So Close

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or even the plot. It's my version of a movie I saw with the same title.

Prologue: The Angel Attack

It took years for his dream to be realised. The day had finally arrived, and his plans were to be enacted. There were no flaws in his ingenious planning; there were no room for flaws. His actions will hold no consequences because his plan was absolutely sound. If anything, above all, his best trait would be his thoroughness; the single-minded endevour to get things accomplished for the greater good: himself. Soon he would have absolute power.

If he were any lesser man his plans would be short-sighted and botched at best. It took proper calculations and thoroughness to commit the crime he was about to in less than a day. Nothing could be traced back to him, though he would be one of the prime suspects. His plans were safeguarded. If anything were to be amiss, then there were to be evidence planted to ensure another's arrest. He had many enemies, and many close relations with said enemies.

Rufus ShinRa smirked as he watched the first rays of the sun peek through the metropolis known as Midgar. Soon the city would be his and no one would have the power to overthrow him.

Rufus, clad in complete white to signify that his hands were never soiled, glanced towards his nearby computer. It was almost time for him to begin his normal daily activities. He bit down the urge to gloat, he would have plenty of time to do that way after his father's murder.

An alert from an incoming transmission from the intercom was heard. "Yes?" at the sound of his voice, the voice-activated device allowed the caller permission to communicate.

"Mister ShinRa," A sweet, feminine voice echoed out. Smartly, the woman began her message without waiting for a reply, "You have an appointment to be ready for in thirty minutes with Mister Don Corneo,"

"I'm aware of that, thank you,"

"I will alert you for your next meeting, sir. Have a good morning!" And the transmission ended.

Today would be a good day. No one suspected a thing.

Board meetings were such an unnecessary inconvenience. Everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to do, and what the ultimate goal was. It was mandetory, nonetheless. So when President ShinRa gathered all of his top employees for the routine gather-round for progress updates, it was just another mundane story-telling waste of time for him.

ShinRa was proud of his life's work, however. He owned the top grossing business in all of Midgar. Cross that, the world! His company farmed pure energy, Mako, from the deep core of the planet and converted it to usable energy for everyday metropolitan life. Everyone needed him, for there was no other competition, and he needed everyone's money. So to why there was mandatory progress meetings, he didn't honestly know. People were replaced easily, and those who didn't do their job usually ended up as collateral damage for some unheard of accident. Whoops.

ShinRa grinned to himself while ignoring one of his employees as he spoke confidently about how his firm's progress was excelling the monthly quota. Whoop-dee-fucking-do. Everyone knew if you failed ShinRa, you disappeared. It was no surprise to him how everyone sucked up and did their job with perfect marks. You had to to survive, he trusted his employees knew the consequences.

Glancing at something worth while to look at, he watched his main computer in the background showing the results of how his precious Mako generators around the world were faring. No one dared to mess with ShinRa, so everything was as perfect as it could get. With all the worker bees doing their job, ShinRa could just be relaxing on Costa del Sol right now. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case today. Noting the exceptionally high numbers, ShinRa allowed his grin to break wider on his face. The more minutes passing, the more gil would be in his pocket.

That being said, his entire fortress was impenetrable. He had the best of the best working under him to ensure his money stayed in the billions. So when an alert flashed from the main computer room on the opposite side of the board room, ShinRa didn't know how to react.

No one was looking in that direction, as they paid attention to the speaker at the moment; and no one was paying attention to the president who had a flabbergasted expression on his face. It was only when the intercom in the room went off ShinRa snapped back into reality. "What?" He barked, shutting his presenting employee up immediately.

"S-sir," One of the attendants of the main computer room spoke. "T-the main computer has been br-breached."

"What?" He yelled, standing up and pushing up the boardroom table with his oversized gut. "Well fix it!"

"We tried. It somehow got passed through our main defenses, then our secondary ones didn't even phase it, and our backup files are frozen due to the virus type. We're... we're at a loss,"

ShinRa gritted his teeth. This was unheard of! "I don't care how you do it, but get your fucking ass working harder to fix the problem or I'll have all of your heads on a pike,"

"Y-yes sir!"

The transmission ended. Everyone in the boardroom then began to freak out while looking at the adjacent room and the over-sized monitor in it as it continued to flashed a red alert.

"Father, I told you that we had to keep our secondary virus defenses as high as our primary ones," Refus calmly explained to his father, who was looking as if he would massacre everyone in the vicinity. Now was not the time to mention past mistakes, now was the time for action.

"I don't care. I hired the best, obviously these incompetent fools aren't and deserve to be cut. After this ordeal is fixed I'll show them never to-"

Rufus clenched his teeth to hold back from lashing out at his father before his underlings. Being the Vice-President and CEO of the Mako corporation, he had to be wary of the example he set for his underlings. Unlike his neanderthal of a father, Rufus always kept his control. Uncannily so.

Luckily, President ShinRa was abruptly shut up, before Rufus's patience wore thin, by the sight of the charts rapidly decreasing. ShinRa anxiously watched in hopeless desperation as his technical team worked fast to remedy the problem.

As the numbers dropped so did his heart. As far as he knew the end of the world was coming, and no saviour was there to collect his body before the final hit killed him.

Then suddenly the numbers began to rise again and, as everyone kept their eyes glued on the large monitor, the red alert sign suddenly disappeared.

ShinRa clicked for the intercom to call his technicians. "Tell me what's going on!" he yelled, his heart rapidly beating again.

"I-I don't know. We didn't do anything, but apparently a new anti-spyware, called the Angel, is fighting back the virus!" The voice replied eagerly, almost happy. "Everything is going back to normal. Whatever, no, whoever this Angel is it's saving us!"

ShinRa smirked. His fortune was still safe. No matter, he could always make more. But this Angel, whoever that is, must be something special. If even his most highly-trained and intelligent computer nerds couldn't fix this, and yet a simple anti-spyware from an unknown user could, then maybe he could just use whoever this Angel was and make them work for him. With such high-tech brilliance on his side he'd be completely unstoppable!

The president began laughing maniacally loud at his ingenious forethought. After all, who could deny the prospect of power and endless fortune?

Rufus smirked in the background, unaffected by the chaos around him. So far everything was going as planned.

Revised: 25.11.11