Work Text:
The maintenance corridor is tiny. And this is annoying. Scarlet can see hardly anything in the dim light that creeps its way past Cissnei's frame, flickering with each inching crawl forward.
"Can you make yourself any smaller?"
"Smaller? I'm already the only one of us small enough to get through here. You're not the one wired head to toe with fragile stuff."
"I know, but I am the one developing that 'stuff'. Remember, this is a test of your transmission devices. That they do not work exceptionally well in low light is not new information, and it does not help our project."
"Which project doesn't it help?"
"Our project, Turk."
It is on Scarlet's tongue to ask whether that was not clear in their unofficial briefing, but as an official test, their dialogue is being recorded. That, and even through the electric flattening of the communicator, there's the upward lilt in Cissnei's voice that Scarlet is starting to suspect means she's teasing. Something Scarlet is starting to suspect that Cissnei does often.
“Oh yes, that one. I remember!” Again, lilting.
“I'll notify Veld. I'm sure he'll be pleased to learn at least one of his underlings is capable of remembering something.” Scarlet, catches a grin in her own voice. She's starting to suspect too, that this is an unavoidable Cissnei side-effect.
Officially, recording is a primary goal of the test. The weapon they are sneaking in alongside the devices that transmit and record? Not, in fact, at all official.
Neither Cissnei, nor any of her immediate colleagues, have made any use of the last two issued upgrades; video or audio, transmitting or recording. And they are not interesting to Scarlet anyway. But Heidegger is making a fuss because he takes something personally about the look of 'his people' using anything but the most modern, the most eye-catching and marketable equipment, lest they somehow be caught on screen, so this is what they are supposed to do today.
“So, where am I going?”
The audio quality on this device isn’t anything better than the last, but lighting inadequacies aside, the video is sharper. Scarlet can make out Cissnei’s shadow now, against the green of the tunnel lights.
“What we’re trying to find out is if this lags at ranges greater than two kilometers. You’re just about there now, keep going a few more meters and take the next left the tunnel allows.”
She hasn’t told Cissnei that this will be a practical test, real targets, real combat. They’ll need plausible deniability when the test footage is reviewed later.
“Roger that.”
She figures that Cissnei has probably guessed anyway.
The moments pass at a crawl, as Cissnei squeezes the last few meters, the camera jarring to obscured angles as she folds herself around to make the turn. “Shiva’s sake, I’m glad I don’t work in operations. Past two kilometers now, right? Can you still hear me.”
“Audio and video still functional.”
This is the part that Scarlet dreads, and seeks the most. The right-before.
“Hang on, I hear something, sounds like I might not be the only one in here.”
Right where predicted.
“It isn’t picking up on my end. Try to get closer.”
There’s a pause, and when Cissnei starts to move forward again, there’s a new edge to her voice that might be resolve, or might be irritation. Or both. Or electrical distortion.
“Roger.”
Another meter down the tunnel, and Scarlet isn’t holding her breath, but only through conscious effort. Cissnei should be on top of them just about-
“Underneath this panel, I think. At least three people.” Whispering.
“That panel should lift.” She says it for the recording; Cissnei must know where she is by now.
It will, and it does. There’s an open space below that panel that had once been storage, and is currently an AVALANCHE safehouse. SOLDIER was slotted to move on it tomorrow. It suits their purposes better today.
The door to Scarlet’s office opens, at the same moment Cissnei gets the panel up enough to see inside, at least three figures in knock-off SOLDIER gear looming on her desktop screen.
“Director, you got a moment?”
“Get out Reno.”
“I ain’t even said anything yet. Hey, those are-”
“Out.”
“No wait I wanna see, yo! Bossman said you’d borrowed Cis for the day, an’ I need to ask her about- hold the hell up, is that her POV? You can’t just send one of our suits into a bust without backup!”
“Out!” The word doesn’t move him but when she shoves back from her desk, the step back he takes to avoid her and her chair gives her enough time to close the door, and engage the electric lock.
Scarlet turns back to the screen just as Cissnei drops from the ceiling, the shocked face of a Raven distorted as the camera fights to focus.
Field test initiated.
Three dead and two incapacitated and only two of them actual targets. Scarlet, livid, storming into the control chamber to shut the machine off herself. She steps over the writhing body of the cadet who had been operating it, leaving her for to the medical team that follows on her heals.
She hits a switch. The machine stops thrumming. The temperature in the room drops to normal levels. The target subject who had actually been hit as intended unfolds himself from the edge of chamber he had huddled in, disoriented still and speechless. Behind her, the cadet moans relief, and if she says anything else it's lost in the hurried, quiet words as medical makes to remove her.
Concentrated microwaves. That's the principle. Nearly every kitchen in Midgar above uses them daily in a safe little box, contained.
The human skull, for the purposes of this test, is a sort of box. The sort that if you pulse enough microwave into it at the right temperature makes a sound loud enough to deter or incapacitate the person the skull belongs to.
So in a sense, the test is successful. The principle is proven. This specific type of radiation can be harnessed to subdue an individual, or a crowd. It can be produced and made transportable and projected.
By Scarlet's standards, it is an utter failure. You can't extract information from prisoners when their brains are dry and popped like yesterday’s eggs. You can't run the risk of losing a combat asset if the pulse can't be reliably targeted, and fries its operator too. The molded plastic helmet that allowed her to stand here safely and end the test is too bulky, too conspicuous for field use.
This is the third unsatisfactory test, and Scarlet knows that project will be dropped for now. Too volatile.
She knows also, that she can make it work. Knows now what adjustments she needs to make.
It’s difficult to follow the fight, camera jolting with sudden movements and losing focus at close quarters. The route to the safehouse had been too narrow to accommodate Cissnei’s preferred weapon. If she is to make it out of this, she will have to rely on her hand to hand skills, and the microwave gun. If she is to make it out of this with anything useful, Scarlet’s adjustments and upgrades will have had to have worked.
Scarlet is sure of her work.
There is a dull thud and a string of muffled curses somewhere in the ceiling, a few panels to the right and back of Scarlet’s desk. The air vents. She smiles. That trap will keep him out of their hair for at least a quarter of an hour. At least long enough to engineer the demonstration that she needs.
He'll thank both of them, in a few months, when he's dragging terrorists in for questioning that he didn't have to get close enough to to risk messing up his face.
Three days after the failed test, Scarlet knows precisely where she's going, and Cissnei pauses outside the door to the building. Just for a moment, maybe a half a breath before she falls back into step in Scarlet's wake, but the pause still boosts Scarlet's step and pushes her through the door with a slight, slightly sharp flourish. Satisfies her that the image she's crafted for herself has taken. She hopes that managing to take the Turk off guard, even if only for a moment, will leave enough of an impression to help her forge a temporary alliance.
“You take your lunch hours here?” Cissnei, catching the door and stepping through after, making the bell chime twice as Scarlet shows herself past the check-in desk, grabs a shade of gold and a shade of red from the wall, and on into an empty seat near the far wall.
“Not always here. Not even always on the occasion that I do take them. But here today, yes.” Scarlet sits, unstraps her shoes, sets the red bottle on the table by her own chair, and the gold on the table for the chair next over, and gestures Cissnei to take it. “Come on then.”
“I...thank you for the offer, director, but I am on duty.”
Scarlet huffs.
“Look, if I have to have an escort, and I do, whether I like it or not, I at least want it to be one that doesn't actively get in the way of every aspect of my day. A Turk is better than a section of infantryman. You take up less space, and at least half of you actually hit something when you try to shoot it. You might as well take advantage of the fact that if you have to shoot anyone today, it won't be here.”
This explanation seems passable to Cissnei, who makes her way to sit at Scarlet's side. She picks up the bottle of golden varnish, and admires it, but she doesn't take off her own shoes.
“What about SOLDIER?”
“Don't make me laugh. Can you imagine the paparazzi mess I'd have to fight my way through to get out of here if I brought Genesis or the like along? I have other things to do today.”
Cissnei cracks a smile sideways enough that not many outside of the department would have recognized it. Scarlet doesn't recognize it yet, but she decides instantly that she wouldn't mind coming to.
“Yes, I know.”
“Do you now?”
“I know exactly how much media frenzy Genesis getting his toenails painted in strip mall nail parlor would stir up.” A hum. “About as much as if Zack were to accidentally crash a society party, in uniform.”
“First hand experience?”
Cissnei shrugs lightly, but there's nothing non-committal in it.
“The fanclub needs to get its entertainment somehow, right?”
“It does, I imagine. And according to your boss, what the army needs, and therefore what you need, is better walkie-talkies.” There's a pause, as Cissnei seems to be weighing her response.
"Maybe the army does. I think I like what I have, though.”
"I like what you have too, and I don't like spending my time or resources redundantly. So why don't you tell me what you actually need?”
“What we actually need is information.”
“I think I have something that can help you with that. What I need is someone to help me finish it.”
Cissnei loses her camera seconds into the brawl, torn off her coat as she propels herself away from one Raven, and bouncing into the corner. This too is annoying. Scarlet would have preferred to see her creation in action. As it is, she only has visual on everyone’s boots. But it’s enough for her to tell when Cissnei manages to put enough space between herself and the targets to fire. She doesn’t hear the ‘gun’ when it goes off, the incapacitating sound audible only in the target’s own head, but she hears the startled shout as the first of the Ravens is subdued. The fight lasts only some thirty seconds. And some ten seconds after that, she sees Cissnei stoop down to pick up the fallen camera, and show her around the room.
As far as she can tell, everyone is still breathing.
“Well,” Cissnei's voice, crackling into Scarlet's ear, but not cracked enough to hide the edge of exhilaration or triumph, “I'd appreciate a little more warning next time, but I'm pretty sure this works.”