Hojo: Learn Too Much to Ever Understand
Hojo rubbed the materia in his armlet absently; none of them were particularly useful, and Rufus still had his Manipulate materia. He had not attempted to retrieve it after having Elena assigned to him; Rufus' unpredictable moods made it prudent to take his gains and end the discussion. She had been quite disgusted with the assignment; he had hoped she would be reasonable, but that was certainly not a common Turk character trait.
Even the normally silent Rude had been vocally displeased, and Reno had been tiresomely vulgar. He supposed they might be more of a threat than he had originally considered them. Of course, they knew nothing yet, and by the time they learned anything, he would be the only chance for survival she had. That, of course, assumed he was not her only chance now.
He stepped into the elevator and punched the button for his floor. She was not as good at hiding her emotions as the others, and very nearly radiated disgusted fury. He doubted her attitude would improve without considerable assistance; the Manipulate materia would have this so much easier. He eyed her, not seeing any of the changes that had marked Lucrecia; her face flushed angrily when she noticed his gaze. He would have assumed such an attractive woman was used to men looking at her; she was certainly no innocent.
Her rage hardly mattered at this point, of course, though he would certainly prefer that she did not glower at his back. He considered what tests he would be able to run without excessive repercussions; invasive tests were quite impossible. Even aside from the risk to the experiment, it would be rather difficult to repair invasive damage quickly and thoroughly enough not to be noticed. Assuming he could subdue her long enough, ultrasound was probably the safest option, though it was not likely to be useful this early. He sighed and reminded himself firmly that direct observation was a considerable improvement over the previous situation.
The elevator reached his floor; he left it to walk to his office, the Turk following a few steps behind. It was a pity protocol required the bodyguard to walk behind the person being guarded, but he doubted she would agree to a change in position. Turks were such foolishly stubborn people; Vincent and Tseng both had been utterly impossible. Once they reached his office, Elena stood on the left side of his desk, as far away from him as possible in the relatively small space. He frowned at his desk; his papers were in disorder, and his computer seemed to have been moved.
Has anyone been in my office? he demanded, stalking out to the receptionist's desk.
No sir, the receptionist said nervously. No one's been here at all. You have several messages.
She was new, and he sighed, thinking about training another one; they never stayed long. He took the sheaf of messages from her, stalked back into his office, and called up the records on his most recently acquired specimens, startled to find his personal database already open.
He had been certain he had logged out before leaving to meet with Rufus; the history list had been cleared, and he rarely bothered doing so. He frowned, calling up more records; whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing, and had cleared out all the records for the day, leaving him unable to determine what had been viewed. Therefore, Hojo assumed that they had found the records on the current experiment; action would have to be taken. He logged out of the database and looked at his shelves.
His files were in distinct disorder; he liked them precise and neat, arranged just so, and they were now haphazardly stacked and out of order. At least those files held no critical data , though there was certainly some potentially damaging information. He stood and walked over to them; he loathed disorder, and he particularly loathed disorder in his files.
Hojo frowned sharply, considering what reprimand to issue the receptionist for leaving her post. He would have to access the security system shortly to find out who had been in his office; once he knew who to act against, he would know what action to take. He smiled slowly as he realized he could order Elena to discover the intruder's identity.
Is there a problem, Professor Hojo? she asked coolly.
Someone has rifled my office, he said, turning around to face her, still smiling. Bring up the security tapes and see who it was.
Her eyes flashed angrily. What was that?
Bring up the security tapes and find out who was here, he repeated. I assume you are capable of doing so?
Her eyes flashed darkly at the insult, but she sat down at the computer. Soldier training had its useful points. He supposed he could complain about insubordinate behavior, but this was quite ... invigorating. He settled for admiring her profile briefly, then turned back to his files and began to put them in order as she worked. Someone had been very thorough about searching them, but the rifled files pertained to a variety of experiments, none of them of particular importance. He wondered absently if Rufus had sent someone to search his office. No, if Rufus had done so, he would have sent one of the Turks, and they had all been in the office. He heard the sound of rifling paper; presumably she was moving some of the papers out of the way. Or going through the phone messages he had hardly given a glance; he rather hoped that Dr. Glatz had not chosen today to report on her.
"I take it," Elena said, sounding bored, "that Dr. Glatz is quite useful to your experiments."
"Quite," Hojo said absently, sorting through a file that had been thoroughly rifled. "Professionally he's only competent, but certainly use -" He stopped in mid-sentence, painfully aware of how easily he'd fallen into the trap. He turned to face her; she spun in his chair and got gracefully to her feet, one hand resting easily on her hip, the other relaxed by her side. The message slips fluttered to the floor, and he rather thought that he would find Dr. Glatz had called.
"Useful?" she finished. "I imagine so. Now tell me what he was useful for, Professor Hojo."
Her files had recorded in dry prosaic language that she had been in the top 10 in sharpshooter training and the top five in close-combat. He had noted the information and filed it away, never expecting it to matter to him.
It mattered a great deal at the moment.
"What kind of assistance did Dr. Glatz give you, Hojo?" Elena demanded.
"Quite ... valuable assistance," he said, noting the way the angry flush along her cheekbones deepened attractively. "My research would have been quite delayed without it."
"What research?" she demanded, hand moving restlessly toward her gun.
"Rufus will not allow you to harm me," he said calmly. Turks were so predictable; Vincent had had a very similar mannerism. Perhaps it had been a product of Turk training. "And even if you do, I am the only person who knows what was being researched and the nature of the experiment." The balked fury in her eyes rather reminded him of Vincent. "Your cooperation will ensure a successful outcome to my research."
"And if I do not ... cooperate?"
Hojo shrugged, not letting his growing excitement show on his face. He had not felt this energized by anything since the beginning of the original Jenova Project. "The research may be somewhat less successful. You will probably die."
"What did you do?"
"It's much too late to stop it, Elena. There's no reason to tell you anything yet." He decided to tell her a little more; perhaps he could still win her cooperation. "You were the only woman strong enough to survive the experiments. Continuing the treatments will improve your chances; the last one refused them. Rather a pity, really, I couldn't get any useful information from her corpse."
He sorted and stacked his files properly; they had clearly been rifled, but nothing appeared to be missing. He could feel the glare from across the room, and wondered if she would simply decide to take her chances and kill him. He rather hoped not; this was turning out to be the most enjoyable experiment he'd performed since ... since Vincent, really. He heard the faint sound of shifting weight, and cloth against wood; he turned, his files safely back in order, to see her leaning against his bookcases, arms crossed beneath her breasts.
And who might that have been? she asked, hands white-knuckled and lips pressed thin, eyes dark with anger.
He shrugged. No one you would know. It was before your employment. Lucrecia's death had been before Elena's birth, but he preferred not to discuss his age. Much as he loathed admitting the fact, he had aged far worse than Vincent. She was a considerably weaker woman.
She frowned, and he wondered belatedly if Vincent had given his highly-biased and distorted version of events to Avalanche. He decided it would be best to change the topic before any ... uncomfortable ... topics could be broached.
Elena. What did the security system show? he said.
It seems, she said, the outward signs of her fury fading, that the security system malfunctioned, and today's records for your office disappeared. The repair team has been notified.
Hojo, remembering how even the normally silent Rude had spoken at length, had the unpleasant suspicion he had been out-maneuvered.