Minutes to Meteora (Turks)

[Auric]

Minutes to Midnight
Because there's always need for a doomsday clock

It had taken a while. A month, actually... and believe it or not, I was lucky to get that piece of information. ShinRa Electric company was surprisingly good at controlling the flow of information -- within Midgar, getting wind of anything was difficult without broadcasting yourself. Still, I found a way... being successful in learning what I needed to know. See, I had a few plans in the works.... call it a check list of things I needed to do. Among them was procuring sensitive information. I actually had to infiltrate the World Regenesis Organization and plant a few crude listening devices and was lucky to hear about it at all given how their link to ShinRa was closely guarded.

Huh.

It still didn't stop me.

---

The world of intrigue was one just about anybody would be interested in. Spy fantasies, novels on espionage and mysterious secrets prodded at the natural curiosities of the hume psyche. But as good as the Turks were at guarding the secrets of Shinra, Auric was better at procuring. He had been patient -- willing to wait for half a year for the information to surface. What was he after? Sensitive data on a number of topics... technical specifications on how to build equipment required for a select few individuals to perform a Synaptic Net Dive. It had been said that not many people could interface with it to begin with... still, he was a rather special person and that didn't bother him in the least. That information of itself was of great value but of the many secrets he sought, it wasn't the most dangerous.

No. What he was after had required quite extreme security measures... only a handful of people were privvy to its access, the medium it was on transferred locations every few months and no chatter was ever made during its stay. It was data on the Black Materia... in this realm, a powerful object capable of summoning a meteor to destroy the world. Understandably, given the directions that Shinra was taking such dangerous knowledge was rightly guarded. But he wondered whether the Turks themselves knew about it... after all, the less people who knew about it, the less chance of information being leaked at all and he figured that whoever their director was must have kept them in the dark.

He wasn't wearing his usual attire today. He needed to be completely anonymous for this -- hell, even the weapons he used had been stolen, he couldn't risk the chance of people picking up on his trail should he succeed. Or even if he failed. Donned in black ninja gear, his face and features covered with contacts over his eyes that made them glow a bright blue hue that would make people think he was SOLDIER, he had sneaked about skillfully evading security and making his way up to the sixty-fifth floor. He had found the right room... eventually finding the locked console with the data drive he was looking for. It was in a server room, located amongst many others -- its shell looking no different so as to hide it from any save those who knew what they were looking for. To make it worse, the walls and flooring were silently alarmed -- even the roof couldn't be touched without tripping security. But the shelves themselves were safe and as he skillfully skipped from one to the other he eventually found the right shelf, lowering himself, he was upside down with his head almost touching the floor, his neck bending sidewards to give him enough room to inspect his objective. He needed to verify the countermeasures installed... and as his abilities worked overtime to intuit his surroundings he inspected the right signs and knew with absolute certainty this was what he was looking for.

But if he pulled it free he would definitely trigger an alarm...and if he shorted the electricity then the whole room would go into lock-down. He didn't really have much choice... and as his fingers reached out.... he yanked it free, flipped on to his feet and blew the door wide as simultaneous explosions occurred on various floors. It was a planned distraction.... but even so he needed to make haste, concealing the drive on his person as he bolted through corridors he went for the lift.... and was about to press the down button before security doors dropped down right in front of him to deny hims access. It couldn't have been automated.... he was sure that the security would be preoccupied with the explosive diversions he'd made unless...

Dammit. Turks.

He swung around. Knowing he had to pick his path carefully so as to avoid the suits. The lights went out as the power failed... back-up lighting coming online as he hid himself in the shadows... hearing the lightest footsteps of dress shoes, he knew he wouldn't be alone for very long.

[Reno]

[/color] Reno ordered the guard before he left the security room and headed to the next destination.

Reno couldn’t help but have a smug look on his face. No one outsmarted the Turks; especially when it involved anything related to ShinRa and its foundation. It was their job to know everything coming and going out of the building to protect the president. The redheaded Turk may be the most laidback Turk out of the group and may seem to be such a lazy ass lacking almost all work ethics but he wasn’t given his position out of someone’s lapse into insanity. Reno didn’t come out of a military academy but he was still damn good at his job – even if it seems like he slacks off far too much.

To be perfectly honest, Reno was a little more than happy for the bit of excitement this brought. Things had been slow, had even been a bit boring since the Deepground incident. When worlds seemed to merge, everyone knew it was just a matter of time before some outside group had tried something with ShinRa. It wasn’t their fault, they weren’t from their world and because of that, they didn’t know any better. It was the Turks job to set an example to show what happens to those who crossed paths with ShinRa.

There were several small explosions that suddenly accord in the building and Reno could feel the floor vibrate from them. He would let the troops take care of such things. He probably would have gone himself if he wasn’t aware of their guest’s little visit. He entered the floor just as the lights flicked off and things started going into lockdown. The power was out but there was always power to the emergency devices for each floor. For instance, the emergency intercom each floor that was designed in the event of some sort of evacuation procedure and fortunately, Reno was already near it before the lights went out.

He moved over to the wall and pressed the talk button before moving his mouth over to the wall mic. He was very very] tempted to simply heavily mouth breathe into the device and leave it at that. ”What’s up, yo~ Welcome to the ShinRa building~ Today’s special events include setting up a trap with some bait for an unwanted guest. Catching said guest and then having a very pleasant conversation with them. If you have any suggestions for future events, please leave them in the suggestion box at the front door.” He released the talk button and felt quite smug with himself. Leave it to Reno to make an entrance. Also leave it to Reno to make it seem like the only dangerous person in the room was himself. Reno wasn’t on this job alone, Turks worked best together after all.[/ul]

[Rude]

The bathroom. It was quiet, making it the one exception to the theme in this entire building. Rude had never spent enough time in here, he decided. That seemed to be the case for all Shinra's operatives and troops, since Rude had been sitting in here for half an hour now and no one had squeaked the door open. His actual business in one of the stalls had been complete for several minutes now. But, with nothing of note drawing the Turks' attention and Rude's assignment for the day only involving assisting Reno with his duties in the security room, he'd felt motivated to just sit and read a magazine for a few extra minutes. Might as well waste his time reading about the latest motorcycle models instead of standing there while Reno mentally groped the women on the monitors.

A few more seconds passed in his solitude, and Rude read the last few lines of an article, preparing to exit the stall and get back to the President's wing. As he read the last word, though, he was forced to nearly leap from his seat. A level below him, there was a loud explosion- not enough to make any real damage, but it was close enough to make Rude's heart skip a beat as it broke the silence. He grunted in response, shaking his reaction off. Tossing his magazine aside, he got to his feet, just in time for the lights to flicker out. Now having to return his pants to the proper position in the dark, Rude angrily mumbled his way through the process, fumbled with the stall's lock, and made his way over to the sink. After quickly washing his hands (and part of his sleeve since he couldn't see), Rude stomped his way towards the door and out into the dimly lit hallway.

Seconds later, Reno's voice rang out on the emergency intercom. Wasn't hard to figure out his meaning through his sarcasm. An unwanted intruder was inside the building, and Reno had expected him. But, in waiting, he'd managed to get several walls blown to bits. Typical Reno success- the end was achieved, but not before half the world had blown to hell. Rude's immediate reaction was to secure the President, but Tseng was heading his security team. He wouldn't need any help. Stumbling through the hallway since his shades were only making the lighting worse, Rude moved into the security room, finding that Reno had already left. Thankful that some of the lights in the room were worth spending reserve energy on, Rude scanned all of the still-functioning monitors for the intruder or Reno. Spotting the silhouette of his usual partner on one of the monitors, he stepped back out to the hallway, making his way towards Reno's position.

Took a bit longer than expected with his near-blindness, but Rude approached the intercom, spotting Reno's back turned to him as he did. He made the sounds of his footsteps nonexistant, unsure whether his partner had the scent or not. Forgetting that he hadn't yet fixed his suit from the disaster in the bathroom, Rude made his presence known at Reno's side, saying nothing. Another fool thinking he (Rude could tell the intruder was male- Reno would have been all over himself had it been a woman) could out-wit the Turks. The third this month. And, just like the last two, they'd be dealt with. Waiting for Reno's relay of information, however it would come, Rude scanned the room as best he could.

OC: I THINK I'm right to assume Reno left the security room, right? If not, I'll change it.

[Elena]

Some was really dumb enough to break into the ShinRa building when the Turks were stationed here, were they suicidal or just had a twisted sense of cheap thrills? Elena had finished the needed paperwork hours ago, putting again ahead of the game today. All she had been wanting to do was to enjoy a bit of coffee to make the rest of the night go by smoothly before she was allowed to take off for the night, which now appeared wouldn’t be happening. At least the evening shift would go by quicker now though Elena didn’t like having to deal with a security breech with little idea of who was working it. Normally one could at least suspect a group, but ShinRa’s known enemies were now strained allies most of the time thanks to the W.R.O.

“Oh hell…” Elena grumbled as she braced herself following the explosion. Great someone wanted to play with explosives inside, that was always a fun person, perhaps suicidal was the nature of this person after all. Time to find her fellow Turks. Tseng would be making sure the President was protected, in cases of emergencies it was Reno, Rude, and Elena to deal with the immediate threat. It didn’t take too long either for Reno to go out of his way to reveal his location, that made life much easier for her. Reno sounded like he was enjoying the events of the evening far too much already, but she had noticed his boredom increasing substantially the past few weeks, the number of wads of paper tossed at her this week had been more than normal, completely unprovoked.

The lights went out. A few seconds of pitch blackness bought the intruder those few extra seconds to prepare before the emergency lights came on. Stepping out into the hallway Elena rounded from the opposite direction of Reno and Rude, stepping out the debris of blown out walls. This wasn’t good, who knew what other weapons they could possibly be carrying on them. Elena didn’t draw her gun, it’d be dumb to blindly shoot, and the last thing she wanted was lecture about accidentally shooting Reno.

If Elena found the intruder, he’d be in for a nasty surprise.

[Auric]

Here's a riddle. How do you surprise someone who knows your coming? That was the question that Auric faced the moment he'd set himself up in Midgar. In its underbelly, he couldn't avoid detection completely... Crystal Hesperax, the face of the powers that be had known of his presence but had no information as to who he was. The controlling of information was easy... you simply had to know what information to hide and what to expose -- and in this, Auric had withheld enough data such that no one could piece together what he was truly after. Even the data drive he'd just stolen wasn't enough of an indicator of what he wanted...it was impossible to know because he always kept it out of context.

But how do you surprise someone who knows that you're coming? Easy. You tell them.

Crystal had been unable to get a good read on him; she was unable to find out anything useful regarding Auric beyond the fact that he was capable and might have purposefully announced his presence to her information network so as to get her attention... likewise, he'd done the same with the Turks. Why? He needed a guarantee that he'd get his hands on this very data drive -- if it were a fake, he'd of known... so telling them ensured that it remained in play. Furthermore... he needed a guaranteed escape route. And how could he plan such an escape when his pursuers knew he was coming? By telling them... he had guaranteed their presence. You might ask yourself how this would help but consider the simple fact that information was power. By controlling information, you control power -- you force your opposition to be where you need them to be thus making them predictable.

Not many people ever went through this amount of trouble to get what they wanted... but to Auric? It was second nature. The world of intrigue was filled with smoke and mirrors and to one such as him, he was the impossible trickster that... today, was going to elude capture. There were many fine points he had focused on... having observed feeds of SOLDIERs in action, gaining their appearance he could easily pose as one when he eventually confronted them. But for now? He withheld his cards, playing them face-down. They wouldn't know who he was or why he needed their data... and right of this moment, all they knew about him was that he was on the same floor. With back-up lighting the only colors were the dim red and pitch black.

He figured the best way was to leave his tracks... not make it so obvious that he was around but rather to confuse and keep them apart; ambush them one on one and there would be no need for casualties on this eventful night. Hopping up a wall, his feet were silent before he drew his blade, swinging the broadsword in a precise arc as he shattered one light. Another step, another swing... the corridor went dark before he sheathed the blade. He knew they definitely would have heard that... but his silent run brought him elsewhere. He moved toward Reno but took another corridor down, ending up in the security room... the one place it was guaranteed that they wouldn't be. He made a quick sweep of the room, ensuring no monitoring devices were present before planting another bomb below the control panel... observing the Turks' positions on screen. Ruffling through his pack he pulled out a LOVELESS disc and entered it into one of the free monitors... yanking the microphone for the intercom and placing it against the speakers he jacked up the volume and jammed down the transmit button; dooming them all to crappy poetry.

And he left the room... rigged the explosive to blow the next time someone entered the room but he kept a remote detonator to ensure it would go off. The ShinRa building would be a new fixer upper by this rate... as moved away, his options were binary as he waited for the opportune time to perform his next move. Pressed against a wall... eyes open, as his body melted into the shadows...

Let's see, three targets... neutralize? Or evade?