Cell Division | By : Savaial Category: Final Fantasy VII > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2025 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy. It belongs to SquareEnix. I do not make any money from these writings, nor do I wish to. The original creators have all my respect, from game designers to voice actors. |
At first I couldn’t sleep because he’d left the door half open. Then, I couldn’t sleep because I could see him. My eyes wanted to rest upon the man as he sat at his desk.
He typed. He drank from a chipped mug. He hand-wrote furiously for several hours. Twice he got up to change the radio to another classical station. He lit incense and thrust the sticks into a container of sand beside a potted plant. He smoked three or four times. His glasses he removed periodically to wipe at his eyes. I got the impression of fatigue, though I didn’t see his energy flag.
His wall clock struck two in the morning. He got up, stacking his papers and thrusting them in an out box. I watched his head turn to my door. The light reflected off his glasses, so I couldn’t tell if he looked at me or not, at least at first. Then, I felt the weight of his stare upon me.
He approached. I half-rose from the bed, but he appeared right beside me, pushing me back down with ease. “No, don’t get up, Miss Grey,” he said. “You should be asleep. Am I disturbing you so much?”
I didn’t know how to answer him. I felt anxious not to make him mad but I didn’t want to lie either.
“I am,” he concluded in a soft tone. “I suppose having had nothing to look at for several weeks makes my nightly routine interesting?”
I nodded, grateful for a graceful out.
“Alright, then,” he said, taking a cylindrical object from his pocket. “Get comfortable.”
I arranged myself quickly, my heart beating faster from curiosity and worry.
He looked at me a moment. “I’m setting your wake-up time two hours past what it would have been,” he informed. “I can’t have you losing rest while you recuperate.” So saying, he pressed the metallic object to my arm. I heard a soft hiss and felt a tiny, tiny sting, less significant than a mosquito bite.
Almost instantly I felt my eyelids dragging down. The last thing I saw was him turning away.
**********************************************************************************
A shrill alarm woke me. I sat up with a start, looking for the source of it, but the moment I fully got out of bed, it stopped. Taking that for my wake-up call, I went into the bathroom and quickly tended to business. I showered in five minutes and dressed myself from the stack of faded black scrubs on the sink. I put on the thick socks, wondering if I would ever get shoes.
After braiding my wet hair I stood in the doorway to Hojo’s office, scanning the room for him. He entered not a moment later, and spied me instantly. “Ready in ten minutes,” he observed, checking his watch. “Excellent, my dear; you increasingly prove I have a decent sense of judgment.”
Again I felt what it was like to have his sanction. It felt…good. It worried me that it felt good.
“Come here,” he said while donning a lab coat over his black pants and white shirt.
I obeyed swiftly. He ran his hands over my collar, feeling for something. I heard a soft click and a whine. A warm sensation flooded my body. Hojo looked at the band and then at me. “Another day or two for your voice, Miss Grey,” he told me. “Have you any pain?”
No, sir, I said silently. All my pain went away last week. Now all I dealt with was a scratchy sensation.
“Very good,” he murmured. “We work an hour, and then we eat.”
A knock came at his office door. He shot the slab of metal a sour look as it opened.
I recognized Rufus Shinra instantly. His face hung all over Midgar as the powerful icon of Shin-Ra, Inc. A man with black hair walked at his side, carrying a brushed aluminum case.
“Hojo,” Shinra greeted. “I hoped I’d find you here early.”
His handsome face gave me the creeps.
“I hardly ever leave, President Shinra,” Hojo replied, his tone too sharp to be respectful.
“Yes, cut-backs on labor and all that,” Shinra replied mildly, picking up the insult yet not responding in kind. He glanced at me and then took a full look, as if surprised. “Who is this?”
“My new assistant,” Hojo answered. “Don’t worry. You aren’t paying for her.”
“Pretty.” He came toward me. I instantly panicked inside. Something about him set my teeth on edge. “Why don’t you give her to me? I could use a new secretary. I like blondes.” He reached for my collar and I backed up, nearly pressing myself to Hojo.
Hojo chuckled. “It appears she doesn’t like you, Mr. President,” he said in a nasty tone.
Rufus Shinra smiled coldly at me. “She could learn.” Again he reached for me. I ducked behind Hojo this time, using him to block the handsome, oily magnate.
To my relief, Hojo held up his hand. “I’m afraid Miss Grey would be unsuitable to you, Mr. President,” he said firmly. “She cannot speak. How will she answer phones?”
“A woman who can’t speak is even more to my taste,” Shinra said, laughing.
“All the same, I’ve claimed her for lab use.” Hojo smirked. “Shall I send out an abduction team to acquire a date for you?”
This insult did not ride Shinra’s patience. He bristled. Fixing a brilliant blue stare upon Hojo, he then scowled. “Dates are easy,” he replied. “It’s the disposable pussy that’s difficult.”
“Miss Grey isn’t disposable,” Hojo said mildly. “I want her services here.”
“She’s a captive and quite disposable,” Shinra argued. “I see her slave collar.”
“Take her then,” Hojo said easily. “But, do it with my warning.”
“Resorting to threats?” Shinra’s scowl did not lighten. “I can take what I want; I’m president.”
“Of course,” Hojo replied smoothly. He turned and hit me with the fancy hypo, right above my heart. “Go right ahead,” he said.
Shinra’s eyes moved between us. “What did you do to her?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing.” Hojo smiled at him.
And, it truly felt like nothing. I couldn’t tell he’d given me anything. But, I rubbed the injection site a little, noticing how Shinra followed the movement.
“Keep her, then,” he said sourly. “I don’t want your sloppy seconds anyway.” He motioned to the man standing beside him. “I have something I want you to look at.”
“So early?”
Hojo and Shinra talked, but I didn’t pay too much attention. I was too busy absorbing what had just happened. Shinra wanted me for a quick lay, intending to just kill me afterwards. Hojo had made him think I was booby-trapped in some manner. Shinra didn’t want to take a chance. There was a power struggle going on here. I remembered the sentence Hojo asked me to diagram.
I wondered if I just felt too overwhelmed to act with any dignity. I’d never hidden behind a man before. To hide behind Hojo surely didn’t make sense. Still, he’d managed to keep me.
He’d promised to protect me, after all.
The sound of the buckles popping on the case made me pay attention. Hojo looked into the case and grimaced. “I’m in the science division, not in fetishes and possessions,” he declared, sliding his glasses more firmly upon his nose.
“You’re the closest thing we have,” Shinra said, smiling. It obviously pleased him to aggravate his head of science.
I risked getting closer to the odious Shinra in order to have a look at the case contents. To my instant repulsion, I spied a hideous doll. The big crack going down its dirty, porcelain face only looked like a scar, not a structural fault. I beheld those rosy cheeks and painted pink lips with growing horror. Dried blood or something very similar in color stained it in places. It looked alive. In fact, the rhinestone eyes were looking back at me; I would have sworn it under oath.
“This thing apparently killed a Turk,” Shinra said. “His partner claims he saw it moving independently, strangling the man.”
“And you want me to do what with it?” Hojo shot the man a look that displayed both his boredom and his irritation.
“Find out if it’s true and what makes it tick,” Shinra said. “If we could make these things...”
“I’ll send a report,” Hojo said. “If that is all?”
Shinra gave me a last, lingering, heated stare and waltzed out of Hojo’s office. My owner slammed the lid on the case. Turning, he favored me with a smile. “You have good taste, my dear,” he said. “I wouldn’t have let him take you, you know.”
I nodded even though I hadn’t been certain of anything. I’d hoped, certainly. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. I didn’t imagine Hojo would rape and then kill me. He didn’t appear so crude.
“You show promise, which is valuable in itself,” Hojo went on. “But, perhaps we should dye your hair? Baby Shinra likes blondes.”
I grabbed a lock of hair and tugged on it. This was my only vanity and I didn’t want to tamper with it. I wasn’t a peroxide blonde, but a natural blonde, and I liked it.
Hojo chuckled. The sound seeped into my belly. “I’m teasing you,” he said, lifting the case. “I wouldn’t make you dye your pretty hair. I understand a woman’s pride quite well.”
My preferring him over the handsome, rich Rufus Shinra apparently put him in a very good mood. I resolved to keep him in it. He was actually less threatening this way.
“Shall we examine this atrocious simulacrum of human life?” Hojo asked.
My resolve to keep him amiable dissolved into primitive fear. I pointed at the case and then forked my fingers and gestured toward my eyes.
Hojo watched me, his eyes half-lidded and interested. “It was looking at you?”
I nodded vigorously. Shivering, I clasped my arms over my chest.
Hojo tilted his head. “I didn’t get that impression,” he said slowly. “However, I’m willing to keep an open mind. I’ve noted women are more…sensitive to the unexplained and unexpected.” He hefted the aluminum case. “Come with me to the main lab and we’ll look at the thing with other people around. I’ll get my monitor technician to join us; she’s a bit…sensitive as well.”
I followed him out into the bright, white and steel room. Hojo collected a plain woman of about fifty years of age, grabbing her by the sleeve and hauling her along. “Deidre,” he said smoothly, “come with us. I have an object of note.”
We stopped at a mostly barren table. Hojo slammed the case down and opened it. Deidre instantly recoiled. “Professor,” she said, her voice strained. “I don’t like this thing.”
“Neither does Miss Grey,” he said softly, poking the curly brown hair on the doll with his pencil. “What disturbs you so much?”
“It’s looking at me,” she said, echoing my claim. “There’s something alive inside it.”
Hojo looked between us a moment. He backed away from the doll and gave it a once over, his black eyes studying it with cursory efficiency. “I don’t sense it,” he murmured. “Thank you, Deidre. You may return to the monitors.”
Deidre hurried away. I drew closer, enthralled despite my revulsion.
“It’s porcelain,” Hojo said abruptly. “It couldn’t clench a man’s throat if it did have something inside it.”
I shook my head. I knew the thing malevolent. I easily believed it could choke someone.
“No?” Hojo looked at me. “Very well, we’ll run a few tests on it.” He turned away, donning gloves from a box. Very reluctantly I took my eyes off of it to attend him. I helped him into a lab apron and tied it closed, noting the trimness of his waist.
A scream brought us up short. As a pair we whirled to see the doll stand up from the case. Cheap, blue eyes scanned the room. I watched in dismay as painted pink lips peeled back to reveal very factual teeth. Before we could move, it launched itself upon the nearest tech, taking up a scalpel from the table.
Blood sprayed in a radius of at least ten feet as the doll cut into the man’s carotid artery. As Hojo grabbed the doll, I pressed my hand over the man’s throat. But, blood spilled at an amazing rate. I knew my efforts wasted. Even as I had the thought, the tech slumped over in death. I let go of him to watch Hojo knock the doll down. He plucked the scalpel from it and threw it back into its metal prison, slamming the lid.
We both dripped blood.
“Make a note,” he said, loudly enough for the dozen or so employees to hear as they gathered close to one another in the center of the room. “We deal with meat, not mysticism, no matter what Baby Shinra thinks.” He wiped his face, smearing red over his cheek. “Someone call Jean and have him come up here with a mop and sanitizer. Destroy all work that could have been contaminated.” He gestured to Carson. “Throw Jenson’s body into the incinerator and inform President Shinra I’ve destroyed his diabolical doll.”
“But, you haven’t, sir,” a man said in a small voice.
“I have,” Hojo contradicted, taking up the case. I could hear the doll hammering on the inside, trying to get out, little porcelain fists striking against velvet and aluminum. “By the time you finish the call, it’s dead. My staff is too important to waste with demonic dollies.” He swept toward his office. “And, someone finish Jenson’s project,” he called out.
I followed in a rush, my body shaking with wasted adrenaline.
He allowed me entrance, slamming and locking the door behind me. I stared up at him, feeling my eyes drying out with the effort to not blink. He grinned, looking nearly as dangerous as the doll with all the contrast of Jenson’s blood on his pale skin and white teeth. “Very good, you tried to save one of the staff members,” he praised. “You didn’t balk at the blood, or panic like nearly everyone else.” He thumped the case down on his desk with a loud and heavy bang, rattling the doll with sadistic pleasure. “You’re a very, very good girl, Miss Grey.”
I shrugged, not knowing what else to do. His commendation felt good, though, unnaturally good.
“Modest, too,” he chuckled. “Come,” he commanded, “this way to my private incinerator.” He crossed to his bookshelf and pulled a red volume out. The shelf slid back to reveal a close, unlit passage. “Get the flashlight from the top drawer of the desk,” he instructed, holding the case tightly against his chest.
I jerked the drawer loose to reveal an industrial torch. I grabbed it with a nervous hand, flicking it on. Stomach heaving, I walked back to Hojo and stood beside him. He took a moment to look at me, his dark eyes seeming to go soft a moment. “Admirable,” he murmured. “You’re upset but still able to mind me. A good sign.”
I looked away, unsure how to respond and unable to continue to meet those intense, ebony eyes. I felt his warm hand cup my chin. In seconds I stared back at him, drawn by his will and insistent hand. “Never hide from me,” he ordered lowly.
My stomach twisted. I nodded jerkily.
Seeming satisfied, Hojo led the way down the dark corridor, taking the flashlight from me.
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