Cell Division
39
Getting a tattoo hurts.
I stared at the far wall, eyes watering. I was the last and once we finished we’d pick up food and go back to Shin-Ra. We’d stayed out too long to dawdle much more, according to Michael. Hojo never gave him a time limit but he wouldn’t like us out really late.
Michael’s tattoo had the most potential to anger the lab staff. In Wutainian symbols, the black ink on his arm said: HOJO’S OLDEST. This sat inside a circle made of the symbols for slave.
Jean’s tattoo made a bow toward independence. The same base, HOJO’S had the symbol for MUSCLE and MIGHT going in a circle around. He’d opted to put the ink on his chest.
Alison’s alluded to her status as a content, kept-slave. Like the rest of us, the symbol for HOJO’S was the largest, but hers was encircled in a symbol for LOYALTY. She’d put hers on her upper left arm.
I hoped I’d chosen appropriately.
“Why the back of your neck?” Alison asked.
“Because daddy will never see it under her slave collar,” Michael guessed correctly, earning a lifted set of eyebrows from the man behind the flash counter. “We should all keep them to ourselves, actually, much as I hate it.”
“Why the fuck should we?” Jean demanded. “Fuck those snooty scientists!”
“Yeah,” my tattoo artist added. “And fuck the Shin-Ra!”
One could find a political activist anywhere, even in a tattoo parlor.
“Careful where you say that, Dean,” the flash art guy said. “Or, who you say it in front of.”
“We won’t tell,” Michael sighed. “We’re all Shin-Ra’s slaves.”
“All right, darling,” the man with the needle of butchery announced. “You’re all done.”
“Let me see it,” Michael said, but I already had the collar back on.
“This is between me and Kanaye Hojo,” I said. “Sorry, Mike.”
“Gotta respect that,” Alison said, backing me up.
“Thanks, Al,” I said with a smirk.
Her face lit up. “Aw cool, now you’re into it, aren’t you?”
I pointed at us all by turns. “Jean, Al, Mike and Vic,” I said. “Like a bunch of thugs, we are.”
Laughing, we paid and left. It took us a bare twenty minutes to get food and get back on the bus. My neck stung.
Once returning, Michael and I split from Jean and Alison. Michael peered through the doorway to the operating lab. “Holy Ifrit,” he’s still in there,” he said. “Looks like he’s got about a dozen to go.”
I made as if to take a look for myself, but Michael grabbed me, taking down the hallway toward the office. “If you really want to help him, put on scrubs. If not, I’m sure he’ll be just as happy getting a nice drink, a backrub, and a blowjob afterward.”
“Look, if I’m going to keep any sense of self-esteem or identity, I have to do other things,” I said, stamping my foot.
“Save it for the suffragettes,” Michael said, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t even believe that crap while I was a woman.”
“Does he have nurses to help him?” I demanded.
“Well, no.”
“Who is helping him?”
Michael blushed. “No one.”
“What? How can he be doing all that surgery himself?”
“He’s very talented and very quick,” Michael countered swiftly.
“Not that goddamn quick!” I rounded on him as he shut the office door. “Michael, you tell me why you got sneaky all of a sudden.”
“Aw, fuck.” Michael began to fidget. “Listen, he doesn’t want to scare you, Vic. He said you were nervy enough around him.” He looked away. “I told him I’d do my best to make sure he didn’t scare you.”
I realized I’d get nowhere with this. Michael would not back down. I gave him a smile. “Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “You’ve performed to the best of your ability. I give up.”
He released a breath. “Thank Shiva.” He shook himself. “Well, I’m going to go find Rose unless you need me or something?”
“No, I’m going to get into something more comfortable and have drinks ready,” I said. “How can I heat up the master’s dinner?”
“Oh, just use the shit in the break room,” he answered, going for the door. He paused on his way out. “By the way, you’ve got rotten in your eyes and I don’t trust you.” He put his thumb on the inside of the door. “Override protocol,” he intoned, winking at me. “No exit for Victoria Grey.”
He shot out before my hand even closed over Hojo’s paperweight. Disgusted, I went into the bedroom and changed into scrubs.