God of Paperwork
by the infamous and notorious tocasia
Chapter 7
Palmer sips his coffee with distaste. He much prefers tea. He'd come in to work early today to avoid this, but they were all out of lard. The pleather of his office chair is peeling. Palmer leans back with a sigh and swears as his knee connects with the underside of the desk.
Not much to do today. No one pays much attention to him anymore. He doesn't mind. His inbox is almost empty despite the towers of paper surrounding it. Palmer keeps a messy desk on purpose because his accounting is messy, too. Let's see, he can skim off a little here, and here, and here... He piles the fraudulent budget reports in his outbox, not noticing the official-looking envelope already resting beneath.
Sephiroth is sitting alone at a corner table in the fancy upper level cafeteria. He doesn't come here often and hasn't decided what to order yet. He glances up as two secretaries come in, talking. They haven't seen him, so he listens.
"Did you get the memo from Arlene?"
"The invitation to the company barbeque?"
"Yeah, that one."
"I hope someone doesn't summon Phoenix this time. That was a nightmare! The damn bird resurrected all the cows out of spite."
"Thanks for the reminder, I guess." She makes a face. Then she says, "I heard something good from Susanna."
"Oh?"
"Buy me a coffee and I'll tell you."
They go up to the counter. Sephiroth stays where he is. He doesn't want to startle them before learning the rest of the story.
"So you know that party last night, the one that started at Scarlet's?"
"Susanna goes to those?"
"Well, she goes to where the party ended up."
"Ha! Go on."
They walk back to a table, sit down, and lean closer to each other, whispering. Sephiroth can hear them anyway.
"So, this is what she told me. Susanna and Alex, that's the guy she's dating, were chilling to the music. Scarlet and her friends were in the back room doing who knows what. Alex challenged Heidegger to a drinking contest."
"Heidegger goes to Scarlet's parties?"
"I was surprised, too. Anyway, Heidegger got roaring drunk and Alex left out the back, smart man. Scarlet walked up to the bar for a refill, still looking pretty sober."
"And then what happened?"
"Heidegger grabbed Scarlet around the waist and gave her a passionate kiss!"
"No way! Did she slap him?"
"No, that's the weird thing."
"Did she crush his foot with those deadly red stiletto heels of hers?"
"No, although I think I would have done that. She dragged him over to a table and they climbed up and started dancing. The DJ noticed and put on a slow, romantic song."
"They waltzed on a bar table?"
"That's what Susanna said."
"But they despise one another, don't they?"
"Yeah, they do."
"But they have a lot in common."
"True. They both like explosives."
"And their laughs are a match made in heaven!"
The two secretaries cackle madly on their way out. Sephiroth orders a slice of chocolate cake. The story is plausible. Some really crazy things happen at Scarlet's parties.
Zack stands knee deep in the freshly fallen snow near the Icicle area. More snow is coming down around him, but it's gentle. His coat keeps him warm and dry. He's had good luck with the weather on this mission.
Zack is here to oversee the construction of a new base for catching and training chocobos. The harsh arctic environment produces the most wonderful birds and they are in high demand. Even though Shinra has built plenty of roads, there are still remote parts of the Planet that can only be reached by chocobo. Chocobos make good combat mounts and can pull wagons, too. But to Zack, the best thing about them is definitely the racing.
So far, there's not much here except mud and snow. The transport vehicles form a perimeter around a few tents, a fire pit, the makeshift stables that are kept warmer than the camp, and the outlines in the dirt where permanent structures will be. A shipment of special building materials from Bone Village is scheduled to arrive tomorrow.
Zack sockets the Chocobo Lure materia into his bangle and prepares for another outing.
It wasn't because Palmer was committing fraud. That's almost a job requirement for working at Shinra. No, it was because secretly, Sephiroth has wanted to go in space since he was very small. The failure of Shinra 26 and its subsequent abandonment crushed his childhood dreams in a way nothing else ever had. He will make it right, and those responsible will not go unpunished.
He's already restarted the Space Program behind Palmer's back. This morning, he completed the next step of his plan.
Sephiroth has two signatures: the one he uses to sign autographs for his fans, and the official one which few people have seen. Palmer has only one signature.
It was easy to forge with Mime materia. By now, Palmer's letter of resignation should be on its way to the President's desk.
Sephiroth smiles as he works through his inbox. It's mostly junk.
The lab asks, no, demands, that he acquire Frog Song immediately. Ha! They should learn to say please.
Here's another request from Reeve. No, he won't approve it this time. He's done enough on the rebuilding-the-world front lately.
The next one is probably fake. It declares itself to be an Important Meeting Notice in big red text. According to his schedule, Sephiroth will be in Junon that day, touring the underwater reactor and watching the unveiling of the new submarines. He won't be able to attend that meeting. Will that be a problem? Unlikely. If the meeting is really so important, he could always send Zack in his stead.
No, that would be too cruel.
Zack's mission has been a huge success. By the time the next group of SOLDIERS arrives, work has begun on the buildings and the outer wall. They've cleared space for a runway and assembled the new high-tech stables. A well-respected chocobo expert is coming next week to inspect the birds they've already caught. Zack brought back several wonderful chocobos himself, but some of the other guys got more.
Zack is free to go, so he heads to Icicle Inn to do something he's always wanted to do.
He stages the shot carefully. Icicle Inn is in the background, its festive lights reflecting in the windows. There are kids throwing snowballs at eachother. The little dragon paperweight balances confidently on the snowboard. It has a flame decal on it.
Click.
Zack stows the dragon and the new photo with the rest of his gear back at the inn. He carries the snowboard to the top of the slope, puts on his headphones, turns on the radical music, adjusts the straps, and kicks off down the mountain.
