen-top, in, out, in, out…
When that palled, he bounced an eraser on his desk.
Then he began swiveling round in his chair. Its bearings squeaked. The little cat stopped purring, and watched him with wide, astonished eyes.
"Quit it," said Rude mildly.
"I'm thinking," said Reno. "I need to move when I think."
"Go have a cigarette or something. You're like a Jumping on hyper today."
The chair spun a little faster. Reno said, "So, who've they sent Ciss to spy on, d'you think?"
"Lazard?" Rude suggested.
Reno shook his head. "He's in on it. Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer, my arse. You can smell that steaming pile of crap a mile off. No, it'll be someone Lazard wants us to target. Somebody inside SOLDIER."
"Maybe it's that Second, Zack Fair. He was closer to Angeal than any of the others."
Rosalind, who had been listening, now chipped in with, "But Cissnei likes him."
Reno gave her a withering look. "How does she even know him?"
"She doesn't know him. She just saw him in the lobby the other day. She said he was the hottest guy in Shinra."
At that moment a sharp pain jabbed Reno in the chest: it was brief, but fierce, as if someone had stubbed out a cigarette in his gullet. Heartburn – yeah, that must be it; too many late nights, too little solid food, and not enough sleep.
"I think you could be right, Roz," said Rude. "Zack Fair was Angeal's protégé, and Angeal was Genesis' closest friend."
"I bet Director Lazard thinks Zack Fair knows something about what really happened with those two," Rosalind elaborated. "Maybe Zack even knows where they are. And Lazard wants Ciss to get Zack to tell her."
This was nothing out of the ordinary. Pain was not the only, or even always the best way to extract information. The Turks could play nice when the occasion called for it, and seductions of all kinds were part of their arsenal.
"Well, that would explain why they chose her," said Rude. "If they'd just wanted an anonymous Turk they could have got one of the branch office guys. And like you said, Reno, Ciss isn't really desk job material."
"But she is gorgeous," Rosalind added wistfully.
Reno's chair was spinning faster now.
"Hey, be careful," Rosalind warned him. "You don't want to unscrew the seat."
Reno pressed a foot to the floor. The chair braked and stopped with a jolt. ""Fuck it," he declared. "I'm not happy about this at all."
"You worried about Ciss?" asked Rude in some surprise.
"I'm pissed off. I thought that now she was back we could be partners again, like we were down in Mideel. I like working with Ciss. We did all our training together, and I'm used to the way she operates."
"Not to mention the fact that she's willing to put up with you," added Rosalind.
Reno stuck out his tongue at her. Then he went on, "And now when I meet her in the elevator I'm supposed to act like I don't even fucking know her, so yeah, I guess you could say I'm feeling pretty let down. Ciss is one of us. She belongs here, with us, not passed over to SOLDIER like - like some failed rookie."
"It's just a secondment," Rude reminded him. "And she was the logical choice."
"Look, I just have bad feeling about it, OK? I've heard some things about Mr Zack Omigosh-I'm-a-backwoods-virgin-want-to-see-my-big-sword? Fair. I've seen him at parties. He's got a reputation."
"Takes one to know one," said Rosalind tartly.
'Thanks Roz, that's helpful. Look – my point is, sure, Zack Fair'll jump in the sack with Ciss. Who wouldn't? But that doesn't mean he'll tell her his secrets. To get those she'll have to get under his skin. And I don't think..." Reno tailed off.
"What?" Rude prompted.
"He's not just some cute guy. He's SOLDIER. Pumped with mako. They're all monsters. She could really get hurt."
"She's done this before," Rude reminded him. "She knows the score."
"But she likes him. Roz, you said so."
"I said she thought he was hot," Rosalind corrected him.
"Still not good," said Reno. "You can't start having feelings for your mark. You have to keep the line drawn."
Rude did not deny this, but said, "She'll do whatever it takes to get the job done."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying – if she gets hurt, I'm having his balls, is all."
Having got that off his chest, he jumped from the chair and loped away to complete the preparations for orienting the new recruits. The requisition form remained on his desk, unfinished, forgotten.
.
The introduction of new recruits to the department was always a momentous occasion, like the birth of a child, or the celebration of an arranged marriage. Excitement was mixed with trepidation. Every rookie was an unknown quantity, and the rookies were not the only ones who had to learn to adapt. The lives of the Turks, and the Department of Administrative Research itself, were changed forever each time a new individual was added to their number, in unpredictable and sometimes subtle ways.
After lunch all available Turks assembled in the Commander's office on the 66th floor, to meet the three strangers who would, from this moment forwards, be their partners and companions, share their duties and guard their backs; on whom their lives might one day depend. The first was a boy, the second a woman, and the third one was a girl. Reno took his time looking them over carefully while Commander Veld introduced each one in turn.
The boy, Cavour, was no more nor less than what Reno would have expected in someone slum-bred and Corneo-trained, though his appearance hinted at a more distant Costan ancestry: matt olive skin, dark eyes, coarse dark hair dressed in a complicated gangster hairstyle, with a ducktail at the nape of hs neck, cornrows on the sides, and thick spikey bangs falling over his wide forehead. The Chief said he was sixteen, but he carried himself with the confidence of someone much older – someone who'd been packing a pistol before they learnt how to shave. That Wall Market swagger would have to be trained out of him, as it had been beaten down (though carefully not extinguished) in Reno. Turks were designed to be inconspicuous.
The woman was interesting. The Chief didn't say how old she was, but Reno could see she was in her mid-twenties, at least. Possibly older than Tseng, and much older than their standard recruiting age. The Chief seemed to think this needed some kind of explanation, because he now told them that this woman, Mink, was the last candidate Natalya had scouted before she died, up in Icicle Inn.
Reno already knew something of her story through Rude, who had met her before: Mink was not only a new recruit, but also a witness to Natalya's murder, and Rude had questioned her several times in the course of his investigations. Her interview with Nats had taken place in the bar of the inn. When it was over, Nats had left to walk back to the Shinra chalet. On the way, she had phoned Commander Veld to give him the results of the interview, and it was while she was on the phone that she had been ambushed. Meanwhile Mink, for whatever reason [the woman wasn't much of a talker] had followed Nats outside in time to find her beset by four or five men [the other eyewitnesses couldn't agree on an exact number], had driven them off with her fists, and then knelt in the bloody snow to hold Natalya's hand while she died.
To Reno's mind, these actions had made Mink something of an honorary Turk already. Rude had described her as looking "Like Sephiroth, if he was a woman," and Reno could now see exactly what he meant: Mink had the same kind of cold, sexless beauty. She was tall and broad-shouldered, and her straight, hip-length hair was mostly silver, streaked with remnants of black. Her eyes, however, were reddish-brown, not blue. She even stood like a SOLDIER, arms folded, feet apart. According to Rude, she had been a mercenary and a bounty hunter before joining the Turks.
The third recruit, the little girl, whom the Chief called Aviva, was a tiny scrap of a thing, dressed in a suit at least a size too big for her. She looked as if she'd never eaten a square meal in her life. There were hollows under her cheekbones. A faint red scar marred her right cheek. Her skin was very white, and her huge eyes and close-cropped curls were sooty black.
To Reno's experienced eye, this child was the most intriguing of the three. He was willing to bet she couldn't be any older than twelve. Of course Cissnei had been only ten when she was recruited, but she hadn't been put straight to work, she'd been sent off to school. And Tseng hadn't been much older – but then, the Boss was a special case. So what, he wondered, made this kid special? What unsuspected skills, what improbable potential, had Nats and the Chief spotted in her? The Chief said that knives were her weapon of choice, which made sense – the kid wasn't exactly built like a martial artist – but there had to be more to her than that. Apart from anything else, the Chief never hired anyone who hadn't already shown that they could kill. So who had this waif killed? Had it been a fight in the schoolyard, like it was with Cissnei?
"Take them away now and show them around," said Commander Veld to his team. "They'll start full-time tomorrow."
Knox took the recruits down in the first lift; Rude, Reno, Rosalind and Mozo followed in the other. When Reno came into the office, he saw the woman, Mink, standing against the far wall, arms folded; the punk Cavour was studying the noticeboard, and Aviva was petting the cat.
"What's its name?" she asked of no one in particular. Reno was surprised by her voice. He'd expected something high-pitched, musical, girly-girly, but this kid sounded like she smoked a pack a day. She also sounded a little breathless, like she was fighting to hold herself steady. He guessed she was probably feeling pretty scared.
"We haven't settled on a name for it yet," said Rosalind. "Mostly we just call it 'Cat'."
"I'm surprised you're allowed to keep pets," said the silver-haired woman, Mink.
"Oh, the cat works here," laughed Knox. "It catches rats, same as the rest of us. Who wants to do the honours? Reno?"
"Sure. OK, rookies, listen up. That there's the photocopier, derp, there's the water-cooler - if you finish a bottle, replace it, or Tseng will chew your ear off – stationary cupboard's in there, kitchen down here, coffee's in the cupboard, bring your own mug, beer's in the fridge, and if you see there's only one left, know, O rookies, that it always has my name on it. Understood? There's more of us than there are desks, so sit wherever; it's first come first served, but we're never all in the office at the same time anyway. The materia room and the weapons room are on the other side of the hall. The doors are labeled. Your pass keys will open them. And this," he finished with a flourish, "Is the ventilation hatch."
Rude grinned. "It's initiation time."
Mink's brow furrowed. Cavour glanced nervously from face to face. Aviva's huge black eyes were fixed on Reno, unblinking, unmoving, like he'd just drawn a gun on her and was aiming right for the middle of her forehead.
He wondered what they'd heard. There were so many myths and rumours going around.
"Right then, noobs," he said briskly, handing them each a sheet of paper, "This is how we separate winners from losers in the Department of Administrative Research. What you've got there is a list of fifteen items that you have to collect from the floors above us. You have two hours to get as many of them as you can and then find your way back here. If you come back after the two hour limit, you lose. The lifts and the stairs are out of bounds – you have to go through the ventilation shafts. I've put out materia for you, and whatever you pick up you can use, if you know how. Just don't blow up the air-con, OK? Or you lose. And don't set fire to anything. The Chief hates that. Now, if you look at your list you'll see that every item has a numeric weighting. Some of them are harder to get your hands on, so they're worth more. The winner is whoever has the highest aggregate score at the end. Got it?"
"What do we get if we win?" asked Aviva in her husky voice.
Mozo grinned at her. "You get to buy us a round of drinks at the Goblins. And you, twinkie, can treat yourself to a lemonade."
"But we haven't been paid yet," Mink objected.
"Them's the rules," said Knox. "Time and stealth are of the essence. Officially Commander Veld knows nothing about this. If you get caught, you're on your own. In that eventuality we expect you to eat the list and lie. I think you already know how the Chief deals with screw-ups. So don't screw up."
"But if we lose, what happens then?" asked Cavour.
Reno pointed a finger at the rookie's chest. "Bang," he said. The other Turks laughed. Cavour's thick black brows drew together in a scowl, while the woman, Mink, merely continued to look unimpressed. Aviva's great black hungry eyes grew even rounder, and the hand that clutched Reno's paper clenched into a fist.
Mozo's put-down about the lemonade had got to her; Reno had seen her wince. Now, even thought she was still scared, she was determined to win; he could see that too, in the way she stood very upright, shoulders square; in the set of her jaw and the light in her eye. 'I'll show them', she was thinking.
And he thought, yeah, you go for it, kid. Show us what you're made of.
While they were talking, Rude had removed the ventilation hatch. "Let's move it," he said.
"Hang on just a minute," said Cavour. "Who's this Mrs Miggins? Who are all these people? What's 'Dark Nation'? How do we find it?"
Mink came forward and laid a hand on Cavour's arm. "You have to work it out," she told him. "That's your job." To Knox she said, "Can we have some flashlights?"
"Right here," said Rosalind, producing a box.
Mink went in first, followed by Cavour. Little Aviva hung back. She kept glancing up from the paper to Reno, and back down to the paper again. Then, as if she'd suddenly figured something out, she scrunched the paper into a little ball, shoved it into the pocket of her trousers, and climbed into the shaft, vanishing almost immediately into the darkness.
"Come on, let's go," said Rosalind.
She and her fellow Turks hurried to the floor between floors, to the surveillance room where Tseng awaited them in front of a bank of closed circuit TV screens.
"Let me see your list," he said to Reno. "President Shinra's Business Card – only twenty-five points?"
"That's an easy one," Reno explained. "They must know his office is at the top of the building. He keeps the cards in his top drawer, unlocked. They'll find them."
"A PHS photograph of SOLDIER second class Zack Fair doing jump-squats – really, Reno."
"I know, I know, too easy."
"Hojo's glasses… A miniature train from Reeve's model of Midgar… One of Palmer's donuts. Scarlett's lipstick, only fifty points? I think it's worth more than that. Dark Nation's paw-print… Lazard's monogrammed handkerchief. Nice… One of Mrs Miggins's wooden spoons from the cafeteria – "
"Nasty," said Rude admiringly.
"Sephiroth's signature on their arm?"
"He's signed weirder parts of bodies."
"Heidegger's underpants?" exclaimed Tseng. "Five hundred points? Wouldn't that be an automatic win?"
"And I'm pretty sure he keeps a couple of pairs in his back closet along with his spare dress uniform, so they shouldn't be that hard to get," said Reno. "But I had to put the weighting up, because nobody ever even tries to get Heidegger's underpants."
"Ugh, who'd want to?" said Rosalind, pulling a face. "You'd have to touch them - Oh, look, " she pointed at a screen, "There's the boy now. And Mink's made it up to the labs."
Cavour had come out on the 65th floor and was in the map room, checking out the scale model of Midgar. Mink, meanwhile, had dropped from a ceiling vent on the 68th Floor. They watched as she looked around, got her bearings, saw a scientist in a lab coat approaching, and hid behind a corner. When the scientist turned the corner, Mink planted a swift blow on the back of his neck: he crumpled to the floor unconscious. She dragged him into the men's washroom – the action moved at this point onto another screen – and propped him on the toilet seat in one of the cubicles. She put on his lab coat, took his glasses, and broke them under her heel. She went back into the corridor and then into a control room (one screen over) where she spoke to a scientist, and went through a further door (another screen change) into what the Turks recognized as Hojo's personal lab.
Hojo himself was standing with his back to her, his attention wholly aborbed by the huge amorphous blob slowly taking shape as something unimaginable in the giant test-tube that filled the centre of the room. Mink spoke to him. He turned. She showed him the broken glasses in her hand. Hojo looked annoyed. She said something. He took off his glasses and gave them to her, then took another pair from the inside pocket of his lab coat and put them on, waving Mink away.
Knox whistled. "I like her style."
Mink put Hojo's glasses in her trouser pocket. She left Hojo's lab, went back through the other lab into the corridor, and on to the men's washroom, where she locked the door. She draped the lab coat over the unconscious scientist's shoulders and put her suit jacket back on. Then she took out a little knife, climbed onto the cubicle partition, unscrewed the ventilation grille, pulled herself into the shaft, and was lost to sight.
"Seven minutes," said Tseng. "She's good."
Of the little girl Aviva, there was no sign. Reno wondered guiltily if she was lost in the pipeworks.
Two of the CCTV cameras were not working: Heidegger's office and Palmer's office came up as blank screens. In fact Palmer's camera had broken down several months ago; it kept slipping down to the bottom of Reno's to-do list. Heidegger's must have malfunctioned just now. "Damn," said Reno. "I was really hoping this time one of them would shoot for the jackpot. Now we'll never know."
Mozo asked, "What d'you reckon, Reno: boxers or briefs?"
"Thongs," Reno grinned. "PVC."
"Please don't," said Tseng.
"I reckon he favours boxers in a fetching shade of khaki camoflage," said Mozo, "With a big red Shinra logo on the crotch."
"Moogles," said Rude.
Back on the 65th floor, Cavour had finally made up his mind to grab a toy train and run. He dived headfirst into the ventilation shaft. It took him almost half an hour to reappear, this time in the presidential suite, holding a sphere of materia in each hand. By this point there was little doubt that Mink would win. She had been to the cafeteria on the 61st floor, spoken to the fearsome Mrs Miggins, and been given a spoon in exchange. She had gone down from there to the 58th floor, dropped into the SOLDIER changing room, dressed herself in a pair of third class trousers and a sleeveless purple turtleneck, and walked out into the corridor. The effect of her appearance was like poking an anthill with a stick: SOLDIERs seethed around her. Women, especially beautiful women, were a rarity in their department. Guided by her attentive entourage, Mink was escorted to the lounge area, where she found Zack Fair sitting with Kunsel. An animated conversation ensued. Whatever it was she said to him, Zack willingly obliged, grinning handsomely and talking non-stop while he went through his moves.
Reno knew Rosalind and Rude were waiting for him to say something, so he gritted his teeth and held his tongue. He was looking out for Cissnei, but could not see her.
"Twenty minutes left," said Tseng. "Where's Aviva?"
"If she doesn't turn up, I'll go look for her," Reno volunteered.
Mozo laughed. "You love any excuse to go crawling through that maze, man."
With ten minutes left to go, the Turks returned to their office to wait by the ventilation shaft. It wasn't long before Cavour came tumbling out, his pockets heavy with materia, his hands clutching treasures, his hair full of dust and cobwebs.
Mink was next. "Well, sir?" she said to Tseng. "Do I pass inspection? I'm assuming you watched the whole performance."
The clock was ticking. Two minutes. One minute. Thirty seconds.
From inside the shaft came a distant rattling that rapidly grew louder and closer… Aviva slithered out, belly down like a snake, and somersaulted onto the floor.
Getting to her feet, she reached inside her suit jacket and withdrew a wad of silky fabric, which she threw, with some force, in Reno's direction. He caught it against his chest, unfurled it, and, holding it by his fingertips, lifted it up for everyone to see: a pair of extra-large paisley boxer shorts, embroidered with the monogram HH.
For a long moment, there was complete silence.
"Not - Heidegger's underpants?" exclaimed Rosalind in astonishment. "That's a first!"
Wordlessly, the girl nodded.
Something was wrong. Reno could feel it. And he could see that the others sensed it, too. The kid had just won the game – won spectacularly – but she didn't look happy about it. She looked sick… and scared. Scared sick. Like she might throw up. Like the only thing she wanted right now was somewhere to hide. Her face seemed even whiter than before; the scar was a livid slash across her cheekbone. Weirdly, her hair was wet, as if she'd just taken a shower.
Even Tseng seemed to have realized that something was amiss. "How did you get these?" he demanded.
Aviva opened her mouth. Her throat worked, but no sound came out.
"Answer me," said Tseng.
Jeez, thought Reno, go easy, Boss. She's only little.
Rude stepped forward then, and reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. The girl jumped, glancing round wildly at him. On Rude's face Reno saw a strange expression: compassion, fighting against disgust.
"It's OK," Rude told her gently. "You don't have to say it."
Behind those sunglasses, he was sometimes the quickest of them all to see things.
The other Turks continued to stare at her. Reno watched the understanding dawn in their eyes: uncertainty gave way to disbelief, and then to revulsion, mingled with dismay. Mozo got there first, then Tseng, then Knox, and finally Rosalind. The two new Turks, Cavour and Mink, glanced at each other; they still weren't quite sure what was going on.
"Oh…my," said Rosalind, summing up what they were all thinking. "You didn't?"
A red flush crept over the girl's face, from her lips to the roots of her cropped hair.
"Bloody hell," muttered Mozo.
Knox put his hand over his mouth.
Tseng began, "Aviva, you – " but seemed lost for words to go on.
Guess the training manual doesn't cover this, thought Reno angrily – though why he should be angry, and why that anger should be directed at Tseng, he couldn't have explained.
The girl's black eyes darted from one face to another. She looked bewildered now as well as frightened. "What?" she demanded. "Did I do something wrong? You said we have to do whatever it takes to get the job done. I did that. I won. Isn't that what you wanted? Sir?" She looked at Tseng.
Tseng quickly looked away; and Reno wondered if, in his mind's eye, the Boss was imagining what he was imagining.
"Aviva," said Knox hesitantly. "I don't think you understand. It was just – a game – "
"A game?" Aviva's mouth twisted, and she pressed a hand to her throat, as if she'd suddenly gagged. "Oh - god. I though it was a test. Wasn't it a test?" Her eyes were on Reno now. "You said if we lost… Oh, god. Oh no. I'm so dumb. You were just joking, weren't you?"
There were tears in her eyes. She rubbed at them with a clenched fist, and said furiously, "Well, fine! Think what you like! Go on, have a good laugh at me! Who cares, if it's all just a stupid game anyway - "
Then she choked on a sob, and fled from the room, both hands clapped over her mouth.
"Rosalind, go after her," said Tseng, gathering his wits.
"Yes, sir."
"I'll go too, sir," said Mink, following Rosalind.
Only the men were left in the office. They all looked at Tseng, though what they expected from him, they themselves did not know. They had not laughed at Aviva, yet they felt cheapened. They had not told her to do it or even suggested it, yet they felt they were in some way to blame. And they were angry with her, too, for spoiling the fun of the afternoon. The pictures in their minds were ugly ones. She had seemed to all of them, not just Reno, to be little more than a child.
To calm his churning guts, Reno took out a cigarette and lit it.
Tseng ran a hand over his hair, a gesture he made only in moments of severe uncertainty. Out loud he wondered, "What was she thinking of?"
"Well," drawled Reno, blowing the smoke down his nostrils, "At least you got to admire her willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice."
Tseng crossed the room in a fluid movement and took hold of Reno's arm. "Bad joke," he said. His voice was soft, but his fingers in Reno's flesh were like grappling hooks. It was always stupid to provoke Tseng, and often painful, and Reno knew it – but, as he'd proved so many time before, sometimes he couldn't help being stupid. Or didn't care.
"Outside," Tseng ordered.
He hauled Reno down the corridor and round the corner to where they could not be seen through the glass doors or from the elevators. There was no sign of the girls. Taking hold of Reno by the collar, Tseng pushed him into the corner and held him there, and Reno let him do it.
"What's wrong with you?" Tseng demanded.
Reno bared his teeth. "With me, Boss?"
"You make a joke out of everything. You take nothing seriously."
"So? What's the big deal?"
"For God's sake. Heidegger!" Tseng spat the name in disgust.
Reno shrugged. "Whatever it takes, yo."
"Did she think we wanted her to do that?"
"Hey, screwing the top brass, it's all in a day's work, right?"
Tseng glared at him. "She's fifteen years old."
"What?" exclaimed Reno. "No way. She looks about twelve."
Tseng's grip tightened ominously. "She's a child, Reno."
"Yeah? And? So?"
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"Should it? Seriously, Boss, am I missing something here? Because I don't get what the problem is. You're the ones who hired her, you and the Chief. What did you tell her the job was, babysitting?"
Tseng's fist was a blur as it smacked into Reno's face. Reno felt his lip split, tasted the blood in his mouth. "Fuck this," he muttered, "Let go of me," and with a sudden twist he wrench himself free and leapt sideways, beyond the reach of Tseng's arm. "What the hell was that for?" he demanded.
"Sometimes," Tseng ground out, "I could kill you."
"Yeah, I got that part."
Tseng did not reply. Reno watched him take a few deep breaths as he struggled to get his temper under control. Then he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his knuckles, which he'd scrapped on Reno's teeth. Reno touched a finger gingerly to his mouth. The split was deep, and the lip was swelling fast.
Tseng looked up. "You should get some ice on that," he said in a calmer voice. Putting a hand under Reno's elbow, he took him to the kitchen, and sat him down in a chair. Under the sink he found a plastic bag. He filled it with ice cubes, rolled it in a tea towel and handed it to Reno, who pressed it against his puffed mouth. At the sink Tseng washed his skinned knuckles with soap and water.
"We were all kids," said Reno thickly. "I was no older than she is. And you were what? Twelve? Thirteen?"
Tseng concentrated on lathering his hands. A little wrinkle had appeared between his brows. He said nothing, but Reno hadn't really expected an answer. Interpreting Tseng's silence as permission to speak, he pressed on, "Look, Boss, I don't know where Nats found that kid, but I can guess it wasn't a church social. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see what kind of life she's been leading. Whatever happens to her here, it's gotta be better than what she left behind. You know what I mean. And anyway, since when have we been hiring nice girls? What use would they be? So why are you carrying on like she's some kind of outraged innocent? I think maybe you're the one with the problem here, Tseng, not me. That kid's not a child, no matter what you say. Fuck it – look, when I was her age, I knew damn well what the Chief was offering me, and I jumped at the chance. You sure as hell knew, and you were younger than she is. So what makes you think Aviva didn't understand what she was getting into when she signed up for this? That kid knew exactly what she was doing, believe me."
"And what was that?" asked Tseng, drying his hands methodically.
"Winning."
Tseng folded the towel and turned around. "Which would explain why she's in the washroom right now crying her eyes out."
Reno began to feel impatient. The Boss could be so dense sometimes. "Not because of Heidegger. He was just a job to her. She's crying because of you."
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. And me. And all of us. It isn't what she did that made her ashamed, it was the way we looked at her when we realized what she'd done. Like we couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid, so - cheap. Like she made us ashamed. She was trying to impress you, Boss. Don't you get that? In the only way she knows, I guess." Suddenly Reno grinned. "She's friggin' impressed me, I can tell you. That girl must have one hell of a strong stomach."
"Don't trivialize this."
"I'm not. I mean it. That kid's got a lot of potential. She's smart, and she's tough, and she's determined. She worked out what she needed to do, and she did it, and she didn't let anything stand in her way. She got the job done. She gave one hundred perfect. And she won. So who gives a shit how old she is? She's one of us now. You should be patting her on the back, Boss, not – " he touched his swollen face – "Giving fat lips to your loyal staff."
Tseng's face was a study, frowning, yet smiling…. As much as he ever smiled, which was never more than a slight upward quirk of the corners of his mouth, and even that, it often seemed to Reno, given against his better judgement, as if he'd been told early on in life that a sense of humour was a weakness, and had taken the advice to heart.
"You shouldn't be talking," he said. "Put that ice back on."
Reno did, and was silent for a minute, replaying the conversation in his mind. Tseng would never admit it, but Reno knew he'd succeeded in persuading the Boss to see things his way. "So, what are you going to do now?" he asked from behind the towel.
"I'll have to let the Commander know."
Reno nodded. That was a given. "But Boss – tell him not to make her hurt too much for this, huh? I know it sounds weird, but her motives were good ones."
"She has to learn, Reno. To be honest with you, I'm not even sure we can keep her after this. If Heidegger finds out she's one of our new recruits, he's bound to tell Director Scarlet, and she'll make sure it spreads through the building. If that happens, the Commander will have no choice but to let her go."
"Then we'll just have to make sure Corporal Beardface doesn't find out," said Reno. "I think we should be able to manage that. Don't you?"