CHAPTER EIGHT: LIES AND OTHER CRIMES
[in which a materia thief is captured, Aviva indulges in some comfort eating, and Rufus makes Tseng's life difficult]

Extracts from the minutes of the Shinra Electric Company Board of Directors meeting

Midgar, 21st February 2001. 4.00 pm.

Present: President Shinra, Vice-President Rufus, Palmer, Heidegger, Scarlett, Lazard, Tuesti, Hojo, Veld

… Item 2, the new threat posed by the group known as AVALANCHE

Item 2.1

- Veld presented a report on events of the 20th February summarizing attacks made by AVALANCHE on Midgar and Junon, and distributed copies of existing intelligence on AVALANCHE

- President expressed dissatisfaction with performance of Department of Administrative Research in handling of threat posed by AVALANCHE

- Lazard Deusericus called for a vote of thanks to be made to the Turk Reno and novice Turk Aviva for actions above and beyond the call of duty. President vetoed vote.

- Scarlett stated for the record that it was not the business of Turks to fight hostile armed forces, but to identify and forestall threats to the company's intellectual property

- Heidegger proposed responsibility for AVALANCHE be transferred to Department of Public Safety Maintenance; Scarlett seconded motion. Motion put to the vote and defeated 6:2. President rejected motion.

- Vice-President Rufus proposed responsibility for AVALANCHE be transferred to SOLDIER with commensurate budgetary adjustments. V-P further proposed intensification of SOLDIER recruitment program, to be conducted jointly by SOLDIER and Department of Administrative Research. President seconded motion. Motion carried nem con. President accepted motion.

Item 2.2

- Professor Hojo proposed Turks make it their priority to prevent any further theft of materia or other property from company buildings. Motion seconded by Reeve Tuesti. Motion passed nem con. President accepted motion.

There being no other business, the meeting closed at 4.45 pm.

.

The next morning the Turks gathered in the briefing room, waiting for Tseng to give them their day's assignments. In the middle of the long ebony table the cat lay sprawled luxuriously on its side, paws kneading, purr rumbling, while Aviva gently tickled its white belly.

"You doing anything tonight, kid?" Reno asked her.

"Me?" Aviva stammered. "No – I don't think so – no, sir…."

"Would you like to go for a drink? You were so out of it when we got back from Junon, we forgot to drink a toast to your first mission. Kind of a departmental tradition. D'you want to go tonight?"

Her cheeks had turned a pretty shade of pink. "Oh…yes… yes, I would, sir. I'd like that."

"OK. Rude's up for it too, and I'm sure the others will come. Hey, guys, who's coming to the Goblins tonight to celebrate Viva's first mission?"

He was looking around the table, counting the raised hands, and so did not see her shining eyes turn dull with disappointment.

.

From Tseng's briefing notebook, dated 22nd February 2001

- Rude, Reno, Mink – SOLDIER recruitment.

1. Candidate profile 2. Itinerary 3. Advance on expenses 4. Ship? Helicopter?

- Rosalind – AVALANCHE leadership invstg. 'Fuhito'/'Shears' – educational records? 'Elfe' – medical records? Mako exposure?

- Cavour – classified materia theft intel/surv

suspects a) Dr Maria Halberstand S-DSR/F/292 C

b) Dr Yared Seega S-DSR/M/154 B

c) Dr Lane Wilbraham S-SOLDIER/M/54 B

NB photos

- Mozo – VP to Icicle Inn snowboarding

- Aviva – sector 8

- Knox – Fort Condor; monsters – Genesis? Further information needed: Cissnei

- Cissnei – cont.

- Self 1) ID pirates slums sector 3. 2) AVALANCHE follow up Cosmo Canyon link 3) call Charlie 4) Don Corneo 5) archives – Modeoheim 6) Party 8 pm w/Pres. NB New gloves

.

"So…" said Rude, "Looks like I'm stuck with you again, Reno."

Reno laughed. "What are you saying? Admit it, you'd rather work with me than anyone else."

Rude made a gruff noise in his throat that could have been a yes. "With you the work is never…. routine."

"You got that right, partner."

PHS transcript 8th March 2001, 13.37

Cavour: Dr Wilbraham is the one, boss. He met his contact in the Sector 6 playground fifteen minutes ago and handed something over, something heavy in a bag. I took the photos like you said. Now he's on his way to the train station. I think he's heading back to the office. I'm following the contact.

Tseng: Good work. Send me the photos. I'll intercept Wilbraham. Where's the contact going now?

Cavour: Into Wall Market.

Tseng: Your orders are to take him alive. But be discrete.

Cavour: Roger, sir. Cavour out.

.

Form /REP:6A

SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY

Department of Administrative Research

Mission Report

Mission to: Sector 6 slums

Mission Objective: Capture AVALANCHE operative and recover classified materia

Agents: Cavour

Mission Date: March 8th 2001

Report filed by: Cavour, ID S-DAR/M/72.R

Mission status: partially accomplished

Tailed target from Sector 6 playground into market. Target realized he was being followed. Target ran. Pursued target for approximately five minutes. Target took a kid hostage and said he'd kill the kid if I didn't back off. I shot the target through the head around 14.15. Kid was unharmed. Parents very happy. Bag found at scene, contained materia. Returned with materia to HQ at 15.05

Signed: Cavour Date: 8/3/01

.

Crumpled scraps in a wastepaper bin in the Turks' offices, 8th March 2001

- It's sOOO quiet hear without him

- Reno

- Mrs Reno

- Mrs Aviva Reno

- Youre insane. He has tons of girlfreinds according to Rosalind . Why would he even look at u? He calls u a kid. [crossed out]If he knew[crossed out] Hes only nice to u because hes nice to evreyone. If Mr Veld could read my mind hed kill me. Why isn't their a materia for this feeling? But I don't want it to go away.

.

At 16.00 a small fire broke out in a wastepaper bin that had been carried into the Turk's kitchen. At 16.02 Aviva doused the fire with a coffee mug of water. She took a bar of chocolate from the refrigerator and ate it sadly, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

.

Dr Wilbraham, materia thief, entered the lift on the mezzanine floor. It was crowded. He turned to watch the numbers light up as they rose smoothly through the building. Floor 45, Floor 46, Floor 47 –

A hand closed around his arm.

"Don't make a scene," said Tseng in his ear.

- Floor 48.

"Our stop," said Tseng.

Wilbraham managed to stay brave long enough to step from the lift, but when the doors closed and the other people, the ordinary Shinra employees, the innocent, were carried away from him back into the life he already knew he had lost, his legs gave way and Tseng had to drag him to the interrogation room.

"Sit," he said, throwing Wilbraham onto a chair.

"What are you going to do to me?" Wilbraham's voice came out as a strangled whisper.

"Do you have family in Midgar, Dr Wilbraham?"
"What? Yes – my parents. My brother."

"Last month a terrorist organization called AVALANCHE temporarily seized the mako cannon at Junon and tried to turn it on Midgar. You're a scientist, Dr Wilbraham. I don't need to tell you what would have happened to your parents and your brother and everyone else in this city if they had succeeded. We also discovered that they are in possession of experimental weapons grade materia from our laboratories. The person who has been passing that materia to them is you. I want you to tell me the names of your contacts and – "

"I can't tell you," cried Wilbraham. "I don't know who they are! You have to believe me! I never knew his name! Help me! Somebody! Please! Help me!"

"No one can hear you," said Tseng matter-of-factly, pulling on his black gloves. "And even if they could, nobody would help you."

Tseng had hoped Dr Wilbraham would not waste his time trying to be stubbornly heroic. As it was, he had to break one of the scientist's ribs before he would stop struggling long enough to be tied to the arms of the chair. One by one Tseng snapped the fingers of Wilbraham's right hand, quickly and painfully and without any particular satisfaction. Wilbraham screamed and panted, screamed and panted.

"Tell me," said Tseng.

"I can't! Please, please don't hurt me any more."

"I don't want to hurt you. But you have to talk to me."

"I can't! Please! You don't understand! They know where my family lives! They said they'd kill them!"

Tseng caught his breath on a sigh. Back in the early days, when he was still learning the ropes, he'd made a point of being honest whenever Shinra employees came into his hands. Tell me what I need to know, he'd say, and I promise I'll kill you quickly and painlessly. We'll let your family have your body and give them a respectable explanation for your death. It had never worked. Never. Oh, he'd usually managed to get what he wanted from them in the end, but it had been hard, ugly work, unnecessarily so.

So he had learnt to lie. Talk to me, and you'll be all right. No one wants to harm you.

He had been, initially, appalled by their willingness to believe him. Treason was punishable by death; they knew that. But apparently the conviction that an exception could always be made in one's own case was a universal human trait. Tempted by hope, they nearly always caved in and told him what he needed to know. When he was finished with them, he would call for one of his subordinates to escort them into protective custody, and then shoot the traitor quickly in the base of the skull as they were leaving the room. He did not delude himself that this small mercy made him any less of a liar.

Sometimes the Commander let the family have the body. Sometimes the death, and the reason for it, was made public. Sometimes the individual simply disappeared. It was said in Shinra that the Turks were unpredictable: if you got lucky, if you could tell them something useful, they might be willing to strike a deal.

Myths could be useful, as the Commander had said.

Tseng now told Wilbraham, "We can protect your family. If you choose to cooperate – "

The door opened, and Rufus Shinra walked in.

"I thought I'd locked that," said Tseng.

Rufus waved his key card. "You'll forgive the intrusion. I've always wanted to watch you work. So, what mouse have you got trapped between your paws today?" He crossed the room and stood before the broken, bleeding man in the chair. Dr. Wilbraham lifted his head, struggling to focus his eyes. "Rufus Shinra? Oh, thank heavens. Help me, boy. This Turk is trying to kill me."

"Of course he is," said Rufus. "And don't call your Vice-President boy. What's he done, Tseng?"

"Rufus," said Tseng quietly, "Come outside."

As soon as they were out in the corridor and the door to the interrogation room was shut, Rufus seized the opportunity to speak first. "Tseng, I hope you're not going to be a bore – "

"You can't come in there," said Tseng, in the tone he adopted when reasoning with the younger Turks. "Veld would forbid it. And your father would be furious, and rightly so. What I do in there is something no boy your age should see."

"What about her, then?" asked Rufus, pointing at Aviva, who had heard Tseng's voice and was poking her cropped head around the kitchen door to see if he wanted anything. "She's no older than I am."

"She works here."

"I work here," Rufus objected.

"You play here," Tseng corrected him. "You can either leave now of your own accord, or I can phone the Commander, and he will call your father, and you know what your father will do."

"Ah, an ultimatum. Very well, then, have it your way. Even Turks have their scruples, I suppose. Though since I know perfectly well what it is you do in there, I can't quite grasp why it's such a problem to let me see it. I'll go, then – but first I have something for you. Look at this."

Rufus reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a little glass vial. In the vial was a small white pill. "I got it from Hojo," he said. "It's that truth drug they've been working on upstairs. I thought it might speed things up. Get that into him and he'll tell you everything he knows. Go on, take it."

Tseng's gloved hand took the vial and held it between thumb and forefinger. The pill looked as innocuous as an aspirin. He wondered if it was aspirin. That thought gave him another.

"Can I stay now?" asked Rufus.

"Aviva," called Tseng, "Could you show the Vice-President to the elevators, please?"

When he was sure Rufus had gone, Tseng returned to the interrogation room. Dr Wilbraham had passed out, his head hanging down to one side. Tseng slapped his cheeks.

"Oh god," groaned Wilbraham as he came back to consciousness, "It's real – "

"Do you see this?" Tseng held out the white pill in the black leather palm of his hand. "It's something Professor Hojo's been working on. It's a –" What might a truth drug be made of? – "A cocktail of thiopental and Manipulate. You understand? To help you answer my questions truthfully."

Listening to himself, he winced. It sounded ludicrous. Still, you never knew. There was always the placebo effect, and Wilbraham might be desperate enough to believe it. Sometimes all people like Wilbraham needed was an excuse to unlock the floodgates. At any rate, it could do no harm. Worth a try, in other words.

Shoving a thumb into the doctor's mouth, he forced Wilbraham's jaws open and pushed the pill down his throat. For a few moments nothing happened. Then, in front of Tseng's astonished eyes, Dr Wilbraham's skin began to change colour, starting with his face and fingertips, which were rapidly turning a livid purplish red. The doctor's eyes bulged in their sockets. He retched violently, over and over, and his limbs twitched and jerked with such force that the chair leapt off the floor and fell sideways. Wilbraham's head hit the floor with a crack, but by this point Tseng had recognised the symptoms and realized the enormity of what he had, all unwittingly, done.

Dr Wilbraham, their one good lead to AVALANCHE, was dead from cyanide poisoning.

.

The Old Man hauled his son over the coals.

"Stupid boy! You stupid boy! What were you doing in Hojo's labs? I told you never to go in there."

"Lazard goes in there."

"Lazard is a grown man – and don't change the subject. How the blazes did you know about the truth drug? It's a failed experiment – we've never been able to make it work properly. Who told you about it?"

"Someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know. I can't remember all the people I talk to. It might have been one of the Turks; I'm not sure."

"Rufus, don't you realize the seriousness of this? What if you'd given that pill to one of your friends for a prank? Or, god forbid, taken it yourself?"

"Hojo shouldn't make all his pills look alike, then."

"We lost a vital lead because of you!"

"Well, but what about Tseng? I told him it was the truth pill because I thought it was, but don't you think he should have known better than to believe me? I mean, Father, I am only sixteen years old."

.

"You should have known better," said Veld for the twentieth or perhaps the twenty-fifth time. There was blood on his belt, the same blood that was soaking the shirt on Tseng's back.

"I have no excuses," said Tseng, to whom the beating had come as a relief. He could forgive himself now.

Angrily Veld threw the belt to the floor. "That boy," he exclaimed, "Is a perfect menace."