30th July 2005
A/N:- Hello! This is just a short fic about the ShinRa executives and what they get up to on their 'well-earned' coffee break, where they can sit back and have a rest from letting Avalanche win. Please r'n'r! Constructive criticism welcome, destructive criticism abhorred, but tolerated, compliments complimented.
Executive Decision
Overall, Shinra is a well-respected company. Overall, its employees are efficient and productive. But then, you could say that overall Avalanche contains perfectly normal people. Cloud is just your average Joe, but with an oversized sword strapped to his back; Cid is like any old pilot who carries cigarettes in his goggle elastic, Tifa is just a normal woman with extremely large boots pick your mind outta the gutter! Sure, you get the occasional guy who has a gun grafted onto his arm when it's shot off why not get a mechanical ARM? How ya supposed to eat your cereals with THAT on your elbow? . And sure, you can get the occasional guy who sleeps in a coffin for 30 odd years, and keeps going out at night to drain nearby villagers of their blood. But overall they are perfectly normal.
The same theory can be applied to Shinra. While the bulk of the employees and employers lead happy, normal little lives pointless, but happy you get a couple of deviations. A couple don't follow the rest of the herd, but pick their own way across the jagged mountainside. Sure, there's the risk that they might have to turn back, defeated, and go in shame back to the rest, but if the herd gets it wrong, they get to laugh and point at them, and become very rich little sheep/ goat things. Such people were now gathered round the staff room table, and they'd just received some very bad news…
"What d'ya mean you suggested a new computer system!" Scarlet screeched, her face in keeping with her name. Reeve flinched as Heidegger received the wrath of Scarlet.
"I mean, I went to Rufus' office, knocked on the door, and when he answered it I said 'Mister President, I would like to suggest that a new computer system would increase productivity,'" Heidegger explained patiently, with a naive grin on his large, round face. "I don't see why you're all so upset! It'll mean there's a lot less work around here for us!"
"Exactly!" Screamed Scarlet, receiving a lot of worried looks from the new soldier recruits.
Tseng caught Heidegger's confused look. He sighed and began to explain. "Now. I know this is a hard concept for you, but I want you to think. Ok? Can you do that for me?" Heidegger scowled, and Tseng carried on. "Now, think about the little piggies on the farms. Now when a mommy piggie has lots of little piggies, and one of them is too little, she squishes the little piggie, yes?"
Heidegger nodded. He'd still not quite recovered from when he learned that on that documentary last week. He'd cried his beady little eyes out for days…
"Now," Tesng continued, with no less sarcasm, "Imagine that we're all little piggies. And imagine that Rufus is our mummy pig. And imagine that size is actually how much work we do. Ok. If a new piggie, say, a computer, comes and starts doing our work for us, then we wont have as much work to do ourselves, so we'd be smaller. If we get smaller, mummy pig, Rufus, will squish us! We don't want that, do we!"
"We-well, no!" Heidegger replied, catching on.
Reeve let out a small whimper. "I'm gonna loose my job! No! I can't lose my job! How will I feed my wife and kids!"
"… You don't have a wife, and I sincerely doubt you have kids!" said Tseng.
"Argh! The stress is affecting my long-term memory! Damn you, Heidegger!"
A sadistic grin spread across Tseng's face as Reeve began to nervously bite his nails.
"Well. I understand now why you are all so mad at me. But fear not! I, Pop-" Heidegger cut off quickly, "Heidegger, will solve this tricky predicament!"
"Really? Oh, thank goodness!" Reeve sighed, relieved.
Tseng, however, does not miss a trick. Just as Heidegger thought he had got away with it… "What were you going to say?"
"Err…" Tseng smirked as he watched the large man break into a sweat. "Nothing. It was just a slip of the tongue!"
"No, you definitely went to say something. I'm good at telling this kinda thing. You get used to it with my job."
"Well, you must be mistaken."
"I don't make mistakes. Tell me what you were going to say, or…" Tseng whispered something in Heidegger's ear. His face paled, and the others decided they didn't want to know what had just been said.
"Fine. I was going to say… Poppy."
"… Why Poppy?" Reeve asked.
"… It's my first name." Heidegger blushed.
"… Hahahahah!" Tseng burst out laughing.
"Kyahahahaha!" Scarlet joined in.
"Hey, Scarlet! You didn't laugh when I told you before!" protested the now red blob that is 'Poppy'.
"I know," Scarlet said, sadly, " It's a condition I have. Whenever I hear laughter I also am doomed to laugh. It's called Ihavetolaughwhensomeothersodlaughs-itis."
"That's pretty heavy!" Reeve said, sympathetically.
"Hmm, a rather nasty ailment," Tseng began, sympathetically, "Is it hereditary?"
"Yes! How did you know?"
"I figured with the hyena blood in you…"
Once again Scarlet turned red with rage.
Reeve began to edge toward the door, evidently trying to escape before Scarlet exploded in the staff room. "I'm, err, going to buy my wife a birthday present!"
"Reeve, for the last time, you are not married. You are merely an addled employee that has spent too many hours worrying about what'll happen if Cloud discovers Cait Sith is a spy and pours his lemonade in it's electronics!" Tseng added with a sadistic glint in his eye. It was the sort of glint that made you wonder what was being planned "Personally, I'd have given up long before this! I'd throw myself out of a window or something!"
"You're right! I've wasted my life!" Reeve wailed, despairingly, and dived out of the 49th floor window. They all peered over the edge, wincing as he hit the pavement with a small 'Splat'.
The Turk's leader brushed his hands together, looking satisfied.
"Tseng, you killed Reeve! Aren't you even a little troubled by that!" Scarlet screeched.
"Meh," Tseng shrugged, "It's like I said: you get used to it with my job."
A/N:- Heh, so, what do ya think? Should I do another chapter? Should it be banished to the seventh layer of hell? Please review and give your opinion! Thanks for taking the time to read!