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Chapter 5
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"So." Tseng shuffled some papers. "Your name."
"Cloud Strife." Cloud replied. He'd learned that it usually didn't pay to try to keep it a secret. Hel, his younger self might not even exist if he had somehow replaced him. The timelines were getting quite tangled.
"And were are you from?"
"Nowhere." Cloud said mysteriously. "And everywhere." Tseng looked annoyed with him. "I travel a lot."
"Where were you born?"
"Not sure." Cloud replied honestly. Usually Nibelheim. And his consciousness certainly had been. But who knew if this body was? Or if it had been formed whole from the Lifestream or some shit.
"Age?"
"Uh..." Cloud tried to think. Had he seen a mirror recently? "No idea."
Tseng was definitely irritated. "Previous occupations?"
Cloud looked at the man suspiciously. What kind of question was that? "I delivered stuff for a while. I killed monsters. Explored."
Tseng scribbled on the papers. "Any allergies?"
"No...?" Cloud said slowly.
Tseng finished writing and looked up. "And which department of ShinRa would you like to apply to work in?"
Cloud stared at him with his mouth hanging open. "Wha...?"
"What department."
"You are offering me a job?" Cloud asked incredulously. Tseng looked as irritated as Cloud was shocked. Tseng must not be the Director yet to be dealing with something like this. Unless they were putting a higher priority to Cloud than he probably should warrant.
"We certainly cannot let you go. Not with the documented conversation for which we took you in. And more especially after you proved a match for Sephiroth." Tseng tapped the papers on the desk to settle them. "Do you need a list of departments? Or would you like to be assigned to one based on your known talents."
"Hel no!" Cloud exclaimed. He could be assigned to the Turks. Or worse- SOLDIER. Or worse still- the Science Department. "Uh... the Space Program." Cloud blurted.
Tseng looked surprised.
Though more because he didn't know the other departments than for any other reason, the idea definitely had merit. Ability to help fight Meteor, or at least have more knowledge about the rockets, and to get JENOVA the hell off the Planet. "I've always been really interested in rockets." Cloud lied. "I would love to get involved with that." Although... that would mean that he was actually trying to Save the Planet again. He sighed. What the Hel. It was a longshot anyway. Why not try. And spend vacation living off of ShinRa's dime.
"I am not sure that there is enough funding in that department to fund a new position." Tseng said cautiously.
"You asked what I wanted to do." Cloud replied reasonably.
The Turk shrugged and wrote it down. "Sign here, please."
Cloud read over what Tseng handed him. It appeared to be a contract. "I don't really want to sign this." Cloud confessed. It had the same sort of language that had robbed him of his freedom in too many lives.
Tseng pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well we were willing to offer you a position in SOLDIER..."
"I am not joining SOLDIER." Cloud said flatly.
"Which is why you need to sign the general application." Tseng explained calmly.
Cloud growled.
Tseng shrugged.
"Could I be... an independent contractor or something?" Cloud wheedled. "I could float between the departments.
"I'm not authorized to make those sorts of arrangements. I will have to meet with some people from Human Resources." Tseng said finally. "And I would probably leave a large portion of the negotiations between you and them."
"Well, alright." Cloud certainly wasn't fond of paperwork... but it was something different certainly. He hadn't ever played hard to get with ShinRa before. It was working out surprisingly well, considering.
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Genesis paused before he turned the corner. He could hear the voices of two Seconds. They had apparently used his disappearance as an excuse for a 'vacation'. Though no one had actually followed him when he ran off, but going to Wutai and disappearing had become quite fashionable. Admittedly, it may have been rather justified, considering he, Angeal and two different Science Department heads had taken some of the SOLDIERs as test subjects and turned them into clones in their more insane moments.
"I'm not saying that he should definitely come back if he is really that strongly opposed. What I am saying is that now that enough of us are coming back in and the Firsts are back and seemingly loyal... it's only a matter of time before they start ordering us to go after the missing people. And I do not want to be ordered to hunt down my friends."
"They wouldn't make us do that for a while. The whole thing is so unstable now. There are only a handful of SOLDIERs that stayed and stayed loyal. Would they really start another cascade of desertions by pulling that shit? I hear they were going to send the General after the Commanders and he was going to refuse. What if he had gone? What if he had deserted? They backed off pretty quick on making him go. And they were still trying to get the Commanders to come back, not just terminate."
"Ok, fine. But that's the Firsts. Jack is a Third. They are way more disposable than the precious Firsts. Especially with people coming back. And especially how they ramped up the recruitment and promotion in order to replace all the 'vacationers'. If anything we have an excess of Thirds. Some of them are even being fast-tracked to Seconds with the individual attention. It might not be one of us to go after him. They would probably prefer someone like that who has never given them reason to question."
"That... could be true." The second voice sounded less confident and now a bit worried. "But he's really against this war. His mother's side is Wutai and his girl's family is stuck over the border."
"This is such a fucked situation. Why couldn't the Commanders just stayed away? Then ShinRa would have had way bigger fish to fry. Now it's just an unholy mess."
Genesis crept back the way he had come and detoured around the two Seconds. But not before he had made a mental note about the two.
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Cloud was no lawyer, and he was sure there was some clause in the contract he was signing that was going to come back and bite him in the ass... but he had been at the shit end of enough loop holes that he thought he had caught the glaring ones. As far as Cloud could tell, he could be assigned to any of the departments, he was guaranteed an office and access to the rocket information, and he had the right to refuse any request (though he had only three vetoes a month, he had gotten them to let those vetoes roll over to the next month, expiring at the end of the calendar year. For this he had traded some vacation days...)
"And we have an apartment waiting for you Mr. Strife." The human resources aide filed the papers and tucked away the various input devices for his fingerprints, retinal scan, etc. "You can follow Suzanne. She has your keys."
"Thank you." Cloud stood, tucking his copy of the contract under his arm so he could shake the woman's hand.
"I hope you find everything to your liking."
"I'm sure I will."
And at first glance it did seem to be a very nice apartment. It was only one floor up from all the company rec equipment which he had full use of. Though not SOLDIER level of facilities, it was certainly nicer than doing chin ups on tree branches and lifting large rocks in between killing monsters.
Something in Cloud's pocket made a buzzing noise, startling him. He grabbed at it and pulled out his PHS. "Hn. A new assignment already?" He read the details quickly. A group of monsters to be cleaned out of Midgar. With Genesis as his observer. "What part of 'pacifist' did they not understand?" He grumbled. "Probably the whole idea." He finished with chagrin. Well, the orders told him to meet at Genesis' office, so he made his way down to the SOLDIER floor. He wasn't entirely sure where it was, but he had a room number and the hallways were well marked. It wasn't like he didn't know the tower really well for various reasons.
"Who are you?" Two SOLDIER Seconds stopped Cloud in the corridor.
Cloud was a bit shocked to see them. They were some of the ones that usually ended up being a part of AVALANCE. "I have orders to go see Commander Rhapsodos. Something about a nest of Poodlers."
"You're not a SOLDIER." The one said suspiciously.
"You are correct." Cloud replied. He waited patiently for them to get out of the way or make their point.
"Why are you going on missions?" The other one said hostilely.
"I honestly have no idea. I already told them I wouldn't kill anything." Cloud sighed. "I'm not about to break that vow for a bunch of low level crustaceans." First cracking shells, then cracking the skulls of certain silver haired General. It was a slippery slope.
"You don't kill?" The first Second looked rather interested.
"Not anymore, no. Did you know that most monsters will get so bored with you that they will literally throw items at you if you just sit there and stare at them long enough?" Cloud asked.
"Uh... no?"
"Well, they do! And you can train up almost as easily with gym equipment, though less efficiently, granted..." Cloud mused. "And I swear I got experience fighting Sephiroth yesterday. If only he would take me up on the whips..."
"Sephiroth?"
"Whips!?"
"You don't think it would be fun?" Cloud asked in surprise. Ever since the idea had occurred to him he was obsessed. It would be slightly more reach that Masamune but with the added flexibility of the weapon. Plus he, at least, had never used one before so that in itself would be a huge learning experience. Hopefully Sephiroth hadn't used them before either since then the battle would be really one-sided. "Well I have to go. See you two around."
Genesis' office ended up being in the same suite as Sephiroth's, which Cloud had been to before... or in the future... or something. Anyway, he knew where it was.
"Let's go." Genesis pushed past Cloud before he could even step fully into the anteroom to the office suite.
"Alright." Cloud followed after the redhead. No poetry? No smirk? The guy looked preoccupied and sort of annoyed. "I think I'm feeling neglected." Cloud mused.
"What?" Genesis snapped.
"Nothing, nothing. Just commenting on the lack of serenading with poetic lines. I almost had it mesmerized, too. Now I think it's slipping away." Cloud mused.
Genesis turned and actually focused on the blond. He blinked in confusion.
Cloud smirked and slipped through the door and jumped down the stairs.