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“Her name is Rosalind Kramer. She’s twenty-two, an advanced class-six graduate, and a markswoman,” Tseng told me, reading from a file. “She graduated with honors and was marked by her instructors as having a lot of talent. Her father is a former member of the Shinra military. She’s perfectly capable of handling herself.”
Which was why they were giving her to me, of course. Because if it turned out I couldn’t manage her, she’d probably be fine on her own. Sometimes, Commander Veld’s faith in me is just overwhelming. “Yes, sir.”
Tseng put down the file. “She’s a very talented agent,” he continued, giving me one of those looks.
“Great.” To be honest, I was a little more preoccupied by her picture at the time. She was pretty damn cute.
“Very well-trained and by the book. A consummate Turk.”
“Gotcha.”
“Sweet girl, if a little naďve.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“And the hottest little body you ever laid eyes on.”
“Right, s…wait, what?” Tseng does that to me sometimes, and it always works. I wish I could tell when he can tell I’m not paying attention, but that would probably involve paying attention and god knows I don’t want that.
Tseng sighed. “This is going in one ear and out the other, isn’t it?” he asked ruefully, straightening the files on his desk. Tseng has a very messy office. You’d think for someone as picky as he is, it’d be neat, but no, it’s all over the place. I guess it’s because he does so much paperwork.
“Pretty much.” Well, I wasn’t going to lie to him. He knows perfectly well I completely zone out during lectures. Sometimes I wonder why he bothers.
“Reno. Listen. This part is important.”
“All righty.” I can listen for some stuff.
Tseng leaned forward, his hands on his desk. “Rosalind is a very sweet girl. She’s young and very naďve. And you’re responsible for her. This means that there will be none of your usual antics with female operatives. No teasing, no jokes, no flirting, no propositioning, no…”
“No fun!”
Tseng sighed. I was just kidding, but I think I stress him out sometimes. “I’m very serious. This is a test. Do you understand? You are esponsible for her. She’s in the middle of her first mission right now and if you weren’t in here being lectured, you’d be out there tailing her, making sure she does all right.”
He was serious. It makes me nervous when people are serious. “All right, all right, I’ll keep an eye on her. Where is she?”
“Sector 8. Everybody starts in Sector 8. However, she’s reported some minor insurgence activity and things seem a little sticky for her.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Sticky? How sticky?”
“Terrorists are trying to blow up Reactor 8 type sticky. They call themselves Avalanche.”
“Well, shit!” Why the hell does everybody downplay things like that?
Tseng sighed. “Just get on it. I told her she’d been getting support and you’re it. She should be fairly close to the reactor by now. Get going.”
“Roger, Chief.”
Tseng gave another one of his big sighs and sat down behind his desk. “Please Reno, for the love of god, don’t screw this up.”
I got up and waved over my shoulder as I left. “I won’t, I won’t…sheesh. Nobody ever trusts me.”
“And rightly so,” I heard Tseng mutter as I shut his office door.
So I grabbed train headed for Sector 8. Midgar has a tram system. It’s really a pretty incredible thing, because it has the regular trains above the plate, and then some that run on tracks on the underside of the plate. Sorta like a regular train except upside down. And in that regard, sorta more like a roller coaster. Anyway, it’s one of the most complex systems in the world, because from the Shinra Building you can get pretty much anywhere on the upper plate in five to fifteen minutes. There are trains leaving every ten minutes so, within fifteen minutes, I was at the Sector 8 Station, near the edge of the plate near the reactor.
And the place was deserted. Even at three in the morning (this was about the time. Turks keep really, really weird schedules) there should’ve been somebody there. This was creepy and I didn’t like it.
I left the station and headed out into the even more deserted streets. Really creepy. I don’t like it when there aren’t people around. It was dark in Sector 8, despite the streetlights. The streets seemed narrower and more forbidding and the alleys that branched off from the main roads were just long black passages. Night work is fun, but still a kind of nervous business.
Regardless of how creeped out I was, however, I knew from experience that when the buildings are close together like they are in the industrial section of Sector 8, the stealthiest way to travel is by roof. This is mostly because people never, ever look up. Never. That’s why it’s easy to jump on ‘em.
So I found the ladder to the top of the first building I found and took off across the roofs. It’s a lucky thing I’m not afraid of heights, because running along, three or four stories up (it varies, from building to building, but none were much higher than that) is the sort of thing that could get under a person’s skin.
I spotted a few terrorists in the streets as I ran; at least, I figured they were the terrorists, because of the weapons they carried, and because of the fact that some of them were sprawled in the streets. Maybe dead, but probably just unconscious, given the way Shinra’s orders work in these kinds of situations.
I didn’t stop to bother with any of the live ones, but as I headed to the reactor I called Tseng and told him it might be a bit of a good idea to send some people to round up these guys, and to collect the ones that had already been taken out, presumably by my subordinate. I felt kinda proud about that. Which is weird, because I hadn’t actually had anything to do with her yet.
As I got close to the reactor, I heard gunfire and shouting. And then the gunfire stopped. That worried me a little, so I jumped to a building close to the reactor, and surveyed the situation below me.
For someone who could handle herself, she seemed to have gotten herself backed into a pretty tight corner by a half-dozen terrorists. They’d all thrown their weapons down (which is actually not a good sign, because it means they want to tear you apart by hand) and were moving closer.
“Not even a Turk can handle six of us,” one of the terrorists snarled.
“You just try and kill me!” she shouted back. “At least half of you are going to die trying!”
Feisty. However, as much as I like a girl with spirit, I figured I’d better step in, because she was about to get herself killed. So I jumped down (no one ever looks up, remember?) and blasted three of them with my nightstick.
I love that thing. When I started with the company they had me handling a blade. Except, (and I’m very, very ashamed to admit this) I hate the sight of blood. My blood is fine, but for some reason, other people’s really gets to me. I mean, some people would tell me I’m in the wrong line of work if a little person juice upsets me, but I just don’t work with people who make others bleed.
I got switched over to the nightstick after I went out on a mission with Tseng and he noticed I tended to club people rather than chop them. He asked me if I wanted some pointers about technique and demonstrated by slicing the jugular of someone or other with those godawful knives of his. Anyway, what with arterial gushing and coagulation and all that, I had a moderate anxiety attack and Tseng wisely suggested that maybe I should switch to a weapon that caused less blood.
I say nightstick, but I really should call it the EMR. Electro-Mag Rod. But I figure that sounds kind of cumbersome, so I just say nightstick and everyone knows what I mean. It’s basically just a big freakin’ tazer. It’s good for short range stuff and close fighting, and it can shoot a current about fifteen feet. Versatility is very important.
In any case, as usually happens when I shock the living shit out of people, the rest of them scattered. So, as I figured they’d be gone for a while, I turned around to greet my new recruit. “Hi! Some first mission, huh? Shit, I wish mine had been as exciting as this. Sector 8 is pretty goddamned boring.”
At the risk of overusing an analogy, her reaction was something similar to that of a deer caught in the headlights. So maybe I came on a little strong. Right. Wasn’t supposed to do that. Whoops.
Anyway, she was a pretty little thing, just like her picture. Blond, big green eyes, and just a touch on the short side. Petite, I think, is the word. Neat as a pin, too. Suit pressed, tie clipped, cuffs buttoned and everything. The only thing that was off was a bit of a graze on her shoulder. Cute as she was though, she had a pair of handguns and I had every confidence she could use them.
I think she realized she was supposed to say something in response because she blushed all of a sudden and holstered one of her weapons, fumbling with a clip of ammo as she reloaded the other. “Reno, s-sir!” She dropped the clip of ammo as she tried to salute and reload at the same time, then blushed harder and scrambled to pick it up. Damn, she was cute. “I th-thought you had other orders, sir,” she stammered, once she’d managed to get her weapon reloaded.
I laughed and she blushed again. “Hell. Orders change. Besides, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I should check in on you.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw the Avalanche members regrouping. “But we’ll discuss that later. Company!”
I hadn’t thought she’d noticed, but suddenly she had a piece of materia out and had blasted the bastards. I took advantage of the fact that I’d already charged the group to finish the rest of them off. “Pretty sharp, kid!” I told her, pleased. “But that’s not the last of ‘em. Keep the materia handy.”
She nodded at me, still with those big dinner plate eyes. I’d kinda thought they were big because I’d startled her, but I was beginning to wonder if maybe they were that size all the time. “R-right, sir.”
“Right! Well, I’m going over there,” I waved off to a road down the west, and winked at her. “You stay here and hold the reactor entrance, all right? I won’t go far. I’ll be back, before you know it. Chin up, rookie!”
I didn’t give her a chance to answer and took off down the road. This was partly because I wanted to make sure there weren’t any more of these terrorist fellows coming, and partly because I figured maybe she needed some time to adjust to the relative shock of meeting me. Yeah, I probably came on a little strong.
After about five uneventful minutes, during which I ran into only one inattentive sentry, she caught up to me.
“Hey there! All done?” I asked her cheerfully.
She stared at me and sort of nodded. “Y-yes, sir.”
“Good on ya. Now, I didn’t get your name. Tseng told me but I forgot. What was it? Rebecca? Roberta?”
“It’s R-Rosalind, sir.”
I grimaced. “Please, Ramona, enough with the ‘sir.’ And you can relax a bit and stop stuttering. C’mon, let’s get back to the reactor.”
Rosalind blinked at me a few times as I started walking back to the reactor. Then she sort of trailed along after me. I probably should’ve tried to tone things down a bit, because she looked really confused. Poor kid. I guess some people need time to get used to me. “They’re headed for the reactor, sir…er…uh…Mister…um, no…erm…Agent…”
“It’s Reno, Rosemary.”
“Rosalind.”
“No, sweetie, it’s Reno.” I was messing with her a bit, which I guess was probably not the best thing to do at the time. “But if that’s what you’re into, you can call me whatever you want.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
I stopped and glanced at her. “I told you, don’t call me…” I paused. What was the harm? After all, she was having enough trouble with me already. “All right. Whatever you want. I’m gonna call you ‘rookie’, all right? It’s easier.”
We reached the reactor gate and I gestured at it. “You go in there and I’ll come after you, okay? Only so many went in, right? You take those out and I’ll take any more who come.”
Rosalind nodded (I think she was probably glad to be rid of me) then lifted her handgun and fired over my shoulder. I whirled around and saw the terrorist she’d just shot collapse on the ground, then took out the other two that had followed him with a blast from my nightstick. Damn sharp kid.
I gave her a bit of a push toward the reactor. “Get a move on, rookie. You gotta get down there and quit stealing my thunder.”
“Isn’t that just so typical of you, Reno?” someone asked.
Some guy came out of the shadows. I didn’t like the look of him from the beginning. Sort of a thick looking thug with dark hair and some lame bandana and khaki thing going on. Come to think of it, all of these terrorist guys had been wearing khaki. I guess he must have been some kinda leader or something. “Who the hell are you?”
Rosalind had stopped at the ladder leading down into the reactor underground and was watching me and this guy. I had a vague realization of the fact that several things were going to be blowing up if she didn’t get down there in relatively short order.
“You’ve made short work of my men, Reno.” I didn’t like guy. I really didn’t like this guy. Mostly because he knew my name. I liked him less and less as he kept talking. “I really hadn’t expected you to be here. Granted, you are supposed to be the fastest Turk in the organization. If anyone was going to get here first, I guess it only makes sense that it be you.”
I didn’t know how the hell he knew that. Yeah, I’ve got the best track times of any Turk in the company. But the only people who know that are company muckity-mucks and my personal trainer. And, apparently, some thick looking terrorist thug. Had to keep this cool though. “Seems like you’ve done your homework,” I told him casually, taking out my nightstick and turning up the current to somewhere relatively low, not nearly enough to kill him. If he was some kind of leader, there were probably people who’d want to question him.
“It’s important to know your enemy.” He grinned at me. “I probably know you better than you think. You’re a little slow in some other areas, aren’t you?”
That was crossing a line. I felt the ridges in the rubber handle of my nightstick dig into my palm as my grip tightened. For some reason, this bastard knew some pretty sensitive information. “Well, now. Know your enemy, huh? I think you and I need to get a little better acquainted.”
He laughed at me. I jacked the current on my nightstick up to something nice and comfortably lethal. I didn’t care who would want to question him. “Fine. My name is Shears, member of Avalanche. I think you ought to know I’m going to kill you.”
“Hah. You think that’s the first time I’ve heard that? I’ve yet to meet anyone who could back the statement up.” I glanced over my shoulder as I heard Rosalind flick the safety off her handgun. “Go, rookie,” I ordered.
She hesitated at the top of the ladder. “But, sir…”
“I’ve got it, rookie, don’t worry. Get going.” I dropped down into a ready stance and stretched to loosen myself up a bit. Shears did the same thing and grinned at me. Really, really didn’t like him. “I’ll catch up to you.”
“Now, now, let’s not be making promises we can’t keep,” Shears chuckled.
“Be careful, sir,” I heard Rosalind call softly, then I heard her go down the ladder and splash into the tunnels at the bottom. And then Shears jumped me.
He started his little thing off with a roundhouse kick. Sudden as it was, I ducked under it and slashed at him with my nightstick. He darted back and I didn’t make contact, but he immediately launched another attack. I narrowly managed to miss that one, rolling to the side.
“Nimble,” Shears remarked, kicking at me again. His toe swiped my side as I got to my feet and I jumped back a ways, getting some distance.
“Yeah, well. I try,” I answered shortly, circling around him, trying to get a feel for his defenses.
Shears grunted and lunged at me again. I attempted a block, rather than a dodge, catching his arm as he swung it around in a right hook that would’ve done some damage if he’d managed to connect. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as he was much, much stronger than I was, and I’d put myself in easy grabbing range. He took a handful of my shirt collar, wrenched his arm free, and executed some kind of martial artist’s throw.
I was lucky enough to manage a relatively cohesive landing, though it wasn’t precisely textbook and not something I’d do again by choice. It didn’t have quite the effect I think he’d desired, but he recovered quickly and rushed at me, attempting a left cross this time.
I wasn’t entirely ready, but I succeeded in partially dodging the blow and felt his fist shoot by my jaw. A line of pain exploded across my cheek and I stumbled back, blood dripping from a shallow graze. “Hey, what the hell?” I demanded, outraged at the introduction of blood into the equation. Particularly my blood.
The damned bastard grinned at me and displayed his fists, covered in thick leather gloves and wrapped with strands of barbed wire. “Fun, isn’t it?”
“Hell no!” Now I rushed him, nightstick sparking, and delivered a healthy jolt to his ribs. He went flying back into a stack of crates and I felt much better when he hit the ground with a heavy thud.
My second big mistake of the evening was made when I went over to make sure he was dead, and to gloat if he wasn’t. As it turned out, despite the fact that I had my nightstick set to kill him, all I’d managed was to make him madder than hell. That was a matter of moderate concern, as the thing didn’t exactly have a more powerful setting. Shears jumped up with a roar and rushed me. This time he made definite contact, a kick to my side that threw me about eight feet.
I hit the ground and had the wind knocked right out of my lungs, landing flat on my back. The impact jolted my nightstick from my hand and, before I could get a hold of it again, Shears’ had knocked it out of my reach and kicked me in the ribs.
I rolled out of the way and got back on my feet as one of his boots came slamming down where my neck had been a half-second earlier. I barely had my balance back and I stumbled back and caught myself on a wall, winded and aching.
This was, admittedly, a bad situation. I’m not a fist fighter. If I don’t have a weapon, I’m pretty well screwed. I’d been counting on my ability to electrocute this guy to get me through the fight. I mean, I know a bit about close fighting. I can take the average grunt, no problem, but Shears was a trained fighter. More specifically, he was a trained fighter who’d backed me into a corner, disarmed me, and could apparently take a lot more electricity than most normal people. Those are the worst kind.
“Well now, Turk,” Shears began, grinning at me and flexing his fists. “How do you want me to kill you?”
I was going to answer with something very unkind and very impolite, but I saw Rosalind climbing up out of the reactor. So instead, I pushed myself off the wall and managed a high kick to Shears’ throat, making him stagger back, coughing and gagging. “Get outta here, rookie!” I yelled at her. “This guy’s trouble!”
“And you’re finished, Turk!” Shears choked at me, recovering and reciprocating with a hard punch to my chest. I was probably out before I hit the wall.
The next thing I was conscious of, a few minutes later, was someone shaking my shoulder. My head kinda hurt, my ribs ached, and my chest stung where the barbed wire of his gloves had broken the skin, but at least that meant I wasn’t dead. That’s usually a good sign.
“Hey, Shinra, wake up…” I heard someone say, and groaned reflexively. I’d kinda hoped it was Rosalind, but no such luck. Whenever someone calls you “Shinra” they’re obviously not a friend. This one was evidently less of a friend than most, as I felt the cool, keen edge of a blade touch the side of my neck. Not a good sign.
Of course, as soon as I opened my eyes, Rosalind took the liberty of blowing three holes in the guy, all before he’d even hit the ground. Then he toppled over and started bleeding all over the ground. Ugh.
Before any of the blood got out of hand, I pushed myself up and touched the side of my neck gingerly. There was a bit of a cut, but nothing nearly so severe as what the fellow who was currently leaking all over my shoes had gotten. “You know, rookie, that was just a little close.”
Rosalind flushed. “S-sorry, sir,” she apologized, massaging her side.
“Hey, no. That’s fine. Thanks, rookie. I’ll owe you one, all right?” Shears was nowhere in sight. That, at least, was a moderately good thing.
Rosalind got up and brushed her suit off, somehow managing to get rid of just about all the dust. Even as she was, soaked to the waist and her face a little smudged, she still looked neat and tidy. And cute. I was still sitting on the ground and she glanced over at me. “Are you all right, sir?” she questioned politely.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Not like this is the worst I’ve had.” I stood up and stretched. “Are you okay, rookie?”
“I’m fine, sir. Tseng called and said we’re supposed to report straight back to HQ.”
She seemed to have loosened up a little. That was a good thing. “Back to HQ? Aw, hell, I just got here!”
Aaaaand…we were back to the dinner plate eyes. Rats. “B-but, sir, it’s our orders!” she gasped.
I waved a hand and scooped my nightstick up. I would have to see what I could do about getting more power out of it. “Oh, hush. C’mon. The trains stop at four o’clock so we’ve gotta go find a ride. Move it out, rookie.”
I started to leave, but Rosalind just stood there, rooted to the spot. “I-if it’s all right with you, s-sir, I think I’ll walk,” she stammered, glancing over at the Shinra building, which was about twenty blocks away. Whoo. What a linear thinker.
“Rookie, we’re not doing anything wrong. When Tseng says ‘straight back to HQ’ he doesn’t mean you have to go in a straight line. He means to get there as fast as possible. And walking twenty blocks doesn’t seem like the quickest way of doing things.”
Rosalind hesitated, but I guess she couldn’t argue with that. “All right, sir.”
“Good! C’mon, let’s go. There should be more of our people around somewhere. We’ll probably find some kind of transport or something.”
I thought this might be a good time to try and talk to her, see if I couldn’t get on the level that she was. No matter what I tried to make conversation about, though, all she answered with were mumbled “Yes, sirs” and “No, sirs” and “I don’t know, sirs.” So much for that. By the time conversation dwindled down to nothing, all I’d managed to do was get her all hot and bothered (and not in the good way, either.)
Needless to say, I think we were both happy to catch up to the flatbed truck that Tseng had probably sent to collect the other agents who’d been working in the Sector. I climbed up on the back of the tailgate, and the up on top of the cab. We weren’t going very fast, so it wasn’t dangerous (at least, no more so than any of the other stuff a Turk does on a day to day basis.)
I leaned over the top and looked through the driver’s side window to see who was driving. “Hey, Ernie!”
“Hello there, Reno,” Ernie grinned at me. “You look a little bashed up. Run into trouble?”
“Yeah, a little bit, but nothing unmanageable. Is that Loretta in the passenger seat?”
Loretta is a very old friend of mine. Well, no, not very old. But probably one of the people in the company who I’ve known the longest. But then, I’ve known a lot of people in the company for a pretty long time. She’s just a close friend. We met in the Academy and graduated together. She knows me pretty well and I know her pretty well, so all the teasing that goes on between us is pretty much all in good fun.
“Hi, Loretta. If I told you that you have a nice body…”
“I’d probably kill you.”
“Oh. Right, then. I’ll check back with you later on that one. Thanks, Loretta.” I sat back up and looked around for Rosalind. She’d hunkered down in the corner of the truck box and, I think, was trying very hard to ignore me. “Come on up, rookie.”
Rosalind squirmed tighter into the corner and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees. “If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d really rather stay down here,” she mumbled.
I was getting kinda sick of the whole shy little dormouse routine. I banged a hand on the roof of the cab. “Rookie. Up. Now. That’s an order.”
She gave a little sigh, sat for a few moments, then reluctantly climbed up.
“Loretta and I are getting married,” I informed her. “It’s mostly for legal reasons and because of the greater opportunities for sex.”
I had intended this as a joke, but all Rosalind did was blush and start stammering. “S-sir, really…”
“What d’you think about that, rookie?”
“I…uh…er…does she even like you, sir?”
This was a preposterous question. It is a widely known fact in the company that everybody likes me. I’m an incredibly likeable person. “Of course she likes me. Everybody likes me.” I gestured at the rest of the people in the back of the truck. “All you people like me, right?”
There was a moderately positive response, which was good enough for me, but Rosalind just sat there, staring at her shoes. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that was the problem. “Don’t you like me, rookie?”
She looked up at me and blinked. “Well…yes, of course I like you, sir…”
“How much do you like me, rookie?”
Rosalind didn’t seem to like my tone, and shuffled away from me to the edge of the cab roof. “As much as I’m supposed to, sir.”
“D’you like me enough to wanna…”
Loretta evidently overheard this and shared Rosalind’s disapproval of the tone I was taking, because the truck suddenly stopped and I fell backward onto the hood. A little clumsily, I rolled off the front of the truck and onto the road and picked myself up. Oh, right. No propositioning. Whoops.
“Leave the rookie alone,” Loretta ordered sternly. It’s kind of irritating when your friends outrank you. “Or the next time we’ll run you over.”
“All right, all right. Sheesh.” I climbed back up on the roof and winked at Rosalind. “Loretta just gets jealous,” I told her. “She’d better watch it, or one of these times I’m gonna up and leave her.”
Rosalind attempted to squirm further away, nearly losing her balance and falling off the roof of the truck. I caught her arm and pulled her back. Embarrassed, she blushed and pressed her hands against her cheeks. “S-sir, please… could you stop talking to me? I really don’t know how I’m supposed to answer.”
That was a new one. She’d been very polite about it, but basically I think she was telling me to piss off. I guess I must have been making her uncomfortable, but I really wasn’t sure how else to go about things. “Hey, rookie…what’s the deal?”
“Sir?”
“Why don’t you like me?”
Rosalind shrugged and shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t like you, sir…I do…but you don’t treat me right. You talk to me like I…like I’m an equal. That’s not what you’re supposed to do, sir. I’m your subordinate.”
“Oh.” I paused. I suppose I’d been going about this all wrong. It probably would’ve been a better idea to start things out on an even playing field. “Can I tell you something, rookie?”
“What, sir?”
“I’ve never actually had a subordinate before. I’m a third class Turk, and you’re the first person Shinra’s let me command. There are fourth and fifth classes with squads of four or five people. My partner’s third class and he manages a bunch of people. He would’ve managed you, too, but Commander Veld decided to make you my responsibility. And…to be honest…I really don’t know how to handle you.”
I had kind of hoped that might make help explain why I was treating her the way I was, because I was kind of nervous about the whole thing myself, but all she did was look a little sick. “O-oh…”
“Aww, rookie, don’t look at me like that. I’m just trying to tell you that I’m just as nervous as you are about the whole deal. We don’t know how to work with each other. And given the fact that things don’t seem to be going so well for either of us, I’d say we’re both probably doing it wrong.”
Rosalind seemed to accept this and nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s probably true, sir.”
“Good. All right, this is good. Now…do you think that maybe the both of us could try and treat each other like normal people?”
“Normal?”
It’s kind of a disturbing thing that someone can be so well-trained as to not understand the concept of “normal.” I tried to put in terms she could understand. “Normal. Like…like a friend…a colleague, maybe. Someone who’s the same rank as you. Let’s just try a regular conversation.”
“O-oh…uh…well, all right.” I gave her a few moments to continue and she flushed when she realized she was expected to say something. “Er…I really don’t know how to start,” she admitted.
“The standard greeting among the human race is usually ‘hello’ or some variant thereof. But ‘hello’ works for most people,” I told her, grinning a bit. “C’mon, it’s not so hard. Civilians do it all the time.”
“Hello,” she repeated shyly.
“Hey, rookie, there ya go! Not so bad, is it?”
Rosalind blushed again. She does that a lot. It’s lucky she’s so damn cute about it. “I feel terribly stupid, sir.”
I laughed at that. “That’s all right. It’s a proper human emotion, all too common in some circles. You could get to be good at this, rookie.”
“I don’t mean to be so…so difficult, sir. It’s just that I’m not very good with people.”
“Nah, it’s all right. You’ll get better at it, don’t worry.” I held out a hand and she shook it shyly, with a sweet little smile. She’s cute most of the time, but it’s just devastating when she smiles. “Well! I’m glad everybody still likes me.”
“Shears doesn’t like you,” Rosalind pointed out.
Have I mentioned that she’s damn sharp? “He doesn’t seem to, that’s true…but I can’t honestly say I’m fond of him, either, so it doesn’t count.”
“Do you know anything about these terrorists, sir? About Avalanche?”
I shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. I only heard about them today. I didn’t even know what they were called until just now. They know some stuff about us, though. Especially that Shears guy. You could tell, couldn’t you? From the way he talked?”
Rosalind spread her hands helplessly. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve gotta talk to Tseng.”
“We’re going to go report to him, right sir?” Rosalind questioned as we pulled into the parking lot of the Shinra building.
I nodded and climbed down from the cab. Now that we (I say “we” but I mostly mean her) were both a little less uptight about the whole thing, Rosalind was a lot easier to talk to. I liked her. I offered her a hand down, but she slid off the roof on her own, and dusted off her suit.
“C’mon, rookie,” I called over my shoulder, jogging up the stairs and into the sprawling lobby of the Shinra building. “We’ll take the express elevator.”
Rosalind trailed along after me as we crossed the lobby to the private elevator that went to the highest floors, where the Turks and the Exec are. “I’m tired, sir,” she confessed as we reached the elevator.
“That’s perfectly understandable, rookie. I can’t honestly say I’m fresh as a daisy myself. But we’re done for the day. If you’d like, you can head up to bed, and I’ll handle the report to Tseng on my own.”
Rosalind shook her head. “Oh no, sir. I’ll come too. I heard Shears say something about Avalanche heading to Junon and…”
I was about to swipe my keycard in front of the panel, when the doors slid open and Commander Veld stepped out. Rosalind immediately stiffened to attention and threw a snappy salute. I straightened up a little and grinned at the Commander. “Howdy, sir. We were just going to report to Tseng.”
Veld nodded. “Very good. I heard about how things went in Sector 8. Good job, Reno. There’ll be a bonus with your next paycheck.”
“Well, thanks sir!” I glanced over at Rosalind. I wanted to make sure she got all the credit that was due to her. “But it wasn’t me, really. I had very little to do with averting the crisis at the reactor. She was the one who defused the bomb and stuff. I just hung around and got my ass royally kicked.”
Rosalind looked absolutely petrified as Commander Veld looked at her and smiled. “Ah, Rosalind. Our newest recruit. It’s a pleasure to have you aboard, Agent. I’ll be handling your first promotion personally.”
“Y-y-yes, sir,” Rosalind stammered, eyes huge and round. “Thank you, s-sir.”
“Mmm.” Veld looked over at me again. “Are you up for a run to Junon, Reno? We’ve had reports that Avalanche are moving toward the Cannon City.”
This was a bad thing. President Shinra’s annual tour of Junon was going on as we spoke. I didn’t know much about these people, but apparently there was something to them and it was more than a minor hazard. “Yeah, Rosalind mentioned that. You think they might try to assassinate the President?”
“That’s precisely our worry, yes. We’re still compiling data about them, but from what we’ve seen so far; they look like they could be a moderate threat. Take Rosalind and head for Junon. You two will be guarding the President personally. There will be a jet ready for you in an hour.”
“Roger, sir.”
“Good luck, then.” Veld nodded briefly to Rosalind, and then he left.
Rosalind just about ran into the elevator and promptly broke down crying. Seriously, she fell down on the floor and started absolutely sobbing.
“Whoa! Rookie!” I was a bit thrown by this as I stepped on the elevator and pressed a button for one of the upper floors. I’m trained to deal with a lot of things, but crying is not among them. What was I supposed to say? My instinctive response would’ve been, “Hey, you’re crying! Knock it off!” But that would’ve been a bit crude, I think. So I was at a bit of a loss, especially because I couldn’t figure why she was upset. “What’s the matter, rookie? Are you really that tired? Hey, you don’t have to come to Junon…I can handle it myself. You’ve done enough for today.”
“I-it’s not that,” she sniffled, sitting back against the wall of the elevator and pulling her knees up against her chest.
I sat down next to her and patted her shoulder a bit. “Oh…well…erm…aww, rookie, don’t cry…what’s the matter?”
“Sir, that was Senior Commander V-Veld…and he knew my name!”
“Commander Veld?” I didn’t really get why this was a problem. “Well, of course he did. He knows all us Turks. It’s pretty damn impressive that he’s gonna be handling your promotion, though…cheer up, rookie.”
Rosalind sniffled and wiped at her face with her sleeve. “It’s just a bit of a shock, I suppose,” she explained.
“Why? Commander Veld’s just a regular guy.”
Rosalind stared at me like I was crazy or something. “Commander Veld is not ‘just a regular guy,’ sir!” she told me in a hushed whisper. “He’s the Commander. It’s like meeting some kind of celebrity…I’ve dreamed of even just seeing him for ages. He’s one of my heroes!”
I couldn’t help laughing at that. “You’re weird, rookie. But I like you. You’re a little stuck on some of these rank things, but that’ll probably change once you get a few levels on me.”
Rosalind wiped her face again and coughed. “Oh, I don’t think that’ll happen, sir,” she told me. “You’re third class. I’m just sixth.”
“You’re a fifth,” I corrected. “You just cleared a level in a single mission. Usually it takes recruits a few months of grunt work to get anywhere significant.”
She blushed modestly. “It was just luck, really sir,” she protested. “If I hadn’t been on patrol tonight…”
“If you hadn’t been on patrol tonight, rookie, it’s very likely they would’ve blown up Sector 8. Not just any sixth class recruit could’ve done what you did tonight,” I told her firmly. It was her first mission and she deserved to feel proud about it. She had every right to.
Rosalind smiled again. She’s got the most wonderful little dimples. I would have to make it a priority to ensure she smiled more often. “Well, sir, you’re still quite likely to stay ahead of me. I mean, you’ll probably be second by the time I’m fourth. You’re very good, sir.”
It’s funny, but for someone I’d only known for an hour or so, she’d unintentionally gone right to the heart of something I was pretty sensitive about. The thing is, I can’t be promoted to second-class. For various reasons, I’m apparently mentally unfit for the duties inherent to the position of second-class. There was no reason Rosalind had to know about that, however, so I grinned at her. “Nah. Thanks for the sentiment, rookie, but believe me, you’re much more likely to get fourth than I am to get second.”
Rosalind blinked at me. “Why’s that, sir? Is second-class very hard to reach?”
“Pretty much impossible, for me.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll get it someday, sir. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t. Does the promotion officer not like you? You should file an appeal to Tseng, sir.”
Sweet kid. Her heart was in the right place, at least. “Nah, rookie. It’s complicated. Don’t you worry about it.”
Rosalind looked a little skeptical, but nodded anyway. “All right, sir.” She got to her feet as the elevator shuddered to a halt and the doors slid open with a soft tone. “See you at the airport, sir.”
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