A man named WEAPON7600X had once written an influential monograph framing humanity as an intermediate step between the Cetra and whatever came next. Doctor WEAPON thought what came next was robots and cyborgs, of a peculiar organic kind which was influenced by existing theories about WEAPONS. I tried to find a copy on the company database, but "The Intermediary" was hardly something any of the departments would digitise and let take up valuable hard drive real estate. It wasn't on the department servers, and my employee login on the company intranet also turned up nothing. It seemed like I would have to find out if someone I knew had a copy - likely, since for all that this was a philosophical treatise, Hojo's work was in an overlapping field. Lucrecia probably had a copy. Doctor W cited her and Professor Valentine's work on Chaos and other WEAPONS as his main inspiration. Though who knows if her stuff had been ferried over to Midgar in the move. Her legal status as living was in question, as was her marital status with regards to Hojo.

All of this was to say, then, that after a particularly successful first week in Midgar, I strongarmed Veld into taking me on a field trip to the University of Midgar library after he took me to get my photo and fingerprints logged for my Shinra employee badge. I had Hojo's university staff ID clutched in my hand - won in a moment of weakness from the man that I'd engineered by hinting towards a desire to leave behind petty humanity and take to the stars, but not in so many words. He was technically director of their school of sciences, though you'd never know it from how often he remembers its existence.

Veld lead me around by the hand. I invited many stares from bewildered undergrads. For all that I was wearing a cheerful yellow T-Shirt with a print of a bear holding sunflowers, plus an adorable little bucket hat and knee shorts, the looks shot my way were unsettled. My hair and my eyes were too strange to be ignored. And Veld was very obviously a Turk.

I waved at random passersby. Some of the pimply faced firsties waved back. Others shuddered and hurried away. They didn't even have to care about who I was. They just had to understand what Veld's suit meant.

The librarian at the loans desk looked helplessly charmed as I trotted up to her counter and placed Hojo's ID on the counter.

"Hello ma'am!" I chirped. "Can you please help me find a book?"

I should have looked myself. Or made Veld help me look. But I didn't want to find out what this world had for Dewey decimal numbers and I didn't want to trawl the stacks.

"Hello, what a polite young man!" The thirty something woman behind the counter paused in the middle of entering something in her computer to peer at me with bemusement. "What is the name of the book you want to borrow?"

"The Intermediary by WEAPON7600X," I said. "And also A Planetary Cyborg by Wendy Denis, Mako-humans by Ta Kosuzu, and WEAPONS of the Planet by Grimoire Valentine and Lucrecia Crescent."

"My my," she cooed. "What big books! Are you picking them up for your daddy?" She picked up the ID card and went ashen white.

"No ma'am," I replied innocently. "I'd like them for myself. Doctor Hojo is only letting me borrow his card."

"Oh," she said quietly. She probably had suspicions about why a kid who looked as I did and was being supervised like a Shinra company asset might want to read a book called "Mako-humans". Unfortunately, the book wasn't anything as fun as technical details about mako enhanced supersoldiers, but was rather about the modern human as a mako powered cyborg and the existential dread of burning up dead people and the past of humanity and all life on the Planet to power an ephemeral capitalistic present. Philosophy on human nature was absolutely wild, in this world where Cetra used to provably exist and where whatever the fuck species Nanaki was, endangered as they were, demonstrably proved that humans were not the only beings capable of sapience, civilisation, or philosophy. And that was to say nothing of the existence of monsters and summons.

"Don't worry, I'm a pretty strong reader!" I said cheerfully. "I don't know much about philosophy, but I can probably struggle through these with a dictionary."

She looked at me. She frowned. Then she swallowed and visibly steeled herself.

"Let me check if there are any copies on the shelves. Ah, yes, you're in luck. Here, I'll write down their catalogue numbers for you, and here this number is for a dictionary called the Middangeard Dictionary of Philosophy. Just follow the numbers - the dictionary should be on the second floor and everything else on floor seven. There are three editions of The Intermediary on the shelves right now - I recommend picking the newest, since you are also interested in Valentine and Crescent. This edition added a foreword by Crescent just before her retirement. If you have questions, maybe Doctor Hojo could introduce you, I hear that they are acquainted."

"Oh, he doesn't like talking about exes. She's not really retired though. She's gone to brood on the meaning of existence and to long for death deep in a dank mako cave."

"A sabbatical, huh," mused the librarian. "I could do with one of those."

I giggled and took the sticky note she gave me. "Thank you ma'am! I really appreciate it." I smiled my sweetest, darlingest smile that was usually cute enough to make Veld look like he was having chest pains. "Yaaay!" I chirped to Veld as I tugged him towards the stairs.

"Must we take the stairs every time?" Veld complained. Nevertheless, he permitted himself to be tugged along by his warm, calloused hand. "Also, stop that," he added when I giggled in delight and stuck out my tongue.

I let go of my childish brightness and rolled my eyes.

"I don't see what's wrong with acting my age," I complained.

"It's too creepy," retorted Veld. "And it's too blatant. It offends my sensibilities as a Turk."

"Ew," I answered. "You guys murder people regularly and me having a good time is creepy? I see how it is."

"Sephiroth," Veld said, irritated.

I laughed again, this time out of genuine humour.

Veld was a fit guy, but he wasn't a hyperactive almost-five year old who had been enhanced since before birth. After an easy jog up to the second floor for the dictionary, I tugged him up the remaining flights of stairs at a dead sprint, giggling madly as he groaned and huffed behind me.

I hugged the thin stack of books to my chest and whistled badly as we descended the stairs to the checkout desk, Veld grumpily clamping down onto my shoulder with a tight grip. He was still so paranoid about me running of. As if!

I had the books I came for, I'd had a successful outing, the first real outing of my life, and I had managed to torment Veld a bit. The urge to try ask for help from someone or to run away screaming had been overwhelming, but I wouldn't do something that useless.

I skipped as Veld walked me towards the bus station. Midgar's bus system was extremely limited, as buses could not be controlled and checkpointed as efficiently as the budding system of trains. But here in the affluent heart of the city, some of the bus routes still remained.

It was a five minute ride to Loveless Avenue, where I made Veld wait in line with me at Midgar's trendiest ice cream shop so that I could get a waffle cone with three scoops. One was cookies and cream. One was matcha. One was good old fashioned chocolate. Veld did not eat on the job, and if he did he certainly did not consume things that his mark bought him. This did not dampen my spirits, as I had not planned on giving him a roofie or anything, so he was just denying himself some great ice cream.

I hummed and skipped towards my new home. Each turn we made restored some vitality to poor Veld's exhausted expression.

"Not used to babysitting, eh?" I ribbed. "I'd think an old man like you would've already got your own little brat."

Veld's expression did not change, but my cat eyes were sharp enough to catch his pupils dilate. Come to think of it, Felicia would have to at least be toddling around, if she was to be of any use as an Avalanche leader in fifteen years. Even on the young end of the protagonist scale, she'd need to be experimented on in... 97? Or something like that. I knew for sure she was active during the turn of the millennium. I fought back a grimace. I hadn't actually played before crisis. I'd just read a lot of fanfiction. Fanon wasn't the best guide.

I waved my bracelet at a panel on the front door, which revealed a keyhole. I produced the key, turned it three times clockwise and once anticlockwise. Then I flounced inside the house and punched in the twelve digit alarm code.

Once the alarm was disabled, Veld's shoulder slumped down.

"You have such an obvious weak spot for puppy dog eyes," I observed. I set down my cute backpack, which was one of those plush animal backpacks, this one in the shape of a fat chocobo. I tugged my books out of the chocobo's tummy and double-checked that I hadn't lost the ID. Good. I nodded, satisfied.

"I hope you had your fun..." Veld grumbled. "Because I sure as hell am not taking you for any more field trips."

I smiled angelically up at him. "I'm not slated to begin fieldwork for another four years, minimum!"

Veld's lips twitched downwards with contained displeasure.

"Don't torment my Turks too much," he ordered. " And don't antagonise Hojo."

"Of course!" I agreed immediately. "I never antagonise Doctor Hojo. He's my favourite!"