By Kristen Gupton-Williams

Tseng was walking through the base with a mission. It was time for him to have a serious talk with the Turk to come up with some sort of plan to finish Hojo off once and for all. He had been searching for some time when he finally came upon Porter strolling with Rayna and D about the base’s corridors. This was actually required exercise for Porter ordered by the physical therapist. His crutches had been discarded that morning and with the help of Rayna and a cane he was doing his best.

Porter saw Tseng and at once recognized the look of seriousness. "Sir?"

"Hello Porter, Rayna." Tseng came to a stop before them. "I was wondering if I could have a meeting with you, Porter, in the conference room."

He glanced over at Rayna briefly before turning back to Tseng. "Certainly."

They made their way to the conference room and Rayna departed with D to leave the men in peace. Tseng helped Porter to a chair and then took up his place at the head of the table. There was no one else present.

Tseng leaned forward on his elbows. "Tell me about the second Midgar lab."

Porter looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well, like I said before it’s in the old reactor six up on the plate. Its official name is D Two."

"D Two?" Tseng repeated questioningly.

"Yeah, all lab facilities have a letter coded name. For instance, New Neiblehim is B and Junon is A. So, the Midgar lab is D One, and the secret lab is D Two."

How this little piece of information had evaded ASRIO’s knowing was slightly unnerving to Tseng. In his day with Shin Ra, the lab facilities had simply been referred to by their location name. "I see."

"Well, it’s just higher level record keeping crap really. No one else calls the labs by those letters anyway." Porter was struggling to find some comfortable position in his seat but his hip was giving him trouble.

"How heavily guarded is it?" Tseng asked.

"Not very." Porter smiled to himself. "Frankly, no one knows about it so Hojo has never been too worried. There are few people that are even allowed to work there. He has maybe a whole four people that assist him and I’m sure he has a Turk guard with him too but that would be about it. Now, he has mentioned to me in the past that he has some automated defenses within the complex but as to their nature I really have no idea."

"I’m sure it’s something terribly unpleasant." Tseng speculated.

"Undoubtedly." Porter laughed quietly. "I don’t think Hojo has ever done anything nice when you get right down to it."

The thought of his niece came up and Tseng knitted his brow. "Not on purpose anyway."

Porter just nodded.

After a short silence, Tseng asked another question. "So how does one get up to the plate and lab these days?"

"The old train tunnels within the column are still there, and have been set up with small transport trams to carry workers up and back. There are a lot of people that work on the plate with the solar panels and power plant up there so they run the shuttles pretty much around the clock but security is tight." Porter tapped on the table’s surface. "So that might not be the best way to go."

"Other ideas?" Tseng inquired.

"There are stair passages within the pillar but it is a long climb." Porter knew he at least would never make such a trip in his current condition. "At least an hour and a half to get up there. I was unfortunate enough to have to make that climb once when there was a fire in the train tunnels. I can’t say I enjoyed it. Of course, being in a darkened stairway with Hojo had its charms I assure you."

Tseng outright laughed. "I suppose it would. But there seems to be some concerns with getting up there."

Porter shrugged. "You do have a helicopter."

Tseng raised his eyebrows. "True, but wouldn’t they notice?"

"Ah, I don’t know." Porter looked thoughtful. "Executives fly up there and back all the time. And quite frankly, that plate is so big they wouldn’t even notice a chopper dropping off somewhere on one of the less uses sections. A lot of that plate isn’t used at all and that would be a possible insertion sight."

"Which sectors?" Tseng leaned back in his seat, ideas beginning to formulate.

"Three is pretty much just an abandoned mess." Porter sighed. "They never cleaned that sector of the plate up after Meteor as it was the most heavily damaged portion."

"I see." Tseng nodded in thought.

"You could easily drop off there, and if done at night I seriously doubt anyone would notice. From there it’s just a matter of getting into the utility passages just under the plate’s surface and making your way to the right reactor. I’ve spent plenty of time exploring some of those utility passages while stuck up there for weeks on end with Hojo. You can get just about anywhere on the plate through them." Porter raised his eyebrows at the memory of winding through the dark tunnels alone. He had always had a curious streak and those passages had just begged for him to check them out. Now he was very glad that he had.

"So I assume you’re telling me that you need to go with us on this mission due to your familiarity with the layout?" Tseng knew a subtle self-invitation when he heard one.

"Well of course I’m going." Porter crossed his arms over his chest. "There is no way I wouldn’t go. You need me and I need to make sure that son of a bitch dies."

Tseng admired Porter’s resolve. "Fair enough, but do you think you’ll be physically up to it?"

"Well, what is our time frame?" Porter asked.

"Soon." Tseng dropped his gaze to the tabletop. "I want to give Tifa and Vincent some more time in Rocket but we can’t wait too long. I don’t want to give Hojo the chance to get too far on the Neo-Jenova Project."

"Well, don’t you worry about me, I’ll be perfectly fine when the time comes." Porter rose up from his chair, no longer able to bear sitting.

Tseng also rose, having gotten the information he needed for the time being. He made his way over to the Turk and extended his hand. "Thank you."

Porter accepted the handshake and smiled. "No, thank you. I have a huge interest in seeing an end to Hojo myself."