Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 8: Introductions

It was shortly thereafter that Reno found himself dressed in borrowed training sweats, his hair still damp from his untimely dip in the company pool. They’d continued the tour, stopping briefly in the cafeteria on thirty-five and again in the General Affairs Department on forty-eight.

“So’s this where we work?” the redhead asked when he recognized the name, looking around. The main area was filled with cubicles, each occupied by a lone worker, while the walls were lined with private offices. Tseng shook his head.

“No… The Turks have their own headquarters a bit farther up. General Affairs is simply our parent division,” he replied, and gestured towards the cubes that seemed to occupy most of the floor. “This is the company secretarial pool. They handle the minutia of the company records, and tend to be deployed all over the building, wherever they happen to be needed. The offices belong to various managers and sub-managers, who oversee projects assigned to the department.”

“But not us…”

“No, not us. The Turks are largely autonomous.” The redhead frowned at the unfamiliar word, and Tseng chuckled. “I mean that we have a certain amount of freedom to act independently.”

The whole place was abuzz with movement as the secretaries – mostly women, Reno noted – scurried about carrying papers and folders. The muted hum of conversation hung in the air. One particularly pretty, young, blonde girl caught his eye as she emerged from a room off to the side, her arms laden with folders. She flashed him a friendly smile… and promptly tripped over her own feet, her load scattering across the floor.

“Oh, no…” she groaned, and Reno hurried from Tseng’s side to help gather them back up. She sighed as he stacked the ones he retrieved into a pile. “I can’t believe I did that…”

“Guess I’m just that distracting,” the redhead replied, grinning. The woman giggled.

“Well, you are cute. Are you new? I’m pretty sure I’d remember seeing you around if you’d been up here before…”

“Yeah… Just started. If it makes ya feel any better, I accidentally went for a swim during the tour, so… you’re doin’ way better than me right now.”

She giggled again. “I’m Isabella. Um… Izzy for short,” she replied, holding her hand out to him. He shook it.

“Reno.” He handed her the last of her files.

“Would you… maybe like to join me for lunch later?” Isabella asked, and the redhead’s grin widened.

“Love to… but I’m not really sure what the rest of my day’s gonna be like, yet.”

She pulled a pen from behind her ear and took hold of his hand, scribbling a number on his palm.

“Well, if you end up being free, give me a call. We can meet up in the cafeteria.” She straightened the stack of papers and picked it up, smiling at him as she turned and started off toward her desk. “See you later, Reno!”

A hand clamped down on the redhead’s shoulder and steered him back toward the elevator. Reno glanced back to see Tseng looking mildly amused.

“I had intended take you out for lunch… but it seems you now have other plans.”

“Heh… Ya know, I’m think I’m gonna like this floor…”

---

The elevator chimed, releasing them on Fifty-eight. In the interim, they’d passed three floors that were the sole domain of Soldier (which Tseng had told him they would tour at a later date, as they required clearance from the Director of Soldier to access), the weapons demonstration lab, materia research, and a few other less interesting places like the antiquities department and reactor maintenance.

Reno stepped out into a fairly bland, tiled hallway, and noted immediately that things were a little different here. Most of the floors they’d visited had an open area that greeted new arrivals with a directory or reception desk. All that welcomed them to Fifty-eight was a large Shinra insignia on the wall in front of the elevator doors. The hallway stretched off in two directions, and then turned a corner at each end. Along the way, at intervals, were unlabeled doors, all of which were closed.

It wasn’t the most interesting or inviting of places.

“Welcome to Turk Headquarters,” Tseng said.

“… This is it?” the redhead blurted out before having a chance to consider his words. Fortunately, the senior Turk laughed at his less-than-impressed reaction.

“There’s a purpose to the utilitarian appearance. The Turks are a somewhat clandestine organization. We like to keep things a bit uninteresting at first glance to avoid anyone making their way up to the executive floors from getting too curious about what goes on here. Most people don’t even realize this is our floor.”

He supposed that made a weird sort of sense. Why make something interesting if you wanted people to ignore it? Tseng started down the hall to their right, and began pointing out various locations.

“This is the archives room,” he said, sliding his ID through an electronic lock and pushing the door open. Reno peered inside. The room was quite large and filled with filing cabinets that were taller than he was. “We are very thorough in our paperwork. If the Turks were involved in something at any point, there is a record of it here. The archives go back to our founding… several years before I was ever recruited.”

“… How long have the Turks been around, anyway?” the redhead asked, curious.

“Almost since the inception of Shinra… though it was only officially formalized about eighteen years ago. Prior to that, the company merely drew from a select group within the security department to deal with certain… situations… that needed to be handled quietly and efficiently. As the company grew, they were separated off into their own unit, which ultimately became the Turks.”

“Hey, Tseng! Rufus was down here looking for you awhile ago.”

The senior Turk turned from the room toward the new voice, and Reno peered around him, spotting a man with dark hair and glasses walking toward them. He was wearing a standard Turk uniform, though his right arm was in a sling, and there was a nasty-looking cut on this cheek that had recently been stitched closed.

“Yes… I’m aware. We ran into him on Thirty-two.”

“We?” he queried, apparently only then spotting the redhead. “Oh! Right… You were bringing the new rookie in with you today.”

“Luca, this is Reno. Reno… Luca is our resident computer expert, in addition to being an excellent swordsman.”

“Pleasure,” Luca returned. “Your run-in with the brat have anything to do with your rookie being out of uniform?”

Tseng sighed. “I wish you would refrain from referring to him as such. He will eventually be vice president… and I won’t be coming to your aid should he overhear one of your various nicknames for him one day. But in answer to the question… yes. They both rather unexpectedly went for a little swim earlier.”

Luca’s eyebrows shot upwards and he laughed, clapping the redhead on the back. “Gave Rufus a taste of his own medicine, eh? Good for you. Little brat had it coming.”

“Luca!” Tseng chastised, visibly annoyed.

“He’s not vice president yet,” the other Turk replied with a smirk. “Anyway… I’ve got an appointment on Nine to have this arm looked at. See you at the afternoon briefing. Good to meet you, Reno!”

Luca gave the pair a slight wave, and headed off to the elevators. Tseng, meanwhile, was already on his way to the next point of interest. He pushed open another door and ushered his charge into a comfortable little room filled with chairs and couches. A long table stood against the far wall, and on it sat a coffeemaker and a collection of cups and mugs.

A woman who looked to be closer to Tseng’s age than Reno’s had made herself at home in one of the chairs and was silently reading through a file folder as she sipped her coffee. Her long black hair hung loose around her face, and when she looked up, Reno could see that she clearly had at least some Wutaiian heritage.

“This is the lounge,” Tseng stated, “And this is Remy.”

“That’s our new addition?” she asked, derisively. “Really, Tseng?”

Reno scowled slightly.

Tseng chuckled. “Don’t get upset. She’s only giving you a hard time.”

“Whatever you say, Tseng…” she snorted, before turning back to her files and her coffee, and pointedly ignoring them.

“Be nice.” Tseng cast back over his shoulder at her as he drew the rookie along, back into the hallway, leaving the woman behind. “Don’t mind her. Remy always takes some time to warm to new recruits. But she’s an expert at hand-to-hand combat, and a very good trainer besides. You’ll be getting to know her quite well, soon enough.”

“Doesn’t sound like she’s real impressed with me…” the redhead said, uncertainly. That sort of reaction had been his worst fear about today.

“Remy is never impressed with anyone,” someone asserted, and Reno was suddenly grabbed from behind. He felt the cold blade of a knife pressed to his throat. He froze, wary of attempting to make any sort of movement. “Well… maybe Veld,” his captor amended. “Maybe…”

“Say hello to Kai, Reno,” Tseng said, sounding almost bored by the fact that the teenager was being held at knifepoint.

“Uh… Hi?” Reno obediently replied, sounding nervous.

“Hi!” his as yet unseen attacker enthusiastically answered. The blade was removed from the vicinity of his throat, and he was allowed to turn to look at her. She was a short little thing, and thin as a rail, with brown hair and violet eyes. Unlike the other Turks he’d met thus far, her uniform was worn far more casually, with the jacket open and the shirt beneath untucked. She lacked a tie, as well, but seemed to have replaced it with a pair of stately white leather gloves. “So you’re the newbie, huh?”

She set the blade between her teeth and then gripped him by each arm, pulling him around to face her properly, before retrieving the blade and calmly juggling it between her fingers.

“Let’s see… I’m guessin’ you’re not a gunner. And you don’t look like you can use a blade for shit. Too damn scrawny to be much of a tank… What’s your fighting style?”

Reno blinked. “… Usually it’s run like hell and avoid gettin’ my ass kicked.”

“Hmph… Oh. One of those types. Well, don’t worry. We’ll fix that soon enough.” She glanced up at Tseng. “Ya want my advice, give the kid an EMR. Or see if he’d got any kind of aptitude for materia.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind,” the Turk lieutenant, replied.

“Always happy to help! And now… I’m off to work!” Kai flashed them a grin and waved, as she departed in the general direction of the elevators. Reno watched her go, vaguely conflicted about the conversation.

“… Um… What the hell was that?”

Tseng gave a quiet chuckle. “That was Kai. She can be a bit… direct.”

“Yeah. Guess that’s one word for it…”

“I believe I’ll be taking her recommendation, however, and we’ll see how an EMR suits you. She’s typically a very good judge of such things.”

“The fuck’s an EMR?” Reno asked, furrowing his brow. He wasn’t quite sure if it sounded awesome or ridiculous.

“It stands for electro-mag rod. Essentially an electrified baton. Very effective at close range, particularly for people who possess better than average speed and agility.”

Definitely awesome.

“I believe most of the others are currently on assignment at the moment, but we’ll see who else we can find before reporting to Veld,” Tseng continued. They rounded the corner and moved steadily down the next hall, with Tseng pointing out the restrooms, the weapons locker, the briefing room, and a few other things. Around the next corner were the Turks’ sleeping quarters, for those times when they were needed on the premises overnight, or were simply too exhausted to make their way home after work. The final hallway, before they’d gone full-circuit, was filled with individual and shared offices. Tseng opened the door to one about halfway down.

“Well, lookie what the cat dragged in. We were wonderin’ when yeh’d be stopping by… Yeh bring the new kid?”

“I did, indeed. Allow me to introduce you.” Tseng urged Reno into the room where he was greeted by a man an a woman. “This is Reno. Reno, these are the twins, Saya and Sato.”

The woman, Saya, had long, sandy brown hair pulled back into a high pony tail.

“We’re not really twins, yeh know,” she said, her voice accented in a heavy Mideelian lilt. “Technically, we’re second cousins.”

“Twice removed,” Sato added. “Not that anyone ’round ‘ere seems ta care. We’re kin ‘n we look enough alike that we’re stuck with that Odin-be-damned nickname fer life.”

“And we wouldn’t have it any other way,” Saya grinned. “Have yeh met any of the others yet?”

“A few,” Tseng answered for him. “We ran into Luca just as we arrived, and Remy was in the lounge. And Kai gave him her usual welcome.”

“Tseng! I’m disappointed in yeh!”

“Yeah… Yeh said we could introduce ourselves first this time!” Sato declared. Tseng smiled.

“I’m afraid it was out of my hands. It’s hardly my fault you two are holed up in your office.”

“And just where would yeh have work? In the lounge with Remy? That’d be real productive…” Saya cackled. “She’s impossible ta be around, what with Veld evaluatin’ her ta lead the Junon division. And she’s pissed at this moron right now, ta boot.” She smacked her second cousin twice removed in the shoulder.

“Junon division?” Reno piped up.

“Veld wants ta have some of us in Junon on the regular,” Sato explained. “Means we need a commander down there, and Tseng dinna want the job. He’d rather command the main branch one day. Remy’s next in line, but she’s got herself a wee bit of competition from Aaron. Makes her a right pain in the arse just now.”

“I suspect she’d be less of one if you would stop planting charges in and around her office,” Tseng said, pointedly.

“Yeh cannae prove nothin’, and yeh know it. If yeh could yeh’d already’ve dragged me inta Veld’s office ta have him disembowel me,” Sato replied, and he leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, a smug look on his face. “‘Sides… not that I have anythin’ ta do with it, mind… it’s just a wee bit of harmless fun. Nothin’ that’d cause any real damage.”

Tseng sorted derisively. “Tell that to Maintenance. Stop. Or the next time it happens, I’ll have you officially reprimanded, evidence or no.” He turned to leave, pulling Reno along with him as Sato laughed, knowingly.

“He blew up her office?” Reno asked, wide-eyed once the door had closed behind them. Tseng scowled back at the entryway.

“A small part of it, yes. Twice, now, in the last five days alone… Remy is not amused. Nor am I.”

“… Okay, seriously. Are all you guys completely nuts?”

“Sometimes I do wonder…” Tseng sighed, but then smiled. “You’ll get used to it. We don’t have the luxury of such behavior in most endeavors. Thus some of us tend to be a bit… less mature than one might hope… around our fellow Turks.”

“And some us of do not have, or appreciate, such tendencies. I swear to Shiva, Tseng… If one more thing explodes around here, I will not be responsible for my actions,” Remy cut in as she strode down the hall toward, Reno assumed, her office.

“He has been duly warned.”

“Hmph…” She brushed past them, and disappeared through one of the doors. Reno and Tseng had barely resumed their own course when a loud boom shook the entire floor.

“SATO!” an enraged voice screeched. Tseng shook his head and sighed.

“Reno… would you mind waiting for me in the lounge? I believe my presence is needed to prevent a brutal murder,” he said, roughly pinching the bridge of his nose. “… Or perhaps facilitate one.”

~end chapter 8~