Member
Savo
fellsing
Forsythe
Achronum
PatientBean
mickilennial
Morose
VitaVitaAR
Rune_Alchemist
Coda
Three floors below the lobby of the Shinra Electric Power Company’s headquarters, in a dimly lit office marked “General Affairs: Auditing”, a young blonde woman barely in her twenties sat alone, enjoying the last few sips of her mediocre cup of vending machine coffee while seated between two plastic plants. She often came down here on her breaks or lunch just to enjoy a little peace and quiet - a rare and precious treat in the sea of lights and bodies called Midgar. There used to be a time when the office would always have somebody around, but nowadays she was alone more often than not. That was fine. Solitude suited her well.
Taking the final sip of the lukewarm, bitter drink, the woman reviewed her notes neatly arranged upon the table before her. To most anyone who would read them, the words upon the pages would seem little more than the mundane musings and observations of a bored journalist diligently jotting down every detail of her day. Yet hidden away in the depths of the author’s mind was a cipher that could reveal the journal behind the journal. A list of names, locations, dates, and times that tie very bad people to their dirty little secrets. It was a list that proved oh so very helpful when it came time to write up her reports.
Because that was her life now - snoop around where she didn’t belong and expose the skeletons thought long hidden in forgotten closets. With a few flicks of her pen, she would effectively be signing the death warrant for some poor foolish soul who dared to believe that he or she could oppose the will of Shinra. Or perhaps it would be for some menace to society? Was there really a difference between the two anymore? Her eyes glanced over towards the vacant desk which sat just beyond the head of the table. A morbid thought crossed her mind.
Would her own death warrant cross his desk one day? And if so, would he struggle to sign it like she did now?
A hollow laugh escaped her. No, he wouldn’t hesitate. Not in the slightest.
When she had been recruited, there had been no fewer than twelve other members that would frequent the cozy, little office tucked away in the basement. Now there were only four. The others had turned traitor and it fell upon the department head to eliminate them. Which he did. A chill ran down the woman’s spine, causing her to shudder. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how much that must weigh upon him.
He had once told her that the job was often unpleasant, but necessary. The woman found herself often thinking on this when her determination wavered. It helped steady her. The job was necessary and would be completed, no matter what. That allowed her to distance herself from her actions. She didn’t act on her own decisions, she was merely a tool to be used as the company saw fit. It was dehumanizing in a way, but it served to smother the guilt she could feel festering within her.
She turned her gaze from the desk back towards her blank report and resigned herself to her fate before beginning to paint the portrait of a man’s secret life as a terrorist operative.
“Maddie!” a familiar voice cracked through the silence like a whip. The woman tensed, her eyes narrowing at the man’s disrespectful entrance. Reno. Of her remaining colleagues, Reno was probably the one she liked the least. He was loud, abrasive, and unprofessional. And he was much too quick to use her actual name. Granted, they were in the Office, but such carelessness could endanger not only her, but her assignment.
Still, he was her senior within the department and that demanded a certain level of respect. She hopped to her feet and offered the man a customary bow. Maddie met his smile with a face carved from stone, unwilling to show either the uncertainty she had been wrestling with only moments before or her general disdain for him. “Sir?” she asked.
"Boss man wanted me to give you this while he's busy investigating something. Rude and I will be breaking in a new recruit, so it's all on you, for now." he explained, handing over a disk. Maddie quickly placed the disk securely in the front pocket of her lab coat, nodding in acknowledgement. As quick as he appeared, he left once more, restoring Maddie’s precious peace.
So four would become five, huh? Well, to say they were short handed at the moment would be putting it lightly. Even the head of the department, Tseng himself, was out in the field. Quite frankly, Maddie was surprised that they hadn’t brought in any new recruits before now. Although she could understand Tseng’s hesitation to do so. If he even had any say in the matter nowadays.
Her mind lingered on the disk as a mix of both excitement and dread overcame her. Still, she resisted the urge to check it out immediately. There was no guarantee that even here, the department’s office in the Shinra headquarters, was truly secure. She would check it out later, in the privacy of her own home.
But for now, she needed to finish condemning a man to death.
The train ride to Sector 6 was uneventful, if not a bit crowded. But when was it not? Maddie had toyed with the thought of purchasing a vehicle, but ultimately decided against it. The highways almost came to a stand-still at peak hours. It really wouldn’t be that much faster than the train in the long run, despite being waaay more expensive. It just didn’t seem worth it.
At the station, she had little trouble flagging down a cab to take her the rest of the ride home. She lived halfway across the Sector, which was a pain, she had to admit. But what could she do? Moving wasn’t an option. She got dropped off at a drug store a couple blocks from her home and, after making a quick trip inside, walked the rest of the way.
From the time she got off the train to the moment she entered her apartment building, Maddie could feel a presence nearby. Somebody had been following her. Again. The person had been on her trail for about two weeks by this point.
And he was, to be honest, quite shit at this whole stalking thing.
He was a younger man, maybe twenty or so. Dark hair, pale skin, baggy clothes. Telltale signs of a slum rat. Maddie had first noticed him trailing her on her way home from a dropoff in the slums. Then again the next day on the train to work. He tended to stare. It didn’t take an expert in espionage to make him as Avalanche. He wasn’t the first tail the group had put on her, but he was easily the worst. Which was encouraging - a group like Avalanche often prioritizes putting their best assets on the biggest threats. This clown’s presence suggested that she was rather low on their list. Considering her cover as a Shinra scientist, it was to be expected.
After entering her apartment building and climbing four flights of stairs, Maddie finally reached her apartment. A sigh escaped her as she stood at the door collecting herself for a few moments before finally unlocking it.
“Hey Mom? I’m home.” she called out as she entered the dark apartment. There was no reply, but judging from the flashes of lights and the entirely too loud droning of the local news anchorman coming from down the hall, her mother was at least out of bed. Which was a good thing.
Maddie made her way down the hall, stopping by her room to remove her lab coat. She hung it neatly on a hanger on the back of the door before continuing down the hall towards the living room, but not before transferring the disk from her coat pocket to her pants pocket. It was much too valuable to leave unguarded. Even here.
“Mom?” she called again as she got closer.
“What?” a woman replied curtly. Maddie could tell by her tone that her mother was not exactly in the best mood. Still…
“I picked up your medicine.” she announced, using the cheeriest tone she could muster. As she reached the living room she held the discreet baggie holding the pill bottle up to show the woman on the couch.
“Flush ‘em. I don’t need them.” she groaned, not taking her eyes off the face of the man handing out the daily dose of Shinra-approved™ news updates. Maddie’s mother often spent most of her time in her bedroom, but occasionally she would drag herself out to the living room to hear all about how the world was going to shit, which would just reaffirm her decision to spend most of her days in bed. It was a vicious circle, really.
“Mom, I really think you should take them this time. Doctor Faris said -” Maddie attempted to appeal to her mother’s reason, but she slipped. Shouldn’t have said the doctor’s name. That drew her mother’s gaze for the first time in the conversation. The look of pure disgust in her eyes was enough to twist Maddie’s stomach into knots.
“Doctor Faris can kiss my ass. Those pills don’t do nothing but make me a zombie. I ain’t taking them.” she spit out with pure vitriol. Maddie could feel a bit of resentment aimed towards her as well, but it was her fault. She knew better.
“Mama, you...I...they help you. You really need to take them. If you don’t, he’s going to drop you as a patient.” the daughter whined as she joined her mother on the couch. Getting her to take her medicine was more or less a lost cause. But still, she had to at least try. What kind of a daughter would she be if she just ignored her mother’s suffering?
“Let him. I don’t need them.” she replied very matter-of-factly. She had returned her attention to the television. The conversation was over.
“Just think about it? Please? For me?” Maddie pleaded while pulling her Mom into a hug.
“Yeah yeah…” the older woman muttered while enduring the hug. Roughly translated, it meant ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore’, which Maddie could understand. She was being rather pushy.
For a few moments, the pair sat watching the news in silence. The main story was a fluff piece on President Shinra. He spoke about his dream of a brighter future through mako energy. To Maddie he spoke a lot of words but said very little. The sentiment was nice though. Eventually Maddie got up and stretched before beginning to make her way back down the hall towards the kitchen. She paused at the doorway, however, and turned back.
“Have you eaten anything today?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“I ain’t been hungry.” Mom answered, confirming Maddie’s suspicion.
“Mama, you have to eat.” the daughter nagged.
“I said I ain’t been hungry.” the mother rebuked.
“Well I am. I’ll make something.” Maddie announced. “Salmon sound good?”
“I don’t like salmon.” she stated.
That caught Maddie rather off-guard. “Oh, come on now. I know you like salmon.” she said. “You used to cook it all the time.”
“I don’t like your salmon.” her mother replied curtly again. That one stung a little bit - Maddie was rather proud of her cooking - but she didn’t let it show. Her mother was brutally blunt. It was part of her charm.
“Okay, how about fried rice?” she offered up as an alternative. It was Dad’s favorite. She couldn’t help but feel a little dirty about pulling that one, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Whatever. I ain’t hungry.” the cranky woman replied. For her, that was about as enthusiastic as she got, which helped Maddie rebound from the salmon comment.
“Fried rice it is.” she said with a grin before disappearing into the hall. On her way back to the kitchen, Maddie stopped to grab her laptop and a pair of earbuds. While she prepared the meal, she booted up the computer and inserted the disk.
She was greeted by Tseng before he would go on to detail an additional assignment. She was to identify and locate a rather nasty little hacker. As luck would have it, a couple of the handles included were ones that she recognized. She had suspected that they might have been the same person, but hadn’t actually needed to confirm that for any reason.
Until now.
A small groan escaped her. It’s not exactly a small request to hunt down an anonymous individual from the WWN, especially if they’re the type to REALLY enjoy their anonymity. But it wasn’t impossible either. She had a hunch that her hacker was most likely somewhere here in Midgar. Some of the interactions she’d had with the suspected alt-handles seemed to suggest that anyway. And besides, the truly prolific ones liked to be at least somewhat nearby so that they can enjoy the chaos they’ve created.
In any case, it couldn’t hurt to try to get a lead. After memorizing the list of handles, Maddie deleted the file, ejected the disk from the laptop, then proceeded to break the disk into four pieces that she would discreetly dispose of across the city. She then went about connecting her company phone to the laptop, transferring over some files, replacing her company phone with her Burner #1, and finally transferring the files over to it. Once copied, Maddie connected to an unlisted network. While the exact details escaped her, from Maddie’s understanding the unlisted network was exceptionally difficult for Shinra to monitor. It was the closest thing to a truly anonymous network that she was aware of at least. And, due to this, was pretty popular among the cyberterrorist crowd.
She dropped a message in a chat room, advertising the code used in Shinra’s prototype Sweeper mech as well as detailed blueprints for sale. The Advanced Weaponry Division had already moved on to a newer model using a different code base, but that wasn’t exactly public knowledge. She had gotten the greenlight to leak the information if need be. And need, as it would happen, seemed to be. It would be a reach - Maddie had no way of knowing if her hacker had an interest in Shinra mech tech, but it was worth a shot. All she could do now was hope for a bite.
With the “ad” completed, Maddie finished preparing the meals and took them to the living room. Mom wouldn’t eat unless it was in front of the television…
After her dinner, Maddie showered and changed into her streetwear before heading back out. She took another cab back to the station and this time took the train down below the plate. Her destination would be the slums of Sector 6. She had an arrangement she had to make at one of the seedier bars in the Wall Market. Of course, she had to hope that her contact wouldn’t mind her bringing a plus one. The tail was following her once more. Maddie had noticed him slinking around a convenience store near her home on her way out. And here he was again, riding her train. In a way, she pitied the guy. If he pulled this on someone less composed, he was likely to end up dead.
Maybe that was just what fate had in store for him? It was cruel.
She got off the train at the station in Sector 5 and walked the rest of the way. Her pursuer lagged behind, but shadowed her nonetheless.
Once in the bustling and extravagant shrine to decadence lovingly referred to as “Wall Market”, it was easy for Maddie to lose her tail in the crowd. She doubled in and out of various stores and restaurants before finally making her way to the bar. It was seedy dive with an equally sketchy clientele, but it served the purpose. For a Shinra employee to step foot inside, they’d either have to be insane or have a death wish. To be honest, Maddie hadn’t yet figured out which of those camps she quite fit into just yet.
She ordered a cheap drink and found a table to herself where she would wait for the contact. In the meanwhile, she kept checking her burner. She found that if it seemed like someone was approaching her, she could fake a phone call to dissuade them. It didn’t always work, but it served its purpose well enough.
The contact she was to meet was a high ranking individual in one of the local Avalanche cells. It wasn’t often that he made appearances in public. It was also his decision to have the meet in the classy joint Maddie now found herself in. While she had no way of confirming it, she suspected that a number of the clientele were not actually here for a cheap drink and a good time. If not Avalanche outright, then likely Avalanche sympathizers? It was hard to tell.
The man had arranged a meeting with one Naomi Chambers, a disgruntled Shinra scientist detailed to the Advanced Weaponry Division who had leaked information regarding a Shinra operation on Fort Condor, including their big bad Sweeper prototype that would be utilized in the raid. She also assisted in the assembly of a number of explosive devices that would be used in the fort’s defence. So for the meet, that’s who Maddie would become.
Unbeknownst to the contact however, the “prototype” was already outdated before it ever saw the battlefield. And the explosives? While hers were made to spec, she spread a less effective formula to a number of other explosive specialists among the cells. It shouldn’t have been enough to raise any red flags - the bombs would still work - but ‘Naomi’ would sleep better at night knowing that she put some soldiers in the hospital rather than the morgue.
The department labeled much of what she did as “acceptable damage.” It made her sick sometimes, but it was the job. If it wasn’t her, it’d be somebody else, so she might as well do it. At first she merely dropped leaks. Small but frequent. Then, as if she were growing more unsatisfied, the leaks grew more substantial. Eventually somebody had reached out to her to arrange a meet. And at that meet, she was officially “recruited” to Avalanche.
In the three months since then, she’s developed a bit of reputation for making high quality explosives in a rather timely fashion. Apparently it’s a rather in demand skill set, with Naomi only knowing of a few others within the organization. A woman with the cell based out of the Sector 7 slums. An elderly man in Sector 2. Some whiz kid in Junon. There were likely more, but those were the only ones on which she had any intel.
Naomi caught herself glancing more and more at the clock on her phone. The contact was late. She didn’t like late. It was disrespectful. Still, she would wait. Rumors suggested that the man she was to meet was putting together something big. Something that would “shake the Shinra fatcats to their core.” There was a chance that he was just full of hot gas, but Naomi would hear him out nonetheless. If something big were truly to be in the works, Maddie would love to hear all about it.
So she would wait, nursing her drink and checking her phone. She was getting a lead on a terrorist tonight damn it, be they cyber, eco, or otherwise.
Naomi Chambers had all the time in the world.
