Working Towards Happiness Chapter 1: The City

Metal, concrete, and steam…the three things most common to the floating city called Midgar. Black, deep brown, gray, forest green, stained white, midnight blue, and blood red… everything in Midgar is one of these colors. There are no bright shapes or colorful displays, save the glow of the neon lights. It is a city that has become a slave to its own technology. Midgar is a place of cold inorganic buildings and streets where no flowers or tress grow except in private gardens. Instead skyscrapers and smog obscure the skyline. The sky is dull gray in the daytime, pitch black at night, and in-between it seems as if the blood red sunrises and sunsets are a confirmation that the life of this world is slowly slipping away... The sky cries those tears of blood for its inhabitants, both the good and the bad. Although the city seems ominous to lookers used to green pastures and clear skies, it has become a home to many, a life to some, and torment to others.

For those with money and power, Midgar is a paradise. Here the law of the land is Shinra's will and everyone important is with Shinra. As its domination of this globe continues, more people join the ranks of those with power and money. The sunrise to the rich is the symbol of a new day to become greater, a new day to become more powerful. It seems to challenge them. Midgar is the home to the rich.

To the workers who work in Midgar, mostly for Shinra, the city is a way of life if not life itself. Day in and day out brings paperwork, typing, and a paycheck. When the moon has at last risen in the eastern sky, the night life of the worker comes to light. Amid dancing and drinks, the everyday person can be found enjoying the fruits of his or her labor. True, from time to time they complain, but nevertheless, they keep working. Why? Perhaps, it is their dreams that keep them going. They dream of the day when the money they earn will be enough to buy happiness, for that is truly everyone's wish deep inside. Even though forms of happiness are different, in the end it is all we ever search for.

For those who have no money, Midgar is an eternal torment. Those who live below the plate in the slums below have no say or power. They are either poor or rebels against the glory of Shinra. They live in the darkness, never seeing the sky, among garbage where crime is something that happens every day and the dawn of the sun brings nothing but another day's struggle to survive. Life's unfair, that's what they say, but truly they are poor by their own account. They are all rebels against Shinra, unemployed, or avid gamblers. What little money they have they make no use of. With hard work, anyone can get out of the slums, but it takes time and careful planning. They are their by their own fault.

Midgar is the home to the rich, the torment of the poor, and the life of the workers. It is a paradise for some, and a living hell for others. Shinra rules everything, Shinra reigns supreme, and everything and anything revolves around Shinra. Shinra is to be admired? Hated? Each person must make that decision on their own. Do you 'go with the flow' and eventually reach that guaranteed happiness that Shinra promises? Or do you rebel and risk everything for one of two outcomes, death or a greater happiness? More likely those who rebel receive death. It is just punishment for those who wish to destroy all that Shinra has created.

Upon which side do your loyalties lie? Which battle do you fight: the one to overthrow Shinra or the one to gain power and glory working for Shinra? Everything is Shinra. Upon saying that, I shall ask again: upon which side do your loyalties lie?

"With Shinra, of course. You'd have to be stupid to fight it."

Inside a dimly lit apartment on the tenth floor of the Shinra Workers Apartment Complex in Sector 3 of Midgar, Sukidaai Ko Usowana snapped closed the notebook that contained the paragraphs she had written about Shinra and Midgar. It was a rather introspective piece that she one day hoped to turn into a book. It had taken weeks to perfect the few paragraphs that were written. After all, her job was demanding. Sukidaai Ko Usowana had worked for Shinra since her twelfth birthday, when she had sorted mail in the mailroom and made the daily coffee and doughnut runs. Twenty years later, at age thirty-two, she had risen through the ranks of the company to come to work on the 54th floor.

In Shinra, the higher the floor you worked on, the more important you were. The building contained 70 floors, with the president residing on floor 70 and everyone underneath him on the floors below in corresponding order. Floor 60 was the highest floor a normal worked could advance to, since floors 62 to 70 contained spies, generals, scientists, and other important people.

Sukidaai, called Suki by her co-workers since they always mispronounced her full name, had worked long and hard to get where she was today. The childish girl with sapphire eyes and golden blonde hair who had run around giving workers coffee and doughnuts had matured into a well cultured worker with quick hands who followed protocol exactly. Suki had a spot-less, label-less record.

Shinra kept records on every person in the world. The records listed personal information, such as age, gender, and birth date, as well as criminal data. The records kept track of a person's offenses (when they broke one of the many laws). Each different offense was worth a point value. The records kept track of the offenses and the amount of points accumulated by the person. Needless to say, some offenses (such as Murder) were worth more points that others. When a certain number of points were reached, the person would be jailed, fined, or sometimes executed. The records also kept track of labels. Labels identified whether a person was related to a well known criminal, a known thief, a rebel against Shinra, or many other things. Labels helped when Shinra needed to find a possible offender for a robbery. Instead of looking through millions of files, Shinra could simply pull up the files of labeled robbers, people who had robbed avidly before in the past, and start their search their.

It was hard to keep a perfectly clean record, but Suki, dedicated to Shinra 100%, had somehow managed it. It was an accomplishment she was most proud of. Suki was a 'model employee' according to her supervisor. She always got her work done on time and was always willing to finish naother person's work for the if they fell behind. Suki was a calm, efficent, and organized employee, 'exactly', as her superviosr had told her. 'what Shinra needs more of'.

Snapping out of the dreamlike state she had fallen into, Suki gave the red digital clock on the dresser a glance. The time read 7:30 A.M. Smiling softly, Suki tucked the notebook within her black briefcase and walked towards the closet to get dressed for the big day ahead. She donned her normal gray two-piece suit with the skirt and put her long golden hair into the usual bun, tying it with a blue ribbon. She did her minimal make-up and put on the simply chain necklace, and then put the signature three golden sticks through the bun in her hair and centererd the circular orb in the middle. The 'sticks', although they appeared to be decrotive, were actually double-tip pens in black, red, blue, silver, gold, and white. The decortive orb cntained whte out and the top of it pulled off to reveal an eraser on one end and a mini sharpener on the other. Suki smiled to herself, knowing a good employee always had a few writing utensils on hand.

Shutting off the lights in the apartment, Suki walked towards the door, picking up her briefcase along the way. Removing the keys from her pocket, Suki shut the door and locked it behind her. She traversed the hallway to the complex's elevators and prssed the button. When the elevator arrived, Suki got in and rode it down to the first floor. After leaving the complex, Suki walked to the bus stop. Each of the Shinra apartment complexes had a bus than ran daily from the complexes to Shinra Headquaters and back every fifteen minutes. Glancing at her watch, Suki sighed, knowing the bus would arrive any minute. No sooner hd the thought crossed her mind, then the bus appeared. Suki got on, payed the driver the normal fee of 30 gil and took her normal seat in the second row, next to the window. Besides Suki and the driver, a balding man in his fourties, there were two girls in th very back dressed in black suits, both with brown hair and auburn eyes, a nervous looking teenager dressed in a brown suit, and another older man in a black suit with blonde hair and black eyes, apparently half-asleep. It was the normal moorning crew.

As the bus drove through the streets, it made the normal stop near Bruelon Avenue. Normally, no one got on from this stop. The sole employee who used the stop was normally off on missions or not required to shop up for work until 10. However, today the red haired man dressed in the crumpled blue uniform boarded the bus and sat in the fist row, in front of Suki. He waited until the bus started moving before he turned around and adressed her.

"Hey Sukes, how's the paperwork?" The man flashed a smile as he brushed aside the red hair from his eyes.

"The same as always." Suki answered, not looking away from the window.

"Ya need to get out more, Sukes. Stop spending time inside and get out more! Live a little, have some drinks." He ended his comment by tossing his hands up in the air.

"No thank you. Those drinks make me feel how you look in the morning after one of your all-night adventures." Suki smiled slightly.

"Hey, no need to be nasty Sukes. Ya don't have to keep baging on me cause of that one night." He was half laughing, half acting insulted.

"One? try one hundred or one thousand. I've lost count of how many times you've shown up at my door totally stone and unable to remember where you live." Suki answered, smiling slightly.

"Hey...it wasn't my fault...I just like to-"

"Yes, yes, i know. you just like to have fun on the few days you have off. I've heard it before, Reno."

At this comment, the only answer Reno could give was a slight shrug.

"So, why are you up so early? Another mission or breifing from Tseng?" Suki asked him, her attention now fully on the Turk sitting in the row before her.

"No clue. Rude negelcted to mention the details...probably cause he forgot them. I expect that's the acse though." Reno sighed softly, then grinned widely. "But it's all good, if I get to kick some ASS!"

Suki smirked and the shook her head. "You enjoy that WAY too much, Reno my friend. WAY too much."

The bus finally pulled into the station near Shinra Headquaters and, one-by-one, everyone got off the bus. As Reno and Suki walked towards the big building, Reno sighed.

"It's a way of life, Sukidaai. It's a way of life."