Mobius
Genesis Awards Prompt: Obsession
Beta: Clan Dragoodle
04/28/2010 Edit: There are now scene break lines--previously eaten by ffnet formatting.
Staring down a gun barrel reminds Scarlet of looking into someone's pupil. The gun rings the opening like an iris; a person rings a pupil. It is flailing, falling in, and possibilities spiral in different directions with no concern for one another.
Fingers ran over the edge of Scarlet's coffee mug as she curled her lips and nodded to the person on the other end of the phone line. He could not hear her, but she did not much care. Turks should be able to sense movements, even cities away. She glanced around her office, taking in the glisten of gun barrels.
"I'm sending the new recruit to you." Tseng's flat voice barely came through the phone. "I want you to fit her with weapons according to her style. Don't irritate me."
Scarlet snorted, almost started laughing. She laughed too much lately, feeling it coil in her throat like calking. She started typing the new recruit's name and almost gagged on her own tongue when Elena's face appeared on the screen. Blond with a neck that was too long. The Turks issue suit dipped low, exposing her clavicles.
"Don't worry, Tseng," Scarlet said, "I think I have something in mind." Then she did laugh, sending a few harsh "kya"s over the phone before Tseng cut the line. Scarlet kept laughing, almost knocking her cup of coffee over as she leaned forward on her desk, tasting bleach in her hair.
Scarlet used to ride a bike to Junon University every day. Her red skirt sometimes caught in the bike's spokes. She got good at keeping the fabric out of the gears, tying it in a knot around her legs. The Sun bit spheres into her skin as she pedaled.
While Scarlet put her hand over her eyes to turn away from the glare, she saw her: Catherine. Catherine's eyes, hidden between strands of blond hair, ran over Scarlet's legs. Scarlet saw her hollow pupils, like breathing holes in an animal's cage, and shivered, wanting to pull her skirt back down, imagining the older woman's eyes searching between her legs.
In her Elementary Mako Weaponry class, second term, Scarlet discovered Catherine again—learned her name, Catherine Vertigo—because she was the resident professor of Weapon Engineering. Scarlet, not particularly interested in the course, kept her head down in the back and doodled spirals, circles, and materia sometimes, when they came up in lectures. Above all else, she avoided the professor's eyes.
A third of the way through the term, Catherine passed out the results of the first exam. Scarlet pushed the graded test between two pages of her notebook, barely registering the full marks.
At the end of class, Catherine called her name for the first time. "Scarlet," she said, "would you mind lingering?"
She would, but she did as she was told anyway. Her heels clacked against the stairs as she descended to the front of the auditorium.
"I looked at your records," Catherine said, her voice like tinsel, both irritating and elegant, "you've already declared your major."
Scarlet just nodded, latching her fingers around her wrist at her back.
"If you're an artist, why are you in this class?"
"I'm here on a math scholarship." The question bored Scarlet. Her gold earrings tangled in her dark hair. "I have to at least minor in a science field. Applied Mako Engineering is the smallest program."
Pouting, Catherine lifted a hand canon from the table by her computer. She ran her fingers along the edge of the gun's barrel. "Tell me," she said, "why do you like the visual arts? What might such a field have over Weaponry?"
Scarlet swallowed as Catherine pulled a pinch of hair back, exposing her long neck. Her eyes rose again, and Scarlet found herself looking at the animal through the round air holes. Catherine held out the hand canon to her, and Scarlet took it, weighing it absently. Catherine kept her fingers on it and tipped the barrel toward Scarlet's eyes. She stared down the shaft, her arms shaking.
"Look at the sleek design, the dark circle in the center. It's brilliant, round, truly beautiful, nothing out of place. Powerful, seductive, captivating. What can art give you that this hand cannon can't?"
Scarlet's eyes wandered to Catherine's wrist, then up her bare arm and to her mouth again. Before Scarlet could push her back, Catherine's lips had descended, swallowing Scarlet's eyes as they kissed around her lashes.
"You'd make an excellent research assistant." Catherine's breath brushed the inside of Scarlet's ear. She shivered and tried to rub away the goose bumps on her arms. Catherine walked briskly out of the room and shut the door, leaving Scarlet standing in the center of the empty auditorium, still holding the gun.
The new recruit nudged the door open. Her pants swished together as she strode to stand in front of Scarlet's desk. Her hands fisted at her side, but otherwise Elena betrayed no insecurities. Scarlet crossed her legs and worried a pressure point behind her ear with an index finger, keeping her face unmoved.
"So you're a Turk now, just like your older sister."
Elena stiffened. She ran her tongue over her lower lip. "That's not so important, is it?" she asked. "We're here to give me equipment, not to talk about my family."
"Of course, how silly of me. No one wants to stay in this office too long; it's full of explosives waiting to snap."
Elena looked at her shoes. She drew circles in the carpet with her feet.
Scarlet dug her nail into the computer screen, leaving an imprint. "It says you don't fight like your sister. You like martial arts better."
"Guns can be so inefficient," Elena complained. "And there's something elegant about a man—I mean, someone who can use their body in a fight."
Scarlet ignored the disappointment peaking inside of her and rolled her eyes. "Pity," she said, "the hole of a gun can be so delicious."
Elena stuffed her hands in her pockets, and Scarlet pouted, unhappy that no one understood her lewd jokes. It seemed to her that, of all people, Cath—Elena would have laughed. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out an empty Turk battle profile form. She scrawled Elena's name across the top in jagged strokes.
"Sit down." Scarlet waved her pen at the chair in front of her desk. "Make yourself as comfortable as possible, and don't mind the gun barrels—"
Scarlet noticed Elena's wandering eyes, smirked, and wrote "Mystify" under the "Materia" heading.
"They're only watching."
Smudges of red lipstick colored the sheets. Linen hugged Scarlet's waist, tucked below her navel. She let her breasts dangle in the open; Catherine never stared at them. With her it was always Scarlet's back. The professor's lips trailed from her waist, up her spine, and to her neck, sending shivers through Scarlet, forcing her to close her eyes and squeeze the fabric.
Catherine's lips crested in the crook of Scarlet's neck. She felt the imprint curl into a smile against her skin. "I reviewed your thesis project submission," she whispered, "I would advise against pursuing it. You would be more efficient studying high-powered, concealable weaponry."
Scarlet's back arched out of Catherine's tenuous hold on her waist. "What exactly leads you to this conclusion?"
"It just isn't you," Catherine breathed, her body still relaxed.
"You say that about everything." Scarlet peeled the sheets from her waist and slid her leg out from under the covers, toeing the cold floor. She reached for her golden earrings on the night stand. Her fingers graced the hand canon that Catherine never allowed to stray too far away from her.
"Not everything." Catherine rolled her eyes. "I'd never say that about myself."
Clipping on her earrings, Scarlet ran a hand through her hair. She looked at Catherine, still wrapped in bed sheets, and shook her head. "The Sister Ray is a fabulous idea, and I'm staying with it."
"Absolutely. There's only so much I can do to discourage you once you've made up your mind."
Scarlet watched Catherine's foot. Her toes jutted to the ceiling, peaking through the spread of soft fabric. The toe twirled in bored circles.
"Have we gotten back the results from the last run in the labs?" Scarlet asked.
Catherine's eyes grazed on the light fuzz on Scarlet's hips as she slithered into her skirt. "They should be ready today."
"Good, we need schematics for materia slot placement on that bladed bow."
Falling back into the bed, Catherine gripped a pillow, squeezing it between her breasts. "I don't feel like going in today," she complained, "will you cover for me in my Elementary class? I trust you."
With one last glance at the hand canon, Scarlet smiled and shook her head, chuckling. "Of course you do, Professor."
Scarlet was on the phone with Tseng when Elena slipped inside of her office for her next appointment and took the chair without prompting. Scarlet's legs crossed on the desk, her dress stretching down below her legs, accentuating the calf muscles connected to her red heels. Elena's eyes skittered out the wide window behind Scarlet's desk. The scenic view offered a panorama of smoke stacks with snaking gray plumes poking from below the plate.
"Absolutely." Scarlet pulled a handful of her hair out of the back of her dress. "She's here. There's only so much—naturally, Tseng."
At this point, Elena's cheeks colored. The pink poked between her blond hair, making Scarlet swallow. She realized immediately why Elena had flushed and dug her nails into her exposed shoulder.
"I better get started, then," Scarlet told Tseng, "we have a long day at the firing range." She hung up the phone.
Scarlet dragged her heels off of her desk and prepared to stand. She pulled out her drawers and fished around inside of them until she found a handful of black spheres.
Elena caught them, fumbling a little, when Scarlet tossed them. Scarlet pressed the middle of her forehead with her finger and laughed into her hand. "The grenades won't go off unless you pull the clip out first. You're as hopeless as Heidegger."
Elena lined her pockets with the grenades. Her blush reappeared. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered, "I just wasn't sure—"
The slam of the desk drawer cut Elena off. Scarlet pulled a sleek, standard Turk issue gun and a bag of clanging materia from beside her computer. Elena's eyes rolled over the weapon. Her mouth parted, as if to object.
"Let's just try it, shall we?"
Closing her mouth, Elena continued to stare at the gun distastefully.
Scarlet walked toward the door, her heels clicking against the floor. "Who knows? Maybe you'll find out who you are today. I must admit, I'm rather curious."
Elena bit her tongue and followed Scarlet as she walked out the door and down the hall toward the elevator.
"You're not going," Catherine said evenly. Her dark eyes had glazed over, the animal twitching.
Scarlet chewed on her lip and stared at the letter on Catherine's desk with the Shinra Corporation logo as the heading. As she watched, the brown square in the back stretched until it turned into a door with a red diamond as its knob.
"I don't think you have much of a say in the matter."
Catherine lifted her briefcase. She grabbed papers and pens from the surface of her desk and began packing them away to go home for the night. "Why would you want to leave me?"
"I can't stay your research assistant forever."
The briefcase snapped shut. "What happened to the little girl who wanted to minor in Applied Mako Engineering because it was the smallest program?"
"She was eaten alive by a Pollensalta." Scarlet did not miss a beat. She lowered herself onto her heels, barely registering that she had been standing on her toes. "I thought you would be happy for me."
"How could I be happy when you constantly choose things that aren't you?"
Scarlet shook her head. She snatched the recruiting letter from next to the hand canon on Catherine's nearly bare desk, folded it, and tucked it into her suit vest. "I would have liked your congratulations, but I suppose I'm not going to get it."
Turning to go, Scarlet managed only one stride before she heard Catherine call her name for the last time. "Scarlet, who do you think would still want you if the Junon University School Board recommended, say, another biogenetics project for funding over the small scale Sister Ray?"
Scarlet froze, tried to catch her breath, and clenched her eyes shut when her cheeks grew hot, and tears spurted from the corners of her eyes.
"Why would you do that?" Scarlet asked without turning around. "Are you really that selfish?"
"Let's just say that I will always want you, but I don't know about President Shinra. He's awful picky that way; he likes his employees to have something on their resumes."
When Scarlet turns around, her heart seizes up. Its beating ceases its circular pattern, sputtering in her chest. Catherine's pupils look cold. Scarlet slips into the left one, imagines herself beating against hard tunnels and screaming as she freefalls down the chute.
Before she realized it, Scarlet dove across Catherine's desk and grabbed the hand canon, scraping it on the wood as she held the gun in her hand. She took aim and rested her thumb over the green button. She knew that pressing it down would power the canon; releasing it would set it off.
She clamped down. Hard.
Catherine started laughing. She touched her index finger to the center of her forehead and cackled into her palm. "Oh dear," she said between "kya"s, "you're going to shoot me, then? You're marvelous, truly marvelous. I knew you'd be worth keeping."
Tears trickled around Scarlet's nose. She hated them like she hated the ache in her chest. She remembered the soft brush of lips racing up her spine, the thin arms, the lipstick swimming in the bed sheets, and she could barely see through the water in her eyes. "Promise," she begged, "promise you won't do that. You know the Sister Ray model deserves funding."
"Even if I do," Catherine said, no longer laughing, her eyes glinting now, like sapphire rings, "will you believe me? Can you ever trust me not to meddle?"
Scarlet did not think about it, even for a moment.
She released her thumb from the button. A loud boom echoed through the office, sending papers fluttering off of the low shelving in the corners. A black circle appeared on the left lapel of Catherine's suit. The professor shuddered. A gasp escaped her lips. Her eyes dulled. The animal in the cage stopped stirring. She slumped behind her desk, knocking over the briefcase.
Blood splattered the walls. Scarlet could feel it on her skin, her exposed shoulders, her neck, her face. She turned around again and walked numbly toward the door.
Her hand sang with the vibration of the gun charging and going off. She had trouble slinging her leg over the seat of her bike. It seemed her skirt caught in the gears before she even started pedaling. She threw the bike with a loud scream and broke one of her heels stomping on the spinning back wheel.
Scarlet walked barefoot toward "Jake's Department Store" a couple blocks from the University. She bought a bottle of hair bleach, upending the entirety of her wallet's contents next to the register.
The clerk must have seen something in her eyes—or maybe it was the red streaks on her skin that looked and smelled suspiciously like blood—because he did not say anything about the extra amount of gil, the lab key, the student ID card; he just kept staring at her.
"May I have the restroom key, please?" she asked. Her voice did not sound like her own; it sounded harsher somehow, like it was stretched over the vibrating button of a mako gun.
"O-of course," the clerk said, rummaging under his desk for it. He pulled out a golden key and handed it to Scarlet.
In the bathroom, Scarlet did not stop to read the directions on the package of bleach. She let her dark hair down and leaned over the sink, pouring the contents onto her scalp. It burned, and she winced. She ran her fingers through the hair, too, feeling the sting like powder charges and shivering all over. It would hurt worse if she were not already so numb.
She stayed in the bathroom for hours, on her knees between the sink and the toilet. No one came in to check on her. Scarlet saw the hand canon resting on the floor by the door. Had she walked out of Catherine's office with it? She could have sworn she dropped it there.
Eventually she stood, rinsing the last of the bleach out of her hair and, bunching the strands into her fist, looked in the mirror. The hair tickled nerves on the back of her neck as she released it.
She would have to get new earrings. Gold did not go well with blond hair.
An empty infraction report on her desk, Scarlet listened for the knock. It came two minutes earlier than she had expected, but she did not mind; she felt overly eager.
"You may come in," she said.
Elena, now a full Turk, slipped into Scarlet's office. She did not glance at her feet, and her eyes did not wander toward the panoramic view; she stared back at the office's eyes, as if challenging them. Delighted by this thought, Scarlet pressed forward without trivialities, barely waiting for Elena to take the seat in front of her desk.
"I was wondering, since you're fairly fresh and therefore a little less biased than the others, who do you think I should recommend as the new leader of the Turks in my infraction report?"
The stiffening of Elena's neck sent shivers of excitement down Scarlet's spine. This sort of reaction from a Turk meant that she had prepared her hand well. She ignored the warring dull throb at the base of her throat and let pleasure spread through her.
"Infraction report?" Elena asked. "There has to be some mistake—you can't be talking about Tseng."
Raising a thin brow, Scarlet smirked. "Surely you've noticed?" She crossed her left leg over her right, letting her heel pump up and down in the air. "Tseng has committed more offenses than Heidegger has body hairs since he has taken up his position. I've ignored some of these issues out of the goodness of my heart, but the recent escapades—"
"Please," Elena scoffed, "you wouldn't do anything—you don't even have a heart. You're just jealous of Tseng because he's evaded you in the past, and you feel threatened by him! No one will even read your report."
Ignoring Elena's denial, Scarlet twirled a pen between her painted fingernails and batted her eyelashes. She wrote "Tseng" at the top of the form. "Let's see? What should I put down first? How about compromised emotions in regards to one scientific subject, Aeris Gains—"
Before Scarlet could finish writing the sentence, Elena's hand came down on top of the desk with a loud boom, jostling the pens set in rows of red coffee mugs. Her dark brown eyes made Scarlet's throat run dry, but the head of Weapons Development merely wetted her lips with her tongue and released the laugh coiled in her throat, spitting in Elena's face as she doubled over her desk.
When Scarlet sat up again, brushing her bangs aside, Elena held a Turk issue handgun only six inches from her face.
A strange, cold déjà vu passes over Scarlet. She realizes that this is entirely what she wants, entirely why she needled Elena. Looking down the barrel of the gun feels exactly the same as looking down Catherine's pupil. She thinks of reaching out to grab the gun, to wrest it from Elena's hand and turn it on her. She needs to see the old image again to make sure her comparison is right.
"Shooting a superior would be a stupid move for you," Scarlet said. "I've done it. I was lucky enough to be more valuable to Shinra than she was. You, and trust me on this one, will not be so lucky."
"If you send in that form, they'll execute him." Elena pulled back the hammer on the gun.
Scarlet felt her skin shriveling, like nails had latched into her back. She was scared—Turks tended not to mess around—but she was also very good at being scared and being frightening at the same time.
"I suppose I don't need to tell you that if you shoot me, they'll execute you." Scarlet tucked her hair behind her ears.
White knuckles shook around the hilt of the gun. Scarlet imagined the finger quivering against the trigger, squeezing, and the bullet ripping through the red of her suit jacket. She wondered how the dark red of her blood would look, welling up through the fabric. It would turn into a black circle swallowing her jacket, and she would drop dead right there, falling out of the chair and jerking in her dying spasms on the ground. She would knock the chair over with her, tangle its wheels in her blond hair. Maybe her earring would catch on one of the drawers as she fell and rip through the earlobe.
This thought pleased her so much that she smiled widely. The sudden malice caused Elena to seize up and bite her lower lip. The vulnerability sent new types of shivers through Scarlet. She imagined leaning across the desk and wresting the gun from her, walking her fingers up Elena's arm as she shivered.
She envisioned sneaking around Elena, pulling off her jacket. It was then that Elena started to understand Scarlet's intentions, why she wanted to have Tseng fired. Scarlet's lips roamed down Elena's neck, smearing lipstick along the white skin. Her tongue flicked out of her mouth, massaging the tender space below Elena's ear. Elena began to struggle, to lean forward, but Scarlet drove her sharp nails into her shoulders and pulled her back down into her chair, sliding around into Elena's lap where she pulled apart Elena's fly and forced her fingers between the elastic of her underwear and her skin—
A small tear trickled from the corner of Elena's right eye, shocking Scarlet out of her fantasy. She hated the coldness settling in her stomach, the heavy block forming in her throat. Nothing moved behind the glaze in Elena's eyes. She wondered if she just could not see it because she was not Tseng.
Angry with herself, Scarlet reached for the gauntlet next to her computer.
"Don't you dare move!" Elena screamed. The gun rattled in her hand. Scarlet rolled her eyes and forced the gauntlet around her fist.
She ducked under the desk when the shot went off, erupting through the glass of her office window. A burst of sound ricocheted back and forth between her ears. Everything, even in the shadow of the desk, had a bright quality to it. She could hear nothing, see nothing but rings. Slivers of glass tinkled in the sunlight outside of her office like wings, stretching toward freedom over Midgar. She felt laughter curling in her throat again, but she swallowed it.
Springing up from under her desk, Scarlet focused on the Sleepel materia in her gauntlet. She screamed as loudly as she could to hear herself over the ringing. The spell worked. Elena's eyes rolled into the back of her head as she slumped into her chair.
Scarlet did not hesitate to circle her desk and stand in front of Elena. She leaned over the Turk and planted a small kiss on her forehead. As one hand tugged the gun out of limp fingers, the other wiped away the lipstick circle between Elena's eyes.
The clacks of her heels echoed in the office as she walked back to the other side of her desk and picked up her phone. Smog breeze from the metropolis made her lip curl under her nose. She called the Turk office, keeping her eyes on Elena's chest, rising and falling in her slumber.
"Yes?" the receptionist answered.
"Does Tseng treat all of his new recruits with such blatant disregard?"
"Excuse me?"
"The new Turk has just collapsed in my office; she's clearly over-worked. Someone should come up and collect her."
"I—I'll tell Tseng to take it easy on her, Ma'am."
Scarlet slammed the phone back into the receiver. The infraction report, still on her desk, rustled with the force. She stared at the name on the top of the form, ran her finger across the "T." Catherine would have filled out the rest of the report and given it to the representative from the Turks office when he came to collect Elena.
Scarlet picked up the form and folded it in half. She then proceeded to tear it into thin strips, listening to the satisfying ripping. She wondered absently if the sound came from the black circle in her chest—where the bullet went in.
She twisted each piece of paper into a Mobius strip, gluing the ends with red nail polish. She put six of them in her drawer with the gauntlet and the gun, but she then leaned across her desk and tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind Elena's ears. Her eyelashes fluttered as Scarlet's hand hovered over her nose.
Scarlet tucked the seventh Mobius strip into Elena's pocket, folding the flap over it and buttoning it down. She wished she could wake the Turk up and look down one of her eyes before the representative came, but that would be difficult. Scarlet did not want to risk falling in.