Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 44: The Beginning of the End

Reno found himself unexpectedly awake, the resounding boom that woke him still echoing across the city. Elena was clinging to him, looking around wildly as she tried to determine what the hell had just happened. He could feel her heart pounding in response to the adrenaline surge. His own wasn’t exactly beating calmly.

“R-Reno?”

“Fuck…” he breathed, instinctively pulling her closer for a moment before shaking off his shock and slipping out of bed. “Get dressed…” he said, “Not sure what the fuck that was, but it can’t’ve been anything good…”

The sudden ringing of his PHS only confirmed that… and also confirmed the suspicions that had begun to creep into his head regarding the origins of the blast. The redhead stopped halfway into pulling on a pair of pants and snatched the device off the nightstand.

“I’m guessin’ you heard that, too, huh, Boss?” he answered.

“Actually, I saw it. Part of it, anyway. Number 1 Reactor. Don’t bother heading into headquarters… we’ll coordinate from my apartment for the time being. It’s closer.”

“Me ‘n ‘Lena’ll be there in twenty minutes…” He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the bed so he could finish dressing.

“What happened? Was it one of the reactors?” Elena asked, as she hurriedly shrugged into her jacket. She’d apparently come to the same conclusion he had moments ago.

“Elena?! Reno?!” a frightened voice from the other side of the bedroom door interrupted before he could answer. The rookie shook her head and opened it. Josephine hovered anxiously just beyond, looking somewhat pale. “What in the wide world was that?!”

“The reactor over in Sector 1 blew,” Reno replied, pulling his hair back and tying it in place. “Sorry, Nana, but it looks like we’re workin’ this weekend…”

“I always knew those things were more dangerous than they’re worth…” Del piped up over his grandmother’s shoulder. “How many accidents is this city going to put up with before they figure that out?”

“Didn’t blow on it’s own… That’s why we’re gettin’ called in.” Technically, he didn’t know that for certain yet… but it was a pretty safe bet. Numbers 1 and 5 had been at the top of Tseng’s list of likely targets when they’d left for the weekend… apparently the added security he’d ordered hadn’t been quite enough. He wondered how bad it was over in Sector 1 right now. An explosion was deadly enough… but if mako was leaking out onto the Plate, a full quarter of the sector could end up contaminated in a matter of hours if the cleanup crews weren’t quick about getting things contained… to say nothing of the slums directly below. And that meant even more deaths and more injuries, as the populace succumbed to mako poisoning.

“W-wait… you’re saying someone did this on purpose?” Del replied, incredulously.

Elena nodded, already heading for the door. “That’s exactly what he’s saying. We’ll be back as soon as we can…”

Reno hurried to follow her, but paused for a moment, turning to Del. “I know I don’t have any right to ask ya for favors, but… do you think you could maybe check in on Lira for me? That had to’ve freaked her out pretty bad…”

The other man blinked, slightly surprised. “Uh… yeah. Sure,” he said, nodding.

“Don’t you worry about her,” Nana added, “We’ll both head over there just as soon as we’re dressed and make sure she’s alright.”

---

“How bad is it?” Reno asked, walking straight into Tseng’s apartment. Normally, he would have knocked, out of courtesy… but today the Turk leader’s home was mission control. Tseng glanced up from the television screen where the local news was running footage of the destruction in the vicinity of the reactor.

“It could have been much worse, all things considered,” he replied, “The reactor was down for maintenance, so the power failures are mostly confined to the immediate area surrounding it. Primarily support buildings… a few blocks worth of residences and businesses. There is a mako leak… We seem to have been fortunate, however. It’s a small one, and the repair crews are already working on containing it. There’s always the potential of something shifting in the wreckage, however, and causing it to worsen before they can get a handle on it.”

“Casualties?”

Tseng shook his head. “I haven’t received an official count yet… and when I do, it will probably only be an estimate. At least eleven employees are still unaccounted for in the reactor itself, but there was also significant damage to surrounding buildings. Structural collapse from the shock wave, fires… Nevermind the people who were poisoned rather than killed outright. It may be days yet before we know the full extent. As I said, it could have been worse… but it’s still bad.”

Reno scowled and watched as a news helicopter circled high above Sector 1 on television, its camera panning across the destruction.

“We shoulda taken those fuckers out months ago…” he said, angrily. In general, he didn’t give a shit about politics… Avalanche’s or anyone else’s. And he was the first to admit that Shinra Company was hardly the picture of lily-white innocence… but people were dead, and more were likely dying… all because some upstart little holier-than-thou assholes decided that Shinra needed to be taught a lesson.

He’d read through some of their bullshit propaganda fliers, and he’d come to the conclusion that they were nothing more than short-sighted idealists with no concept of how things really worked. They condemned mako energy as “draining the planet of its life force”… but they didn’t offer a damn thing as far as alternatives. If the entire planet was somehow going to magically stop using mako, something had to take its place. You didn’t make the world better by haphazardly tearing down infrastructure with no plans for rebuilding it. Even he could understand that much, and such matters were well beyond what Shinra paid him to care about.

Tseng sighed, and hung his head. “You’re right. We should have.”

“Boss… I didn’t mean –”

“I know.”

“So… What do we do now, sir?” Elena asked.

“Soldier will be dealing with the immediate fallout. I’ve sent Rude down to Sector 7 with orders to locate our terrorists. If he succeeds in doing so, he’ll contact us with the details. The president has demanded they be brought in alive.”

“What?!” Reno intoned, disbelief clearly evident in his voice. “You can’t fuckin’ be serious, Tseng…”

“President Shinra wants them made an example of. Publicly.”

The redhead didn’t much care for that idea… he’d much rather have simply eliminated the threat and been done with it. But… orders were orders.

“And what do we do while we’re waitin’ on Rude?”

“Until we locate Avalanche, we’ll be assisting with search and rescue as needed,” the Turk leader replied. “Reno, you’re our best pilot… I’m going to need you in the air. There are are lot of people trapped that can’t be reached from the ground. Dr. Ward and some of the other medical staff are already on their way to headquarters. They’ll be waiting for you on the helipad.”

Reno nodded. “Got it.”

“Elena… you and I will join Soldier in helping anyone we can reach from the ground.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reno pulled Elena into his arms, kissing her gently. “Be careful out there, ‘kay?”

“You, too,” she replied, smiling slightly. He reluctantly let her go, and headed out the door again, bound for the Shinra Building and the helicopter that waited for him on its roof.

---

It wasn’t possible. He’d seen them walk inside, one by one – the last one arriving not five minutes ago – and they damn well hadn’t come back out after the bar had unexpectedly closed up shop. And yet, now… his targets had mysteriously vanished. All six of them… even the bartender was nowhere to be found.

Which meant there had to be a secret exit. And he’d just let them slip right past him like a goddamned rookie.

Rude punched the wall beside him in frustration, splintering a section of the wooden paneling. This was not the report he’d been planning to make to Tseng. He turned, defeated, towards the door, hand reaching for his PHS… but before he could notify the Turk leader of his failure, a loud mechanical hum started up behind him. The Turk glanced back over his shoulder in surprise as he watched the pinball machine in the corner slowly sink into the floor.

“…”

It took him a moment to realize what exactly was happening… but when he did, he darted into the shadows of the back room, concealing himself behind a shelf and peering though the narrow openings between the stock. It wasn’t long before the game rose back into place… carrying with it the alleged ex-Soldier.

So that was their real headquarters. A hidden room below the bar. Rude smirked to himself. He had them now.

---

“Yes, sir… I understand,” Tseng said, frowning at his phone. Heidegger had told him to wait… to watch. The president wanted the city to see Avalanche caught in the act, not just publicly executed. He actually wanted to allow them to move forward with their next attack… which, thanks to Rude, they knew knew would be directed at the Number 5 Reactor. The Turk leader shook his head in dismay… Something told him this wasn’t going to end well.

Public relations be damned… letting those lunatics continue to run around unchecked until they were ready to pull something else was insanity. The destruction that presently surrounded him was more than enough to prove that, as far as he was concerned. But then, it wasn’t really up to him… so he messaged their orders to Rude, anyway.

President Shinra had always been a somewhat callous man… but there was no denying that he was generally well-liked by the denizens of Midgar. To Tseng, he was nothing more than the quintessential business man. He did what was in the best interest of the company… and if it made Shinra look good and someone else look bad, that was always in the best interested of the company. To be fair, it was a mentality that had served him well over the years. The populace tended to overlook a few things – the existence of a group like the Turks, for example – that they might otherwise not have, because Shinra Company was looking out for them. The company had become a global power under the president’s watch.

But this… This had so much potential to backfire on them. One reactor was already in its death throes. It would be months before Number 1 was back up and running again, assuming they didn’t end up having to scrap the whole thing and rebuild it. Now they were planning to risk Number 5 as well, just for the sake of a public execution. Tseng didn’t like the idea at all.

He sighed and tucked his phone away. At least this time they knew where it would happen. They might have to risk the reactor, but they didn’t have to risk any more lives. A low-key evacuation of the blast radius around Number 5 was already being planned… and the media, at Mayor Domino’s urging – which, in turn, had come at the behest of the Shinra executive board – had been recommending all morning that residents should move away from all of the reactors, in case of more attacks. Shinra Company was doing everything in their power to turn public sentiment against Avalanche… not that it was that difficult a task once images of the aftermath had made their way onto TV screens around the city…

“Sir!” Elena’s voice called out to him, and Tseng turned, seeing the rookie struggling to help an injured man out of the rubble. He nodded and made his way over, taking some of the man’s weight from her and walking him towards the makeshift triage center that had been set up in the middle of the block.

The list of injured had rapidly ballooned into the mid-hundreds, once rescuers had begun searching for survivors. Midgar General’s emergency department was already overwhelmed. At this point, only the very worst cases were being sent on to the city’s main hospital. Everyone else was stuck in a holding pattern as they waited for transportation to become available to one of the smaller medical facilities or simply to be treated in place and taken elsewhere for shelter.

The death toll was closing in on sixty, the last Tseng had heard. That had been nearly an hour ago. He was fairly sure he should be feeling something over that number. Outrage, at the very least. Perhaps a sense of tragic loss. Almost certainly guilt over failing so spectacularly to prevent it. The truth was, though, for the moment at any rate, he felt surprisingly numb to all.

As they set the injured man down on the nearest stretcher and left him in the hands of the medical personnel, he could see that Elena didn’t share his detachment.

“Let’s go and take short break. Get something to eat.”

The rookie shook her head. “I’m not hungry, sir,” she replied, flatly.

“Something to drink, then. So long as you step away from this for a few minutes.”

“Yes, sir…”

Tseng escorted her off to the little coffee shop that was pulling double duty as respite for those working to bring in survivors. It was pleasantly cool inside compared to the early summer heat that was gradually warming the streets as the sun rose higher in the sky, but the atmosphere was somber. As they entered, a few other volunteers filtered back out. The two Turks found a table in the back, far from the windows that overlooked sight outside, and Tseng left Elena there before going to get some water for the both of them. When he returned, she seemed lost in thought. He wordlessly set the bottle in front of her.

“How could anyone do something like this?” she asked after a minute or two.

“I wish I could say I don’t know,” he replied, “But unfortunately, I’m intimately acquainted with the mindset of justifying something that has no right being justified.”

“Sir?”

“You forget, Elena… my own sister was a victim of an attack much like this. One that I had a hand in instigating. The benefits ultimately outweighed the costs… or at least that’s what we told ourselves. I don’t know that it was ever really true. It certainly wasn’t for me, in the end. I suspect at least some members of Avalanche may harbor similar regrets by now.”

“Enough to stop them from attacking again?” she asked softly, taking a small sip from the bottle of water. He hadn’t yet told her about the president’s plan. President Shinra,at least, seemed to be banking on the group’s conscience failing to get the better of them.

“That I can’t say. Probably not… There will always be someone out there capable of justifying further violence.”

And sometimes that someone wasn’t the terrorists.

“It’s barbaric,” she stated.

“Yes. It is.”

“But it’s going to keep happening anyway, isn’t it? And one of these days, it might be us causing something like this.”

“It’s certainly possible,” Tseng agreed. If history was anything to go by, it was more than just possible. It was very likely. The rookie didn’t need to know that right now, however.

Elena finally looked up at him. “How are we supposed to live with something like that?”

“We tell ourselves that the ends justify the means… and then hope that we’re convincing enough that we believe it.”

 

~the end… of the beginning~