raspberryturk | Edge, Friday Evening

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Edge, Friday Evening

It was one of those rare nights that Reno had managed to score all to himself, off-duty, with not a single reason to worry about Tseng calling him in out of the blue to do some urgent mission or another. Why? Because Rude had the night off, too, and Tseng knew better than to try to call Reno in when Rude would do the job just as well, and without whining about it.

And so, there he was, sprawled backwards on the couch (and doing an admirable job of ignoring the busted springs in his back) and staring up at the ceiling, contemplating where in the world he was supposed to go from here and the obstacles on his way to wherever that turned out to be.

"Winter's coming, yo." He paused, and then, with a faint smirk on his lips, he added, "Fehdan'c lusehk."

At the very least, it wasn't as though he'd be making the trip alone.

[For that girl who speaks the funny language. And sure, open for phone calls or whatever, if you'd like.]

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"I don't think they could learn that much in a month," she laughed, squeezing his hand. "And no, you should leave yourself a loophole. Just in case something happens. But we can at least rate them on how well they try, right?"

Maybe they had cameras! Maybe they had security patrols! Maybe Reeve was actually listening to her!

The security patrols probably consisted of stuffed cats. Or Mogs. Or both. stuffed cats riding on giant, overweight Mogs. Because Reeve had issues.

"We can make a game of it," Reno decided. "Ten points for every kid that actually figures out there's someone bustin' into the joint, yo. Ten more points if they ever figure out it's us."

Twenty minutes later, Rikku was trying to tally up points.

"Admit it, that wasn't half bad," she said, as she jimmied the garage door's lock. "We actually had to plan a little, and not just waltz right in here."

It hadn't been hard to break in, no, and anyone with half a brain could have managed it. But she could see an improvement. They were actually trying. It was adorable.

Reno sort of alternated between wanting to smack each and every one of those kids upside the head with his baton... and wanting to pinch all of their cheeks. Awww. They'd tried so hard.

They still sucked.

"So, next time we take the back door," he snorted, smirking faintly. "An' we keep in mind that they got that camera up there, even if it's on totally the wrong friggin' angle to catch anything worthwhile, an' we're good."

It was just that easy, if you were a Turk, dammit. Or maybe it was just that easy in Reno's head. Sometimes, it was hard to tell.

Turk and a thief. If they had had problems breaking in, that would just be pathetic.

The door swung open, and Rikku reached inside for the light switches.

"No, wait," she said, blocking his way in with her body. "Close your eyes."

She was allowed to be a bit dramatic about this, okay? She'd kept it a secret for weeks.

Reno raised an eyebrow at Rikku and smirked.

Look, when she told him to close his eyes, usually very fun things were the result. His mind was allowed to go dirty places for a moment, here.

"Whatever you want, babe."

See? Eyes? Totally closed.

And just for that, she was going to have to steal a kiss. A quick one, and fairly innocent. She'd give his smirk the appreciation it deserved later.

Right now, she had to tug his hand and pull him into the garage. And right in front of ...

She couldn't believe how nervous she felt.

"Okay," she said, and the tremble in her voice had to give her away. That, and the fact that she was holding her breath. "Open them."

Rikku had been busy.

What in the world could she possibly be so nervous about, here in the WRO HQ, anyhow? It was all... WRO-ish. And such.

And so Reno had an eyebrow raised when he opened his eyes.

And stared. At the... thing. Which was impressive in all of its thing-hood! And he'd puzzle out just what it was in a moment, beyond the obvious bit that reason told him. It went places.

"What is it, yo?"

Why puzzle over it when you could ask?

"A hover," she said, still holding her breath. Did he like it? Did he hate it? She was being stupid and paranoid, so she was going to stop that now. It was useful, and that was what mattered; he wasn't going to care that it didn't look all that pretty. Right, then. "They've been springing up all over Spira. Lots of people don't mind machina as much, any more, and they make it easier to travel the Highroad. I asked for blueprints, and then I had to try to ... make this one out of scrap metal."

That had been an adventure.

"You see the fan?" she said, walking closer and pointing to the biggest part of the vehicle, the one that he couldn't possibly have missed. "The motor spins it, and the air pushes. The cage is there to keep things like branches or birds from flying into the propeller. You're actually skimming along above the ground, so it takes less oomph to get going. So long as you've got a really flat surface. And ... you guys still have roads, yeah? So ... as long as everything works ..."

Edited 2009-11-28 03:47 (UTC)

"... How much can it lift?" Reno was so walking up to it, now, to make his rounds about the thing, to see what went where, how to turn it on, how many men could sit on it comfortably. "How fast does it go?"

They had roads.

"What does it run on?"

It was a vehicle, and they had roads.

"The Spiran models are used as transport," Rikku said. "One operator, up to four passengers. I haven't stress-tested this model yet, to see how it compares. At top speed, it outruns a chocobo, but those are our non-painted variety."

Couldn't possibly let that go without a light tease, no.

"Since it's based on air, though, strong wind affects the speed, and also, the more cargo it's loaded down with, the slower it goes. Still chocobo levels. And right now, this model's been filled up with ethanol. So if I built it wrong and this doesn't work at all, then I'll have wasted some fuel that could have been food. And I know, food's a shortage, but using a little food to run a vehicle to go get more ... that's a good trade-off."

If everything worked.

Reno nodded, looking the vehicle over again.

"And anyhow, ethanol can be made anywhere that plants grow, right? Don't gotta use food that'd even necessarily survive shipping all the way to Edge, yo."

Make ethanol in... hell, Wutai or something. Ship it here. Food rotted. Fuel didn't. Problem solved! No loss! And Wutai would be producing an actual export, and booting up its own economy again, through trade. If they could negotiate something like that.

"This thing is friggin' amazing, Rikku."

"Really?" Rikku clapped her hands excitedly. "I really think it's going to work, you know? And if we do some thorough testing, we'll know the exact limits, and teach people to drive them. It's -- I mean -- I'm leaving the blueprints here, and most of this was scrap metal, so ..."

So, really, there was no reason her team couldn't churn out a few more of these. Once they refined the prototype and worked out all of the kinks.

It wasn't like Edge needed hundreds of hovers, either, but four or five could run in shifts. They'd be able to figure out some kind of a balance.

"Lots of plants," she said, switching topics again. "Corn, sugar, and so on. There are other fuels that the engine would work with, too, but I didn't know if you had them here, so I went with this."

"This is a safe bet," Reno replied, nodding. "It's renewable, yo. You run outta fuel, plant more."

If Reno was the sort to squee, the resonance in the garage would have been epic.

"Maybe I ask around. See if anyone has any connections in Wutai or whatever, figure out if there's some place that needs the trade, themselves. Ain't no reason why Edge is the only place that's gotta benefit from this, yo."

"Oh, wow," Rikku said, staring at him with huge eyes. "So this could ... ripple out, and help all kinds of people. That'd be incredible."

It was weird, the little pebbles that could turn into boulders as they rolled downhill. Weird, and amazing.

She shivered, suddenly. "I keep waiting for something to go wrong," she confessed. "And then I go, you know what? My team is awesome. This thing breaks, they can fix it. It doesn't run, we tinker with the design until it does. That's all there is to it. After all Edge has gone through, things have to get better sooner or later. It's not cursed, you know?"

Reno nodded his agreement to that.

"An' you get right down to it, it ain't just Edge that's broken," Reno noted. "I mentioned Wutai because, shit, ShinRa was at war with 'em and won. Cut off their economy, technology, materia... They need it just as much as we do, yo. They got resources, we got money. Some of that's gotta trade hands somewhere."

A pause, and then a grin.

"An' if your team threw this together usin' scrap, Rikku, then just imagine what a model that ain't a prototype is gonna look like."

"I'm fine with it being scrap," she laughed. "We Al Bhed are scavengers, anyway. Scrap works fine and it's cheap. Or you can pay the Wutai people and get better materials, but ... I wanted something that'd work with whatever you guys had lying around."

She stepped onto the hover and glanced over at him. Her eyes were mischievous.

"Someone really ought to give this thing a test drive."

And they had plenty of it lying around, at that. After all, Edge was built out of scrap. Scraps of Midgar.

"A test drive, hm?" Reno shot her a crooked little grin in return. "You got the keys to this rig?"

"Of course," Rikku chirped. "And this is totally in the interests of science. We have to make sure it works, right?"

That and, come on, hovers were sweet. She hadn't been on one in ages.

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Edge, Friday Evening

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