Cell Division
56
After Hojo drove us back, Michael said goodbye and parted our company. I followed my lover down the hall, watching his well formed ass. He had a trim, tight body that stimulated the dirty old woman in my head.
He stopped so suddenly I almost ran into him. I saw the reason for his quick halt a second later. Sephiroth waited for him outside his office door.
The silver General gave off an air of boredom, caged energy and uncertainty. I could tell he didn’t like feeling wrong-footed. He looked at us almost accusingly, his green eyes burning. “I wish to speak to you,” he told Hojo.
“Do you want me to go?” I asked both men at once, at the ready to vanish. I could hang out with Michael until he left for his date.
“No,” they said in unison, surprising me.
Sephiroth’s lips pulled into a wry smile. “In agreement over something for the first time,” he said, his voice pitched with irony. “And, over a female.” He eyed his father. “Not for the same reasons, I daresay.”
Hojo opened his door. The two men stood side by side for just that brief moment. I was struck by the juxtaposition of similarity and difference. Hojo stood perhaps four inches shorter than Sephiroth, but their proportions didn’t vary much. Sephiroth just looked like a larger version of Hojo, with a more brawny physique and silver-white hair. He didn’t look exactly like him, by any means, but the blood told.
They held their shoulders the same way. They nearly walked the same, but Hojo’s unique gait put some distance there. Still, Sephiroth held his head like Hojo, had Hojo’s long fingered hands and bone structure.
Sephiroth threw himself onto Hojo’s couch and stretched out, taking the whole piece of furniture. Hojo grabbed his desk chair and carried it close to the couch, placing it within Sephiroth’s arm’s reach. He sat, giving his son his full attention.
Seeming surprised, Sephiroth eyed him curiously. “I read your projected method,” he said at last, watching me take a seat before turning his intense gaze back to his father. “You’re going to build me from the atom up with blood and tissue samples, using my simulated matrix as a mold.”
“Correct.” Hojo clasped his hands together. “It will work.”
“I’m sure it will.” Sephiroth continued to stare at him. “Why didn’t it occur to you to do this years ago? If you wanted me back you could have attempted it at any time.”
“I didn’t know you were in that shell, boy,” Hojo answered evenly. “I thought you’d found peace. Who was I to jerk you back to a place you despised?”
Sephiroth studied him. “Adequate,” he grunted. “Slippery bastard.”
“You come by your personality traits honestly,” Hojo replied. “What isn’t genetic is learned.”
Sephiroth smiled. “I’m sure you’re right, father.”
I felt tense just watching this. Sephiroth had the aura of a powder keg courting flame.
“Did you mean your apology to me or was that just a way to soothe a bit of guilt?”
“I can’t drop my guilt.” Hojo barely moved while speaking. “I did mean it. I’m sure it’s nearly worthless to you.”
“You don’t know me.” Sephiroth looked up at the ceiling. “Don’t assume you grasp my inner workings. You couldn’t figure me out as a child and nothing’s changed.”
“With you, boy, I assume nothing,” Hojo assured him.
“I’m not a boy.”
“My apologies. How do you want me to address you?”
“My name will suffice.” Sephiroth still didn’t look at him. “Was my mother pretty?”
“You have her features.” Hojo tilted his head. “Yes, Sephiroth, she was very lovely and very smart. In her own way she loved you. Neither of us believed we did you wrongly, though time and experience proved to me otherwise.”
They fell silent a short time. I beheld with relief the way Sephiroth’s shoulders began to relax slightly.
“Aren’t you going to have your evening drink?” he asked his father mildly. “You always had one about this time.”
I got up and went to the drink cabinet, anticipating being asked. My hands shook slightly as I poured a measure of whisky into a tumbler over ice.
Sephiroth made steeples of his fingers as Hojo accepted the drink. I went back to my chair and sat.
“Do I have any other relatives?”
“No. You and I are all we have.”
Sephiroth finally brought his eyes back to Hojo. “Until the end of the week, you don’t even have me,” he corrected. “I’m a thought construct, barely solid.”
Hojo flinched.
“Bothers you, does it?” Sephiroth asked. “Why?”
“You’re my son.” Hojo took his drink down in one pass and dropped the glass onto the carpeting. “You should be whole.”
“Even at the expense of the world, father?”
“Who do you think activated the Sister Ray for you, Sephiroth?” Hojo asked softly. “It certainly wasn’t the clone, the Turk, or any of that rag-tag group of rebels.”
“Was that you, giving energy?” Sephiroth smiled faintly. “I offer my belated thanks.” He looked at me. “Would you bring me back at her expense, if not the world’s?”
I stood up. “Don’t,” I said, meeting and holding those eyes. “Don’t make him say it.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Sephiroth replied.
“I fully grasp that, but I’m speaking to you,” I said calmly. “Your father has already made his choice. Don’t make him wallow in it.”
“Why not?” Sephiroth sat up. “He should appreciate that he only has three more days of your company.”
Hojo put his face in his hands.
Sephiroth wasn’t finished.
“He only has three more days with any of his little pets.” He smiled coldly. “I don’t feel like sharing him with you people.”