D'OH! I am an idiot. My computer is pluged into a surge protector. My good
modem was not. We had a lovely thunderstorm a couple of days ago. My
computer is fine, except for my &^*$$# modem. As a result, I am currently
having to use my old 2400 to access my e-mail and see how many hits my Cid
shrine has gotte. THerefore, if you C&C, I may not see it for...heh...quite
a while. Don't let that stop you, tho ^_^

------------
Final Fantasy VII: Children of Jenova

Chapter 7: 

Cid found Junior standing on the deck of the Highwind leaning against the
railing with her arms stretched out and the wind blowing her hair into an
assortment of crazy styles, and he chuckled as he took a spot beside her
and ruffled her hair. "What ya doin', kiddo?"

"Flying," Junior replied simply. "Daddy, where's Mama gonna work now?"

Cid shrugged. "I dunno. She's thinkin' about going to work for Reeve,
though." At the mention of that particular name, Junior turned light pink.
"Hey, kid...I got a question for you."

"Okay."

"How come you got all giggly and stuff back there when I asked you if you
were gonna say goodbye to Reeve?"

Junior blushed even more furiously and looked at her feet. "You better not
tell him."

Cid nodded. "I promise. You can beat me up if I do."

Junior found that image extremely funny and laughed. Then she scratched
little circles on the deck with her toe. "'Cause he's cute," she answered
bashfully.

Cid repressed the urge to burst out laughing once more. "You like him,
don't you?"

"Uh huh." Junior was silent for a minute. "Is he married?"

"Nope." In fact, Cid thought, he probably hadn't even been on a date in a
few years, having always been tied up at the plant. He worked his ass off,
that was for sure, and Cid found he had a lot of respect for the former
Shinra exec, and if Junior had been, say, fourteen years older he would
have gladly told her to go for it. "What about Zack? I thought you liked
him."

Junior shrugged. "Zack says girls are gross. Besides, I don't wanna marry a
guy I can beat up."

This time Cid did burst out laughing. "Those are pretty high standards
there, girl! You keep thinking like that and you're gonna end up like the
cat lady down the street!"

Junior laughed and made a face. The "cat lady" was pushing eighty, and she
shared her house with about thirty to fifty cats, most of which were about
two steps above feral and a few of which were probably rabid. As far as
anyone knew, she had never been married, and her dealings with neighbors
were limited to shouts of "Get off my yard!" and "Don't you be teasin' my
cats! I taught 'em to bite!" "Eww," Junior declared. "I don't like her
cats. They stink. And they don't talk like Cait Sith."

"That's 'cause they're not magic cats like he is." Cid lit up a cigarette.
"Did you get him to tell your fortune?"

"Oh yeah!" Junior pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. "'Visitors
bring gifts, your lucky color is blue.'" She scratched her head. "I think
this is an old one. I already had visitors with gifts on my birthday."

Cid nodded. "Yeah those fortunes of his are worth about what you pay for
'em," he laughed. 

Junior stuffed the fortune back in her pocket. "Why do we have to take Zack
to the doctor? Is he sick?"

"I hope not, honey." Cid put an arm around her shoulders. "They just want
to take a look at him."

"Okay." Junior was silent for a few minutes. "Daddy?"

"Yeah?"

"We gotta go home. I gotta do my homework."

Cid looked down, and the worried expression on the kid's face was
priceless. "Aww, don't sweat that. Besides, I think school's gonna be
closed for a few days till they get that wall fixed."

"Oh." Junior looked a bit sad. "Bummer."

"Bummer!? Hell, when I was your age I woulda been turning flips all over
the house if my folks told me school was closed!" Cid laughed and gave
Junior a hug, and Junior giggled as well.

*			*			*

Vail scowled at the ruins of the pod. What had gone wrong with this
particular subject? She took a look into a few other pods and was pleased
to see that the rest of the SOLDIER candidates looked just as they should
have. She decided not to worry too much about the one failed subject, and
she opened up a row of pods. The SOLDIER candidates inside them were in
perfect condition and a few were even ready to come out. The rest would
wait until tomorrow as scheduled, but the few Vail took with her back to
Shinra tonight would surely make Scarlet a happy woman. 

They were a bit disoriented; that was to be expected. One did not remember
his name. That was fine. Vail herded the three SOLDIER troops she would be
taking with her onto the chopper and headed back into the plant. She wished
she had an assortment of underlings like Hojo had; this would be a truly
distasteful task. But she would endure it. 

Vail donned rubber gloves, hauled a bucket of soapy water up the steps, and
set about the grisly task of cleaning up the pods for the next batch of
candidates. She certainly wished the process wasn't so messy. It hadn't
been for her, but she was an imperfect specimen; intelligent but physically
weak and frail. The egg that had become Vail had been fertilized and
incubated in test tubes and glass boxes. Vail had hoped to overcome that by
implanting the Jenova eggs into human hosts to incubate, and her experiment
appeared to be a complete success. Scarlet would be pleased. Hojo would
roll over in his grave. And that was all Vail asked for in life.

*			*			*

"Okay, Zack. Just roll up your sleeve for me and we'll be done before you
know it." Dr. Cooper smiled gently and handed Zack a stuffed bear to hold
on to during the unpleasant process of drawing blood. Junior was also in
the room, reading a motorcycle magazine she had found in the lobby, as well
as Cloud and Tifa. The other grownups had waited outside.

Zack frowned. "This is gonna hurt, isn't it?"

The doctor shrugged. "Yeah, a little. It won't take long, though.' He poked
and prodded Zack's arm, at the inside of his elbow, until he found a vein.
"Zack, why don't you look over at the G-Bike poster for a minute?"

"No way," Zack replied. "As soon as I look over there you're gonna stick
me."

"C'mon, Zack." Junior looked up from her magazine and rolled her eyes.
"It's not a shot. Shots hurt worse. It's just a little needle."

"You're right." Dr. Cooper nodded at Junior. "Shots do hurt worse because
of the medicine in them. This won't be bad at all."

"Yeah, right." Zack looked up at Cloud. "Do I HAVE to do this, Dad?"

"Yeah, buddy, I'm afraid so." Cloud nodded. "Tell you what. If you let that
nice doctor do what he's gotta do I'll take you to the Gold Saucer next
weekend. Okay?"

"Oh, okay." Zack sighed and resigned himself to his fate. He turned his
head away, and the doctor inserted the needle. "HEY! That HURTS!" Zack
wailed.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Almost done." He slid the needle out of the poor
kid's arm and applied a bright green band-aid to the puncture mark. "Hold
that on there tight and count to ten, then you can come in here and get a
balloon."

"Whoopee doo." Zack did as told as the doctor left the room with the vial
of his blood. "He lied to me. That hurt!"

Junior shrugged. "They do that. I kicked mine in the teeth once when he
tried to give me a shot."

Tifa helped Zack out of the chair and laughed. "What did your dad say about
that?"

Junior grinned. "He said it was his fault for trying to sneak up on me with
that stupid needle. Mama was pretty embarrassed, though. I got a real long
lecture about it."

Zack laughed. "Good for you, C.J.!" And he and Tifa walked out into the
lobby to collect his balloon. Cloud and Junior followed and got into the
lobby just in time to hear the doctor tell Tifa that he would call with the
results of the blood work tomorrow. With that, Cid herded everyone back
into the Highwind to drop them off at their respective homes, and the day's
festivities were officially over.

*			*			*

"That slimy little son of a BITCH!"

Scarlet was on the rampage to begin with, having heard of the mishap in
Nibelheim from the new Turks. Now Vail was standing here telling her that
Reeve had called her up to shoot the breeze about the Jenova eggs. "How
much does he know?"

Vail shrugged. "Not much. He knows they exist. That's all." She chuckled
and added, "And he believed me when I told him I knew nothing. I don't know
what President Shinra ever saw in him, personally."

"It's bad enough that he's running that little power plant of his out of MY
building," Scarlet spat. "That's it. I have HAD IT with that little
bastard. As soon as you wake those SOLDIER troops up tomorrow I want them
suited up and ready to fight. I'm taking Junon back."

"I think you're overreacting." Vail peered at Scarlet over her glasses and
sighed. "There's already an uproar over the Wratt & Pitney plant incident.
A lot of their best engineers walked off the job there as soon as Palmer
walked his portly little posterior through the door. I think it would be
safe to assume they are seeking employment with Junon Province. Can we
afford to lose more face by tearing things up in Junon?" She allowed
herself a little smile then and added, "And let's not forget, Reeve doesn't
just run a little power plant anymore. He is the governor of Junon, meaning
he practically runs that entire continent now that Midgar is dead. Any
attempt to take back our building by force would most likely be met with
strong resistance, from both the air and the ground. Remember, he does have
a rather powerful airship at his beck and call."

Scarlet growled. Vail was right. She was absolutely right. "Since when are
you my PR agent, anyway? Forget it. Okay...what the hell am I gonna do
here..." Scarlet rubbed her forehead. "What about the Turks? Couldn't we
have them pay Reeve a little visit?"

"I don't think Heidegger would go for that, but he doesn't have much choice
but to go along, does he?" Vail smiled sweetly. "It might have to wait a
while, though."

"Why?"

Vail shrugged. "Last I heard, Stuart still had the full-body shivers,
Archer was still busy trying to get drunk enough to forget the whole mess,
and Kain was still throwing up." She snorted. "Heidegger certainly knows
how to pick them."

"Yeah, well." Scarlet shot Vail some sort of nasty look. "Did he mention
that Raven filled one of your little monsters with bullets before it even
knew what was going on?" She took a moment to savor Vail's facial
expression and continued. "I think she should be able to whip them into
shape quick enough."

"Hmm. Judging from some of the rumors that are going around, your metaphor
is appropriate." Vail snickered. "I don't suppose Heidegger ever told you
where those bruises came from? The ones you noticed the day after Raven was
put in charge of the Turks?"

Scarlet held up her hand. "Stop right there. Don't EVEN put that image into
my head. Ugh."

"You're right," Vail mused as Scarlet squirmed. "That IS a disturbing
thought."

*			*			*

Reeve found himself walking on the sidewalk that ran beside one of Junon's
parks. It was a perfect day. The sun was out. It was neither hot nor cold.
Birds were flitting around and singing and doing their business on various
cars and sometimes on people who were unlucky enough to pass under the
wrong tree. And there was a little blonde girl in a pink Mog T-shirt
sitting under one of those trees, reading a book about airplanes. She
looked up and grinned. "Hi!"

"Hi, C.J." That was probably part of the reason she liked him so much. The
rest of the grownups called her Junior. Reeve called her C.J., just like
her friends did. "What are you doing here?"

"Reading." C.J. scooted over a little. "Wanna sit here?"

"I better not." And then for no apparent reason, he added: "You better go
home. It's dangerous here--" Dangerous? This was the park, for crying out
loud. The only danger C.J. could possibly be in was that of a bird pooping
on her library book and her having to pay for it. /Why did I say that?/

The little girl sniffled, closed her book, and stood up. "Fine." She turned
on her heel and started to walk away. As she did, a chill wind blew; this
was accompanied by thick black clouds filling the sky. 

"Wait!" Reeve started to run after C.J., but found that he couldn't move.
He could only watch as a dark shape descended from the sky above, holding a
terrible sword pointed downwards. "C.J.! Run!" he screamed as the dark
shadow came closer and closer.

The little girl looked up just as the dark man drove his sword through her
back.

The dark man's eyes met Reeve's; they were probably supposed to be brown,
but the weird glow within them was the color of dried blood. His white hair
stood out in spikes and points; his features were sharp and his face narrow
and thin, almost feminine; and he wore Sephiroth's black armor and cloak.
But it had not been the Masamune that had ended C.J.'s short life. 

The dark man smiled wickedly as he pulled the blade out of the little
girl's lifeless body, and Reeve realized with horror that it was the Ultima
Weapon.

"NO!"

Whump!

Reeve picked himself up off the floor of his office. "What the hell..." He
took a quick look at his watch and deduced that he had once again nodded
off at his desk; apparently he had also fallen out of his chair. "I gotta
go home someday and get some real sleep," he said to himself. The office
was dark and quiet and unbearably hot; to conserve energy, the air
conditioning in the Junon Hydroelectric building (formerly Shinra's Junon
office) was shut off promptly at five every afternoon. Reeve peeled off his
sport coat and loosened his tie. 

/What brought a nightmare like that on, anyway?/ he wondered, and decided
that this was one of the rare occasions when he really needed a drink, and
a stronger one than the twelve beers Cid had poured down him to trick him
into sending Cait Sith to entertain the kids at C.J.'s birthday party.

Yes, this would be a good time to go home. Reeve definitely didn't like
being in this building by himself, which at present he appeared to be.
Leaving his jacket in a rumpled heap on the floor, he stood a bit
unsteadily and stepped out into the dark hallway. The sound of footsteps at
the end of the hall made him freeze. "Who's there?" he called out. There
was no answer. "Shit." He ducked back into his office and opened a desk
drawer, finding a strange little device which he crammed into his pocket;
it looked something like a remote control, except it had two prongs on the
end that produced crackling miniature lightning bolts when he pressed a
button on its side. He headed back into the hall and saw three figures
approaching, and he quickly ducked behind a large potted plant. As soon as
one of the three was within reach, Reeve leapt out from behind the plant,
shoved the business end of the stun gun against the back of the intruder's
neck, and hit the switch.

"Urk!" The intruder dropped to the floor twitching, and Reeve hit the
lights.

The guy he had just zapped was none other than Rude.

"What the HELL!?" Reno and Elena came running up the hall to check on their
buddy, and Reno roughly hauled Rude to his feet and waved three fingers in
front of the bald ex-Turk's face. "Hey! Rude! You in there? How many
fingers am I holding up?"

"Fourteen," Rude muttered. Reno shrugged and slapped Rude on the back.

"Close enough for government work. Reeve, you really need to switch to
decaf."

At that moment, Reeve felt very much like a deflated balloon. "Jeez! What
the hell are you three DOING here? You scared the CRAP out of me!"

"Did we catch you at a bad time?" Elena asked. "We thought you might have
gone home, but Reno said you've been pulling some all-nighters lately and
we figured we'd check and see if you were still here."

"Nah. I'm okay. I just fell asleep at my desk and had this really messed-up
dream." Reeve rubbed his eyes and yawned. "And I was on my way to the bar
to have a drink. Feel free to join me."

"Well, we'd like to, but I think we better keep an eye on Rude till he
quits smoldering," Reno quipped. 

"Oh, shut up," Rude mumbled, shaking his head. "What the hell did you hit
me with, anyway?"

Reeve shrugged. "Stun gun. Don't leave home without it. Reno, is this
another friendly visit, or did you want to talk business?"

Reno laughed. "Well, I talked it over with Rude and Elena."

"And?"

"Well...we can't take you up on it right now. But we'll give you top
priority if you ever need to hire us on for a job or two. We'll even give
you a discount."

"I see." Reeve sighed. "Ah well. It's okay. Gentlemen, Elena, I'd love to
stand here all night and shoot the breeze with you, but I have just had a
nightmare that scared the living shit out of me, there is all kinds of
weird stuff going on at Shinra, and there is a bottle calling my name down
the street and offering to help me forget about all this long enough to get
a good night's rest for the first time in about two weeks. You can stand
here all night flapping your jaws or you can come get schnockered with me.
Which is it going to be?"

"Depends." Reno grinned. "Who's buying?"

Reeve rolled his eyes as he remembered exactly how much Reno alone was
capable of putting away. /D'oh...there goes my paycheck./ "It's on me."

"In that case, we'd be glad to join you." Reno handed Rude his sunglasses
(which had fallen off when he'd hit the floor) and started down the hall. 

"Reeve, before we get too inebriated to care I'd like to show you something
I ran across while I was taking my daily cyber-stroll through Shinra's
corporate e-mail system. Normally I charge a pretty penny for this kind of
stuff but this one's free." Elena opened her bag and extracted a few pages
of files, which she handed to Reeve. "You wouldn't believe how easy it's
gotten to hack into their system since Scarlet took over. Every password
she has on every single part of the system is 'Rufus' except for some
high-level stuff I haven't figured out how to get into, like the master
password list for the rest of the flunkies there. Still, I got some pretty
useful stuff here."

Reeve leafed through the printouts and frowned. "Something got into the
Nibel reactor?"

"Nope. It was already in there, from what the new Turks reported. Well,
their leader anyway. I don't know if you remember her. Chick named Raven.
Black hair, packs two pistols, looks like she stuffs her bra with
canteloupes." Elena grimaced. "I can't stand that broad. Nobody's ever seen
her without makeup. She's the biggest tramp in the world."

"Oh, GAWD." Reeve's jaw dropped. "I remember her all too well. So she
finally slept her way to the top, huh?" He laughed and shook his head. "She
never really bothered with me or Palmer, I guess I just didn't have
anything she wanted although I DO recall a couple of very racy e-mails
popping up on my terminal-- and Palmer, well...ugh, I don't blame her
there...but I was always hearing all these rumors about Raven and
Heidegger, and Raven and Rufus, and Raven and Hojo, perish the thought, and
Raven and Ts--" Reeve caught himself just in time and hoped Elena hadn't
noticed. She hadn't. "...hell, I heard once she even came on to SCARLET!"
He laughed harder. "And all these rumors had certain things in common, you
see...namely whips, chains, and hot oil, among other things..."

Elena pulled a face. "Eww. Do NOT go there. Just the thought of ANYONE
doing it with Hojo makes me want to barf. Now I REALLY need a drink to get
that out of my head."

Reeve started to head on down the hall, then he reconsidered. "I'll meet
you guys outside. I got a  phone call to make before I get out of here."

"Sure." Rude shook his head one more time, clearing out the last of the
cobwebs, and he and Elena took off.

Reeve went back to his office and flipped the lights on, then he picked up
the phone. He dialed Cid's number and after two rings was rewarded with
Shera's voice. "Hello?"

"Hi, Shera, it's Reeve. I just wanted to make sure you three got home
okay."

Shera laughed. "We're fine. Junior's still a bit wired, though. I take it
Cid told you what happened at school today."

"Yeah. That was terrible. At least nobody got hurt."

There was a pause. "Reeve? Now I might be wrong about this, I'm not an
expert on Materia, but the news on TV tonight said that several of the
monsters that attacked the school had been done in with lightning spells."

"And?"

"Well...I just happened to notice that Cid doesn't have any Lightning
Materia on his weapon, and Junior is taking great pains to hide that
infernal slingshot of hers from me. Now like I say, I could be wrong,
but--"

The pieces fell into place in Reeve's mind, and he barely restrained
himself from bursting out laughing. "I think Vincent has one. Don't jump to
conclusions."

"I guess you're right." Shera chuckled again. "Oh, by the way, Junior loves
your birthday present. That's the only stuffed animal she keeps on her
bed."

"Aww. Listen, I've got to run. Tell Cid and C.J. I said hello, okay? And
that job offer stands if you want it."

Shera paused a bit. "I'd still like to think about it a bit, okay? It IS an
awfully long way off."

"That won't be a problem. I can have a chopper haul you back and forth, but
take as much time as you want to think it over." He swallowed. He was
probably going to regret what he was about to do, but he went ahead with
it. "Hey, you mind if I talk to C.J. for a second?"

"Not at all." Shera called the girl to the phone.

"Hi," C.J. said.

"Hey, you." Reeve smiled a bit. "I think your mom's on to you about that
Materia you got."

"Uh oh." C.J. giggled. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I better find
somewhere else to hide it. Mama's gonna throw it away if she finds out."

"I bet your dad can hang on to it for you. You doing okay now? You looked
pretty shook up when you got here today."

"Uh huh. Is Cait Sith okay? He fell down and hit his head while we were
havin' ice cream." 

"Heh...yeah, he's fine. Listen...I just wanted to tell you we're all very
proud of you. You did something very brave today at school. I mean, you
saved your teacher. That was pretty cool."

Reeve could almost hear Junior blushing. "Aww...it wasn't a big deal."

"I bet Mrs. Cole thought it was. Tell you what...next time you come see me
I'll have something for you. What would you say to, oh, I don't know... a
little more firepower? I saw a really cool slingshot at the weapon store
the other day."

C.J. giggled. "Don't tell Mama." 

"I promise." Reeve smiled. "I gotta go, and you need to go to bed. You be
careful, okay?"

"Okay. 'Night."

"Night, C.J." Reeve hung up and headed out for the night. The image in his
head of the spiky-haired Sephiroth running C.J. through with Cloud's sword
was almost out of his mind. A few drinks would banish it completely.

At least he hoped so.
 
*			*			*

Late that night, Dr. Cooper was double and then triple-checking what he'd
found in the little Strife boy's blood. After careful comparison with the
sample he already had, he was sure. Jenova cells. And they were active; not
only that, they were multiplying.

He stepped away from the microscope, not sure if it would be a good idea to
wait until morning to call Cloud or to just ring him up now. 

He would have spent more time thinking about it, but his train of thought
was interrupted by the blade of a very long sword being driven into his
back.

"Thank you, Doctor. You've done my work for me." Vail sat down, huffing and
puffing, and dropped her brother's sword. God, it was heavy. She proceeded
to help herself to the vial of blood labelled "Strife, Zack", slipping it
into her pocket. Just for the hell of it, she peered into the microscope.
"Almost time," she muttered, scratching absent-mindedly at the Roman
numeral tattooed on her arm. "Almost time."

Vail caught her breath. As a Sephiroth clone, she had left much to be
desired. For one thing, she had turned out to be female, which Hojo had
regarded as a complete failure. Still, he'd kept her and numbered her and
studied her. She was physically weak; another failure. Still, she had the
gift of Jenova. She concentrated, and her body began to change, growing
taller and heavier, her long white hair changing to silver and shortening,
her voice deepening. Perfect. Now to ditch the body. Well, that wouldn't be
a problem. There was an incinerator out in the back of the clinic. After
much straining, grunting, panting, and wheezing, that little problem was
solved. There had been very little blood spilled, so that part of the
cleanup was easy. One of the few things Vail liked about that big damn
sword...it certainly was clean.

She flipped through the doctor's phone file, found the right number, and
dialed. After four rings, a very sleepy-sounding female voice answered.

"Wha?"

"Hello, Tifa. This is Dr. Cooper in Mideel. I want you to bring your son
back here first thing in the morning. There are some more tests I need to
run on him." 

---

Author's notes: Are you sick of reading these damn notes yet? Are all those
rumors about Raven really true? Apparently the one about her and Scarlet
doesn't have much merit, but isn't it fun to watch the Shinra corporate
rumor mill at work? And were Elena's comments a bit of foreshadowing,
predicting a Raven/Elena cat fight in the future? Especially she finds out
about those rumors that Raven was boinking Tseng...I don't know yet, but it
seems like a hilarious idea...Boy, Vail is one evil bitch, ain't she?
Starting next chapter, things are gonna start escalating fast and a lot of
shit is gonna start hitting the fan. Stay tuned. Oh, one more thing.
Writing fiction places one on a level right up there with Zeus and Odin and
company, i.e. one can take whole cities, move them around, and have their
citizens go on as if nothing had happened. My point? Since I haven't made
much mention of Neomidgar's location yet, I've decided to move it.
Originally I had it pegged just north of Gongaga. It now sits on the Wutai
island, on the plateaus with the bridges running between them. Branford is
still east of the Gold Saucer, on that little peninsula. One of these days
I'm going to upload a CoJ-world map to my website.

--Sailor Solathei
"Ice...snacks...and--fifty gallons of BEER!? What kind of life does she
lead, anyway!?" --Shinji Ikari
"Hang on to your drawers and don't piss in 'em!" --Cid Highwind
"A brand new ML to blow up! Wai!" --Zen
--------------------
Happiness is a belt-fed weapon
--------------------
Sailor Solathei's Cid Highwind shrine (still under very heavy construction)
http://members.xoom.com/ssolathei/cidshrine.html and the Cid Highwind Otaku
Ring: http://members.xoom.com/ssolathei/ring.html