Cell Division
47
Hojo waited until we stood in his office to ask me anything. Gazing at me, he asked if I wanted a drink. I gladly agreed. He came toward me with bottle and glass. I just yanked the bottle from him and drank.
“Victoria, what is it?” he asked.
My heart shrank away from answering. I sat down, taking another good, long drink. Hojo knelt in front of me, his dark eyes earnest. “If you can’t tell me, fine, but I think if it involves my son I ought to know.”
“Your son is inside that program,” I blurted. “His soul is in there. All he lacks is a real body. He’s a ghost in a machine.” I drank, seeing through watering eyes. “And, he’s probably the one who sabotaged the collars and magnetized the IUD’s. He’s jealous and bored, Hojo. He didn’t have to know you were his father to want to hurt you. You’re an old authority figure he rebels against.”
Hojo sat down where he knelt, his eyes bottomless.
“Yes,” I said. “And now, you’re going to have to pick between bought family and blood family. If you make him flesh…”
Hojo shuddered. Bending, he clutched his head and tugged on his hair. “No,” he muttered. “No, no, no.”
I raised my bracelet. “Michael, I need you in the office,” I said. I slid down into the floor, wrapped my arms around Hojo, and waited. He rocked himself slightly and did not respond to anything I said.
Michael arrived. The sight of his master in the floor, unresponsive, drew him up short. “What the fuck?” he asked, quickly taking himself to Hojo.
“He’s had a shock.” I helped Michael get Hojo on his feet. “Help me take him to bed.”
Face drawn with worry, Michael aided me in putting Hojo prone. I drew up the covers before turning to him once more. “Would you please stay with him? I have to go talk to somebody.”
“Yes, I’ll stay.” Michael tenderly brushed Hojo’s hair from his eyes. “I’ll get him a sedative.” He went out to Hojo’s desk and dug out a small box from his desk drawer. Taking out a syringe, he came back to us. Without preamble, he put the needle into Hojo’s arm and pushed the plunger. “This’ll help him a little while,” he muttered. “Where are you going?”
“Training Ground 49.”
Michael jumped in my path. “You don’t have the disruptor with you?”
“No.”
Again Michael stepped in my path. “Don’t do anything stupid. That sim can’t care about daddy.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “It does. He does.” I released the door switch. “Don’t worry; I’ll be back.”
I maintained my quiet detachment until standing outside the door. Fear gripped me, fear and pity and overwhelming sadness. I couldn’t stay remote from the problems of people I cared about, and I cared about Hojo. By default I had to care for his son. And, his son had nearly killed me twice. His no-harm protocol didn’t function inside the machine, just outside of it. What a clever creature.
I stepped in. The room began to change. To my surprise it took the form of my counseling office and consulting annex.
Well, if anyone needs therapy, it’s this man.
He formed. His eyes pinned me. “Where’s daddy?” he asked, voice quiet and menacing.
“Your father is in his office, under sedation,” I answered, walking to my desk. This felt eerie. Everything looked perfect. I opened a drawer and found papers, my little odds and ends, and even my stowed meal replacement shakes. I did not open one. I didn’t want to know. The illusion here seemed so complete I didn’t want my brain bent any further. With my eidetic memory, this sim room could create a reality so thorough I might go mad.
I sat and spread my hands over the polished desk. It felt good. It felt comforting.
“What is this simulation?” Sephiroth asked after a moment, putting his lean frame into a chair opposite me.
“This is my office in Wutai. I was a marriage counselor.” I smiled at him.
Sephiroth smiled back. It completely changed his face, taking him from caution to humor and making a beautiful journey of it. “I’m not married,” he said.
“I’m not qualified to give you any sort of psychiatric care anyway, General,” I told him. “My experience falls short of treating personalities capable of murdering people they don’t know.”
He frowned. “War is war.”
“You haven’t openly declared war on the staff or on your father’s slaves. You strike in the night like a thief.”
Sephiroth’s expression smoothed to thoughtful consideration, his eyes clouding slightly and his head tilting. “I’m bored,” he said, as if it explained and excused all in one.
“You’re bored and it’s driving you mad,” I replied. “When Hojo brings you back to flesh, and he will, you’ll have an adjustment period. I can’t begin to imagine what its like to be trapped in a sim.”
“Can’t you? I think you can; it made you sick to imagine it.” Sephiroth seemed to relax a little. “I’ve made adjustments before. I have no doubt I can adapt.”
“Will you work for Shin-Ra?”
Sephiroth’s gaze darkened. “I tendered my resignation with the Masamune.”
“I’m aware. Hojo reminded Rufus Shinra of that only a few days ago, actually. I understand you pinned the elder Shin-Ra to his office chair.”
He smiled again. “Your next question will concern the planet,” he predicted.
“No.” I folded my hands. “I know you won’t try to destroy the planet again. You have the urge for life in your eyes, not the destruction of our world.”
Surprised and showing it, Sephiroth sat back a bit further. “You used the past tense for your employment. What do you do for Shin-Ra? Are you on a recruitment drive?” His nasty tone would have cut me if I’d truly intended recruiting him.
“I was taken by agents of Shin-Ra because I witnessed the way they had a drilling operation set up in Haaval South. I spent a week in a cold cell before Hojo came and offered me servitude over experimentation.”
“That’s why you follow him around.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a slave.” Sephiroth twitched slightly, his hand spreading over his chair arm. “Yet, I saw you touch him like you care.” His face twisted into disgust.
“Yes, I do care. Hojo is good to me.”
“Then he must be fucking you; he’s always good to the ones he’s fucking.”
That would have hurt, too, if I didn’t know Hojo capable of more emotional depth. Sephiroth carefully chose his words to produce maximum pain with minimal speech.
“You know very well Hojo has three others he treats decently. You tried to kill us first because it would hurt him.”
“Anything that brings Hojo pain is good.”
“Then, you attacked his whole staff and the rest of the employees.”
He said nothing.
“A shame,” I said. “You loathe him for his cruelty yet you seem to have inherited it.”
Sephiroth straightened. “I am nothing like him,” he growled.
“From where I sit, you’re identical.” I ignored his threatening posture though it cost me inner reserves I didn’t ever like tapping. “Both neglected, ignored, angry, yet a touch philosophical and capable of great emotion. Both of you toiled for Shin-Ra, enslaved by them, doing their dirty work.”
“Be silent.”
I did as he demanded, watching him stare off to the side with his chest heaving. Apparently his self-sustainment included all the trappings of life, like breathing.
“Why have you come in here?” he asked suddenly. “To examine me? To plead for your life and the lives of your fellow slaves? Maybe you want me to leave Hojo alone? Maybe you’re hoping I’ll agree to remain an impotent simulation?”
“I want you to live your natural life, not like this,” I told him. “I don’t know how you got in your sim, but you’re there and it’s wrong. I’m sure Hojo will figure out how to make you real again.” I put my hands on the desk. “If I thought pleading would sway you, I’d do much of it right now. I don’t want to die. I don’t want anyone to die just because you’re bored.”
“Go ahead and beg, then,” he said flippantly. “You never know; I might learn pity.”
I looked him in his eyes. “Please don’t give in to your hatred, General,” I asked softly. “Your abilities and your bravery give you too much responsibility, but that doesn’t have to mean giving in to hate. Hate is control; hate is a powerful feeling others inspire in you. It’s a way to direct your force.”
Sephiroth’s intense, green stare seemed to go through me. “Explain how one gives it up, then,” he urged.
“It’s too personal an effort to give you a guideline,” I sighed. “I still hate my ex-husband for the things he did to me, but I don’t let that hatred have its own life. I compartmentalize it, bringing it out when I need it.”
Looking interested for the first time, Sephiroth tilted his head at me. He did it just like Hojo would have, and it gave me the chills.
“You put it in a box and bring it out at will,” he said. “I’m able to do that. What’s my motivation to try?”
“Trying things a different way is a great remedy to boredom.”
He smiled slowly. “I’ll think about it,” he promised.