[FF7-AC] Empire - Chapter 9
[FF7-AC] Empire: Chapter 9
Rating PG-13 (Safe for work) - Status: In progress - Chapter 9/? - Warnings: None
Pairings: Tseng/Rufus, Rude/Reno
Fic summary: Post-AC, barreling down the road to the reconstruction ofShinra Company. A Hero, A President, a new world, and the politics that draw them all into a tangled web beyond all ability to forecast.
Chapter Summary: In which Reeve hates the coffee, Cloud experiments with public speaking, and Rufus gets floored.
Chapter word count: 3,829
Fic word count: 29,365
The coffee was hot on his tongue. Scalding and tasteless. Brewed from some beans from goodness knew where, with enough acid completely overwhelm any aroma it might have had.
Reeve didn’t care as he threw back his third cup in ten minutes.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t drink so much, sir…” his secretary hovered at his elbow, quietly removing the empty mug. “It does nothing for tension…”
He dredged up a harassed smile for her, sorting through piles and piles of paper. Reports. Newspaper cuttings. Schematics and plans and months and months and months of records, before spinning to the left to hammer on his laptop’s keyboard. And resisted the urge to run his hands through his hair and scream.
He had all of an hour left to attempt to prepare some sort of coherent defence. Something to justify his position - not so much his position as the director of the WRO, but his position, his stand on the entire dismal mako reactor situation. It didn’t matter if they kicked him out of office so long as the WRO stuck to its goals, but at the rate they were going, that wasn’t going to happen, and whoever was elected was going to fire up the reactors again. If he failed to stop that plan now, when he still had the authority to do it, there was no way he would be able to stop it later.
And Rufus was glaringly absent. They had gone through the first round of speeches for the impeachment already, called a recess, and still the President -- funny how he still thought of him as THE President, capital letters and all -- was still conspicuously absent. There were murmurs of pushing for an adjournment, and Reeve was half inclined to agree, except what scanty political instincts he had picked up from his stint in Shinra were telling him that it wouldn’t help.
And Rufus… was a loose cannon. The Reactor Party, or so Reeve had dubbed them in his head, were convinced that Shinra would, when confronted with the bottom line, agree to restarting the reactors. After all, Shinra had the expertise, owned the reactors, would logically be the ones hired to run them, would likely be the ones profiting, all under the watchful eye of the WRO.
How easily we slip back into old habits, he thought, gnawing on the end of a pen. It’s no wonder Shinra gained the power it did back in the day. People must have practically thrown it at their feet.
The thought of Shinra controlling the reactors again, the thought of willingly giving them back the very thing that had consolidated their monopoly, their economic dominance and through it, their political standing... these were the things of nightmare.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Rufus was … he didn’t dare presume he knew what Rufus was, or what was going on behind steely blue eyes. He didn’t dare bet the entire future of the world on the assumption that Rufus wouldn’t go the way his father had. Not when he had all the world at his feet.
But at the same time, Rufus had been a quiet but firm voice speaking against the reactivation of the reactors. Reeve didn’t claim to understand it. Even as a teenaged Vice President, Rufus had had plans behind plans behind plans. There was always, always the chance that this was all an elaborate game with some greater long term goal that none of them could see.
When did you become this cynical? he thought to himself, shaking his head with a sigh. There was a time when you would give everyone the benefit of the d--
“Rough day?” a familiar voice said, slicing cleanly through his thoughts and leaving him hanging.
He spun. Think of the devil... “Rufus!”
“Good evening to you too, Reeve,” Rufus said, a touch of wry humour in his voice as he appropriated one of the chairs in front of the desk, waving off Reeve’s secretary’s flustered protests. “Perhaps you could update me on the situation?”
He came to me first. The thought was running around his head like a hamster on a wheel, bringing with it a sense of possibly misplaced but profound relief. He came to consult me, not them, which might just show that he’s still behind me... “There’s a faction pushing for the re-activation of the Reactors,” he found himself saying. “They were already suggesting it at the last meeting you attended...”
“And you disagreed, I take it. Since when did they have enough standing to call for an impeachment?”
“I don’t know.” He caught himself running his fingers through his hair and stopped. “Their case is persuasive. Dio’s thrown his lot behind them with hard data and statistics. He’s willing to do it for free.”
“Of course he is,” Rufus murmured. “His real reward isn’t going to be measured in money.”
Reeve shook his head. “The reasons we’ve been saying for weeks now just don’t convince them any more. The death toll hit fifty this morning... I think people are getting desperate. Maybe you could speak to them, but really, I think we need a new breakthrough before they’ll be willing to listen...”
“Good thing I brought one, then,” Rufus said blandly.
Reeve’s eyes widened. “Was that where you went to?”
“Hardly. I picked him up along the way.” He glanced at Reeve’s secretary. “Would you call my companion, please?”
“I’m here,” Cloud said from the doorway. “And I still don’t see how it’ll help.”
“Cloud!” Reeve said, feeling his face stretch in a grin. The weight that had been smothering him for the past few hours seemed to lift for one glorious moment, and he could really breathe again. “You have no idea...”
“Of course it’ll help,” Rufus said lazily.
“It’s not as if I’ll be saying anything that you or Reeve won’t be saying,” Cloud mumbled.
“But your last name isn’t used as an expletive in several parts of the world,” Rufus replied. “And there are still some who are slow to forget that Reeve is ex-Shinra.”
“They’ll want to know why you fought against Shinra in the first place,” Reeve said.
Cloud shuffled his feet.
“You objected to the use of mako power, didn’t you?” Reeve pressed. “Just tell them that.”
“Uh,” Cloud replied. “Actually...”
Reeve exchanged a glance with Rufus, who shrugged.
“It-was-for-money,” Cloud blurted out.
“Scratch that plan,” Rufus muttered. His shoulders shook suspiciously.
Reeve gaped, while Cloud winced and looked everywhere but at him. Money? Cloud had been... oh right. The driving force behind Avalanche had been Barret. In fact, just about the only one who had been in it for the sake of destroying the Reactors had been Nanaki, and he had been dragged into it anyway.
“Are you laughing?” Reeve demanded of Rufus.
“Not at all,” the other said, and his expression was utterly deadpan.
“Doesn’t matter,” Reeve sighed, rising from his chair and pacing across the floor. “And I suppose it’s rude of me to pry. Just... it would help a lot if you could address them, Cloud.”
“What am I supposed to say?” Cloud demanded.
“Just speak naturally. Say whatever comes to you,” Reeve said, and paused. Did a double-take. “I mean, oh, I’m so sorry. I just assumed that you’d agree that restarting the reactors is a terrible idea. I …”
“Of course I do,” Cloud said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” His expression lightened, just a little - that small quirking of the lips that almost passed as a smile for Cloud Strife. “I… really appreciate all the work you and the WRO have done for the planet. Building Edge, providing for all her citizens, maintaining the infrastructure… you guys have done so much. It’s wonderful. I just … I’m not good with words.”
Reeve skirted the edge of the desk to punch him lightly on the shoulder. “You have this real problem with self-confidence, did anyone ever tell you? Just speak from the heart. You’ll do great.”
“So you say,” Cloud muttered.
*
It was downright comforting, knowing that he wasn’t alone in this. It might have been disaster to walk into that conference room with Rufus Shinra at his shoulder - the allegations of old Company loyalties would fly - but with Cloud at his other side...
The leading voices of the Reactor party stopped. And stared. Out of the corner of his eye, Reeve saw Rufus pause behind him, lingering, eyes sweeping the room before he moved to take his usual seat. Long enough to dispel any notion that it was pure coincidence that he had appeared alongside the leader of the WRO. Cloud, meanwhile, had his stoniest expression on - someone would have to tell him one day that he didn’t look scary; he looked downright murderous when he furrowed his brow like that. Reeve motioned him to a chair beside him.
It wasn’t normal to have such a vote taken so quickly. Standard procedure required at least a week’s notice. A week for people to think about it. But the ‘present global emergency’, as people touted it, had resulted in the push for expedited proceedings. Before more people died from the cold-
“Have you considered the possibility of simply shifting people to Corel or Cosmo Canyon, where the weather is milder?” Rufus queried.
The board stared at him as if he were insane.
“The costs of that would be prohibitive,” a Reactor party member said. “The logistics would be insane. We would not be able to move everyone, and a sea trip would still be necessary, while we lack airships in the number necessary to-“
“Not everyone needs to be moved,” Rufus replied, and Reeve caught the glint in his eye that signalled that he was baiting. But baiting them with what, Reeve didn’t know. It wasn’t a particularly viable solution... “Presently, we can supply the needs of approximately two-thirds of Edge. If the remaining one-third-“
“Where would they stay? Cosmo Canyon doesn’t like visitors and Corel is just a tiny mining town...”
Rufus drummed his fingers on the table and leaned back. “I see. I commend you on having done such extensive feasibility studies.”
Back in Shinra, that might have started a war. The members of the WRO brushed it off, moving on to their own speeches. They had more figures now, scientists reporting how the cold spell would likely drag particularly long this year, graphs showing how many people would die if the weather continued or worsened, red lines and black lines crawling heavenwards on their charts.
“You look troubled,” Reeve murmured to Cloud.
“Is it true?” Cloud asked him. “That so many people are...”
“This is an estimate. We don’t know,” Reeve told him. “If they’re right, though, that may well happen.”
Cloud narrowed his eyes, and Reeve wondered who he was thinking of. Marlene and Denzel, perhaps? “But wasn’t this a case of whether they have confidence in you? Why are we talking about mako reactors?”
“When the board gets split down the middle by conflicting policies, it does, often, become a question of which policy is better. If they can show that theirs is more persuasive, I’ll either have to change WRO policy or step down.” Reeve’s lip curled. “At this juncture, I’m not sure which is the better option.”
“This is ridiculous,” Cloud said, a trifle too loudly, and all eyes turned to him. Cloud hesitated, as if torn between apologising for interrupting, and going on.
He pressed on. “This isn’t about mako reactors. This is about saving lives,” he said, standing. “You haven’t considered everything. You’re rushing straight into this because it just happens to be the easiest, most convenient situation at hand, because for some reason you’ve totally dismissed the future.” He scowled, and Reeve saw Rufus hide a smile behind his hand.
“Mako isn’t just a power source.” Cloud was in full swing now, something Reeve had never expected to see outside of a life or death fight. Something had truly changed in him, the day he defeated Kadaj. Or perhaps some button out of his past had been pressed. “Have you forgotten what mako can do to humans? Shinra, it’s experiments, and all those things that went wrong?”
“We aren’t proposing to use mako for anything other than power, Mr Strife!”
“What about Dio?” Cloud said. “I don’t see him here. Can anyone vouch for what he’s doing to do when he sitting on top of his own reactors?”
“Dio will only be providing the funding,” the secretary of Environmental Preservation said calmly. “The Reactors will remain under the WRO’s control. Not Shinra’s-“ a pause to glance at Rufus, “-nor the Golden Saucer’s.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Cloud said. “Dio controls the funding, he controls the Reactor. He’s not going to step back and let you handle everything. Can you safely say that he has no ulterior motives whatsoever? Can you really say that?”
There was a murmur amongst the board members.
“Have you forgotten why you elected Reeve?” Cloud demanded, leaning forward to slam his palms onto the table in a gesture that was so utterly Tifa that Reeve had no doubts as to where he had learnt it from. “It’s because Reeve is the only one the world could trust who wasn’t in it for personal profit, or power, or any of that. He’s the only one whom you could trust not to do something like cut corners and choose the easy way out when things went wrong. Which includes going against everything that the WRO stands for just because things are looking bleak!”
Cloud was normally taciturn. Perhaps only slightly less taciturn than Vincent. Something had set him on edge, and Reeve suddenly wondered how Rufus had persuaded him to come.
“Rather than waste time talking about confidence or lack of it, why don’t you use that to consider other options?” Cloud said.
“That is Chairman Reeve’s job,” someone replied. “To present us with viable alternatives. At the moment, he has yet to give us anything.”
Cloud faltered, and Reeve rose swiftly, placing a hand on his shoulder. That was it. That was the killing blow. All they had was talk and reasons and excuses, and when lives were on the line now, ramifications in the future were just too far away to matter...
He opened his mouth to speak, when the scrape of another chair interrupted him. His eyes met Rufus’ across the room, and the President inclined his head. “May I take the floor, Mr Chairman?”
“Please,” Reeve said. “I call President Shinra.”
Rufus stepped forward, commandeering a projector in the process, as Reeve sat, slowly. A tingle burned through his fingertips, and he knew, just knew, that there was something up Rufus’ sleeve. He wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t put himself forward, unless he had real cards to play...
Please, he thought, with the slightest tinge of terror. Don’t let this be a sudden turnaround. If you throw your lot in with them at this juncture, it all falls, like a house of cards...
But Rufus could do it, Reeve knew. Rufus could have set him up, alongside Cloud, exposed the critical flaw in their argument, chose this very moment to bring in his ace, wipe them out, install himself as ...
The Shinra Electric Company emblem flashed on screen.
Oh Shiva...
“I present this to the governing board of the World Restoration Organisation,” Rufus said formally, and Reeve had to hold back the urge to cut him off. To banish him from the room and never let him speak. It was all too late now. The ball was in motion, let the cards fall where they may...
“I present this to the board united, as it is, one body under the guidance of Chairman Tuesti,” Rufus continued. A tap, and the Shinra logo vanished, to be replaced by a slide of the constitution of the WRO. “I call attention to art 11, which states that the board shall, as a whole, strive towards the goals of the WRO as stated in art 2, including the preservation and restoration of the Planet.”
Reeve held his breath.
“I remind the board that it is its collective duty to protect and provide for the citizens of the world. This is not a duty that may be partitioned.” He paused, drawing out the general sense of unease in the assembly. “If there is a matter of confidence to be decided, then I wish to respectfully submit that the board, with the sole exception of the Chairman, has been derelict in its duty in exploring alternatives to the controversial field of mako power, by failing to call a representative of Shinra Company.”
Reeve could practically see the stillness that fell across the room at those words. The way everyone’s attention was riveted on the speaker, captured in a way that even Cloud had not been able to.
“Fortunately,” and Rufus broke into a warm smile, “Thanks to the Chairman’s invitation to sit as an observer on this assembly, as well as his permission to articulate my views today, I have the honour of presenting the following proposal to you.”
Did he... schematics were flashing across the screen, diagrams upon diagrams, and the engineer in Reeve made him lean forward, gobbling up the technical detail. Did he just ...
“Therefore, I give you: the viable alternative to mako power. The solution to the energy crisis. The PEP-II Electron Vacuum Ring.”
...save us all?
Rufus was speaking faster now, laser pointer flicking schematic to schematic, a darting little red dot that kept everyone’s eyes riveted.
“...succinctly, this system utilises an ioniser and a particle accelerator to generate an initial acceleration of electrons through a circular and hence constantly changing magnetic field. Such a change in magnetic flux allows the system to self-sustain using only a minimal maintenance current, while a portion of the particles are siphoned off every rotation.”
Diagrams changed, flicking to the second portion of the generator.
“On its own, this particle wash should be sufficient to power a turbine, but schematics here have indicated the possibility of the use of a counter-rotation ring to allow for particle collision. Initial trials suggest that, for rings of sufficient size, this should result in nuclear fusion on a commercially viable and efficient scale.”
Or is this designed to put us all in our place? the sudden, unwelcomed thought occurred to Reeve. Because this could well be a demonstration of how the WRO has failed, and how Shinra Company doesn’t need us any more...
“What is he up to?” Cloud demanded softly.
“No doubt we’ll find out in a moment,” Reeve replied, narrowing his eyes.
“...cost wise, we should have the resources to initiate this project, although further expansion of the grid will require sponsorship,” Rufus continued. “I regret that we have only the most basic of cost estimates at this point.” He paused, and Reeve saw his gaze flicker across the assembly to meet his own.
The silence was deafening as Rufus snapped the laser pointer off and dropped it lightly onto the table. Cloud shifted, but Reeve put out a hand to hold him back.
“In short, this system will indubitably resolve all our energy concerns. The system is not dependent on geographical features or availability of natural resources, and is infinitely scalable - from small rings powering a single household to the possibility of a planetary wide ring that will generate sufficient capacity to power the Planet several hundred times over. The safety of nuclear fusion far exceeds that of nuclear fission.
“There remains only one concern,” Rufus said, and there was something in the blue stare that was vaguely challenging. Reeve felt his head tilt up in subconscious response.
“What would that be?”
Rufus’ gaze did not waver. “Shinra Company is presently short on engineering expertise, and I lack the relevant personnel to advise me on whether such a project is actually feasible - in practice, on the necessary scale. And the necessary personnel to oversee it if it is.” His expression was closed, shuttered, but in that moment Reeve saw it anyway - this was no automatic life line: this was enough rope to hang himself with. Whether he sank or he swam was up to him-
--no, that wasn’t it either. Shinra Company’s reputation was similarly staked on this venture. If he said ‘no’ now, if he threw their proposal out of the window, they would sink too.
Cunning, are we? Posing this question at this moment, when I need you, and you need me, at a time where I can’t refuse you...
“I can do it,” he found himself saying. “I can make this happen.”
Rufus’ smile glittered razor sharp.
*
“Rufus!”
The other paused, running a hand through his fringe before turning. “Reeve.” His gaze drifted past his shoulder. “And Strife.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before the damn meeting?” Reeve demanded, but the smile that spread across his face belied the harshness of the words.
Rufus inclined his head. “And miss out on my opportunity for dramatic tension?”
So typically Rufus. Reeve shook his head. “Where did you find it?”
“In the Company vaults,” Rufus said, reaching up to massage a shoulder.
He blinked. “I never heard of this.”
“Unsurprising. The old man was in the habit of buying over potential rival companies and hiding their inventions in the deepest pit he could find.” Rufus looked vaguely wistful. “Such a waste. If we had discovered it earlier...”
“Better late than never, though,” Reeve said. “And it’s hardly late, here.”
“Late enough,” Rufus said sourly, undoubtedly thinking of the days before Meteor.
Reeve rested a hand on his arm. “I wanted... to thank you.”
It was rare to see Rufus Shinra caught by surprise. The blink was rapid, but Reeve didn’t fail to note it, and his smile grew slightly wider.
“Whatever for?” Rufus demanded. “It’s not as if I did it as a favour to you.”
He had to resist the urge to punch the younger man’s shoulder. “When you could just as easily have asked any other engineer? When you could have found your own independent contractors?”
“I don’t trust any of them.”
“And you trust me?”
Rufus smirked. “Better the enemy I know...”
“You are such an idiot,” Cloud said.
Reeve had to stifle a chuckle at the flash of sheer indignant surprise on Rufus’ face at that. The President opened his mouth to speak-
--and Cloud beat him to it. “Quit with this evil mastermind crap. You’re not fooling anyone.” The sentence was punctuated with a typical Cloud-scowl, as he folded his arms and looked belligerent.
Rufus shut his mouth with a snap, and glanced at Reeve. And back at Cloud. There was a very long moment where they just stared at each other, one irritated and one speechless.
“Well,” Rufus said at last, for the want of anything better to say.
And Reeve burst out laughing.
To be continued
Rating PG-13 (Safe for work) - Status: In progress - Chapter 9/? - Warnings: None
Pairings: Tseng/Rufus, Rude/Reno
Fic summary: Post-AC, barreling down the road to the reconstruction ofShinra Company. A Hero, A President, a new world, and the politics that draw them all into a tangled web beyond all ability to forecast.
Chapter Summary: In which Reeve hates the coffee, Cloud experiments with public speaking, and Rufus gets floored.
Chapter word count: 3,829
Fic word count: 29,365
The coffee was hot on his tongue. Scalding and tasteless. Brewed from some beans from goodness knew where, with enough acid completely overwhelm any aroma it might have had.
Reeve didn’t care as he threw back his third cup in ten minutes.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t drink so much, sir…” his secretary hovered at his elbow, quietly removing the empty mug. “It does nothing for tension…”
He dredged up a harassed smile for her, sorting through piles and piles of paper. Reports. Newspaper cuttings. Schematics and plans and months and months and months of records, before spinning to the left to hammer on his laptop’s keyboard. And resisted the urge to run his hands through his hair and scream.
He had all of an hour left to attempt to prepare some sort of coherent defence. Something to justify his position - not so much his position as the director of the WRO, but his position, his stand on the entire dismal mako reactor situation. It didn’t matter if they kicked him out of office so long as the WRO stuck to its goals, but at the rate they were going, that wasn’t going to happen, and whoever was elected was going to fire up the reactors again. If he failed to stop that plan now, when he still had the authority to do it, there was no way he would be able to stop it later.
And Rufus was glaringly absent. They had gone through the first round of speeches for the impeachment already, called a recess, and still the President -- funny how he still thought of him as THE President, capital letters and all -- was still conspicuously absent. There were murmurs of pushing for an adjournment, and Reeve was half inclined to agree, except what scanty political instincts he had picked up from his stint in Shinra were telling him that it wouldn’t help.
And Rufus… was a loose cannon. The Reactor Party, or so Reeve had dubbed them in his head, were convinced that Shinra would, when confronted with the bottom line, agree to restarting the reactors. After all, Shinra had the expertise, owned the reactors, would logically be the ones hired to run them, would likely be the ones profiting, all under the watchful eye of the WRO.
How easily we slip back into old habits, he thought, gnawing on the end of a pen. It’s no wonder Shinra gained the power it did back in the day. People must have practically thrown it at their feet.
The thought of Shinra controlling the reactors again, the thought of willingly giving them back the very thing that had consolidated their monopoly, their economic dominance and through it, their political standing... these were the things of nightmare.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Rufus was … he didn’t dare presume he knew what Rufus was, or what was going on behind steely blue eyes. He didn’t dare bet the entire future of the world on the assumption that Rufus wouldn’t go the way his father had. Not when he had all the world at his feet.
But at the same time, Rufus had been a quiet but firm voice speaking against the reactivation of the reactors. Reeve didn’t claim to understand it. Even as a teenaged Vice President, Rufus had had plans behind plans behind plans. There was always, always the chance that this was all an elaborate game with some greater long term goal that none of them could see.
When did you become this cynical? he thought to himself, shaking his head with a sigh. There was a time when you would give everyone the benefit of the d--
“Rough day?” a familiar voice said, slicing cleanly through his thoughts and leaving him hanging.
He spun. Think of the devil... “Rufus!”
“Good evening to you too, Reeve,” Rufus said, a touch of wry humour in his voice as he appropriated one of the chairs in front of the desk, waving off Reeve’s secretary’s flustered protests. “Perhaps you could update me on the situation?”
He came to me first. The thought was running around his head like a hamster on a wheel, bringing with it a sense of possibly misplaced but profound relief. He came to consult me, not them, which might just show that he’s still behind me... “There’s a faction pushing for the re-activation of the Reactors,” he found himself saying. “They were already suggesting it at the last meeting you attended...”
“And you disagreed, I take it. Since when did they have enough standing to call for an impeachment?”
“I don’t know.” He caught himself running his fingers through his hair and stopped. “Their case is persuasive. Dio’s thrown his lot behind them with hard data and statistics. He’s willing to do it for free.”
“Of course he is,” Rufus murmured. “His real reward isn’t going to be measured in money.”
Reeve shook his head. “The reasons we’ve been saying for weeks now just don’t convince them any more. The death toll hit fifty this morning... I think people are getting desperate. Maybe you could speak to them, but really, I think we need a new breakthrough before they’ll be willing to listen...”
“Good thing I brought one, then,” Rufus said blandly.
Reeve’s eyes widened. “Was that where you went to?”
“Hardly. I picked him up along the way.” He glanced at Reeve’s secretary. “Would you call my companion, please?”
“I’m here,” Cloud said from the doorway. “And I still don’t see how it’ll help.”
“Cloud!” Reeve said, feeling his face stretch in a grin. The weight that had been smothering him for the past few hours seemed to lift for one glorious moment, and he could really breathe again. “You have no idea...”
“Of course it’ll help,” Rufus said lazily.
“It’s not as if I’ll be saying anything that you or Reeve won’t be saying,” Cloud mumbled.
“But your last name isn’t used as an expletive in several parts of the world,” Rufus replied. “And there are still some who are slow to forget that Reeve is ex-Shinra.”
“They’ll want to know why you fought against Shinra in the first place,” Reeve said.
Cloud shuffled his feet.
“You objected to the use of mako power, didn’t you?” Reeve pressed. “Just tell them that.”
“Uh,” Cloud replied. “Actually...”
Reeve exchanged a glance with Rufus, who shrugged.
“It-was-for-money,” Cloud blurted out.
“Scratch that plan,” Rufus muttered. His shoulders shook suspiciously.
Reeve gaped, while Cloud winced and looked everywhere but at him. Money? Cloud had been... oh right. The driving force behind Avalanche had been Barret. In fact, just about the only one who had been in it for the sake of destroying the Reactors had been Nanaki, and he had been dragged into it anyway.
“Are you laughing?” Reeve demanded of Rufus.
“Not at all,” the other said, and his expression was utterly deadpan.
“Doesn’t matter,” Reeve sighed, rising from his chair and pacing across the floor. “And I suppose it’s rude of me to pry. Just... it would help a lot if you could address them, Cloud.”
“What am I supposed to say?” Cloud demanded.
“Just speak naturally. Say whatever comes to you,” Reeve said, and paused. Did a double-take. “I mean, oh, I’m so sorry. I just assumed that you’d agree that restarting the reactors is a terrible idea. I …”
“Of course I do,” Cloud said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” His expression lightened, just a little - that small quirking of the lips that almost passed as a smile for Cloud Strife. “I… really appreciate all the work you and the WRO have done for the planet. Building Edge, providing for all her citizens, maintaining the infrastructure… you guys have done so much. It’s wonderful. I just … I’m not good with words.”
Reeve skirted the edge of the desk to punch him lightly on the shoulder. “You have this real problem with self-confidence, did anyone ever tell you? Just speak from the heart. You’ll do great.”
“So you say,” Cloud muttered.
*
It was downright comforting, knowing that he wasn’t alone in this. It might have been disaster to walk into that conference room with Rufus Shinra at his shoulder - the allegations of old Company loyalties would fly - but with Cloud at his other side...
The leading voices of the Reactor party stopped. And stared. Out of the corner of his eye, Reeve saw Rufus pause behind him, lingering, eyes sweeping the room before he moved to take his usual seat. Long enough to dispel any notion that it was pure coincidence that he had appeared alongside the leader of the WRO. Cloud, meanwhile, had his stoniest expression on - someone would have to tell him one day that he didn’t look scary; he looked downright murderous when he furrowed his brow like that. Reeve motioned him to a chair beside him.
It wasn’t normal to have such a vote taken so quickly. Standard procedure required at least a week’s notice. A week for people to think about it. But the ‘present global emergency’, as people touted it, had resulted in the push for expedited proceedings. Before more people died from the cold-
“Have you considered the possibility of simply shifting people to Corel or Cosmo Canyon, where the weather is milder?” Rufus queried.
The board stared at him as if he were insane.
“The costs of that would be prohibitive,” a Reactor party member said. “The logistics would be insane. We would not be able to move everyone, and a sea trip would still be necessary, while we lack airships in the number necessary to-“
“Not everyone needs to be moved,” Rufus replied, and Reeve caught the glint in his eye that signalled that he was baiting. But baiting them with what, Reeve didn’t know. It wasn’t a particularly viable solution... “Presently, we can supply the needs of approximately two-thirds of Edge. If the remaining one-third-“
“Where would they stay? Cosmo Canyon doesn’t like visitors and Corel is just a tiny mining town...”
Rufus drummed his fingers on the table and leaned back. “I see. I commend you on having done such extensive feasibility studies.”
Back in Shinra, that might have started a war. The members of the WRO brushed it off, moving on to their own speeches. They had more figures now, scientists reporting how the cold spell would likely drag particularly long this year, graphs showing how many people would die if the weather continued or worsened, red lines and black lines crawling heavenwards on their charts.
“You look troubled,” Reeve murmured to Cloud.
“Is it true?” Cloud asked him. “That so many people are...”
“This is an estimate. We don’t know,” Reeve told him. “If they’re right, though, that may well happen.”
Cloud narrowed his eyes, and Reeve wondered who he was thinking of. Marlene and Denzel, perhaps? “But wasn’t this a case of whether they have confidence in you? Why are we talking about mako reactors?”
“When the board gets split down the middle by conflicting policies, it does, often, become a question of which policy is better. If they can show that theirs is more persuasive, I’ll either have to change WRO policy or step down.” Reeve’s lip curled. “At this juncture, I’m not sure which is the better option.”
“This is ridiculous,” Cloud said, a trifle too loudly, and all eyes turned to him. Cloud hesitated, as if torn between apologising for interrupting, and going on.
He pressed on. “This isn’t about mako reactors. This is about saving lives,” he said, standing. “You haven’t considered everything. You’re rushing straight into this because it just happens to be the easiest, most convenient situation at hand, because for some reason you’ve totally dismissed the future.” He scowled, and Reeve saw Rufus hide a smile behind his hand.
“Mako isn’t just a power source.” Cloud was in full swing now, something Reeve had never expected to see outside of a life or death fight. Something had truly changed in him, the day he defeated Kadaj. Or perhaps some button out of his past had been pressed. “Have you forgotten what mako can do to humans? Shinra, it’s experiments, and all those things that went wrong?”
“We aren’t proposing to use mako for anything other than power, Mr Strife!”
“What about Dio?” Cloud said. “I don’t see him here. Can anyone vouch for what he’s doing to do when he sitting on top of his own reactors?”
“Dio will only be providing the funding,” the secretary of Environmental Preservation said calmly. “The Reactors will remain under the WRO’s control. Not Shinra’s-“ a pause to glance at Rufus, “-nor the Golden Saucer’s.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Cloud said. “Dio controls the funding, he controls the Reactor. He’s not going to step back and let you handle everything. Can you safely say that he has no ulterior motives whatsoever? Can you really say that?”
There was a murmur amongst the board members.
“Have you forgotten why you elected Reeve?” Cloud demanded, leaning forward to slam his palms onto the table in a gesture that was so utterly Tifa that Reeve had no doubts as to where he had learnt it from. “It’s because Reeve is the only one the world could trust who wasn’t in it for personal profit, or power, or any of that. He’s the only one whom you could trust not to do something like cut corners and choose the easy way out when things went wrong. Which includes going against everything that the WRO stands for just because things are looking bleak!”
Cloud was normally taciturn. Perhaps only slightly less taciturn than Vincent. Something had set him on edge, and Reeve suddenly wondered how Rufus had persuaded him to come.
“Rather than waste time talking about confidence or lack of it, why don’t you use that to consider other options?” Cloud said.
“That is Chairman Reeve’s job,” someone replied. “To present us with viable alternatives. At the moment, he has yet to give us anything.”
Cloud faltered, and Reeve rose swiftly, placing a hand on his shoulder. That was it. That was the killing blow. All they had was talk and reasons and excuses, and when lives were on the line now, ramifications in the future were just too far away to matter...
He opened his mouth to speak, when the scrape of another chair interrupted him. His eyes met Rufus’ across the room, and the President inclined his head. “May I take the floor, Mr Chairman?”
“Please,” Reeve said. “I call President Shinra.”
Rufus stepped forward, commandeering a projector in the process, as Reeve sat, slowly. A tingle burned through his fingertips, and he knew, just knew, that there was something up Rufus’ sleeve. He wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t put himself forward, unless he had real cards to play...
Please, he thought, with the slightest tinge of terror. Don’t let this be a sudden turnaround. If you throw your lot in with them at this juncture, it all falls, like a house of cards...
But Rufus could do it, Reeve knew. Rufus could have set him up, alongside Cloud, exposed the critical flaw in their argument, chose this very moment to bring in his ace, wipe them out, install himself as ...
The Shinra Electric Company emblem flashed on screen.
Oh Shiva...
“I present this to the governing board of the World Restoration Organisation,” Rufus said formally, and Reeve had to hold back the urge to cut him off. To banish him from the room and never let him speak. It was all too late now. The ball was in motion, let the cards fall where they may...
“I present this to the board united, as it is, one body under the guidance of Chairman Tuesti,” Rufus continued. A tap, and the Shinra logo vanished, to be replaced by a slide of the constitution of the WRO. “I call attention to art 11, which states that the board shall, as a whole, strive towards the goals of the WRO as stated in art 2, including the preservation and restoration of the Planet.”
Reeve held his breath.
“I remind the board that it is its collective duty to protect and provide for the citizens of the world. This is not a duty that may be partitioned.” He paused, drawing out the general sense of unease in the assembly. “If there is a matter of confidence to be decided, then I wish to respectfully submit that the board, with the sole exception of the Chairman, has been derelict in its duty in exploring alternatives to the controversial field of mako power, by failing to call a representative of Shinra Company.”
Reeve could practically see the stillness that fell across the room at those words. The way everyone’s attention was riveted on the speaker, captured in a way that even Cloud had not been able to.
“Fortunately,” and Rufus broke into a warm smile, “Thanks to the Chairman’s invitation to sit as an observer on this assembly, as well as his permission to articulate my views today, I have the honour of presenting the following proposal to you.”
Did he... schematics were flashing across the screen, diagrams upon diagrams, and the engineer in Reeve made him lean forward, gobbling up the technical detail. Did he just ...
“Therefore, I give you: the viable alternative to mako power. The solution to the energy crisis. The PEP-II Electron Vacuum Ring.”
...save us all?
Rufus was speaking faster now, laser pointer flicking schematic to schematic, a darting little red dot that kept everyone’s eyes riveted.
“...succinctly, this system utilises an ioniser and a particle accelerator to generate an initial acceleration of electrons through a circular and hence constantly changing magnetic field. Such a change in magnetic flux allows the system to self-sustain using only a minimal maintenance current, while a portion of the particles are siphoned off every rotation.”
Diagrams changed, flicking to the second portion of the generator.
“On its own, this particle wash should be sufficient to power a turbine, but schematics here have indicated the possibility of the use of a counter-rotation ring to allow for particle collision. Initial trials suggest that, for rings of sufficient size, this should result in nuclear fusion on a commercially viable and efficient scale.”
Or is this designed to put us all in our place? the sudden, unwelcomed thought occurred to Reeve. Because this could well be a demonstration of how the WRO has failed, and how Shinra Company doesn’t need us any more...
“What is he up to?” Cloud demanded softly.
“No doubt we’ll find out in a moment,” Reeve replied, narrowing his eyes.
“...cost wise, we should have the resources to initiate this project, although further expansion of the grid will require sponsorship,” Rufus continued. “I regret that we have only the most basic of cost estimates at this point.” He paused, and Reeve saw his gaze flicker across the assembly to meet his own.
The silence was deafening as Rufus snapped the laser pointer off and dropped it lightly onto the table. Cloud shifted, but Reeve put out a hand to hold him back.
“In short, this system will indubitably resolve all our energy concerns. The system is not dependent on geographical features or availability of natural resources, and is infinitely scalable - from small rings powering a single household to the possibility of a planetary wide ring that will generate sufficient capacity to power the Planet several hundred times over. The safety of nuclear fusion far exceeds that of nuclear fission.
“There remains only one concern,” Rufus said, and there was something in the blue stare that was vaguely challenging. Reeve felt his head tilt up in subconscious response.
“What would that be?”
Rufus’ gaze did not waver. “Shinra Company is presently short on engineering expertise, and I lack the relevant personnel to advise me on whether such a project is actually feasible - in practice, on the necessary scale. And the necessary personnel to oversee it if it is.” His expression was closed, shuttered, but in that moment Reeve saw it anyway - this was no automatic life line: this was enough rope to hang himself with. Whether he sank or he swam was up to him-
--no, that wasn’t it either. Shinra Company’s reputation was similarly staked on this venture. If he said ‘no’ now, if he threw their proposal out of the window, they would sink too.
Cunning, are we? Posing this question at this moment, when I need you, and you need me, at a time where I can’t refuse you...
“I can do it,” he found himself saying. “I can make this happen.”
Rufus’ smile glittered razor sharp.
*
“Rufus!”
The other paused, running a hand through his fringe before turning. “Reeve.” His gaze drifted past his shoulder. “And Strife.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before the damn meeting?” Reeve demanded, but the smile that spread across his face belied the harshness of the words.
Rufus inclined his head. “And miss out on my opportunity for dramatic tension?”
So typically Rufus. Reeve shook his head. “Where did you find it?”
“In the Company vaults,” Rufus said, reaching up to massage a shoulder.
He blinked. “I never heard of this.”
“Unsurprising. The old man was in the habit of buying over potential rival companies and hiding their inventions in the deepest pit he could find.” Rufus looked vaguely wistful. “Such a waste. If we had discovered it earlier...”
“Better late than never, though,” Reeve said. “And it’s hardly late, here.”
“Late enough,” Rufus said sourly, undoubtedly thinking of the days before Meteor.
Reeve rested a hand on his arm. “I wanted... to thank you.”
It was rare to see Rufus Shinra caught by surprise. The blink was rapid, but Reeve didn’t fail to note it, and his smile grew slightly wider.
“Whatever for?” Rufus demanded. “It’s not as if I did it as a favour to you.”
He had to resist the urge to punch the younger man’s shoulder. “When you could just as easily have asked any other engineer? When you could have found your own independent contractors?”
“I don’t trust any of them.”
“And you trust me?”
Rufus smirked. “Better the enemy I know...”
“You are such an idiot,” Cloud said.
Reeve had to stifle a chuckle at the flash of sheer indignant surprise on Rufus’ face at that. The President opened his mouth to speak-
--and Cloud beat him to it. “Quit with this evil mastermind crap. You’re not fooling anyone.” The sentence was punctuated with a typical Cloud-scowl, as he folded his arms and looked belligerent.
Rufus shut his mouth with a snap, and glanced at Reeve. And back at Cloud. There was a very long moment where they just stared at each other, one irritated and one speechless.
“Well,” Rufus said at last, for the want of anything better to say.
And Reeve burst out laughing.
To be continued