[ by the time rufus asks, tseng has already started retrieving ingredients from the refrigerator, so he doesn't have to look directly at rufus as he considers the answer. he can tell, on instinct, that rufus isn't really asking about the worst thing that can be done, morally—he's asking about the worst that he himself might expect, and that changes the answer somewhat.
tseng sets the oven to preheat, then puts the bag of potatoes on the counter and withdraws a handful of them. small new potatoes, easy to roast. ]
The resort likes to force us all to play games, sometimes. [ methodically, tseng chops each of the potatoes in half, setting them aside into a large bowl as he goes. ] There was one of them, several months ago, in which each suit was assigned an animal counterpart. Diamonds were rabbits, hearts were foxes, and so forth.
[ chop, chop, chop. ]
There was a hierarchy to it. Wolves at the top, eager to mate with any animal beneath them. Rabbits at the bottom, eager to be mated by any animal who could catch them. [ rufus can probably imagine how much tseng fucking hated feeling like prey. ] By the end of it, many of the rabbits were so desperate to be bred that they would allow themselves to be used by anyone who could get their hands on them. Like being in heat.
[ when tseng sets the knife down it's just a touch too hard. he makes up for it by being a little too gentle when he opens the cabinet in search of olive oil and salt. ]
To me, that's the worst the resort can do. Make us lose control of ourselves entirely.
[It occurs to Rufus then, listening to Tseng's explanation, that Tseng had never actually mentioned his suit — only his rank. Come up to the Jacks' floor, he'd said, but any mention of an accompanying suit had been omitted, either by chance or by design.
Well. He thinks he knows what it is now, in part from his miscalculation with the weight of the knife, and in part because of the animals he does think to mention. Rabbits and foxes; Tseng clarifies what the two of them would have been, had they both been here to experience it.
A rabbit, then. Desperate to be bred. It doesn't suit him at all.]
Strength in variation, then. It's an advantage that we're not the same suit.
[His attention drifts to the dossier again, a little less casually this time. Most of the faces are unfamiliar. A few are outright startling.]
[ objectively rufus is right, and tseng is privately grateful that he has no further commentary on the subject of rabbits and breeding. tseng is not by nature a bottom, nor particularly breedable, and while he did manage to escape the worst of the psychological and physiological changes brought about by that particular event, he did not enjoy himself by any stretch of the imagination. ]
Yes, and Zack Fair. Reno was here for roughly six weeks after my arrival, and had seemingly been here for some time already. Aerith and Zack arrived at roughly the same time I did, and vanished at roughly the same time approximately eight weeks later.
[ this time, tseng is extremely careful to control his motions as he salts and oils the cut potatoes and puts them in a roasting pan. ]
Tifa Lockhart was also here for a time, although our paths never crossed. Cloud Strife and Roche, SOLDIER 3rd Class, are still guests here.
[That's...an almost unsettling assortment, actually. A few SOLDIERs, a few Turks, a few members of AVALANCHE and their allies — and he's the latest to the party. It doesn't take much to figure out why Tseng's movements have suddenly gone exactingly precise, though, and if this were a different conversation he might've left this unsaid, but the necessary conclusion requires that he put a name to it.]
SOLDIER 1st Class Zack Fair.
[Now isn't that interesting. An infantryman running around pretending to be a SOLDIER, and a SOLDIER who's supposed to be a corpse but isn't.]
Then I gather from their lack of collaboration that the AVALANCHE members declined our bargain?
[ rufus knows he's right, but tseng nods regardless. it wasn't rufus who gave the orders after the incident in nibelheim, of course. but tseng is sure he's read the files, and he would know, then, that it was tseng who delivered zack and cloud into hojo's care. that tseng betrayed the only real friend he'd ever had, in the name of obeying orders.
if nothing else, it should be excellent proof of tseng's loyalty, just like the bullet he put in verdot and elfe's heads. the mission first, always.
fortunately, what rufus says next is enough to distract tseng from any further complicated thoughts. ]
Our bargain? [ this throws into stark relief a theory that tseng had started formulating after a conversation with reno. ] Another thing, sir, is that it seems there can occasionally be discrepancies between what people remember, even those who arrive from the same world. My last memory of Gaia is standing behind you at your first board meeting as president, following your father's death.
[ so whatever bargain rufus is referencing, tseng is in the dark. ]
[Now there's a nostalgic memory — the look of sputtering disbelief on Heidegger's face when Tseng had effectively carried out his coronation in the span of two easy words. The very first time, the very first person, to call him Mr. President, after years and years of chasing that very accolade.
Unfortunately, the smile that comes to his face at the thought of it is ultimately short-lived. The business never ends, and this is far too important to let go without Tseng's awareness.]
I remember much more than that. I was at my ascension parade.
[He pauses, scowling briefly as the memory resurfaces in infuriating clarity.]
We have bigger problems than AVALANCHE to deal with right now. Glenn Lodbrok paid me a visit — as an ambassador from the Viceroy of Wutai.
[ by and large, tseng is a hard man to read. he's that way intentionally; the tighter a grip he keeps on his own emotions, the more difficult it is for anyone to predict him, what he's thinking, what he's feeling. but in this moment, the name glenn lodbrok prompts an immediate and obvious response, tseng's eyebrows lifting in evident surprise.
he shoves the roasting tray into the oven, makes a quick detour back to his desk, and returns with his notebook to sit on the stool next to rufus. ]
Glenn Lodbrok? Former P-0 SOLDIER Glenn Lodbrok? Notably deceased?
[ and deceased at rufus' own hand, at that? rufus shinra is not a man who does things by halves, and tseng has no doubt that he would have made damn sure that glenn was actually dead. he's willing to make allowances for zack fair's appearance in the resort, given the nature of this place and its ability to seemingly play with timelines and memories, but for glenn lodbrok to be up and about in gaia when he should be six feet under is... something else entirely.
tseng ducks his head over the notebook to take a few notes in his own cryptic shorthand, illegible to anyone but himself. ]
I find myself wondering if the Viceroy knows Mr. Lodbrok is acting on his behalf. [ surprise and a half if he did, considering the acting viceroy is sitting to tseng's right. ]
One and the same. The promotion to ambassador suits him, don't you think?
[The thing is, by all rights it should be safe to speak without the necessity of subterfuge here. They're far from Midgar, far from Junon, and Tseng has vetted this space with both the benefits of his training and his resort-given authority. And yet, some things are only truly safe if they're never said at all.]
The Viceroy sent his personal congratulations on my ascension. Full of eager hopes for the future I intend to build. [A pause.] He's right to be interested. We're going to have our hands full cleaning up a lot of messes left behind for us.
[ another moment spent jotting notes, and then tseng sits back, his thumb tapping light and idle against the page in front of him. lodbrok alive, and bringing the viceroy's personal congratulations on rufus' ascension... it feels very much like a veiled threat, a complication in rufus' plans. tseng will have to spend some time thinking about how a situation like this might best be mitigated.
first, another question. tseng glances back up to meet rufus' gaze again. ]
And the bargain you offered the AVALANCHE members?
Amnesty. Chasing them any longer would be a waste of resources.
[He's nearly finished with his drink by now, and knows that Tseng will refill it as soon as he does away with the dregs; with that in mind, he leaves the last mouthful in the glass and rotates it slightly with a turn of his wrist, making the amber liquid spin inside its confines.]
That includes the Ancient. She's free to go — provided Strife and the others handle one of our problems for us.
[ from a practical perspective, tseng understands it in an instant. what rufus wanted was never the promised land; he was not his father, half-mad in pursuit of a fairytale that may or may not even exist. the only reason that the former president coveted ifalna and aerith the way he did was because of his hopes that they might one day give him the information he needed—and without a need for that information, there would be no need to expend resources on a pursuit.
that, in turn, makes it fairly obvious what that other problem might be. sephiroth, the rogue soldier, his blade still wet with rufus' father's blood. even if tseng doubts that rufus particularly mourns the old man, sephiroth is a dangerous creature, and allowing him to run amok across gaia while rufus tries to wrangle his newly-inherited affairs would be unwise indeed. ]
I see. [ one of the only tells when tseng is thinking heavily is the way he chews at his lip—not even chews, really, so much as digs his teeth into the inside left of it. aerith, tseng thinks, had been more or less from the same timeline as tseng, although they'd never compared notes in detail. it is more of a relief than he's willing to admit to think that she might have gone home only to be offered amnesty and freed to live the rest of her life. ] It's a good offer. I don't know if they'll take it. I haven't spoken to Strife about it—or at all, in fact.
[ although if he'd known there was a bargain to talk about, he probably would have made an effort. ]
[She's a pretty girl, Aerith Gainsborough. Big green eyes full of wonder, set in a face that looks like it couldn't wear a mask if it tried. He's read her file by now, of course, but even before his ascension he'd known of her — the girl who was something to everyone. Hojo's experiment. Tseng's mission. The little girl who drew on the walls and heard voices, and his father coveted her for it.
The fact that Tseng shows his tell at all when Rufus details his bargain — having specifically mentioned her, specifically clarified that she was included in its terms — is more than proof enough of what he thinks of it, even before he makes his pronouncement. And in the grand scheme of things, none of his deliberations had taken Tseng's opinion on the matter into account, because there was no reason it should have been a factor at all, but —
It's strangely satisfying. He and Tseng are two of a kind when it comes to difficulties in gift-giving, the man who has everything and the one who wants nothing. But for all that it might not have been with Tseng in mind, he's oddly contented with the notion that he might just have given him a rare thing he actually wanted, with this.]
They seem inclined. Why shouldn't they; they'd be reaping an added benefit on something I expect they intended to do anyway. All the more reason to have them doing it for me.
[Now, at last, he downs the last mouthful of his liquor, setting the glass down onto the countertop — on a napkin, because he's not a classless stooge.]
As for Cloud, let's assume his inaction is because he doesn't remember it. It wouldn't be the first time our little SOLDIER failed to have his facts straight.
[He pauses, his eyes going briefly distant — a tell of his own, the way he always does when he's the one thinking. Like he's trying to see the future, focused so hard he can almost glimpse it.]
He'll follow the lead of the girls. If either of them turn up again, then we'll work to ensure a...favorable opinion. Until then, let him be. So long as we can put them on a collision course, he doesn't need much supervision.
[ just as rufus predicted, tseng stands when rufus sets his glass down (on a napkin, because he's not a classless stooge) so he can refill it, as well as check on the potatoes still roasting in the oven. they're coming along, so tseng pours another finger of whiskey for rufus and then one for himself and this time stays standing in the kitchen.
he watches rufus' gaze go briefly unfocused, the only sign that his mind is anywhere else at all. rufus is well-trained, far too well-trained to allow himself such indulgences as obvious tells of thought or displeasure; it is a private pleasure for tseng to be able to identify this one. every expression rufus makes is one that he's calculated for impact: the smirk, the furrow between his eyebrows, the thoughtful touch of a fingertip to his lips.
(no, tseng's traitorous brain supplies. it's not every expression, is it. tseng knows, now, how to earn a few that rufus can't help.)
he can't think of that right now. instead, another private pleasure: the familiarity of taking a direct order from rufus. tseng nods once. ]
Yes, sir.
[ he swirls his liquor around the glass, then lifts it to take a sip. tseng isn't ordinarily a whiskey drinker, and he relishes the way it burns a little all the way down. ]
[It truly is a luxury, feeling secure enough in his present circumstances that he can afford to let his guard down like this — to really get lost in his thoughts as he goes through permutations of moves like a grandmaster testing lines. The whiskey settles in his empty stomach, pacified from growling only momentarily by it, but it'll hold him long enough for the dinner to get done, at least.]
Tell me about discrepancies in the face ranks.
[Evidently, with matters of Midgar at least reasonably settled, his thoughts are turning back to the more immediate future here.]
Queen and King have notably more access and considerably more access to amenities, as far as I can tell.
[ he hasn't seen the king or queen suites yet, but he can assume that they would be correspondingly larger as well, a truly horrifying idea given the size of his own jack suite. ]
There are very few aces, and from what I've gathered, aces are considered more or less equivalent to jacks in terms of resources. It's unclear why.
[ the timer goes off, and tseng shifts his attention briefly to bring the potatoes out of the oven. they go atop the stove, and he retrieves from the fridge a small container of wild garlic leaves, which he sprinkles atop the hot potatoes so he can mix them together until the leaves begin to wilt.
only once he's served the potatoes into two dishes and handed one over to rufus does tseng continue his train of thought, coming around to take his place in the other stool once more. ]
There is no centralized database that contains information on ranks of all guests, and the staff are exceptionally evasive when questioned about the mechanics of the game. Oddly, it doesn't seem to be a conscious evasiveness—more like someone or something has brainwashed them into finding nothing at all strange or unusual about our situation, and therefore they have little to say on the topic.
[Vegetarian, Rufus thinks idly as he's handed his plate of food, which would've smelled phenomenal even if he weren't hungry enough that just about anything would make his mouth water. It's absolutely the potatoes, that is, and not the way Tseng gravitates so naturally into his proximity, taking up position at his side instead of across from him and facing each other, the way they normally would if they were scheming.
It's just a little more intimate that way. He'd shove a forkful of potatoes into his mouth to combat the thought, but for the fact that he knows better than to burn his tongue needlessly on food so fresh out of the oven.]
Then that's the endgame. One of us to Queen or King.
[He says "one of us" like he doesn't already know who it will be. It might be easier to shift Tseng up given his existing proximity to the ranks in question, but with how much he surely loathes the attention already, he'd likely recoil from the thought of being exposed to even more of it.]
...Speaking of amenities. Did you credit funds to my account? I can't imagine who else would have.
[Guess who found himself with the charming pocket change of $250 following the Beach Situation™.]
[ rufus says one of us, and tseng already knows it won't be him. that's preferable by far, in fact; he has no interest in becoming king or queen of anything, not when his rightful place is and has always been behind rufus and at his side. tseng's purpose is to be a tool, a weapon, to melt into the shadows and find the things that rufus himself cannot seek out for being too visible, the fulcrum to rufus' lever. even being one rank higher than him now is enough to rankle.
the prospect of setting that to rights, of putting rufus in the king position he deserves, is enough to soothe some of it. ]
Yes, sir.
[ he stabs his fork into one of the potatoes to let out the steam and just barely manages not to clatter his cutlery against the side of the dish when rufus asks that question. the money deposited into his account—it wasn't tseng, but if it happened right after the beach he thinks he knows what it would have been. ]
—No, sir. That was... [ he's really going to have to say it, huh. ] The resort will make a deposit into your account in that amount every time you... engage in sexual activity to completion.
[It really should be awkward. It ought to be, and under any other circumstances it definitely would be. Only, right now Rufus is thinking, adding this new information to his existing understanding of the resort's workings, sketching out a framework he can't quite make sense of yet, but instinctively knows system structures well enough to parse that it's there.]
...Why bother?
[Cause and effect. The resort assigns ranks, and doles out accolades or scorn accordingly. Game 52 already incentivizes engaging in sexual activity with a number of partners, seeking to fill out a deck. Why the additional bribe? What else, what other behavior, could they want to encourage?
He waves a hand at their surroundings, indicating the grandeur.]
They gave you all this on assignment. They choose your rank at registration. Why bother to pay you to have sex, when they already put everything at your fingertips, regardless.
[And actually...]
Why the carrot when there's already a stick? Those who don't engage have their suit darken until eventually they're driven to it. They have a system to incentivize sex. What benefit does it confer to pay, on top of it?
[Well. One billionaire's pocket change is a sector slum-dweller's windfall, isn't it?]
It's to motivate the low cards. The ones who need resources. So why them?
[ it's not a question to which tseng has all the answers, but he has mulled over it enough to have at least a few theories of his own. and, luckily, focusing on those theories is enough to distract him from his own feelings of awkwardness regarding the beach situation. ]
The simplest possible explanation is economics and psychology, in my opinion. By and large, people respond better to reinforcement than punishment. Providing guests with a monetary reward for active participation may prove to be a more effective incentive.
[ obviously they would need some form of punishment for those who do not participate, and they have that in the suit activation, but "gaining money" could motivate people better than "losing control" does. ]
There was a situation last month in which parts of the resort suddenly became derelict as if overnight, and we received a message from the house implying that the change in circumstances was due to a lack of something—the message was redacted. However, further evidence uncovered during the course of that situation suggested that we, the guests, act as a sort of fuel source for the resort.
Based on this information I theorize that there is some manner of energy generated by our sexual exploits which is harvested and used by the controlling body of the resort to power its operations. When this energy runs low, the aesthetics of the resort itself reflect the deficit.
[ he pokes his potato again, but tseng is on a reporting roll now, he's not going to take a break to eat a potato. ]
If I were the house, I would analyze the output quality of each guest and assign them a rank accordingly, with the highest output toward the top and the lower output at the bottom. Assuming that each guest has a calculated output volume that must be met on a weekly or monthly basis to sustain operation of the resort, I would set that as minimum to avoid suit activation, but would also further incentivize guests to exceed their minimum output requirements by rewarding them. Perhaps monetarily, or by raising their rank after a sustained period of high output. Ideally the threat of returning to their previous circumstances would be enough to keep their output high, but if it did become necessary to lower their rank, then the taste of better circumstances would become a motivating factor in itself.
[ and just like in midgar: if you can keep the proletariat distracted, believing that they too can become members of the bourgeoisie, you can distract them from the way the ruling class exploits them. tseng doesn't say that part out loud.
he nods once, toward the dossier still sitting at rufus' elbow, where details are recorded regarding reno, aerith, and zack's departures. ]
I would also conduct regular analysis of the output of all resort guests, and those who consistently underperform would be summarily dealt with, perhaps even by expulsion from the resort.
[ a pause. tseng inclines his head slightly, indicating that he's done with his report, then finally takes a bite of dinner. ]
[It's good, sound logic, even if contemplating it means following it through to the logical conclusion that the resort ranked Tseng higher of the two of them because they thought he would fuck more, or because the quality of his output was better. Not that he has any personal complaints as to the quality, he thinks, and stuffs a big chunk of potato into his mouth so that the abrupt heat on his tongue gives him an excuse not to dwell on that any longer.
It's reflecting on Tseng, though, that nags at him. Reinforcement and punishment. Does either one work, really, on his director of the Turks to begin with?]
You've kept track of your compensation?
[This is a considerably more awkward question when your ledger is synonymous with the number of people you've fucked, but.]
I assume you've been keeping records of the sum total of your. Activities.
[ it was a theory that tseng came up with before rufus was here, absolutely, and at the time he'd put it together, tseng hadn't bothered to follow it through to that particular conclusion. having said it aloud now, tseng's mind takes a similar path and arrives at that endpoint, and his brow very nearly furrows in a minute motion.
rufus, then, neatly forestalls any further musing on the subject by making tseng very nearly choke on his bite. he doesn't—in fact, he doesn't even cough—but he does immediately reach for his whiskey to down the rest of it along with the offending bite, which has a side benefit of buying him a moment to compose himself. ]
...Yes, sir.
[ a pause, and then tseng reaches to flip his notebook open to a set of pages in the back, marked by nothing but the feel of the edges. in it he's been making notes of his "activities," although out of respect for his partners' privacy the notes are extremely sparse: just the symbol of their suit, their rank, and a shorthand note to indicate something about time and place.
there are, in total, 33 encounters noted on that page; on the facing page is a balance sheet that tallies up the compensation provided by the house, as well as weekly totals of funds earned from other sources. ]
I also gamble. [ it likely won't surprise rufus to know that tseng has a good poker face. ] So I don't have to rely entirely on—one income stream.
[Some people, certainly, would've found such an assumption bizarre in the extreme. The fact that Rufus was entirely correct in his assumption, and that Tseng was able to produce exactly what he was asking for within moments, is either a testament to how well they know each other, or a sign that they're both tilted more than a little toward the unhinged side of abnormal.
But again, the awkwardness fades quickly as he finds himself engrossed in the numbers, oddly pleased to be presented with something so familiar as figures and records — just like the old days, when he'd grasped for every bit of information about his father's company that he could get his hands on, intent on learning through puzzle pieces what no one would ever deign to invite him to hear in boardrooms.
Having himself as a baseline makes it easy. One...item of activity. One infusion of funds. And as he stares at the numbers like he's waiting for them to put on a performance before his eyes, his potatoes linger forgotten at his side.
Just like old times, really.]
There doesn't seem to be any correlation between the payout and the rank of the partner.
[His eyes skim thoughtfully over the page, landing on a blank near the bottom of the page — all the rest of the information categorized, but no rank or suit notated. The significance of it hits him a moment later, and he ducks his head a little further down over the book so that the fall of his hair hides any redness that might begin to color his cheeks or his ears.]
Not the suit...
[The tip of his finger impacts lightly off the page, lips pressing just slightly more firmly together as he turns possibilities over and over in his head.]
...They paid you more for this one. The three of spades is listed...three times. But that's contrary to the purpose of the game. It makes sense to reward output, but not exclusivity.
[ there are a couple of places in the ledger where tseng has noted larger-than-usual payouts. the three of spades is one; the two of clubs is another. a third three-of-a-kind comes from a mixed-suit group of fives, and then an even larger payout on the fourth five collected. ]
Yes, sir. I believe it to be part of the reinforcement—rewards rather than punishment.
[ he pushes his own bowl aside lightly so he can identify a couple more of the larger payouts. by and large, it seems that having sex with someone once yields the lowest payout, while subsequent encounters with someone of that rank, regardless of suit, yield larger payouts. ]
These are poker hands. One pair, two pair, three of a kind, four of a kind.
[ and wouldn't it be funny, ha ha, if the house would reward them for fucking in patterns that added up to hands in a game of poker? but tseng hasn't put this to the test yet, largely because he hasn't had anyone to share the theory with just yet. ]
[It would certainly suit the motif. And as he regards the book again, now with this new framework in mind, possibilities start to form.
Possibilities, and one extremely bad idea.
He lingers over the book a minute more, aligning ideas in his head. Finishes with it, and sets it carefully aside, respectful of the pristine lines and careful bookkeeping. Remembers that his potatoes exist, and eats yet another delightfully aromatic forkful. Retrieves his whiskey and takes a drink that can't quite be qualified as a sip.
He keeps his expression carefully even, and his voice cultivated smooth.]
Meaning, if the next person I fucked were a Jack, then I should be holding a pair.
[ it's clear that there's some idea beginning to take shape in the recesses of rufus' mind—tseng can read that expression clear as day. the sort of careful movements that rufus makes when he's thinking about suggesting something and isn't sure how it'll be received, which is an uncommon state for him and all the more noteworthy for it.
tseng uses the time that rufus is thinking to take another couple careful bites of food, this time mindful that anything rufus says might make his bite want to go down the wrong pipe.
when rufus speaks again, it's—ah. tseng can practically read the map of his vision, can see what it is he's suggesting even before he suggests it. but still, part of working with rufus means letting him lay his ideas out from beginning to end, and so tseng just sets his glass down again and sits up a little bit straighter. ]
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tseng sets the oven to preheat, then puts the bag of potatoes on the counter and withdraws a handful of them. small new potatoes, easy to roast. ]
The resort likes to force us all to play games, sometimes. [ methodically, tseng chops each of the potatoes in half, setting them aside into a large bowl as he goes. ] There was one of them, several months ago, in which each suit was assigned an animal counterpart. Diamonds were rabbits, hearts were foxes, and so forth.
[ chop, chop, chop. ]
There was a hierarchy to it. Wolves at the top, eager to mate with any animal beneath them. Rabbits at the bottom, eager to be mated by any animal who could catch them. [ rufus can probably imagine how much tseng fucking hated feeling like prey. ] By the end of it, many of the rabbits were so desperate to be bred that they would allow themselves to be used by anyone who could get their hands on them. Like being in heat.
[ when tseng sets the knife down it's just a touch too hard. he makes up for it by being a little too gentle when he opens the cabinet in search of olive oil and salt. ]
To me, that's the worst the resort can do. Make us lose control of ourselves entirely.
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Well. He thinks he knows what it is now, in part from his miscalculation with the weight of the knife, and in part because of the animals he does think to mention. Rabbits and foxes; Tseng clarifies what the two of them would have been, had they both been here to experience it.
A rabbit, then. Desperate to be bred. It doesn't suit him at all.]
Strength in variation, then. It's an advantage that we're not the same suit.
[His attention drifts to the dossier again, a little less casually this time. Most of the faces are unfamiliar. A few are outright startling.]
...The Ancient was here. And Reno?
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[ objectively rufus is right, and tseng is privately grateful that he has no further commentary on the subject of rabbits and breeding. tseng is not by nature a bottom, nor particularly breedable, and while he did manage to escape the worst of the psychological and physiological changes brought about by that particular event, he did not enjoy himself by any stretch of the imagination. ]
Yes, and Zack Fair. Reno was here for roughly six weeks after my arrival, and had seemingly been here for some time already. Aerith and Zack arrived at roughly the same time I did, and vanished at roughly the same time approximately eight weeks later.
[ this time, tseng is extremely careful to control his motions as he salts and oils the cut potatoes and puts them in a roasting pan. ]
Tifa Lockhart was also here for a time, although our paths never crossed. Cloud Strife and Roche, SOLDIER 3rd Class, are still guests here.
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SOLDIER 1st Class Zack Fair.
[Now isn't that interesting. An infantryman running around pretending to be a SOLDIER, and a SOLDIER who's supposed to be a corpse but isn't.]
Then I gather from their lack of collaboration that the AVALANCHE members declined our bargain?
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if nothing else, it should be excellent proof of tseng's loyalty, just like the bullet he put in verdot and elfe's heads. the mission first, always.
fortunately, what rufus says next is enough to distract tseng from any further complicated thoughts. ]
Our bargain? [ this throws into stark relief a theory that tseng had started formulating after a conversation with reno. ] Another thing, sir, is that it seems there can occasionally be discrepancies between what people remember, even those who arrive from the same world. My last memory of Gaia is standing behind you at your first board meeting as president, following your father's death.
[ so whatever bargain rufus is referencing, tseng is in the dark. ]
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Unfortunately, the smile that comes to his face at the thought of it is ultimately short-lived. The business never ends, and this is far too important to let go without Tseng's awareness.]
I remember much more than that. I was at my ascension parade.
[He pauses, scowling briefly as the memory resurfaces in infuriating clarity.]
We have bigger problems than AVALANCHE to deal with right now. Glenn Lodbrok paid me a visit — as an ambassador from the Viceroy of Wutai.
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he shoves the roasting tray into the oven, makes a quick detour back to his desk, and returns with his notebook to sit on the stool next to rufus. ]
Glenn Lodbrok? Former P-0 SOLDIER Glenn Lodbrok? Notably deceased?
[ and deceased at rufus' own hand, at that? rufus shinra is not a man who does things by halves, and tseng has no doubt that he would have made damn sure that glenn was actually dead. he's willing to make allowances for zack fair's appearance in the resort, given the nature of this place and its ability to seemingly play with timelines and memories, but for glenn lodbrok to be up and about in gaia when he should be six feet under is... something else entirely.
tseng ducks his head over the notebook to take a few notes in his own cryptic shorthand, illegible to anyone but himself. ]
I find myself wondering if the Viceroy knows Mr. Lodbrok is acting on his behalf. [ surprise and a half if he did, considering the acting viceroy is sitting to tseng's right. ]
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[The thing is, by all rights it should be safe to speak without the necessity of subterfuge here. They're far from Midgar, far from Junon, and Tseng has vetted this space with both the benefits of his training and his resort-given authority. And yet, some things are only truly safe if they're never said at all.]
The Viceroy sent his personal congratulations on my ascension. Full of eager hopes for the future I intend to build. [A pause.] He's right to be interested. We're going to have our hands full cleaning up a lot of messes left behind for us.
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[ another moment spent jotting notes, and then tseng sits back, his thumb tapping light and idle against the page in front of him. lodbrok alive, and bringing the viceroy's personal congratulations on rufus' ascension... it feels very much like a veiled threat, a complication in rufus' plans. tseng will have to spend some time thinking about how a situation like this might best be mitigated.
first, another question. tseng glances back up to meet rufus' gaze again. ]
And the bargain you offered the AVALANCHE members?
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[He's nearly finished with his drink by now, and knows that Tseng will refill it as soon as he does away with the dregs; with that in mind, he leaves the last mouthful in the glass and rotates it slightly with a turn of his wrist, making the amber liquid spin inside its confines.]
That includes the Ancient. She's free to go — provided Strife and the others handle one of our problems for us.
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that, in turn, makes it fairly obvious what that other problem might be. sephiroth, the rogue soldier, his blade still wet with rufus' father's blood. even if tseng doubts that rufus particularly mourns the old man, sephiroth is a dangerous creature, and allowing him to run amok across gaia while rufus tries to wrangle his newly-inherited affairs would be unwise indeed. ]
I see. [ one of the only tells when tseng is thinking heavily is the way he chews at his lip—not even chews, really, so much as digs his teeth into the inside left of it. aerith, tseng thinks, had been more or less from the same timeline as tseng, although they'd never compared notes in detail. it is more of a relief than he's willing to admit to think that she might have gone home only to be offered amnesty and freed to live the rest of her life. ] It's a good offer. I don't know if they'll take it. I haven't spoken to Strife about it—or at all, in fact.
[ although if he'd known there was a bargain to talk about, he probably would have made an effort. ]
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The fact that Tseng shows his tell at all when Rufus details his bargain — having specifically mentioned her, specifically clarified that she was included in its terms — is more than proof enough of what he thinks of it, even before he makes his pronouncement. And in the grand scheme of things, none of his deliberations had taken Tseng's opinion on the matter into account, because there was no reason it should have been a factor at all, but —
It's strangely satisfying. He and Tseng are two of a kind when it comes to difficulties in gift-giving, the man who has everything and the one who wants nothing. But for all that it might not have been with Tseng in mind, he's oddly contented with the notion that he might just have given him a rare thing he actually wanted, with this.]
They seem inclined. Why shouldn't they; they'd be reaping an added benefit on something I expect they intended to do anyway. All the more reason to have them doing it for me.
[Now, at last, he downs the last mouthful of his liquor, setting the glass down onto the countertop — on a napkin, because he's not a classless stooge.]
As for Cloud, let's assume his inaction is because he doesn't remember it. It wouldn't be the first time our little SOLDIER failed to have his facts straight.
[He pauses, his eyes going briefly distant — a tell of his own, the way he always does when he's the one thinking. Like he's trying to see the future, focused so hard he can almost glimpse it.]
He'll follow the lead of the girls. If either of them turn up again, then we'll work to ensure a...favorable opinion. Until then, let him be. So long as we can put them on a collision course, he doesn't need much supervision.
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he watches rufus' gaze go briefly unfocused, the only sign that his mind is anywhere else at all. rufus is well-trained, far too well-trained to allow himself such indulgences as obvious tells of thought or displeasure; it is a private pleasure for tseng to be able to identify this one. every expression rufus makes is one that he's calculated for impact: the smirk, the furrow between his eyebrows, the thoughtful touch of a fingertip to his lips.
(no, tseng's traitorous brain supplies. it's not every expression, is it. tseng knows, now, how to earn a few that rufus can't help.)
he can't think of that right now. instead, another private pleasure: the familiarity of taking a direct order from rufus. tseng nods once. ]
Yes, sir.
[ he swirls his liquor around the glass, then lifts it to take a sip. tseng isn't ordinarily a whiskey drinker, and he relishes the way it burns a little all the way down. ]
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Tell me about discrepancies in the face ranks.
[Evidently, with matters of Midgar at least reasonably settled, his thoughts are turning back to the more immediate future here.]
What rank has access that you don't yourself?
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[ he hasn't seen the king or queen suites yet, but he can assume that they would be correspondingly larger as well, a truly horrifying idea given the size of his own jack suite. ]
There are very few aces, and from what I've gathered, aces are considered more or less equivalent to jacks in terms of resources. It's unclear why.
[ the timer goes off, and tseng shifts his attention briefly to bring the potatoes out of the oven. they go atop the stove, and he retrieves from the fridge a small container of wild garlic leaves, which he sprinkles atop the hot potatoes so he can mix them together until the leaves begin to wilt.
only once he's served the potatoes into two dishes and handed one over to rufus does tseng continue his train of thought, coming around to take his place in the other stool once more. ]
There is no centralized database that contains information on ranks of all guests, and the staff are exceptionally evasive when questioned about the mechanics of the game. Oddly, it doesn't seem to be a conscious evasiveness—more like someone or something has brainwashed them into finding nothing at all strange or unusual about our situation, and therefore they have little to say on the topic.
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It's just a little more intimate that way. He'd shove a forkful of potatoes into his mouth to combat the thought, but for the fact that he knows better than to burn his tongue needlessly on food so fresh out of the oven.]
Then that's the endgame. One of us to Queen or King.
[He says "one of us" like he doesn't already know who it will be. It might be easier to shift Tseng up given his existing proximity to the ranks in question, but with how much he surely loathes the attention already, he'd likely recoil from the thought of being exposed to even more of it.]
...Speaking of amenities. Did you credit funds to my account? I can't imagine who else would have.
[Guess who found himself with the charming pocket change of $250 following the Beach Situation™.]
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the prospect of setting that to rights, of putting rufus in the king position he deserves, is enough to soothe some of it. ]
Yes, sir.
[ he stabs his fork into one of the potatoes to let out the steam and just barely manages not to clatter his cutlery against the side of the dish when rufus asks that question. the money deposited into his account—it wasn't tseng, but if it happened right after the beach he thinks he knows what it would have been. ]
—No, sir. That was... [ he's really going to have to say it, huh. ] The resort will make a deposit into your account in that amount every time you... engage in sexual activity to completion.
[ wow, these potatoes are so interesting. ]
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...Why bother?
[Cause and effect. The resort assigns ranks, and doles out accolades or scorn accordingly. Game 52 already incentivizes engaging in sexual activity with a number of partners, seeking to fill out a deck. Why the additional bribe? What else, what other behavior, could they want to encourage?
He waves a hand at their surroundings, indicating the grandeur.]
They gave you all this on assignment. They choose your rank at registration. Why bother to pay you to have sex, when they already put everything at your fingertips, regardless.
[And actually...]
Why the carrot when there's already a stick? Those who don't engage have their suit darken until eventually they're driven to it. They have a system to incentivize sex. What benefit does it confer to pay, on top of it?
[Well. One billionaire's pocket change is a sector slum-dweller's windfall, isn't it?]
It's to motivate the low cards. The ones who need resources. So why them?
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The simplest possible explanation is economics and psychology, in my opinion. By and large, people respond better to reinforcement than punishment. Providing guests with a monetary reward for active participation may prove to be a more effective incentive.
[ obviously they would need some form of punishment for those who do not participate, and they have that in the suit activation, but "gaining money" could motivate people better than "losing control" does. ]
There was a situation last month in which parts of the resort suddenly became derelict as if overnight, and we received a message from the house implying that the change in circumstances was due to a lack of something—the message was redacted. However, further evidence uncovered during the course of that situation suggested that we, the guests, act as a sort of fuel source for the resort.
Based on this information I theorize that there is some manner of energy generated by our sexual exploits which is harvested and used by the controlling body of the resort to power its operations. When this energy runs low, the aesthetics of the resort itself reflect the deficit.
[ he pokes his potato again, but tseng is on a reporting roll now, he's not going to take a break to eat a potato. ]
If I were the house, I would analyze the output quality of each guest and assign them a rank accordingly, with the highest output toward the top and the lower output at the bottom. Assuming that each guest has a calculated output volume that must be met on a weekly or monthly basis to sustain operation of the resort, I would set that as minimum to avoid suit activation, but would also further incentivize guests to exceed their minimum output requirements by rewarding them. Perhaps monetarily, or by raising their rank after a sustained period of high output. Ideally the threat of returning to their previous circumstances would be enough to keep their output high, but if it did become necessary to lower their rank, then the taste of better circumstances would become a motivating factor in itself.
[ and just like in midgar: if you can keep the proletariat distracted, believing that they too can become members of the bourgeoisie, you can distract them from the way the ruling class exploits them. tseng doesn't say that part out loud.
he nods once, toward the dossier still sitting at rufus' elbow, where details are recorded regarding reno, aerith, and zack's departures. ]
I would also conduct regular analysis of the output of all resort guests, and those who consistently underperform would be summarily dealt with, perhaps even by expulsion from the resort.
[ a pause. tseng inclines his head slightly, indicating that he's done with his report, then finally takes a bite of dinner. ]
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It's reflecting on Tseng, though, that nags at him. Reinforcement and punishment. Does either one work, really, on his director of the Turks to begin with?]
You've kept track of your compensation?
[This is a considerably more awkward question when your ledger is synonymous with the number of people you've fucked, but.]
I assume you've been keeping records of the sum total of your. Activities.
[Shiva's tits.]
...Assuming you've got them handy.
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rufus, then, neatly forestalls any further musing on the subject by making tseng very nearly choke on his bite. he doesn't—in fact, he doesn't even cough—but he does immediately reach for his whiskey to down the rest of it along with the offending bite, which has a side benefit of buying him a moment to compose himself. ]
...Yes, sir.
[ a pause, and then tseng reaches to flip his notebook open to a set of pages in the back, marked by nothing but the feel of the edges. in it he's been making notes of his "activities," although out of respect for his partners' privacy the notes are extremely sparse: just the symbol of their suit, their rank, and a shorthand note to indicate something about time and place.
there are, in total, 33 encounters noted on that page; on the facing page is a balance sheet that tallies up the compensation provided by the house, as well as weekly totals of funds earned from other sources. ]
I also gamble. [ it likely won't surprise rufus to know that tseng has a good poker face. ] So I don't have to rely entirely on—one income stream.
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But again, the awkwardness fades quickly as he finds himself engrossed in the numbers, oddly pleased to be presented with something so familiar as figures and records — just like the old days, when he'd grasped for every bit of information about his father's company that he could get his hands on, intent on learning through puzzle pieces what no one would ever deign to invite him to hear in boardrooms.
Having himself as a baseline makes it easy. One...item of activity. One infusion of funds. And as he stares at the numbers like he's waiting for them to put on a performance before his eyes, his potatoes linger forgotten at his side.
Just like old times, really.]
There doesn't seem to be any correlation between the payout and the rank of the partner.
[His eyes skim thoughtfully over the page, landing on a blank near the bottom of the page — all the rest of the information categorized, but no rank or suit notated. The significance of it hits him a moment later, and he ducks his head a little further down over the book so that the fall of his hair hides any redness that might begin to color his cheeks or his ears.]
Not the suit...
[The tip of his finger impacts lightly off the page, lips pressing just slightly more firmly together as he turns possibilities over and over in his head.]
...They paid you more for this one. The three of spades is listed...three times. But that's contrary to the purpose of the game. It makes sense to reward output, but not exclusivity.
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Yes, sir. I believe it to be part of the reinforcement—rewards rather than punishment.
[ he pushes his own bowl aside lightly so he can identify a couple more of the larger payouts. by and large, it seems that having sex with someone once yields the lowest payout, while subsequent encounters with someone of that rank, regardless of suit, yield larger payouts. ]
These are poker hands. One pair, two pair, three of a kind, four of a kind.
[ and wouldn't it be funny, ha ha, if the house would reward them for fucking in patterns that added up to hands in a game of poker? but tseng hasn't put this to the test yet, largely because he hasn't had anyone to share the theory with just yet. ]
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[It would certainly suit the motif. And as he regards the book again, now with this new framework in mind, possibilities start to form.
Possibilities, and one extremely bad idea.
He lingers over the book a minute more, aligning ideas in his head. Finishes with it, and sets it carefully aside, respectful of the pristine lines and careful bookkeeping. Remembers that his potatoes exist, and eats yet another delightfully aromatic forkful. Retrieves his whiskey and takes a drink that can't quite be qualified as a sip.
He keeps his expression carefully even, and his voice cultivated smooth.]
Meaning, if the next person I fucked were a Jack, then I should be holding a pair.
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tseng uses the time that rufus is thinking to take another couple careful bites of food, this time mindful that anything rufus says might make his bite want to go down the wrong pipe.
when rufus speaks again, it's—ah. tseng can practically read the map of his vision, can see what it is he's suggesting even before he suggests it. but still, part of working with rufus means letting him lay his ideas out from beginning to end, and so tseng just sets his glass down again and sits up a little bit straighter. ]
I believe so, yes.
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