Verick Jasco Jr. : Reno Spiegel
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Chapter 6
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Verick Jasco, Jr. was sitting in his father's office, watching the security films with the greatest of interest. He loved keeping tabs on what people in the building were doing, and what better way that sitting in a room with TVs covering every wall, each linked to a separate camera. Most every room had an eye on it, aside from the restrooms or changing rooms. His father was out for the day, having gone to Junon to give a public speech on what had happened the previous day between the two groups of Turks. The car bombs seemed to particularly upset him, but that was because they were company vehicles and losing money did not sit well with Verick Jasco, Sr.
The young man, barely of legal age, had just been zooming in on a random cubicle to see what one of the men was writing down when the phone next to him rang. He picked it up and cleared his throat. "President Jasco's office, Verick Jr. speaking. Who is this?"
The door opened silently and a man of average height with nondescript brown hair, tied back in a neat ponytail, stood waiting there. At first glace, the man was sparsely handsome. Then he smiled, dark eyes lighting up a somehow terrifying face. He seemed to know what the phone call was about.
Verick tried to keep the disgust off of his face. Every chance he got, the man had hassled the boy about something. "Mmhmm," he hummed into the receiver. "Yes, he's just walked into the office. Mmhmm. Thank you, Julia." He put the phone back on the base and tried his hardest to smile. "Hello, professor. Something you needed to see me about?"
He nodded, that smile not fading. He regarded the boy as if he already had some form of plans for him. "If you have time sir."
The vice-president kept his own smile. It was a good thing he was quite talented at faking it. "Endless fields of time for a man of your position. Please, have a seat." They always told him he would make a wonderful president some day.
"You can wipe that smirk off your face, boy. Your idiot police force is trying to shoot holes in my master work." He snapped, throwing photos of the diner incident on the desk.
The reason the smirk did leave was because the first name on the list of criminals was none other than "Drannor, Reno." He was indeed becoming quite the hassle. He flipped through the photos, and the whole group appeared to be there, including... "Reeve?" he blurted, looking to the professor as if this was a fake.
"Turk model 547805." The man sat down with a tried sigh. "And the older blonde female, Turk model 547807"
Verick tried not to shudder. The way Panderfaust labeled everything with a serial number was horribly eerie. He nodded. "Scarlet, none other than his wife." He straightened the photos and set them on the desk between the two, looking at a point right beside the man's face. A look into his eyes and Verick felt he would hurl. "And what is this about my father's police force?"
He stood. "Come down to the labs with me, would you?"
The boy hesitated. He could make the excuse that he'd been told not to leave, but the professor knew as well as he did that the VP had the power to do anything he wanted when left in charge. He held in a button on the intercom and told Julia to hold all his calls and keep his visitors, then stood and followed Panderfaust out.
"Your father has been kept out of my files due to his nature of public service, but I have things I need to discuss with someone." The man looked over his shoulder. "Your police are wasting their time. The Turk models are Hojo's greatest weaponry achievement." A short emotionless laugh came from him. "And my ID project is nearly flawless…"
The man always seemed to know what everyone thought. He tried to simplify it, if not only to understand completely then to let Panderfaust know he didn't speak computer code. "You're saying that my police have no chance of taking down three ex-Turks, two former AVALANCHE members, and two simple desk workers?" Verick felt oddly insulted.
Penderfaust shook his head. "You stupid boy. I warned against using a Turk model for desk work. This is why"
Anyone else would have been fired on spot. Verick hated he was actually below Panderfaust in the chain of command. Old ShinRa de ja vue. He disregarded his respect for a moment. "Okay, five Turk models and two simple fighters. I still don't see what the hell you're babbling about when you tell me there's no chance of my force taking them down."
The doctor opened his lab door. No one was allowed in without his personal consent. Penderfaust's office was never seen by anyone, save him. "You think that my ID project defeated the General concept with luck? Hardly, child." He moved past the regular labs to his private wing. Tubes of Mako glowed, some with specimens in them, some without. Some of the specimens were almost human in appearance. Others were simply indefinable.
Verick had only seen the lab from quick glances inside the door if the professor had forgotten to shut it. Now he knew he was lucky for that much. "No disrespect meant, Professor, but I seem to recognize some of these serial numbers from Professor Hojo's documents. Are some of his projects still going on under your control?"
Penderfaust smiled that smile again. "Yes. I have plans for most of them, particularly Turk Model 547812. That is what I wish to talk to you about. You have more vision then your father. Certainly you are smarter then he is."
"I appreciate that, Professor, and between you, I, and the floor, I'm beginning to suspect so myself." As for the Turk Model, it was just another number he didn't grasp. "547812? I don't seem to follow, Professor."
Penderfaust frowned and flipped through a file. "You called it… Ah, yes. Reno is what you called it."
Verick's lip turned up. Drannor was becoming a walking health concern to many of his staff, and that was not approved of in the halls of the new-and-improved ShinRa, Inc. "Yes. Him. Now that Drannor's name is brought into this, I'm most intrigued."
Penderfaust sighed. "It is going to be the final link in the work that Hojo started with the ONI project." He sat down at his desk, motioning for Verick to sit on the somewhat-red-stained chair opposite him. A light tink sound came from one Mako tank. The specimen was hitting its head repetitively, almost like a child with autism, against its holding cell. "Even the ShinRas didn't know about this." He laughed, the creature's motions going on without his notice.
The boy took the seat despite the stains on it, giving uneasy glances to the specimen intentionally harming itself. Or unintentionally. With Penderfaust, nothing was sure.
"The ONI project... Can't say I've heard of it, but if the people he worked under for thirty-plus years didn't know about it, I suppose I wouldn't." He gave a weird smile to the professor across from him. "Care to enlighten me? I may understand a bit more than my father would."
Penderfaust looked Verick over again with a clinical eye before steepling his fingers and leaning forward. "ShinRa wanted an army, they commissioned Hojo to do so for them. He and I gave them the SOLDIER project, an elite project called TURK, and then Hojo's masterpiece, the General Concept. They were satisfied with the results; however, we were not. Then when Turk Model, 547790 – " He looked for the name. " – Valentine, fell into our laps we began the ONI project. Are you following me?"
Surprisingly, he was. "I think I get the gist of it. Ever-gluttonous ShinRa wants an empire; you do your best. He approves, but the painter always thinks he can make his artwork even more beautiful. And I assume the General Concept is referring to the great Sephiroth?"
"The "great" Sephiroth fell to my ID project, but I am getting ahead of myself there." He flipped through files. "Are you familiar with Valentine at all?"
Verick smiled. "Vincent Valentine, said to be one of the greatest Turk captains to ever grace the company. I'm quite well familiar with his file, including things left out, such as the lab assistant Lucrecia and the incident that took place due to his infatuation with her."
"That was planned. We needed a suitable stud for the General Concept. However it gave us the chance to begin the ONI project. We pushed the mortal body to its barest limits. Then we injected it with the essence of a demon. The creature powers the mortal shell, enhanced by Mako. It was meant to black out all but the specimen's coldest instincts. The model was a killer, almost mechanical in its abilities. However, it had a free spirit that remained. We made a mistake, and underestimated the specimen. It was uncontrollable."
The boy cut in before he could stop himself. "How, then, did you and Hojo manage to get him into the coffin in the ShinRa Mansion?"
This time, the man's smile was all the more chilling. "We enabled a kill switch; always have a back up." He stopped and thought for a moment. "The ID project's reanimation of ONI was to be expected, although I would have preferred it never to happen. Any other questions before I get to the other Turk Model?"
Verick dreaded asking, but he knew he would get around to it sooner or later. "This kill-switch...what did it do to Valentine? A simple spell of unconsciousness long enough to lock him away, or worse yet?"
"We put him to sleep. Frozen animation; very similar to the on switch for my ID project. You know him as Cloud Strife." He let Verick get over his shock before continuing. "Of course ONI's mind remained active, with the demon inside of it. So take it how you will." He got up and moved to a coffee carafe and pulled out some doughnuts. "Hungry, Sir?"
Atop the fact that he really doubted the safety of those doughnuts, he actually wasn't. "No, but thank you. Julia brought in some chow mien for lunch just under an hour ago." He smiled. "Maybe we can meet and talk about things over lunch sometime, though."
He ate the doughnut and then sat back down. "Well, the ID project was planned. We picked up a SOLDIER and a Trooper model for it. Unfortunately, the Trooper model didn't have the – ah – bloodthirsty nature of the Turk model. Its consciousness got in the way, so we shut that off. Hence, once injected with the proper chemical, my ID model becomes the perfect, flawless, soulless killer." He sighed. "But, before we were able to get a good balance of the chemical, the models escaped." He leaned over to a mini fridge and took out a cup of chilled coffee. "That is where your Reno comes in. We following?"
Verick pondered this for a moment, but nodded. "I gather the basic idea is that this leaves an ID model running around out in the open to do as he pleases?"
"Until I get it back." With a sip of the coffee he continued. "And I will be able to work on the brain of this "Reno" of yours. I will put him through a project similar to a lobotomy. He will become the perfect weapon. Fast, intelligent, and doing whatever it is told." Penderfaust's eyes half closed in thought. "What do you think, sir?"
The boy sat back. Now what he had been told in the office made much more sense. He had one question to set this straight in his mind. "The other four Turk models...were they given the correct chemical balance, or were they the other escapees you're referring to?"
"Aside from the ID and ONI projects, the rest are stable. I have formulated a tranquilizer that is well suited to bring down those models. But the ID and ONI projects will take a bit more effort." He flipped through another file for a few moments and then nodded. "Yes, the other escapee was silenced."
"And both happen to be out and about wreaking havoc," he murmured. Verick began thinking aloud, but in a voice that said 'Stop me if I'm wrong.' "So once the ID and ONI projects are recovered, they will be brought back here and with the right experiments we'll have the army that ShinRa always wanted under our control instead of their own. Am I assuming this correctly, professor?"
"You are. I could control the ONI and ID for a short period of time, with a good shot from a dart. But once them and the rest of my Turk Models are back, this corporation will be undefeatable."
Verick smiled. "I think," he said slowly, "that the less my father knows, the less corporate interference there will be, and the less harm that can come to the ONI and ID models. So I propose we keep him in the dark a bit longer and you and I do what we can to bring in the ONI and ID personally." His grin widened. "And I suppose I'll put in an order for more tri-pocket folders for you, professor."
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