Chapter 7: Zack's Curse

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Zack has a very interesting . . . relationship with electronics . . .

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Well, sorry for the long gap between this chapter and the last, I had exams, and then real life threw stuff at me that I had to deal with. Currently enjoying the week with the sister and many ideas have been spawned, so once the week is over, I'm probably going to throw myself into writing depending if life decides not to be a douche again.

Disclaimer: I own none of these character, besides Keith, FFVII belongs to it's respective owners.

Don't blame me for this one, Lokir is the one in charge of uploading. Lokir writes a good 90-95% of this stuff anyway.

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Zack has a curse.

Well, at least he thinks he does, and other people who know him seem to agree.

You see, he has a 'gift' with electronics.

He is a whiz kid with gaming consoles, any electronics involving gaming he was a pro with using and fixing, but give him any other sort of electronic device?

Zack was sure to break it in some way, shape or form. Most of the time he didn't even know how, as he followed the instructions for using it exactly.

Now he currently had a new work-issued phone (and the tech department were currently praying to the gods that this one didn't meet the same demise as many other of its brethren) and just like clockwork, he had . . .

Broken it.

Since this was the, let's say . . . . twenty-fifth, phone he had broken (he lost count after the first ten), he had a problem. The tech department were so fed up with his contradicting nature with electronic devices, that they had issued him with a warning regarding the currently expired phone in his possession.

If he broke this phone, which he had, they would have to start up a budget dedicated to the electronics that had died under his care. And if one had a budget that was made for one individual employee, it was basically drawing a target on one's back.

But right now, he was having a small mental breakdown as he tried to figure out how to escape his current situation.

Keith was well aware of the deal he made with the tech department, heck he was even there to mediate in case Zack somehow destroyed some device in the meeting accidentally (how Zack had killed his toaster by looking at it while holding a piece of bread, he had no idea). So getting help from Keith was a no go.

Angeal would most likely immediately inform the tech department about the dead phone, meaning that option was out.

Genesis was still pissed at him because of the prank he had pulled, which Genesis got caught in the crossfire from.

He wasn't even going to try with Sephiroth.

Meaning that Zack had very limited options available to him.

Cloud had suggested once that Zack should just buy himself a phone, and then get that number registered with the company (added bonus, he could simply transfer the chip to a new phone and be done with it).

Maybe Cloud had been onto something . . .

But where was the closest phone shop?

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"Zack, it ain't that bad. The socket was mis-labelled with the voltage. It ain't your fault the thing got fried."

"Try telling THEM that. It's never my fault, I can attest to multiple occassions where the destruction was outside of my control, but the Tech crew deemed me cursed and blamed me for it anyway."

"Right, I forgot how vicious the tech department can get when it comes to repairs . . . Besides I can show you a few things. I'm currently trying to help out beta-test the new stuff Ultima wants to put out, and you'd be a good test. If you can't break it, or it breaks in one of the accidents that seem to always happen around you, then no-one should be able too."

The first time he broke something, the tech department (who were proud of always being able to repair a device) were unable to bring the phone he had utterly murdered back to life, and so they deemed him as an enemy to all electronics. It didn't help that he fixed up a gaming rig faster than they could, and he sort of became an arch nemesis for them.

"You sure about this, Cloud? They'll probably know it's not the same one they gave me…"

"Sure, I'm sure. Besides, they can't create a budget for you if you don't go through them for the gear. Anyway, I've got an idea on how to help you keep your phone alive for more than three weeks at a time."

"Really? How?"

"Have you ever heard of Mobile Games?"

Well . . . perhaps he had found a loophole to this curse.

He still had to get a new phone though.

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It turned out that the tech department were quite well aware of him killing the phone (they apparently had planted a chip in it that allowed them to know if the phone was alive and if it stopped transmitting then it was dead), but once they noticed his current phone that he had bought with his own salary had lasted for more than a week, they inquired how this was possible.

Naturally, Zack wasn't about to tell the department that had made his life absolute Hel anything about the new tech he had.

Besides, these dungeon runners were really fun, and that monster collecting game had really helped out with his monster hunts. The guy that had made it had included little titbits about the monsters that could be applied in real life, Zack had been surprised to learn how to tame a Kalm Fang pack and now had one that followed him around whenever he was in that region (it helped that he had taught them how to guard the Chocobo Farm, so they weren't put back on the kill list).

Eventually the tech department turned to Keith who was also interested in how a phone under Zack's ownership had survived the trial period, but the janitor had also been pissed at the tech department for stressing Zack out so much for something that he really couldn't control.

So Keith had approached him and Cloud, knowing that the fellow Nibelheimer had something to do with this, and they explained the loophole over coffee. Well, coffee for Cloud, Zack stuck to a can of soda and Keith had a root beer.

Once hearing about the loophole, Keith had laughed for several minutes until his stomach was achingly sore, but he could see the benefits to having the games on ones phone.

And of course he asked *cough* demanded *cough* to have the same games on his own phone as he had learnt from the disaster that had been his vacation with Sephiroth (but really it had been a blast and neither man had realised how much pent up stress they had until they reviewed the security footage, found the pictures and videos on the internet of their drunken shenanigans, it was weird to watch themselves grumbling about their workload over drinks getting into all sorts of trouble), that he really needed something other than work to occupy his time.

Needless to say he sort of freaked some employees out when they walked into a break room to find him lounging on a couch, aggressively pressing the buttons on his phone and hissing curses from his clenched teeth, Cronkle sitting peacefully in his lap and occasionally licking Keith's arm as if soothing him.

One had even suggested getting his phone looked at by the tech department if it was causing him so much trouble.

Imagine everyone's shock when Keith had replied that he'd rather take said phone to ZACK of all people.

And proceeded to howl in laughter at their dumbfounded expressions.

Eventually Reno caught onto the game functions on Keith's phone and begged Cloud to get the same on his phone (which had been recently updated and Cloud rather have his Turks with better communications after one incident of getting stranded without a signal due to crappy tech).

Over the next few weeks, Cloud began to distribute the new phones as Reeve certainly needed his genius to be recognized, and he rather have more expenses than losing men due to outdated communication devices. Explaining to a widow how their husband could have been easily found if they had just given updated tech that they had access to but because he didn't want to increase the company expenses, her husband was a casualty?

Cloud didn't really want to deal with that.

Eventually it got to point that everyone besides those idiots in the tech department (seriously, even President Shinra had been pondering the thought of laying that department off) knew about the mobile phone games, and it was driving the techies nuts because they couldn't understand why everyone was so fascinated with these new phones (they had refused to use them as they had their own pride in their clearly outdated products).

And so they got desperate and went to the source off all this madness.

They went to Zack, for advice on the new phone.

Zack took a few minutes to process the fact that the tech department were asking him for help and had a laughing fit that lasted a good ten minutes before refusing and fleeing to find Cloud to describe what had just happened.

It was only when the whole tech department decided to boycott work did Cloud finally get involved and explain the situation, leading to a rather embarrassed department who finally began to get used to the new and improved phones, working in tandem with Reeve who merged the department into his own Urban Development, and the new Innovative Designs and Communication Support Department soon began to flourish.

Maybe Zack did have a curse, but if it gave an outcome like this . . .

Perhaps it wasn't all that bad.

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A/N: This was spawned due to a technical incident my brother had and so somehow it came up with Zack being a menace with technology.

Well, I've got to get lunch so this is a brief author's note. So hope you enjoyed, see you in the next chapter!

LiulfrLokison out! :3

ChaosBalance signing out!