Room 429, Sunday Evening

[raspberryturk]

It was another one of those nights.

The sort of night that had Reno at his windowsill with the window cracked open slightly so that he could sit, stare out at the night sky, and smoke.

Mostly sitting and staring and smoking. He was trying like hell not to think too hard. Thinking managed to lead him in a loop. His head would bounce from the scenery outside of his window to the scenery back home on Gaia, and from there it would drift to the fall of Midgar, to watching people dropping like flies as the stigma had hit, and they still didn't know what the hell it was or how to treat it. And from there, his head would somehow manage to muster images of the cost of food, the lack of transportation, the dwindling reserves of Mako still left in what was left of the Midgar reactors, and he'd want to throw things. And throwing things led to lighting another cigarette, staring out the window, and trying not to think until his eyes wandered over the scenery and he couldn't help but think of home.

It was probably about the fourth such loop when he picked up his toy helicopter, held it over his head, ready to throw it with a snarl, and then stopped short.

Helicopters.

His helicopter back home ran on the last reserves of Mako there were, rationed out, mostly to the WRO and what was left of ShinRa, and eventually there would be nothing to fuel it with at all.

But they had helicopters here.

They didn't have Mako here. But they had helicopters. And they flew rather well.

So... what the hell did they run on?

Reno's model helicopter was spared the same fate that his lamp, his phone, a pillow and an empty bottle had suffered. He set it down beside his laptop, started it up, and started to research.

Some derivative of oil. Oil had been scrapped as a fuel on Gaia when Mako had emerged, killing it before it ever actually made it anywhere. Reno had heard talk of some people on Gaia attempting to make use of the oil in the planet, but it was crude and nasty and barely strong enough to power a car, let alone a chopper. Or an airship.

... Oil? Really?

Reno hit up a few websites detailing the processes used to refine the stuff. And then he sent an e-mail of his findings. Not to Tseng, this time. To one Reeve Tuesti, leader of the World Regenesis Organization. Along with information on wind power, hydroelectric power, and solar power. If Tseng was going to be bitchy about it and sit on this information, discounting it as useless simply because it wasn't the work that a Turk would normally do (and there was a joke, with ShinRa gone, there wasn't any work for a Turk to do anyhow), then Reno was going to send it to someone who would use it.

And then he was going to snuff his cigarette, give his toy helicopter a bit of a pat, and flop over on his bed.

Satisfied.

[The door is shut, but the post is open. Wheee, character development. Yes, it took Reno this long to learn about gasoline. Way to go, Red.]