CHAPTER 13: AVIVA SCREWS UP
In which Aviva exercises her own judgement, Cloud briefly reappears, and Tseng and Veld are forced to confront an unwelcome truth

On July 28th, 2001, Aviva screwed up. Veld had been wondering when this would happen.

She was so good in so many ways; she was quick, resilient, skillful and resourceful. But she had a tendency to form her own judgments, to think in terms of right and wrong, good guys and bad guys, not understanding yet that in Midgar such terms were meaningless. If she did not grow up fast, she would make herself unhappy, and become a danger to herself and everyone around her.

Her orders had been crystal clear, yet she had deliberately disobeyed them. It was a good thing she was willing to admit it. This admission went some little way towards mitigating her offense; Veld deeply disliked having to call on witnesses to his Turks' transgressions. Nevertheless, the consequences of her failure were likely to be far-reaching. She had saved one life today, but at the cost of how many in the future? Hadn't she, in fact, really been thinking of herself? She had been self-indulgent; sentimental.

Aviva hardly needed the beating. Her Commander's words cut deeper. He had believed in her, rescued her, given her work worth doing, made her proud of herself, and she'd failed him. In the middle of the floor she stood with her hands hanging at her sides, stoop-shouldered, wracked by shuddering sobs, her mouth a miserable circle and her eyes swollen with tears.

It would have been so easy and, one might say, natural, to scoop her up and give her a hug and say there now, sweetheart, don't cry, you're a good girl.

But Midgar was nothing if not unnatural. And she was not, could not be, a good girl, not if she was to be any use to him. Not if she was going to survive.

Veld locked her in the punishment cell.

What she never knew was how long he sat there on the other side of the door, his hand over his face, remembering another girl not so much younger than Aviva, battering against the door of the bedroom where he had banished her – for what, he couldn't remember. Insolence, maybe, or some dangerous stunt.

He had failed to save his daughter. He wouldn't fail again. Turks did not fail. Midgar was a sewer of a city, a place where the trash floated to the top, where dogs ate dogs and rats ate their fellow rats and feral children fought one another for the scraps. It was impossible to save them all. Even amongst those who deserved to be saved, most had been, would be, drowned. But Veld would not let his Turks sink. He would preserve Aviva, and all of them, in this ark he had built with his own hands, the good ship Department of Administrative Research.

*

Tseng had left the building, so when Aviva's time in the cooler was up Veld called down to the office for someone to let her out, and got Reno.

"Is this like a promotion, Chief? 'Cause if it is, I think we should be talking pay rise."

"I'm not in the mood for your humour this morning. Just go get her."

Being the one who unlocked the door felt strange to Reno; actually, it did feel like a promotion. Aviva shrank from the light, curling tighter into herself.

"Veev, you have to come out of there sometime."

"Leave me alone! I'm never coming out! I wish I was dead!"

"Sure you do," he said, reaching in to drag her out by the ankle. It was like trying to hold on to a fish. She kicked and wriggled and struggled. Eventually he pulled her into the blue light. The fight went out of her, and she lay on her back on the floor, an arm flung over her eyes.

"How're you feeling?" he asked.

"I hate myself!" Her small body shook from head to foot, with passion and maybe also with pain. "I hate myself! I'm useless!"

Reno squatted down beside her. "Come on, don't make such a drama out of it."

"That's easy for you to say! You didn't hear what he said! You don't know what it's like!"

Reno made a sound that was part laugh, part snort. Where had she picked up this mistaken impression of him? "Veev, I've been in here more times than I can count."

That made her calm down a little. "You? But why?"

"First time was the day the Chief hired me. Next time was when I re-wired the elevators so they'd only stop alternately at the mezzanine and Mayor Domino's floor. Seemed like a good idea at the time," he grinned. "I think we still have the tapes somewhere. Last time was just before you joined us. I set fire to the Sector Seven slums. That wasn't on purpose. Anyway, you get the idea. You want to tell me what happened?"

He knew the basic facts of the failed mission already: Tseng had given them an outline at the morning's briefing. As Commander Veld had predicted, AVALANCHE had finally struck again yesterday afternoon, their target a data disk containing top secret information on the SOLDIER program. This disk had been stored in the archive vaults buried below the Sector Seven slums, but because of its sensitive nature the President had taken the decision to transfer it back to Headquarters, where security had been significantly tightened since Hollander's raid. Dr Samira Rayleigh, a young scientist from Hojo's team, was sent to fetch it, and a troop of Heidegger's grunts had gone along as her escort. Veld had insisted one of his Turks be included in the party. As usual, his instincts were right: AVALANCHE had attacked them en masse at the train station, using a new kind of operative, black-clad, highly-trained, and very dangerous. Aviva and the grunts had managed to battle their way onto the train with Dr Rayleigh and the disk, but AVALANCHE pursued them, and in the fight that followed all but one of the grunts had been killed. At some point Dr Rayleigh had become separated from the disk. Torn between recovering the disk and saving Dr Rayleigh, Aviva and the surviving grunt had chosen Rayleigh. The disk was now in the hands of AVALANCHE, and there was hell to pay upstairs.

Reno smoked a cigarette while she told the story. At the end she said, "I just – I see now it was selfish, but I just didn't want him to think I was a bad person."

"Who? Heidegger's guy?"

"He was the same one who was in the helicopter with us when we went to Junon."

"Yeah?" said Reno. "I've seen him around. The spikey blond one. He's quite the survivor."

"He's awesome with a sword. Dr Rayleigh and I would both be dead if it wasn't for him. He told me he wants to be in SOLDIER but they won't take him because he's too short."

"That's too bad," said Reno, "Because he'd fit right in. Nobody in SOLDIER knows how to obey an order."

"It was my orders to save the disk, not his," Aviva protested. "His orders were to protect Dr Rayleigh. But we couldn't do both. And he said that people were more important than things. And I didn't know what to do. What he said sounded right. She was screaming for help. Disks don't scream for help. I couldn't just cold-bloodedly let them kill her. It seemed like I had no choice. I thought I was doing what was best."

"So don't think so hard next time," said Reno. "That's what the Chief is for. Seriously, Veev. Once you start second-guessing what the grunts and the typing pool and the goddamn tea lady think you should do, you're dead. We don't have time for that kind of crap."

Aviva sighed. "I love this job so much. But you know what I hate? I hate that nobody ever thanks us for what we do." She stared down sadly at the floor.

This conversation, Reno decided, was becoming entirely too heavy. It was time to change the subject. "So, anyway, that blond grunt of yours – what's his name?"

"Cloud."

"Uh-huh? So. Cloud. You like him, don't you?"

Her face grew hot. "No! He just – seems like a nice guy."

"You seemed to like him a lot in the helicopter."

"I was just talking to him. Passing the time."

"Uh-huh. So, who do you like, then? How about Rufus Shinra? He's your age. Bet you fancy him , don't you?"

"I never – "

"Aw, come on. All the nice girls love Rufus. Blue eyes, blond hair, cute bum, and all that gil - "

"No! He's just a boy!"

She was looking a little flustered. It was quite endearing. Pleased with his handiwork, Reno pressed on: "Just a boy, eh? So you like someone older? Is it one of those guys on your LOVELESS posters?"

"Stop it!"

"Wait, I know - It's Sephiroth, isn't it?"

"Now you're just teasing me," she said firmly, though her cheeks were still scarlet and she could not meet his eye. "I don't like anybody. Really. Final word."

"C'mon, Veev, you can trust me. You know in your heart of hearts you want to tell. It's written all over your face. Come on. I can keep a secret."

"That's not what Rosalind says. She warned me not to tell you anything that I didn't want the whole of Shinra to know."

"Is that right?" he laughed, jumping to his feet. "I think I need a word with her. " He grabbed Aviva's wrist. "C'mon, witness, let's go."

*

From the pages of Aviva's diary, 29th June 2001

ZOMG!!!! That was a close one!!!!!!!!I thought my heart would EXXXXPLOOOODE!!

*

Night had fallen. Searchlights fingered the swollen bellies of the clouds that shrouded the Shinra Building. Tseng was standing by the window in Veld's office, watching as the Commander paced back and forth, growling.

"How did they know?" Veld demanded. "The mission was S-level classified. Not even Dr Rayleigh knew what was on the disk she was moving. How did AVALANCHE know we'd be making the transfer today? And where to intercept us?"

Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. Throwing a quick look over his shoulder at the security camera, he gestured for Tseng to sit at the desk, and then sat himself down on the opposite side. He took a notepad and a pencil and scribbled something, then turned the notepad onto its face and pushed it across the desktop to Tseng.

Checking to make sure his head was blocking the security camera, Tseng picked up the notepad and read: Someone high up inside Shinra is passing information to AVALANCHE.

He nodded, wrote something, turned it over, pushed it back.

Veld read: Yes. Who?

He wrote: Someone with access to S-level info. Suspects?

Tseng wrote: The Board of Directors

Veld wrote: And me. And you.