jaded_grin | Episode 45

Happy Monday, everyone! Thank you to everyone who sent me suggestions! You all have such fantastic and fun ideas that I’ll try to find a way to use them all, even if I have to apply them to other characters :D - I'll be getting back to all of you individually when I get a second, so I'm sorry for the delay in my replies *snugs you all*! I hope this week's episode gives you all some things to consider about the city of Midgar and the people who live within it, and once you read, please give me an answer to the question at the end! Thank you guys so much! I can't believe we've kept this going this long! WOOT!

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“Zack, there you are!” Neala called, hurrying away from the reception desk in Reno’s grand, towering home. Her pretty, round face was pinched with concern as she approached him. “The whole lower floor is without water, I have no idea what happened! But the girls and boys are going to need to bathe when they get up this afternoon, so I was hoping you could find the problem.”

He nodded a little, his thoughts still on Kadaj and what had gone down. He’d spent a restless night alone, wakeful, and for some reason he’d dreamed of the Brotherhood.

“Thank you so much!” Neala breathed, and hugged him, one of the few people in Reno’s house to show gratitude for what he did. “Oh! And Mister Reno finally cleared your pay – he’s set a bank account up for you, like he does for all of us.”

Zack’s brow rose at this news, knowing it was very likely Reno did his business that way so he could yank the funds whenever he saw fit. But Neala was genuinely happy for him, and scurried to present him with his debit card and bank information, so Zack didn’t want to burst her bubble.

Someone in this gods-cursed house should be happy for a change.

Still furious with himself, Zack went down to the basement in search of the busted main, knowing it was probably down in the little-touched depths of the house that the pipes would give.

Reno’s home was an original store-front to warehouse to factory building from Midgar’s earliest Industrial Age. Unfortunately, so was most of the plumbing. In his various repairs, Zack was appalled to find rotted wiring – still live – in the paper-dry, cob webbed walls, and rusted out pipes housing nests of mice and rats. The entire house needed serious renovation outside of the surface renovations done in the main store-front and warehouse area where Reno lived with his beauties and ran his business. The few times Zack had ventured into the empty, unused factory portion of the building with its heavy, rusted iron machinery draped in webs and dust, he’d very nearly fallen through the floor.

So when he started to check the basement rooms and their maze of piping, he was pretty surprised to find a fairly new, domed, twist-locked manhole cover seated in the dirt and decomposed concrete floor of one of the many, tiny, dark rooms.

“What the heck?”

He shined his flashlight on it, circling it curiously. There were dots and splashes of rusty-something on it that smelled faintly of fear and meat.

It wasn’t his business, it honestly wasn’t, and he knew that…but it didn’t stop him from putting his flashlight down and twisting the release.

The cover swung open on oiled hinges, emitting a cloud of steam and the awful stench of rotten meat.

“What is this?” he choked, fanning his face, his eyes watering from the boiling heat and steam coming out of the hole.

It slowly dissipated and Zack grabbed his flashlight, seeing a metal-lined tunnel plunging down into darkness. It was caked in places by more heavy red rust, and Zack was not so divorced from his previous livelihood that he couldn’t tell it was blood.

‘This must be where he puts down his trouble-makers,’ he thought, wondering how deep the tunnel was and where it went. ‘He must just toss them down in there to rot, if the smell means anything.’

It literally sickened him, and he worked quickly to close it all back up tight, horrified at the thought of the dead lying unblessed beneath the house.

He roamed the basement with an unsettled feeling, disturbed by his discovery. He found and patched the main on auto-pilot, making his way back upstairs still in a fugue of disgusted realization.

Neala saw him emerge from the restricted area to the basement and called, “Zack? Hey, are you okay? You’re very pale.”

He shook his head a little and asked, “Neala, what sits below this place?”

“Uhm…I dunno. Dirt?” she offered, and corrected it to, “Well, about a mile of dirt and concrete, and then the metal of the plate. Oh, and the slums below, too, I guess.”

Zack had heard of Midgar’s suspended structure, of how they had grown upwards when the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other had prevented outward growth. When he’d come to the city he had looked for traces of this infamous plate, but had seen only a city spreading out in concentric circles. He’d assumed that the plate and the slums below had been tales of the exotic and strange concocted by country people who’d never left their homes, and he’d left it at that.

“Wait, you’re saying Midgar really is built atop the remains of another city?” he clarified, his mind returning to the huge vents behind Reno’s sprawling place, the ceaseless flow of steam he’d assumed came from the huge reactors marking the limits of the city.

“Yeah, of course! The whole city was built atop a huge metal grate, on layers of concrete and then packed dirt,” Neala said, eager to give him a lesson on her native city. “But it was built over seven other cities when one of the former president’s city plans were rejected by their combined Directors. When he couldn’t build his city where theirs stood, he went over their heads instead. I hear it’s really scary down there, that the darkness made all of the people left a little crazy.”

Zack’s brows drew down and he thought of that dark tunnel, the steam of which was so like the steam venting out in the alley…

“You’ve never been down there?” he asked, and Neala twitched, startled, vehemently saying, “Heavens no, Zack! No one goes down there if they can help it! I was born up here in Mister Reno’s house. I wasn’t pretty enough to be sent overseas, or sharp enough to be sent to school, but I was never dumb enough to be sent down to the butchers, which is the only way I’d ever go to the slums!”

“Wait, what?” Zack asked, perplexed. He’d heard the threat before, about sending people to the butchers below the plate – but that, too, he’d written off as a rumor, an empty threat, a boogey man. “What do you mean, sent down to the butchers?”

Neala was a little taken aback by his ignorance, but hesitantly told him, “They’re a sect below the plate, Zack. They butcher the dead and…and distribute the flesh as public rations. They’re all…cannibals.”

Zack recoiled violently from that gross desecration of human dignity and rights. Even the Brothers would give burials, no matter if it was just a scrap of skin or a puddle to put into the good, growing earth. To consume the dead went against everything Zack believed in, both morally and religiously.

“When there’s someone causing trouble,” Neala said, her voice falling into a fearful whisper, “Then Mister Reno sends them down to the butchers.”

Zack swallowed hard, fighting back bile, trying to get his mind around something so deeply offensive.

“And if they’ve really pissed him off, he doesn’t kill them first.”

“Heavenly Goddess show Your merciful face!” Zack breathed, unconsciously uttering the Brotherhood’s blessing.

“Zack?” Neala asked, moving closer to place a small hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just…” Zack struggled to express his horror of such a violation, such sacrilege. “It’s just…revolting!”

Neala nodded in sympathetic understanding, but the butchers were a part of the culture she’d grown up in, the stark truth of her world.

“How could he sanction such a thing?” Zack asked, stunned. He’d known Reno was not a moral man by the loosest of standards, but he’d never dreamed the man would be so low as to send off bodies to be consumed.

“Well, it’s only rumors, but there’s talk they’re his people,” Neala confided, whispering it to him with a shifty glance around the empty room. “Mister Reno, Zack – there’s talk he came from under the plate, and that his people are butchers. Sometimes when he talks he sounds like the ones he brings up from below. The ones his dogs find turning tricks off his books.”

“He runs rings down in that place, too?” Zack asked, shocked all over again. “It sounds like the pits of hell!”

“It is, from what I hear. But anywhere people have the Gil, they’ll spend it on ass,” Neala said, simply stating a known fact. “He has a House down there same as he has here, where his keeps his under-plate whores. Only the really pretty ones come up top, and he goes down once every year to see if any of the little ones have grown up beautiful.”

Zack shuddered, for the first time realizing exactly what it meant to have an Empire of Flesh. Reno traded in bodies, alive and dead.

“That’s…that’s just disturbing,” Zack breathed, muted with horror. “So that’s what that chute in the basement is, then…”

“Yeah,” Neala said, solemn at the thought of what the basement held. “Nobody wants to be trouble enough to go to the basement with Mister Reno. That body chute goes straight down to the Sector Seven slums.”

Zack frowned and shuddered again, his skin crawling. He’d have preferred for the bodies to lie unblessed beneath the house than find out they were processed like animals and given out to other people to eat.

“So no unfortunate soul below the plate ever sees the light of day?”

Neala smiled a little and ruefully said, “Only the pretty ones…”

“Well, well, look who has decided to grace us with his presence.”

“Shut up, Lazard!” Rufus snapped, irritable. He was still angry over his confrontation with Reno, and doubly angry that he was even up at this ungodly early hour.

He dropped down into the plush seat next to Lazard and asked, “Where’s my father at?”

“He isn’t feeling well,” the man said, an elegant gesture of his slender fingers bringing a server bearing sparkling water and cut crystal glasses. “Your mother asked me to come in his stead. Lovely woman, your mother.”

“Yes, if you like blood-sucking, child-abandoning, bossy blonds, I suppose she is,” Rufus sourly said, and chased two aspirin with a noisy gulp of water. “You’ve brought his papers, I assume?”

Lazard smirked and produced a thick envelope of paperwork, which Rufus snatched away and opened.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious how ill he is?” the man asked, looking at Rufus over the tops of his glasses.

Rufus snorted, but didn’t reply except to say, “My relationship with my father is none of your business, Lazard.”

“You know, you’re very amusing, Rufus,” Lazard murmured, and took a sip of his water, his smile sly. “Surely you realize that this recent effort of yours to actually give a damn about this country or your father’s company is truly unnecessary?”

“Shut up, will you?” Rufus suggesting, flipping through the papers. “No one is interested in your nonsense.”

“It’s only that your father has already drawn up the documents to name me his successor.”

Rufus dropped the papers and stared at him, incredulous.

“Oh, now, don’t look so surprised,” Lazard smugly said, and inspected his buffed nails. “You’ve worked for your father since you were seventeen years old, as have I. And in that time you’ve done a grand total of one week’s worth of actual work.”

He looked at Rufus and asked with soft satisfaction, “You didn’t honestly think that he would put the welfare of his life’s work in the hands of a man like you, did you? I mean, truly, Rufus, you’re only interested in the company insofar as it pays your bills, and you’re merely waiting on your father to do you the favor of dying.”

Rufus twitched a little. True though it may be, hearing it put so bluntly offended him.

“He’s always been so proud of you,” Lazard said, taking another sip of his water. “I think his greatest disappointment has been your callous disregard. Tell me, Rufus, do you plan on visiting him before he dies? Or will you be too busy playing golf, hm?”

Reno could tell that Yazoo was still thinking about Kadaj, and racked his brain for some way to distract her. She was Cetran, after all, and no amount of genteel rearing could deaden her senses entirely. Her family had done a good job of gutting her of any Cetran responses, but it would seem they’d missed a few spots.

“I got an invite to attend the Independent Film Awards Showing this year, box seats with the President of Setora,” he said, pushing a coil of silver hair back behind her dainty ear. “You wanna go with me?”

Yazoo just gazed at him with those wide, cat-like, green eyes, stunned.

“To the showing?”

“Yeah,” Reno said, and chuckled a little at her hopeful tone.

“In the Setoran Capital?” she clarified.

“Well, it is the only place it’s ever been,” Reno agreed, smiling at her incredulity.

“Which is an ocean and several time zones away, and starts tomorrow night?” Yazoo finished, and laughed a little. “How would we get there?”

“Don’t worry, baby, I got a way,” Reno said, and winked. “I own more than just my choppers, Cateyes. Them jets ain’t just for looks, ya know.”

A slow, delighted smile curved up Yazoo’s full lips and she whispered, “I would love to!”

Reno laughed when she flung her arms around him again, pressing against him, all delicate bone and slender flesh.

“One thing, Cateyes – leave the Gorilla behind,” Reno suggested. “He gives me the creeps, and you’ll be with my muscle, so you’ll be safe.”

The mention of Rude seemed to sober her a little, and she pulled away, her beautiful face awash with concern.

“Oh, dear. However will I explain this to Rufus?” she whispered, suddenly remembering her duties to Midgar at large. “I…I can’t simply flee the country with another man! I could never show my face again, I – ”

“Baby, stop,” Reno firmly said, cupping her delicate jaw to look down into her worried eyes. “Look, here’s the deal – Midgar already thinks we’re a couple, Rufus hasn’t really shown any interest outside of making an ass of himself at that gala event, and ultimately nobody cares. You get that, right? People have always assumed we was a thing, so why live cautious when it don’t matter in the end? Yeah?”

For a long moment she seemed torn with indecision, but she was too used to complying, too used to taking the path of least resistance, and eventually her bright, wide smile returned full force and she breathlessly said, “You’re right. I’ll start packing.”

“There’s my Cateyes,” Reno murmured, and kissed her simply because he could.

Reeve paced the length of his empty studio, feeling oddly deflated now that he was a success and all of his paintings were spoken for. He hadn’t expected to be rocketed into the public eye under such circumstances. He’d fully expected to be a failure, to be relegated to the throngs of washed-up artists…yet here he was, suddenly a very rich man with a long list of patrons willing to fund his “stunning physical representations of uncannily detailed memories,” as Cloud Strife had written.

His phone buzzed, startling him, and he fumbled it from his pocket, assuming it was Genesis calling to drive him even more bananas.

“Reeve Tuesti,” he said, attempting to be pleasant.

“Mister Tuesti, this is the personal secretary of the Emperor of Wutai.”

Reeve nearly dropped his phone in shock, and spent a solid minute flailing to keep it from tumbling to the floor. Finally, he righted it and was able to say, “I beg your pardon? Could you repeat that, please? I was having a bit of phone trouble.”

“Mister Tuesti, the Emperor of Wutai has it on good authority that you are friends with his daughter, Yuffie.”

Reeve’s mouth dropped open in shock. He’d thought all of that White Rose of Wutai Princess crap was a stage thing. He’d never in a thousand years dreamed she actually was the daughter of the Emperor of Wutai, however often he’d referred to her as a Princess.

“He has heard of your success through his daughter and various associates, and he would like to commission a painting from you, a portrait, actually.”

Reeve sputtered a little, but finally managed to come up with the singularly intelligent response of, “A portrait of whom, exactly, sir?” and he promptly cringed at himself.

“A portrait of the Princess, of course,” came the smooth reply. “He would like you to paint a memory of Lady Yuffie Kisagari, the White Rose of Wutai.”

Reeve blinked, absolutely out of his element.

“Uhm…very well…it might take some time…”

“Time and cost are no matter, he is content to wait and finance your painting as it comes along,” the man told him. “But he would like it to be a…tasteful memory.”

“Yes, of course,” Reeve said, blushing a little, because most of his memories of Yuffie were absolutely not tasteful. “Any preference on the size?”

“He would like to hang it in the great hall next to other family portraits,” he was told. “So nothing below twelve feet tall. He leaves the exact dimensions to you, as he has little time to be bothered with such petty details.”

“Well, I would imagine he’s rather busy, as an Emperor,” Reeve said, and cringed again at the weighty, thoroughly not amused silence that followed.

“If you will hold, I will put you on the line with the fiscal department, and they will set up the payments to your household, Mister Tuesti.”

Reeve blew out a breath and said, “Of course, and thank you so much.”

“The pleasure is ours…provided you do not disappoint him.”

Reeve heard the line click and then his ear was filled with traditional Wutain music, soft and lilting. He waited diligently, already composing the painting in his mind’s eye of the Princess as he remembered her best – her dark eyes alight with laughter and her smile wide as she led his future into his dismal little studio.

Who should come up from below the plate? Because, honestly, you know it's coming!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

etrix.livejournal.com

Um, wow and, y'know, ewww.

Poor Zack having to come across that. I didn't even smell it and my gag reflex was working hard.

It's highly disturbing that such a place exists in Midgar, (Are you sure you're not channelling Silent Hill?) but it gives Reno's ladies even more reason to want to keep Zack around (because I can imagine many unsavoury things crawling out from down below *shudder*).

As to who should come through... I'm thinking Nero the Sable from DoC. Something about the way he was dressed seems to fit a (literally) underworld figure. From the original game, it has to be Hojo. He'd love it down there, all those helpless specimens to experiment on and no one to give a damn. Not his fault if a few of his 'babies' escape.

[Zack defeats them and becomes a hero; Cloud splashes his picture all over the media; The Brotherhood now knows where he is... not good.]

Final thought: I knew Reno wasn't a nice person, but now that I know he supports something like that, I'm thinking he's positively icky. Yazoo needs to get far, far away from him.

From:

etrix.livejournal.com

I forgot to mention the cheering I did when Lazard pointed out the facts of ShinRa-life to the ever-lazy butt that's Rufus. Time for the son-but-not-heir to wake up. >}

Also, Reeve's shocked horror at being popular and celebrated, rather than lonely and obscure is a wonderful touch. There's a curse that says "may your fondest wish come true", I think he's experiencing this. He'll do a wonderful job painting Yuffie. He just has to paint her as he'd like her to be, rather than what she is and it will be beautiful. =]

From:

natila.livejournal.com

that was an excellent chapter and creepy too ! :o It sent delicious shivers down my spine... eeeek ! The butchers below the plate ! Now I want to have a look down there by myself ;) How sinister ! Reno is even more monstruous that I thought.

Reeve.. poor guy ! having to paint a "tasteful" portrait of Yuffie ! :D It could take some times, yes, because I have the feeling she will never manage to stay in place for more than 5 minutes XD

hahaha ! Point and laugh at Rufus !!! good, I say ! :D I guess it has to be a girl ? Tifa ? hahaha ! :D She is pretty enough !

and who should come up from below the plate ? ummm..

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Otherwise known as the journal of Jaded Grin

Episode 45

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