Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Interludes – Scene 5

Scene Notes: Poor Elena gets saddled with data entry an awful lot. As mentioned in Chapter 11: Everybunny Dies, here’s why. This takes place shortly after Elena’s promotion, when she’s still learning the ropes.

“She sighed and filled in yet another digital form from the information on the hard copy, struggling to read Reno’s notes. Frankly, she was convinced that her being stuck with Reno’s backlog so often had less to do with her being the rookie, and more to do with her being the only person in Midgar who could actually decipher the man’s handwriting. Elena was willing to bet that even Reno couldn’t read half of what he wrote down.”

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“Rude… Do you have some free time?” Tseng stood in the doorway, a thick folder under his arm. The bald Turk’s eyes widened behind his ever-present sunglasses.

“… I… have to check in with someone in Sector 5…” he hurriedly replied, “… Might take awhile.”

He was on his feet and out the door before Tseng could order him back. He sighed, realizing his mistake. He should have kept the folder out of sight. The backlog file… or as Reno had long since taken to calling it, The Bane, was entirely too recognizable. Company policy required a hard copy of all incident reports in the reporting Turk’s own hand and an electronic copy… personally, Tseng was of the opinion that Heidegger only insisted upon that policy to annoy him. Data entry was, therefore, a tedious, but necessary, chore. One they would all prefer to avoid. Thus the backlog.

Unfortunately, they had all been avoiding it for entirely too long. The folder was at its limit. Two of the rubber bands that tenuously held it together had already snapped, and the third wouldn’t last long under the strain. With a groan, he sat down at his own desk. If any progress was to be made, it looked like it was up to him to make it.

Tseng carefully eased the last remaining band off… and winced as it snapped, viciously stinging the exposed skin of his hand in one final act of retaliation for the torment it had endured. He picked up the top report and turned to his computer, preparing to enter it into the Turks database.

As he read the first line, he groaned a second time and massaged his temples, already feeling a headache coming on. How Reno could read his own handwriting was a mystery. Tseng certainly couldn’t most of the time. As he debated on whether or not the the report referred to an incident in Sector 5 or Sector 6… or possibly Sector 8, though he couldn’t recall any recent missions in that area… he wondered briefly if anyone would notice if he just burned them all.

It was tempting.

He set the report aside for the moment and picked up the next one on the pile. The second he looked at it, he bit back a whimper of frustration. Or dismay. He wasn’t entirely sure which he felt more acutely at the moment.

“Reno…” he sighed, shaking his head. He set that report aside, as well, and reached for the next. “Oh, for the love of…” He cut himself off and forced a calming breath… then flipped through the pile until he finally found something legible. Thankfully, Rude was not so inclined toward chicken scratches when it came to filling out reports. He was also far less inclined to leave said reports sitting indefinitely in the backlog, unlike a certain redhead.

Were Reno actually in the office, he’d have chained him to his desk and made him work his way through some of it today… the inevitable protests be damned. Unfortunately, he had an assignment to handle in Junon and wouldn’t return until tomorrow.

Tseng looked up from the pile as he heard the door to the Turks’ offices open. Perhaps Rude had decided to take pity on him after all. He stood and moved to where he could see into the outer section of the room, only to discover Elena instead. He smiled to himself… The new rookie had no standing assignments, nor any excuse to disappear into the slums for the next four hours. He almost hated to do it to the poor girl… even hesitated for a moment or two. Then he picked up the folder.

“Elena… I have a task for you,” he said, striding purposefully over to her and setting it on the corner of her desk.

“Yes, sir?” she said, looking up at him and smiling pleasantly. That was almost Tseng’s undoing. He was about to stick her with every Turk’s least favorite activity, and she was smiling at him. He came very close to changing his mind… until he glanced down at the folder, and quickly forced down those annoying feelings of guilt.

“This is the incident report backlog,” he explained, “Any reports we haven’t had time to file electronically end up in here until we can get around to them. I’d like you to see if you can make some progress on it. You should already have access to the database on your computer. It’s fairly straightforward to use, but if you have questions, I’ll be at my desk for awhile. I’ll warn you now. Reno’s handwriting can be… trying.”

Trying? Try illegible… or indecipherable. Tseng wasn’t even sure some of it was actual writing.

“Oh, I know, sir,” she replied, somewhat offhandedly, opening the folder and picking up the topmost report. “He leaves me notes on training exercises, and they can be a little hard to read sometimes.”

Tseng’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘A little hard to read?’ he thought, incredulously, ‘Sometimes?’ He suddenly realized she was already typing. The rookie glanced up at him.

“W-was there something else, sir?” she asked. Tseng quickly shook his head.

“No… No, that’s all. Thank you, Elena,” he replied. He returned to his own desk, taking a seat, and staring blankly at the monitor for a moment. Finally, a wide smile spread across his face, and he had to stop himself from laughing aloud.

He was free… Finally free.

~fin~