66Veld left his two guests in Tseng's capable hands, trusting his Second would be fully capable of handling a little casual interrogation. And Vincent - whatever problems they had, Vincent was always on his side - would be there, just in case. And a second pair of eyes was never amiss, especially in such a bizarre situation.
But for the moment, he had someone else he wanted to talk to. Because even though he'd like to keep this quiet, Tony had a point, even if it wasn't for the same reasons he'd thought it was a good idea. So, he knocked on the door to Reeve's office - the big one, down in his department headquarters, which was at least half workshop. Because, sure enough, 'late lunch' had translated to 'tinker time' for the younger director. "Reeve."
Reeve hummed in acknowledgment, not looking up from the mass of circuits he was working on. It said something for how comfortable they were with each other that he let himself finish what he was doing before looking up with a smile. "I didn't expect to see you until the end of the week at best."
"Yes, well… something came up." Veld smiled faintly at the way Reeve's smile faded to something somewhere along the lines of curious, but not without a dose of wariness. "I could use a little of your expertise."
"Not a departmental thing, then," Reeve guessed, idly flipping the little tool he had in hand.
"Not on your end," Veld said. "The Turks are most definitely involved. I would rather City Planning not be."
"Well, now you've got me curious," Reeve said. He got over and made his way back to his desk, pausing with a hand over his keys. "Shall we chat?"
"Go ahead." Veld stepped into the room properly, smiling as Reeve leaned down and reached under the desk. The door locked behind him as he made his way over, and he knew from experience that a powerful signal scrambler had just clicked on. After all, Reeve had outfitted his office with upgrades to the old system around the time he'd worked up his own. "So, I'm going to toss out a few subjects, and you're going to give me your opinion of them. Sound good?"
"Hit me." Reeve settled in his chair, idly rocking it back.
"Aliens." Veld smiled faintly at Reeve's blinking stare. "Specifically, human aliens."
"Like, aliens that appear to be human, or…?" Reeve hummed at his nod. "Well, I mean arguably there's still academic debate on whether or not the Cetra being nomadic was referring to them wandering this planet, or if it meant wandering planets plural, in reference to Doctor Valentine's work regarding the Omega WEAPON, the second of which would imply that Cetra could have potentially seeded other planets with human-appearing civilization."
"…so that's a 'yes I think that's possible'?" Veld checked.
"Yes." Reeve chuckled. "Possible, certainly. 'Probable' is up for debate."
"Alright." He was silent a moment, choosing his words. "Prescience."
"The act of knowing something before it takes place," Reeve said, arching a brow. "Here I thought you weren't amused by fortune telling."
"I am not a fan of mystic shit in general," Veld said dryly. "Give me your opinion."
"I don't think it's entirely impossible," Reeve said. "In small doses things like gut feelings - thin slicing, according to psychology - is predicting the future based off pattern recognition. Certain outcomes are predictable, from knowing situations and individuals. And certainly there's more… mystic interpretations that I'll spare you. Unless you'd rather…?"
"Keep it for later," Veld said. "Alternate universe."
"Scientifically speaking, strictly another world existing in a different time and space than our own," Reeve said slowly. "Narratively, a variant of the world where things happened differently. Veld, what's going on?"
Veld sighed. "A couple of men interrupted a spar between SOLDIER's top three. They're claiming to be from another world, and have knowledge of things that have happened here - and, supposedly, things yet to come."
Reeve arched a brow. "Any proof?"
He was silent a moment. "They told me where to find Vincent."
Reeve frowned. "I would assume Nibelheim, if anywhere, but -"
"Alive, Reeve," Veld clarified. "Vincent's alive. He's in one of the workrooms with those two and Tseng. Right now."
Reeve went pale. He'd only been a child when Vincent had died - or was it just reported dead? - but old enough to feel the loss. "Oh."
"Yes, oh."
There was a long moment of silence while Reeve worked through that, expression pensive. "How is he?"
"Vincent?" Veld sighed. "Traumatized, I'm sure. Cagey, even for him. Unfortunately, circumstances what they are, my priority isn't cornering him to work all that out. That can of worms is going to take more time to untangle than I have right now."
"I take it, then, that the events that were predicted were the sort we want to avoid," Reeve said.
"Some to avoid, some to fix," Veld said. "Some of it are problems we're already in the middle of, if he's right."
Reeve nodded. "And you think he might be."
"I still don't know that I believe he's an alien who had a video game of our lives," Veld said. "But I can't deny he seems to know things; how he knows them isn't really a priority right now."
"I'm sorry, a video game?" Reeve stared at him incredulously.
"You see my problem, then." Veld smiled faintly. "Of course, he claims to have one of them with him that we could see, if we can build the device to play it."
Reeve arched a brow. "Which I could do."
"I was hoping you'd be willing to give it a shot," Veld admitted.
"Of course. I must admit, I'm intrigued," Reeve said.
"You're my best bet at keeping up with the technical aspects of all this," Veld said. "I can pull Hojo for the medical science, and eventually I will, but I don't want to do that any sooner than I have to."
Reeve snorted. "No, I imagine not. Alright, I'm in. But I want to know everything."
A solid hour of discussion later, and Veld was coming back to the Turk floor with Reeve in tow, waving to the curious operatives in the pen and slipping into the interrogation room. The table was now full of blueprints, Tony still bent over one and sketching something out quickly. Bruce sat on a chair nearby, writing on a notebook.
"Hey, Director!" Tony grinned, and it impossibly got wider when he saw Veld wasn't alone. "Reeve Tuesti. I am starstruck."
"Now that's something I don't hear often," Reeve said, arching a brow. His eyes were inevitably drawn to the blueprints, which looked at a glance to be some kind of computer and… a revised television? Interesting. And there was a veritable wall of code buried half under the one he was working on at the moment.
"You are criminally underrated," Tony insisted. "Urban Development - wait, no, City Planning. It's City Planning right now, isn't it? Regardless, you like… run Midgar. Statistically you would have to be the largest department. The sleeping giant. The foundation of all things. No one else could function without your work maintaining the infrastructure, and that's not touching like, the supplies you handle that SOLDIER relies on to keep them pushing beyond their limits and do their stuff."
Reeve blinked at him, brows climbing. He wasn't wrong, but that wasn't something people acknowledged. Not even Veld, who was somewhat aware of it. "An interesting perspective. And you got all that from your games?"
"Kinda? I mean, they weren't focused on you. They were action RPGs, they focused on SOLDIERs and the Turks and stuff, but I can read between the lines. And genius is always drawn to genius." He grinned shamelessly before patting the blueprints. "So, if you're here I'm getting some help building this, huh? Because I would love to give you guys some more solid proof."
Reeve nodded, coming around the table to look at them. "Show me what you've got."
"I've got the hardware and software for it. How much of that is your thing? I mean, it's pretty clear you're Gaea's version of a civil engineer, but I always pictured there had to be more than that. I mean, even just the reactors are more than buildings, there's tech there for mako processing." Tony eyed him a moment. "That was your dad's work, right? I mean, looking at you you can't even be thirty yet. How old are you?"
"I'll be twenty eight the middle of next month," Reeve admitted. "And yes, the reactors were originally my father's design."
"Seventy two, then. I'll be damned, chalk one up for unsourced wikis," Tony said, shaking his head. "Right. Getting off track. Take a look at this, tell me if you think you can do anything with it."
Reeve hummed, and took a moment to flip through the designs, eyeing the code warily. It was like nothing he'd seen before, but it was fairly straight forward. "I can replicate this. Your designs are clear enough to follow."
"Excellent. I'll help, of course, but all the better to have a couple pairs of hands on it." Tony clapped his hands with a grin. "Alright, Director. Let's get you some proof."
