Viral Love

Shamefully, I almost fell asleep while he guided me. The awesome quiet and having a barrier between me and the light made it impossible to stay fully awake. I felt like a weak fool and resented him all the more, especially upon realizing he had me in his arms again. I felt something cushioning meet my aching body.

“What have you done to Vincent?” Cloud’s voice demanded, but he sounded slurred.

“Picked slugs out of him,” Hojo answered briskly, again covering me with the sheet. “Are you thirsty, Strife?”

“Yes,” Cloud answered after a long moment.

I heard Hojo filling a container close by. Then, I heard Cloud loudly drinking. Hojo made a thoughtful, humming sound. “Miss Lockhart, are you awake yet?” he asked.

“M’awake, you bastard,” Tifa muttered.

“Are you thirsty, too?” he asked.

“No. Get the hell away from me.”

“Interesting. Perhaps J-cells cause opiate based tranquillizers to more rapidly dehydrate the body.” Hojo’s voice grew louder as he approached me again. I felt a heavy cloth draping over me. “I’ll set a pair of orderlies to attend you three,” he announced. “If you can, convince this stubborn Turk to rest. At the very least, remind him he’s no good to kill me if he can’t keep from nodding off.”

God, I hated him.

“Rest well, all of you.”

I heard a metallic clang, then silence. After a moment, Cloud sat down on my bed. “What’s he want with us this time?” he asked softly.

“He claims he’s going to use us to cure Geostigma,” I answered with effort. I still couldn’t open my eyes. “What does this place look like?”

“Nothing like the cells I’ve ever occupied,” Cloud admitted. “Looks like an apartment. There are three separate bedrooms, a main room, and a bathroom. We’ve got a television, a weird sort of kitchenette, and a couple of couches.” I heard him scratching his head, which he tended to do while thinking. “The door is electronically locked, with a keypad and a handprint panel. No windows, but plenty of mirrors.”

“Shut the lights off,” I said. “See if the mirrors are illuminated from behind.”

Cloud got up. Darkness descended. “Yeah,” he said slowly, anger in his tone. “I can see a room behind the main, largest mirror. Hojo’s in there, sitting at a computer but facing away from us. He probably hasn’t seen us checking.”

“It’s safe to assume he’s listening, though,” I replied.

Cloud paused, then chuckled without humor. “He just waved. Yeah, he’s listening.”

I heard a loud bang. “Shut the bugs off, Hojo!” Tifa shouted.

“Tifa, he’s not going to care,” Cloud sighed. “We can pitch all the fits we want, but he’s going to do exactly what he intends to do. Don’t break the mirror; that’ll just mean he’ll have to move us someplace else.”

I summoned my strength and sat up, plucking at the bandage on my chest. It came off easily. Woozy, I scanned the room and found the two-way mirror. Hojo indeed typed away behind that glass, his back to us and a cigarette dangling from his averted face. I stared at that sleek, blue-black head and felt the urge to throw a couch through the mirror.

He got up and approached the barrier. His finger came down, punched something I couldn’t see, and I heard a click. Utter, flat silence. He punched another button and the glass darkened.

“It appears we have privacy now,” Cloud remarked. “Decent of him. Still, the whole situation stinks. It’s rotten. I don’t trust him for a second.”

I collapsed back down. “Hojo’s motivated. Whatever his true reason for bringing us here, he’ll reveal it in due time. Like any crazed megalomaniac, he can’t help bragging about what he’s doing.”

Cloud growled. “I can understand him grabbing me if he wants a cure for Geostigma; I whipped it with Aerith’s help. Maybe he needs my antibodies or something. But, why try to take the rest of us?”

“Because none of us have the disease,” Tifa said. “We’ve all been exposed countless times, but none of us have it.”

“So why not use himself?” Cloud countered. “He obviously doesn’t have Geostigma.”

“Because he’s not a pure control,” Tifa explained, summing it up. “He’s jerked his molecules from one side of the genetic spectrum to the other. He can’t use himself.”

We fell quiet awhile, thinking. Tifa broke that silence a good ten minutes later. “Who got our weapons?”

“That Foley guy,” Cloud answered. “But, he’s dead. I guess my sword and Vincent’s gun are now in some sort of storage, or destroyed.”

Hojo had blown Foley’s head off for the crime of shooting me. He’d wanted us brought to him unharmed. He’d even instructed to let us go if it looked like we could escape, because of that. He could re-capture us, but he couldn’t replace us…

No, that wasn’t right. He could clone Cloud. Cloud was a clone. Perhaps he couldn’t copy a clone.

I heard the door opening. Again I sat up. A man and a woman dressed in white scrubs entered, their arms full of folded cloth and specimen collecting kits. “I’m Renee and this is Robert,” the tall and muscular woman announced. “The professor assigned us to take care of you.”

“Get lost,” Cloud grumbled, sitting.

“Can’t,” she said cheerfully. “We have to give you some clothes and toiletries, then get urine samples.”

Cloud’s face turned red. “I’m not pissing in a jar,” he declared.

“It isn’t like you’re parting with something precious,” Renee argued, dumping most of her burdens. “The professor has to know when all the drugs are out of your systems.” She cracked her knuckles quite audibly. “Listen, Robert and I might not look like much to a bunch of heroes, but we’re pretty tough. If we have to hold you down and push on your bladders for the urine, we will.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Cloud said, staggering upright. “Give me the stupid specimen bottle, and stop talking like you know us.”

Renee handed him the plastic container. She dropped one on my couch, then politely offered one to Tifa. “But, we do know you,” she argued. “Vaunted heroes against Shin-Ra, but also feared terrorists.”

This made Cloud splutter. I privately agreed with the impressive-looking woman. We in AVALANCHE were indeed terrorists. Cloud never admitted to it, but we employed dangerous and destructive methods to buckle Shin-Ra’s stranglehold on the planet.

I took the bottle and got to my feet, looking for the bathroom. I still couldn’t walk, damn it. One step told me the truth of that. I fell. The big woman caught me, however. “Easy, cutie,” she said. “I’ll take you. Hang on to my arm.”

Against my instincts and my pride, I allowed her to aid me to the bathroom. The sooner I got this over with, the better. I did need to rest, and I couldn’t do that with constant chattering and arguing.

Renee left me sitting on the edge of a bathtub. I fumbled with the unfamiliar pants, freed myself and filled the specimen bottle. Capping it, I looked at myself in the mirror. This one didn’t conceal another room, thankfully.

I looked terrible. Washed out. Blackness under my eyes. Scruffy. Making a decision, I gave the bottle to the woman waiting on the other side of the door. “I’m going to shower,” I announced.

She nodded. “Do you want Robert’s help?”

“No.” I slammed the door on her. With maximum effort, I got the water to an acceptable temperature, dragged my pants off and crawled into the tub. There I just sat, shivering, letting the spray pelt me full blast.

My brain threw an image against my retinas. Hojo, patiently and cautiously cleaning me of blood. If not for his professional care, I’d have felt violated. But, his eyes hadn’t revealed anything that suggested lechery, nothing but the practiced, impersonal touch of any medical practitioner. He’d even covered me. If I could spare blood to blush, that memory would inflict heat.

Lucrecia had called him a practicing pervert, doing so in jest but also in truth. She liked to wonder aloud why her husband preferred a man over a woman. I’d laughed, said it worked out for us, and left the topic.

I could see Hojo as one of those men who liked men. He had a strange, fey quality, a bit delicate in appearance. My secondary supervisor in the Turks had that same aura, but he’d proven tough as a bagnadrana shell. Hojo was tougher than that, even. He’d taken massive damage by us at the Sister Ray, and obviously lived.

If he really wanted us to help him find a cure for Geostigma, why go to such lengths to secure us? My friends weren’t exactly open to Hojo, but they were good people that gave out second, third, fourth chances like children pass a sack of candy. He could have convinced them, eventually.

“Vincent?” Tifa’s voice carried through the door. “You okay in there?”

“Yes,” I croaked. I shut the water off and crawled out. No towels. Fine. I managed to get the pants on again. Holding on to all walls and doorframes I encountered, I eventually made it back in to the main room. My strength did seem to be returning. The crackpot hadn’t lied about that, at least.