At least he's hot

Chapter 14: a slight malfunction


Reno felt like a cornered animal, backed against a wall with nowhere to hide. Tseng was onto him, that much he knew for sure. Red dying had obviously not been in the plan… he hadn’t even realized his companion had bit the dust until they were getting ready to leave the apartment. He had thought he was just knocked out, and it wasn’t until after several minutes of trying to slap him awake that he'd realized he wasn’t even breathing. Sephiroth had killed him in one sharp blow – busting not only his skull but his brain. Luckily, Red was a practiced outlaw… he had burned the prints off his own fingers and deleted his shadowy identity from ShinRa’s records long ago. However, that didn’t stop Tseng from recognizing his face – the senior Turk had been the one to bust all of them on that long-ago Materia-thieving excursion to Headquarters.

Tseng knew. The thought made Reno’s blood run cold. There wasn’t hard evidence, not enough to clearly connect him with the crime, but Tseng was no idiot. And while it was impossible to convict someone from mere intuition, the man certainly had the means to make his life miserable in other ways. It was like playing a game of chess… Reno’s moves were careful and calculated, but Tseng clearly had the upper hand. And he was close to getting checkmate.

Rufus was still passed out… it had been exhausting dragging him out of the cab and all the way up to his room at ShinRa Suites. Dead weight. His arms ached and so did his lungs when he finally laid the VP down on the bed. He stretched tiredly and paced around the room, lighting a smoke and opening the sliding glass door that lead to the patio. They were on the thirty-first floor of the high-class hotel, and the view was breathtaking. The plate swarmed with life under his feet – he could see hundreds of people scurrying through the streets like ants on a gargantuan candy bar. The buildings and neon signs glowed mystically through the eternal pollution-wrought darkness.

I can’t believe Tseng’s onto me… he brooded, leaning over the rail and puffing on his smoke. That was too close… we almost got busted. Red was dead… and Ralph and Chops were badly shaken, hiding out in the deepest recesses of the slums like refugees.

After escaping Rufus’ apartment, the three of them had skulked like shadows back to their warehouse under the plate, sneaking through alleyways and tunnels to avoid the flashing lights and sirens of alerted cops. Once in the sanctity of their hideout, they had somberly divided up the loot. Normally, counting up the wealth was cause for celebration – they’d get wasted on booze and coke, laughing and joking like madmen – but Red’s death had cast a pall over everything. The loot was good, better than they hoped for, but it wasn’t worth the price of their friend’s life. Guilt ate at Reno like a virus – his anger and thirst for revenge had cost Red his life. He rarely regretted his actions, but this time he wished he had simply swallowed his pride instead of putting his crew in danger. What had he been thinking that night?

Nothing, he sourly realized. I wasn’t thinking at all. God, he wanted a drink.

Red was dead, Sephiroth was apparently floating in a tank somewhere in Hojo’s lab, and Rufus was about as fucked as a guy could get. He almost felt bad for Rufus… putting that tape on the president’s desk had been yet another result of not thinking. He had assumed that the tape would just piss the old man off – he didn’t know he would beat the shit out of his own son!

Now here he was, stuck on Tseng’s sadistic post all day. He pondered calling Rude and making him take over the watch, but Tseng’s words of warning dissuaded him. I swear I’ll find a reason to put you behind bars again, he had said. Reno believed it, too – Tseng was a man of his word. He wondered if Rufus was also onto him. Probably. Things are going to be pretty interesting when he wakes up, he dryly mused.

* * *

Rufus woke up to an exquisite, throbbing pain saturated all throughout his head. His nose hurt the most – it felt like someone was twisting it with a vice – and the flesh around his left eye pulsed painfully in rhythm with his heartbeat. His skull felt too tight around his brain. When he reached up a hand to feel the damage, his gut turned with revulsion at the large, swollen knots on the side of his face. His cheek felt as big as a balloon and his eye socket was swollen to the size of a baseball. He groaned a curse.

And cursed again when he heard Reno’s voice.

“Hey, you’re awake?” the Turk asked from a few feet away. This can’t be happening, the blonde morbidly thought. Can my day possibly get any worse? With much effort, he managed to open his right eye and indeed, Reno Lanzano himself was seated on a chair next to the bed, smoking a cigarette. The room was unfamiliar… a hotel room of some sort.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he weakly snapped. “Wait… what the fuck am I doing here? Where am I?”

Reno shifted uncomfortably in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his skinny legs. “Don’t you remember?” he asked. “Your dad knocked you out.”

“Of course I remember,” Rufus spat. In reality, he hadn’t remembered at all until the Turk mentioned it. Now the horrible sequence played over in his mind… the argument, the yellow stain on his father’s teeth, the sour stench of his breath before he threw the punch. He groaned miserably.

“Tseng and I had to drag you out of his office,” Reno continued. “We cleaned the blood off your face and hauled you all the way out of Headquarters… then Tseng ordered me to get you a room here at ShinRa Suites and stand guard.” The Turk laughed dryly. “Believe me, this wasn’t my idea,” he said.

Rufus rolled his one good eye. “I’m sure it wasn’t,” he growled. “After all, it’s your fucking fault this all happened. You ruined my life, you know.”

Reno looked like he was going to say something snide, but just shrugged instead. “Hey, don’t blame me…” he finally said, although there was little conviction in his voice. “You brought everything on yourself.”

“Oh, is that so?” Rufus retorted. “So it’s my fault you broke into my apartment, shot Sephiroth, then stole all my shit?” He laughed bitterly and added, “And it’s my fault you so conveniently placed that tape on my father’s desk?”

A flash of anger darkened Reno’s features, then faded. “I’m not ‘fessing up to shit,” he stated after a long pause. “You don’t have any proof.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Rufus snarled. “Not like it would matter much anyway… incase you don’t already know, President ShinRa both disowned me and relieved me of my job today. So I’m no longer the Vice President… As of today, I’m nothing more than a gay, unemployed bastard.”

Reno stifled a gasp of surprise. His blue eyes were wide with shock. I guess he didn’t know, Rufus realized. “Why the hell did he fire you?” the Turk asked in a voice far from nonchalant.

Rufus laughed mirthlessly again. “Because I’m gay,” he stated with a smirk. “He fired me simply because I’m gay.”

The shock deepened on Reno’s gaunt features. Spots of color appeared on his cheeks. Rufus could have sworn he even looked horrified. “That’s fucking ridiculous,” he gasped, his voice little over a whisper. “How could he even do that?!”

“He’s the president,” Rufus bluntly replied. “He can do whatever the fuck he wants.”

“No shit…” the Turk murmured. “What a prick…” He took a long drag from his cigarette with shaking fingers. His wild eyes connected with Rufus’. “So what the hell are you gonna do now?”

“Why the fuck do you care?” Rufus spat. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To teach the spoiled President’s son a lesson?” He realized his own hands were shaking, clenched into fists at his sides. With great effort, he reached over and grabbed Reno’s pack of smokes off the nightstand, placing one between his lips. Reno mechanically pulled out his lighter and held out the flame. “God, I haven’t had a smoke in days…” Rufus mumbled, more to himself than anything. Then he returned his attention to Reno. “So what was it?” he snapped. “If your goal wasn’t to completely ruin my life, what the hell was it? A cry for fucking help?”

Reno sighed loudly and put out his half-smoked butt in the ashtray. For a fleeting moment Rufus was back in that smoky bedroom, writhing in his binds as Reno snuffed out his smoke onto his bare chest. “Look,” the Turk growled, dispelling the nostalgia, “Just theoretically speaking, if I did happen to rob you and put that tape on your father’s desk, I wouldn’t be thinking about much at all, let alone the long-term consequences of my actions. I’d probably just be blind with rage, bent on humiliating you as much as you humiliated me.” He smiled briefly, a humorless curve of his thin lips. “But that’s just conjecture,” he said. “Pissing in the wind, so to speak.”

Rufus snorted. “Right,” he mumbled sourly. “Just idle conjecture…”

Reno sighed for about the fifth time in the past five minutes and re-crossed his legs. He lit another smoke. He looks like shit, Rufus realized. Serves him right… Hell, the time for apologies and amendments was long past. There was simply nothing either of them could say at this point. It was almost funny, in the darkest of ways. Sephiroth and I took Reno’s pride away… so Reno took away my power. I suppose we’re about even now. We both have nothing more to lose. A snort of laughter escaped his lips. Reno looked over at him with an expression that was both miserable and slightly horrified. This only amplified the ridiculous feeling of irony creeping over him. He laughed again, unable to stop it. Fucking pathetic, he mused.

He laughed until his sides hurt.

* * *

If one were to look back on Midgar’s history and search through its labyrinth of files, they would quickly find that Sephiroth was by far the most studied and analyzed creature in their logs. Creature, human… whatever you want to call him. Vast stores of information are filled with mere aspects of his composition, like his mental stability, his physical ability, his path through life, and most of all: where the experiment went wrong.

If one were to open this last file, they would find a complex analysis of his mental state when the shit really started to hit the fan. If something so multifaceted as Sephiroth’s insanity could be labeled as a term, it would most likely be called “depersonalization and derealization.” Here’s the textbook description:

Derealization (DR) is an alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems strange or unreal. It is a dissociative symptom of many conditions, such as psychiatric and neurological disorders, and not a standalone disorder. It is also a transient side effect of acute drug intoxication, sleep deprivation and stress.

Depersonalization is a subjective experience of unreality in one's sense of self, while derealization is unreality of the outside world. Depersonalization and derealization are often used interchangeably, although evidence suggests they have distinct neurobiological mechanisms. Chronic derealization may be caused by occipital-temporal dysfunction.*

In short, he tried to pinch himself and never woke up.

When Sephiroth found himself inside Hojo’s tank, that’s the first thing he did. He pinched himself. He didn’t wake up.

When something as horrible as one’s worst nightmare becomes reality, the line between dreaming and waking can… well… blur. Some say Sephiroth simply couldn’t accept the reality he woke into, so perhaps he treated time from that point on as just another ridiculous dream. Maybe that’s why he burned Nibleheim to the ground without any hesitation or remorse. Maybe, maybe not.

There’s only one fact the analysts can all agree on: when Sephiroth woke up inside the tank, his mental descent into hell began.

* * *

Tseng wasn’t lying to Reno when he said he had a shitload of work to do that afternoon. His desk was an apocalypse of paperwork and his computer was practically short-circuiting from an overwhelming flood of emails. Being head Turk wasn’t much different than being Vice-President. Sure, once in a while he accompanied the other Turks on missions, but most of the time he just sat around and cleaned up the mess they made.

“No…” he mumbled as he typed, “ShinRa had absolutely no involvement in the partial destruction of Temp-Ho Suites. While we sympathize with your recent hardship, no evidence leads us to believe that the damage was caused by any more than local thugs.” He paused, rubbed his temples, and took a deep breath. “Our reports indicate that the rumors of a silver-haired man at the scene are just that – rumors. General Sephiroth was nowhere near Sector 7 on the night of the incident, and even remarked that he was ‘completely unaware of the event.’ On behalf of ShinRa Electric, please accept this donation as a… as a…” He paused again. As a way to keep quiet? Damn it, Reno!

An urgent knocking at his door disrupted his train of thought. Before he could say ‘come in’, a young woman in a lab coat burst inside, wild-eyed and deathly pale.

“There’s… there’s an emergency… in Hojo’s lab…” she panted, visibly trembling from head to toe. “You should… send for…” In mid-sentence she swayed on her feet, then collapsed rather gracefully onto the floor.

So, Sephiroth’s awake… Tseng mused. He felt an ironic smirk tug at the corners of his lips. He also felt his heartbeat rising. If Sephiroth wanted to go on a killing rampage, could anyone stop him?

He grabbed his pistol and ran down the hall, ignoring the girl sprawled out in his doorway. I suppose I should call Rude… he decided as he turned into the stairwell. He flipped open his cell phone and dialed the Turk’s number. If Sephiroth can’t be reasoned with, the bullets are going to fly.

When he reached Hojo’s floor, Rude was already waiting for him, armed with a sadistic-looking semi-automatic rifle.

“Be on your guard,” he told Rude again, despite how redundant the statement was. “I hope we won’t have to use our guns… but we can’t let him kill anyone, no matter what.”

Rude nodded, silent as usual. Out of all the Turks, Rude was the one Tseng felt he could rely on the most. Nothing ever seemed to faze him… and that was an important trait when dealing with murderers and monsters on a daily basis.

As they slunk down the hallway, a fierce argument rose up from the lab and met their ears. Sephiroth’s normally smooth, hypnotic voice was uncharacteristically desperate and hoarse, and Hojo’s stuck-up drawl had risen about an octave in sheer terror. Tseng didn’t have to hear the words to know what they were arguing about. Who wouldn’t be pissed about waking up in a tank? However, as much as he thought he knew about the situation, nothing could have prepared him for the shocking scene that greeted his eyes.

First, there was gore. A lot of it. Something resembling roadkill – tangled guts, organs and brains – was smeared almost artistically across the equipment and back wall. The only evidence that this gore used to be a scientist was a shredded lab coat, crumpled up in the middle of the mess. The glass wall of the tank had shattered, and a pinkish mixture of blood and water covered the floor an inch deep. Waterlogged fuses sizzled and snapped sporadically.

Second, there was Sephiroth. He was naked, butt naked, veiled only by his soaking, knee-length mop of hair. His skin was even paler than usual, which made the blood on his hands and forearms all the more shocking, and his green eyes burned with a crazed intensity Tseng had never seen on anyone before. He was crouched on the floor and under him lay Hojo, flopping like a dying fish in the inch of water. Sephiroth had him by the lapels of his lab coat and was screaming - screaming - into his face. The scientist’s glasses were broken, as was his nose, judging by the way a steady stream of blood was pouring down his chin and diffusing into the water. Neither man even seemed to notice the presence of the two armed Turks.

“Sephiroth!” Tseng shouted, loud enough to cut through the General's stream of curses. He cocked his gun with grave deliberation. “Get off Hojo before we have to use force. Just let him go.”

The screaming stopped. Slowly, dreamily, Sephiroth raised his head and gazed at the Turks, as if he had been rudely interrupted in the middle of a pleasant conversation. His crazy, dark-rimmed eyes narrowed into slits and a ghastly smile curved onto his lips. A madman’s smile. Is this really the man Rufus fell head-over-heels in love with? Tseng wondered, horror crawling over his skin like a chill.

“Tseng and Rude,” Sephiroth stated, saying the names like it was some kind of inside joke. “Who gave you an invitation?” If he was unnerved by the two guns pointed at his head, he showed no sign.

“I’m serious, Sephiroth,” Tseng said. “Stand up, slowly. We don’t want to hurt you.”

The hideous smirk on Sephiroth’s lips widened to a full-out, wicked grin. He carelessly released the lapels of Hojo’s jacket, letting the dazed scientist fall back to the floor with a splash. “Are you threatening me?” he mused. When he rose to his feet, Tseng felt even more uneasy than when he was crouched down. This was not the Sephiroth he had passed in the hallway a few days ago. “Don’t worry… I’m not going to do anything crazy,” he added. His voice had returned to its usual, soothing pitch, ridiculously incongruous to his appearance – naked, dangerous, and covered with blood. Tseng had a gut feeling that the gun clenched in his fist was as useless against Sephiroth as a toy. If Hojo had been pumping Mako into his veins all this time like he had so proudly boasted, the naked man in front of him could probably take down an army of Turks if he felt so inclined.

“Okay,” Tseng coaxed unsurely. “Good. Now just… put on some clothes… and we’ll get this mess cleaned up. We’ll forget it ever happened.”

Sephiroth looked down at himself as if he hadn’t realized his own nakedness until just then. He snorted. “Right,” he murmured. “Clothes.”

Tseng held the gun on Sephiroth as he dressed, while Rude checked on the battered scientists. Hojo was okay, more or less. The other guy – the roadkill – was not. Aside from the girl who had alerted Tseng to the incident, there were no other witnesses. By the time Sephiroth was cleaned off and fully clothed, Tseng had already called up a cleaning crew to take care of ‘an accident at the lab,’ and Hojo – who was silent, for once – had been escorted to the hospital by some guards. A broken nose wasn’t exactly a medical emergency, but Tseng thought it wise to separate him from Sephiroth. He was lucky to walk out with his life.

All the while, Sephiroth moved like a man walking through a dream. He was calm – too calm – as if nothing strange had even happened, and a distant, bemused smile remained frozen on his lips. Detached, Tseng analyzed. He was no psychoanalyst, but he knew enough about trauma to see it staring him in the face. Everyone had their own way with dealing with a traumatic event. Sephiroth had simply removed himself from reality, so it seemed. Of course, this was just his best guess. Why else would he be smiling? There was certainly nothing funny about the splattered remains of the scientist he had somehow ripped apart, nor was there anything even remotely amusing about waking up in a giant, human-sized tank, hooked up to a million IVs and electrodes. Moreover, how often did Sephiroth smile in the first place?

Trauma, Tseng repeated to himself. It has to be trauma.

After all was said and done and Tseng finally felt comfortable enough to holster his gun, he and Rude escorted Sephiroth out of the lab. Tseng was incredibly relieved to get out of there – the combination of eerie machinery and gore was thoroughly unnerving, even to a seasoned Turk.

“So…” Sephiroth said, breaking his long silence, “What are you going to do now? Will you try to take me to prison?” Try was apparently the key word. However, the dangerous Mako eyes had dulled considerably from their previous intensity, like a fire that had burned down to coals. Whatever madness had overcome him earlier was dwindling.

Tseng had two options. Either he could ‘try’ to take Sephiroth to prison and make a huge scene out of this event, or he could do what he did best: forget it ever happened. He decided on the latter – it was easier, plus he felt something resembling sympathy toward Sephiroth. Would anyone have acted differently under those circumstances? The man was built to be a weapon… one could say he’d just had a slight malfunction, that was all.

“No,” he sighed. “Like I said, let’s just forget about it, alright? That mess back there… it was caused by some malfunctioning machinery that exploded. You were never there. I didn’t see you, Rude didn’t see you, and I’ll make sure that girl who ran out of here never saw you either. Of course, there’s a limit to how far I can cover things up on this scale… the President will probably find out, but I doubt he wants to handle it any differently. You know as well as I do – ShinRa is built on secrets.”

Sephiroth turned to face him when they reached the elevator. The smirk had finally melted off his lips, leaving nothing behind but a pale, devastated ghost of a face. “Well, thanks,” he murmured. “I suppose I owe you.” He shook his head. “Tseng, I would have killed him… I really would have,” he said in a voice devoid of emotion. “If you had gotten there one second later…”

Tseng laughed dryly, breaking off Sephiroth’s muttered confession. “Just between the three of us,” he mused, “I believe Hojo is one person this world could do without.”

Sephiroth snorted, shrugging listlessly. “Well, you almost got your wish,” he quietly responded. “I only remember pieces…”

“I think you should go home and get some rest,” Tseng advised, pressing the down button on the elevator. “Stay low for awhile… and don’t get in any more trouble. I won’t always be right here to cover your ass.”

“Yeah, yeah…” the General sighed. “I’ll try.” The doors slid open and he stepped inside.

“Oh, one more thing,” Tseng said, holding the door open. “You should call Rufus. He’s worried sick about you. Plus, his dad beat the living shit out of him earlier today… broke his nose. So, I’m sure the sound of your lovely voice would really cheer him up.”

A faint smirk played across Sephiroth’s lips then disappeared. “We’ll see about that,” he wryly stated.

Tseng nodded and stepped back from the elevator, getting one last look at the terrible, lost expression on Sephiroth’s face before it was sealed away behind the doors.

He didn’t see that face again for many years.


*Excerpt on depersonalization and derealization is from Wikipedia. (www.wikipedia.org)