As per request from CidAngel'sTears, here is the latest instalment from the Hysteria series, this time Tseng.
This is not as funny as the other ones, since I could not really see Tseng going on a mad rampage. But hope you enjoy anyway.
A cameo from my longer novel makes an appearance. She is my character. The others belong to Square Enix, who evidently has a plot to steal my bank account. Damn you, Square!
Anyway.
Chief Hysteria
"Hey, CHIEF!"
Tseng was awoken from his routine meditation when the redhead shouted his name from across the corridor. He was an orderly man, and as opposed to his subordinate across the hallway, his office was the cosmos of the floor. He stood up, slowly, so not to disturb his equilibrium, and slowly peeked out.
"What is it?" he asked exasperatedly.
"I just got a notice from the Intel," Reno was yelling. Evidently he had no notion of office phones. Or perhaps he had pawned it, or perhaps it was lost amidst the porno magazines that Reno kept around his desk, calling it "research". Either way, Reno was yelling. "AVLANCHE hid some info on this website, and the Intel has to report every shit to Heidegger, and so they want us to…"
"Alright," Tseng said hurriedly. "I'll take a look. Forward the message."
Unbeknownst to Tseng, this was, in fact, an elaborate coup staged by Reno in a mad endeavor to include every heterosexual good-looking male on the PLANET in the torture he had suffered. And well, Tseng was his foremost target. It wasn't that Reno had any grudges against Tseng (or maybe he did); it was just that Tseng was the idol of "proper" office girls as opposed to what were termed "office sluts" in friendly terms, and well, Tseng seemed to like sending Reno into dangerous missions. It never occurred to the redhead that Tseng sent him into those missions simply because Reno was the best. Oh no. Reno thought – rather childishly – that Tseng was out to get him. He never stopped to think that Tseng had no reason to "get him" whatsoever.
Tseng sat in front of his desk; the computer cheerily chirped out that he had five new messages. Two were from Heidegger who seemed to not grasp the concept of ctrl alt delete, one was from Rufus regarding Reno going postal in the streets and shooting an inflatable teddy bear, one was from Scarlett asking why Reno had left his trousers in the women's lavatory on the floor below, and one was from Reno himself. He clicked open Reno's first.
The e-mail seemed authentic enough; Reno was good at his job. Tseng clicked open the link. It seemed to list links with short, badly worded descriptions of the links. The links themselves seemed to entail fictional writings of… well…
Him.
Wondering why AVALANCHE had picked him instead of anyone else as a search topic to encrypt the code and not realizing that the Intel officer who would send this kind of material – Arien DeVir – would most certainly use words with longer syllables, he clicked one open. He cannot be blamed for his mistake; the Intelligence rarely sent him any e-mails, and while he knew who Arien was, quite often the Intel would not sign the e-mails just in case there was a rival hacker trying to steal corporate secrets.
He read through the first few paragraphs, trying to decipher the code. There didn't seem to be any; he decided to pay attention to the events that transpired within the writings, wondering if the events were some directives to their next coup.
Big mistake.
The first thing that he registered was that somehow he had been transformed into a raging homosexual. And was being raped. By Reno. As far as Tseng was concerned he was straight – his oath of celibacy had prohibited him from copulating with anyone but his wife who had yet to exist, ergo there were no relationship gossips about him – and Reno had raging hormones of a sixteen year old boy that, if not for the treatment Turks received that rendered them sterile, would have left an army of Reno-clone-bastards all over Midgar and beyond. He seemed to have been contorted into an impossible position with ropes and chains, and Reno was violating him in ways that he did not know were possible.
This HAD to be a mistake.
Shaking his head as if trying to get rid of the imagery out of his mind, he clicked BACK and then proceeded to the next one. He read the first few lines, then skipped a few chapters. The first few lines of the new chapter made him want to regurgitate what he had for breakfast into the nearest receptacle.
"'Sir, I must beg of you, I am not…'
'Silence,' Rufus ordered coldly. 'Your imbecility appalls me. You must be punished.' He yanked the chain, and Tseng screamed in pain but felt his groin stir in desire. Rufus saw it, and chuckled. 'Ah, but you'd like it, won't you?'"
Tseng knew that Rufus did not give two pence about what he felt pleasurable. Rufus did not give any of his subordinates any time of his day. Rufus had better things to do. And clamps on his anatomy did not elicit screams from the Turks! He was better trained than that. He was not some Shinra flunkie sissy!
He picked up the phone, and dialed.
"Reno's porno delivery service."
"RENO!" Tseng said furiously. "What travesty is this?"
"Oh, yeah. Forgot to tell you. You gotta read through the entire series to get the message, or that's what the Intel said."
"Are you sure?"
"Dead sure."
Tseng hang up, sighing. He opened up another link, feeling a level ten migraine coming in to say hello. It looked like Mr Migraine was here to stay.
"'Hello, Tseng,' Sephiroth said, his silvery white hair swishing as if it had a will of its own. It caressed him, teased him, slid him out of his confining clothes. Sephiroth easily held him against the wall, Masamune in his other hand. His pale skin shone in the moonlight. Tseng marveled at the perfection of his face, felt his slender fingers tease his inner thighs…"
Tseng frowned. Was this what they were doing? Were they going to dig up Sephiroth? But no, that made no sense. The entire theme here seemed to be himself engaged in various homosexual intercourses. Was this it, then? Did AVALANCHE develop some virus to turn males gay? But how would that deter the Shinra Company from doing what they did? What were the treehuggers up to?
"Find the IP log of the posters to this… this filth."
"Yes sir."
Arien DeVir looked at the webpage curiously. They seemed to involve Tseng and some other male – some of them worked in this very building – in romantic relationships. Raising an eyebrow, she set to work. She was not the one to question an order from a superior, and a Turk at that. Nor was she the kind to gossip.
But why did Tseng need the IP logs? If he was actually gay, he could just as easily ask the males out. Reno would probably say no – he had a reputation for going through the ladies faster than toilet paper – but others… she had no idea.
It was easy to steal the IP logs from the server. She saved the IP in a spreadsheet, then attached it to an intramail, addressed to Tseng. She then hit send.
"I need you to create a prototype that will allow me to stab someone across the webnet."
The engineering team stared at Tseng in disbelief. But then again, Tseng looked as calm as always. There were always weird things going on the 66th floor; the engineer simply believed that Tseng was on some covert mission again. He nodded. This would not be too difficult to do. He set to work, and delivered a prototype the following week.
"Tseng, I need you to…"
Elena, who was standing by the door, shook her blonde head at Rufus. Sure enough, he heard the usually cool Turk arguing with Rude.
"Let me go, Rude! I am your superior!"
"Sir!"
BLAM. A chair hit the door. Then a stapler, followed by an electric pencil sharpener. Rufus opened the door angrily, and ducked to narrowly avoid being hit in the head by a pencil stand, which spat out an arsenal of writing utensils like shrapnel. He stood in his mighty fury, but Tseng was oblivious.
It was just when Reno had arrived to observe the scene when Tseng had decided that a desk would make a wonderful artillery to attack the doorway and the surrounding walls. Much to redhead's dismay, Tseng picked up the large, mahogany desk that was almost as large as he was, and threw it at the redhead.
"Jeez, Chief! Calm down!"
"Grawr!" Tseng howled, and threw The Midgar Constitution Vol III at Reno's face. This time, it hit the redhead squarely, knocking him unconscious.
The Midgar Police was puzzled. It was the fifth body in the week, and it was all the same; a very large stab wound in the ocular. It really made no sense to them; no entry into the house, no sign of violence. Just a stab.
The victims were random as well, apart from the fact that they were females. Of course, when the agents looked through their computers they came to realize that they had another thing in common; they all had very graphic homosexual porn involving an employee of the Shinra Co. But when the said employee was interviewed, all he could say was "grawr". Literally. Tseng had lost his mind, and was now chained to his desk, on which was an odd-looking contraption. But his lieutenant, Reno, had simply explained that the contraption was one of the failed projects from the Engineering Department that kept the now madman busy. The police left.
"Hey, Chief, they're gone."
Tseng whipped out a hairbrush, and gestured Reno to leave. The redhead obediently left. After taming his mane into some sensible form, he clicked open a chat console.
ILuvTsengie98: Who this
TU1927: I am an employee at the Shinra Company. I was informed that you wished to meet the head of the Investigation Sector?
ILuvTsengie98: Huh
TU1927: I was under the impression that you wished to meet the head of the Turks?
ILuvTsengie98: OMFG TSENG
TU1927: Thank you for your interest. Goodbye.
The girl never saw it coming. She was squealing in joy in her pink plastic rollie chair when suddenly, quite abruptly, a very sharp knife erupted from the PC monitor screen and burst into her eyesocket with so much force that the blade had gone through the central retinal vein and all the way into the cranium. The girl collapsed onto the computer desk without as much as a gurgle.
Tseng withdrew his hand from the maniacal contraption, and dipped the blade into a vat of alcohol. The blood dissipated into the ethanol; Tseng, sipping his afternoon tea calmly, clicked open another IP address.
Reno, spying the said man from the doorway, observed Tseng's calm countenance and shivered in terror. "Dude," he said, "I am never opening another chat or e-mail from Tseng again…"
