Outside Design Specifications
July 2024
Reeve had gained security clearance to all of Shinra's archives when he'd first been promoted to Director, but in his naiveté, he hadn't known there was anything to dig for. Not until three years prior, when he'd been asked to look into the failure of the Gongaga reactor. Of course he'd looked into other failures to see if there was a pattern, a specific design flaw to be corrected.
What he found was a different kind of pattern. He'd always known certain practices of Shinra's were less than ideal. He'd always had to fight over budgets, his insistence that things be done to code butting against Shinra's drive for profits again and again. He had never imagined Shinra's malice went beyond cutting corners.
But people didn't know. Most of Shinra didn't know! Most of Shinra, he was sure, sought to work towards the common good. He knew the people under him, and they were good people. And that meant, surely, that if there were someone at the top to push against the greed of the other executives, then things could change. There wouldn't be another Nibelheim or Corel.
If there was a meeting to discuss the plans for Sector 7, Reeve wasn't invited. He found out via executive memo. A memo! His heart dropped into the pit of his stomach as he read the words a third time, not wanting to believe them.
And then he pushed himself back from his desk and marched up to President Shinra's office. Heidegger was already there to give a progress report, and Reeve jumped in. As if his words could sway the President now when they hadn't so many times in the past.
Progress requires sacrifice, was how he was dismissed.
The sacrifice of tens of thousands of people? How was this progress? Where even was the profit in it? he thought bitterly as he dropped back into the chair at his desk. Shinra wouldn't only be losing the income from an entire sector, but the cost of rebuilding would be astronomical.
How could he already be thinking of rebuilding? Sector 7 wasn't gone yet!
Reeve stared into the dim screen of his computer monitor, drumming his fingers on his desk. He could go behind the President's back to issue a belated warning anyway. It would probably cost him his job, but he might at least save a few lives.
And who took over afterwards? Who would organize the search and rescue efforts, who would rebuild and maintain the city? Could he even sit here weighing the lives of those he could save with a warning against those he could save with his position? Whatever they worked out to, both numbers paled in comparison to 50,000.
The Sector 7 pillar couldn't be detonated remotely. Someone had to go there to input the codes directly, and as Director, Reeve had access to those codes. From the same terminal, he could alter them.
His eyes fell on the little cat sticker on the corner of his monitor. He'd never made much effort to personalize his office, too busy at first and later coming to understand it would only be used against him. The sticker was one concession, one tiny reminder of his outlet from all of this.
Cait Sith.
The different departments each had their own policies on the security of their files. Research and Development was a black box, its records only accessible from stations within the lab itself and with proper clearance, and any sane man avoided Hojo's domain. The Space Program was the opposite, with information about any and all of its projects readily available on Headquarters' internal network, part of Palmer's desperate attempts to remain relevant.
Heidegger and Scarlet both kept current operations under wraps, but--with the exception of anything the Turks did--their older projects were available in the building's archives. It had been a boon to Reeve in furthering his robotics hobby. Scarlet's designs were aggressive and ostentatious, but she knew what she was doing. So he poached what he could, adapting it for something completely antithetical to Scarlet's intentions.
He couldn't deny the fleeting temptation to just escape. That was what Cait Sith was for, letting him slip into a persona whose only purpose was to make people smile. He could spend a little while looking out of the eyes of his robot avatar, performing simple tricks for the attendees of Gold Saucer and feeling like it was within his power to make people's lives a little better.
Tonight, he thought the exercise would just feel empty.
Cait Sith had been active as an amusement park mascot for weeks, but the prototype was still in Midgar. He'd assigned the limited AI to keep an eye on his unassuming parents while they were in town visiting, so there wasn't even the risk of someone spotting him trying to smuggle the little cat out of Headquarters.
What was Heidegger's timetable? Was there enough time to navigate the robot from his parents' hotel to the Sector 7 pillar? It would be close, they'd catch him for sure, but his termination would be worth the 50,000 lives he'd save by locking the rest of Shinra out of the system.
Reeve fumbled Cait Sith's controls out of their locked drawer, activated the control program, and connected to the prototype. The hour was late already, and his parents were asleep in their hotel room. The prototype's movements weren't as smooth as the Cait Sith in Gold Saucer, but luckily his parents slept through its clumsy passage across the dark room and out into the hall.
It still took him a few minutes to adjust to the cat's low perspective. He hesitated in the hallway, but the AI seemed to pick up on his intent and turned with confidence. It had already scanned and pathed this building on its way in, and it knew the way out without his direction. Reeve let it go while he pulled up maps to determine the quickest route to the Sector 7 pillar.
Reeve was proud of Midgar's transit system. He'd improved and expanded it during his tenure, rendering cars an unnecessary luxury for most of Midgar's populace. Even the undercity benefited.
"Where to next?" the cat's voice sounded in his earpiece, a voice synthesized from his own, granted his parents' homey accent and a cheerfulness incompatible with his day-to-day life. There was no way it could understand the gravity of the mission he was setting it on.
He directed it to run, heedless of the startled reactions of pedestrians. The cat was fast on all fours, even if it struggled with agility. On reaching the station, it smacked gracelessly into the wall beside the door, took an agonizing few seconds to pick itself back up, and then sauntered inside. Reeve directed its gaze to catch the overhead displays. Four minutes to the next train to Sector 7.
Cait Sith drew bemused glances as it sauntered along the platform and stopped to wait.
"Ye seem tense," said the cat. It was speaking to him through the headset again, but he'd only programmed it to do that when seeking direction.
"What?"
"Usually there's some chatter from ye. It's no' all business."
Reeve was floored. He'd updated the prototype's AI with the most recent snapshot of its Gold Saucer counterpart before deploying it, which included memories of its activities there. He hadn't expected it to be capable of making an observation based on those memories.
"I... We're not playing around tonight, Cait Sith."
"Then what exactly are we doin'?"
The train pulled into the station. An incredulous laugh from someone unseen followed Cait Sith as he hopped the narrow gap from the platform into the car. Cait pulled himself up onto the seat, feet dangling.
"We're... trying to stop something bad from happening," said Reeve. He did usually talk to the Cait Sith robot when he played around in Gold Saucer, but then it felt mostly like talking to himself. Making remarks to his avatar in a game. He didn't have to explain things to it. Him? It. It was just a robot.
"I see, I see," said Cait. "An' then it'll be smiles all around, aye?"
"I hope so."
It wouldn't be, not really. Even if they succeeded tonight, it wouldn't change what Shinra was, and those AVALANCHE terrorists who'd triggered this whole thing would escape unharmed to go on wrecking havoc throughout the city. The two groups were diametrically opposed, and Reeve felt utterly alone in the wake of their violence. In some other universe, a force which sought to curb Shinra's actions might have been his ally, just as Shinra ought to have been his ally in protecting Midgar from a terror group.
What could he do for his city when no matter the angle, the enemy of his enemy was still his enemy?
"Shall I tell yer fortune?"
"Too quiet for you?" Reeve wondered.
"I'm no' designed to be quiet!"
The train thrummed along the track on its way to the next station, the hanging straps overhead swaying with its movement. Oblivious to the impending disaster, the other passengers were calm, a few casting curious, amused glances at Cait Sith. He wondered if something in the cat's programming had just gotten mixed up, causing it to turn its routine on him instead of the potential audience around it.
But there was nothing Reeve could do until they reached Sector 7.
"All right. Go ahead and tell me then."
Cait Sith wiggled eagerly in its seat and then pronounced, "A new venture will open the way to a lifelong friendship! The path may be rocky, but stay the course. Your lucky color is yellow."
It was nonsense, of course, a vague platitude generated out of the database Reeve himself had created. But delivered in the robot's cheerful voice, he almost felt comforted. It sounded like Cait Sith's way of telling him they'd become friends, even if it wasn't capable of true friendship. It might be the closest thing he had at the moment.
"...thanks, Cait."
The blast wasn't so loud in the headset as the screeching of the train's brakes that followed. Cait Sith tumbled off his seat, pairing the noise with a riot of visuals. Reeve took over control, getting the cat's paws under it and lifting its head so the camera could show him something. The other passengers were on their feet in alarm, clinging to handholds. The intercom crackled to life, but cut off again after a hesitant "I..." from the engineer.
Reeve made Cait dash out the door into the space between cars and jump down onto the tracks. The train had stopped just before it would have begun its spiralling descent around the central pillar, passing the inner edge of Sector 7 as it dipped below the upper plate. Through Cait's eyes, he could see a warm glow ahead.
He sent the cat scrambling out of the train tunnel, past the cross-section of beams that made up its outer wall. He pushed the robot forward, heedless of its capabilities, cursing whenever it stumbled over some obstacle, until at last he climbed high enough for a full view.
Sector 7 dropped off sharply below into a rising tempest of flames. Smoke billowed upwards, lit orange from below, somehow grotesque compared to the cool green that usually lit the city. Cait Sith's mic relayed the tinny sounds of shearing metal and collapsing stonework.
They'd been too late.
Reeve sat staring, unable to process the enormity of the sight, until the camera shook, dropping into the robot's gloves. At first he thought some aftershock had tumbled it, but then he realized that for some reason, the little cat was making a sobbing motion into its paws.
He glanced down at his own hands, but they were motionless on the controls. It wasn't an unconscious movement, and he was sure he hadn't programmed it in. All of Cait Sith's preprogrammed gestures were designed to be cute and endearing.
Was it... sad? Or was he just projecting somehow without even realizing it?
"I'm... sorry," Reeve murmured. "This isn't what I designed you for."
"We didnae stop the bad thing," said Cait Sith.
"No, we didn't. But that's my fault, not yours. You did your best."
What was he doing, reassuring a toy cat? Was he just trying to make himself feel better when the 50,000 souls who deserved his apology would never hear it?
His work with Cait Sith was done. He'd failed. He needed to turn his attention now to the aftermath. He had minutes at best before the news hit the building and the staff outside his office fell into chaos. He needed to be ready for them.
But he couldn't bring himself to just abandon the little cat on this ledge overlooking the destruction. Whatever its capabilities, that just felt cruel.
"I'm going to walk you back to the nearest station," he said. "When the trains are running again, you can make your way back to the hotel."
"All right," said Cait, still sounding dejected.
"...you did your best," Reeve said again.
Had he done his? He had no idea. He felt he'd be asking himself that for the rest of his life.
The station came in sight just as the door to his office opened behind him. Reeve assumed it was his assistant coming to break the news, but the voice that spoke up wasn't Rita's.
"An interesting hobby you have there, Director."
Reeve pivoted slowly in his chair, dragging off his headset. He hadn't even succeeded, and the Turks had found him out anyway.
Tseng smiled mirthlessly. "I'd like to talk about how we might put it to better use."