'Level 5: Companion Rehabilitation and Sick Bay'
A melodious voice announced as the lift doors parted. Sanji stepped into a brightly lit hallway, white walls and white tiles. The strong smell of disinfectant made the warm, underground air heavy. Sanji felt like he was spreading an infection in such a clean place simply by walking through.
A short man in a lab coat bustled by him and quickly entered a room to his left. Sanji slowed and peered through the small glass panel. In the room, a few doctors were surrounding a cylindrical, glass tank, filled with green, bubbly liquid and containing a Companion. A bird-like type, floating in a peaceful stasis in the jelly like liquid.
"Subject ready for awakening," spoke one of the doctors. Sanji could just about hear her voice muffled through the closed door.
He watched the stout man pass a folder full of papers to another doctor, as the tank slowly drained of it's liquid. Lights flashed on monitors around the room. The tank glass walls slid up and the Companion sank to a kneeling position on the metal platform.
She was beautiful, as all Companions are created to be. Her long, blue hair fell in damp and tangled waves over soft, milky skin of her face and shoulders. Her wings, white as soft snow, folded gently by her sides. Her eyes flickered open, brilliant blue, and staring at the people before her.
"Good-morning," greeted the short man that passed Sanji earlier. "How are you feeling?"
The Companion looked down at her wings, shaking out the moisture of the tank liquid from her feathers.
"Can you stand?" The doctor continued.
She looked up, then down at the metal platform, slowly rising to stand on shaking, webbed feet.
"Good," the doctor prompted. "Can you walk?"
The swan looked unsure again, but took a hesitant step down from the platform, claws gently tapping on the tiled floors.
"Very good," the doctor paused as his colleague approached the creature and wrapped a blanket around her thin shoulders. "Can you speak?"
Again, the swan's delicate features creased in a frown. Wing tips fluttered to her throat. Her lips parted. "Uh… uh…"
"Your name is Vivi," said the doctor. "Can you say 'Vivi'?"
"V… Vi-"
"Sanji!" A call from down the hallway ripped Sanji's attention from the room.
He glanced up to see Law at the other end, half way through a doorway, waving him over with a heavily tattooed hand. Sanji greeted him with a nod, jogging down to meet him.
"Thought you'd left me for starved," said Law, holding the door open.
Sanji shuffled in. "Like I could ever do that. Here you go, you lazy bastard. Bon apetite and all that shit."
He placed the bag of food on the metal table in the middle of the lab and sat down on a stool beside it.
"Tell me you brought some coffee with you?" asked Law, rummaging through the bag like an animal.
"You're too lazy to even make your own coffee?"
Sanji resisted a smile when Law found the flask he'd tucked in between the Tupperware. The doctor's weary face light up like he'd just found Christmas.
Law poured coffee into the little cup before turning back to Sanji. "Now, there's a difference between busy and lazy, my friend."
"Yeah, busy is when you're too lazy to do something so you fill your time with something else. Big difference."
Law scoffed but said nothing more as he started to tuck into his food. In the silence that followed, Sanji heard the distant beeping of machinery. He began to roll himself a cigarette, with practiced precision, after years of being lectured by Law, not leave a single piece of tobacco or spec of ash in his lab.
"So," Law interrupted his idle thoughts. "Robin's friend not good enough for you?"
Sanji cringed. He'd forgotten all about that previous conversation this morning. Sighing, he bit his cigarette between his teeth, leaving it unlit and glancing at the high ceiling.
"No, it's nothing like that. Just… Can't we just give up on this dating thing for a while? You and Robin have been going at it for months."
"Yes, because you clearly need a life."
"Fuck you, I have a life."
Law shrugged. "When was the last time you left your flat?"
"I was at work yesterday."
"Okay, when was the last time you left your flat, and not gone to work?"
"Well, I…" Sanji trailed off as his mind drew blank.
Law smiled. "I'll tell you when. December fifteen. Three fucking years ago. I had a breakthrough with my reptilian breed of Companions research and we went out into the mainland to celebrate."
Sanji rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, the breakthrough. You're never gonna put that down, are you?"
"I'm not gloating, it was a phenomenal experiment and all, but the point of the matter is: you have a small circle of friends, all of whom happen to be friends with each other too. None of us have seen you outside of work or outside of your flat ever since that time."
Sanji sat still as the past three years of routine flashed through his mind. Law was right.
"Well," he began, running a hand through his hair. "Work's been busy for me too, you know."
"Yes, I can imagine injecting fluids into tomato plants can be very time consuming."
Sanji frowned, about to contort, when Law continued over him.
"Look, we're just concerned that you might be turning into a social recluse," he said, wiping off his mouth with a napkin after finishing his meal. "We thought, you know, best way to get you out would be to find you a nice lady. Or man. Significant other. Someone you deem worthy enough to leave the house for, unlike your friends."
Sanji chuckled and shook his head. "Geez, your such sap. You mean this dating thing was just an elaborate plan to get me to go out drinking with you guys?"
"You know, I've asked you straight up a couple of times in the past, and you've always turned me down. And I go over to yours and find you reading or some shit. What's up with that?"
"Well if that happened, then I must've been too tired to go out."
Law shook his head. "Alright, we're getting off topic here. We've already established you're a recluse. But, not to worry. It's my turn now, and have I got quite the line up for you."
Sanji's laugh died in his throat. He glanced down at his shoes, tapping irately at the metal bar on the bottom of the stool.
"Hey, can we give this thing a rest for a while?" he asked with a shrug. "I'm not… I'm not really up for seeing anyone right now."
Law stared at him. "You sure? I know you're still kind of like a closeted bi, so I have more women on the list. There's a lovely lady who works over in the weapons department, Franky introduced us."
Sanji shook his head. "Not up for it."
He could feel Law's eyes boring into him. The doctor crossed his arms. "You used to be such a lady-killer. Remember those days?"
Sanji chuckled. "Back when we were young idiots, you mean?"
"Yeah, when you'd try so hard to get with every woman in sight. It was like watching a game. And finally, there'd be one chick who'd swoon and it was like we all won, watching you take her home."
Sanji laughed, feeling a tension drain from his shoulders. "Didn't realise I was such a spectacle."
"So what happened to that skirt-chasing bastard?"
"I wasn't skirt-chasing, I was wooing," Sanji replied. Thing gets boring after a while was the thing he failed to say.
Law was quiet for a while, as he linked his fingers together and leaned forward on his elbows on the table. "Okay. What about plan B?"
Sanji sucked in around his unlit cigarette. "Oh no, things are never good when Doctor Trafalgar Law has to resort to plan B."
"Now, I know you usually shoot me down whenever I suggest this..."
"No," Sanji's eyes widened and he sat up straighter. "No, no, no."
"…But, just hear me out…"
"No way."
"…I'm just saying…"
"We are not going through this again."
"…Maybe you're not looking for a human kind of companionship."
Sanji glared at him. He breathed out long and heavy through his nose, careful not to drop the cigarette at his lips.
"I'm not looking for anything."
"It'll be free!" Law cut him off. "It's Company policy. One Companion per person, and you get to choose too. If you don't like it, you could always return it. Or, better yet, I can make one for you. Genetically altered and everything to suit your tastes."
"Nothing's changed since the last time you tried to sell Companions to me. I just… I don't like the idea of having this… creature following me around. It's weird!"
"It's not weird. And wouldn't that be handy? It could help you with the cooking."
"I don't need help with the cooking."
"Or the housework, or whatever! Or, you know, when nights get lonely."
Sanji rolled his eyes. "See? That there is why I find this weird. Isn't it… Doesn't the idea of having someone- something- genetically created for the sole purpose of loving you feel a little… empty?"
Silence again. For a moment, Sanji's thoughts were distracted by a distant metallic clutter, like someone dropping a tray of scalpels onto the tiles. Then Law laughed.
"Aw, man, you're such a drama queen," the doctor managed to say between spurts of laughter. "'Doesn't it feel a little empty?' Pffft. What are you, living in the Pre-Hush era?"
Sanji scowled, looking over his shoulder briefly as another clang resounded from the hallway. "Well fuck you too, Doctor heartless."
Law wiped a tear from his eye. "Look, man, we made Companions for the sole purpose of filling in that little space of emptiness in our lives. More than three-quarters of the world own a Companion. Everyone from family homes to corporate industries. They're biological, highly intelligent and a lot more emotive than those tin-cans of the last century."
He paused and drained the last of the coffee from the flask. A flustered voice muffled outside the door, fading down into the hallway. "Just let me enter your details in the database, at least," Law pressed further. "We can look through the matches. You might find one you like! Lemme guess, you're a cat person, right?"
The door to the lab burst open before Sanji could answer. A short, chubby creature with dark beady eyes and white fur crowning his head and framing his childish face, bustled into the room. He gave Sanji a curt nod in greeting before stopping beside Law.
"D-d-doctor Law," the little creature stuttered, white bear-like ears on the top of his head twitching nervously. "Th-the specimen from J-japan is here."
Law waved a hand without turning to face his Companion. "Yeah, yeah, just bring it in, Bepo." He turned his attention back to Sanji. "So, what do you say?"
Sanji shook his head. "I can't."
Faint yelling issued from the hallway outside.
"You won't know unless you try," Law spoke over the distant din.
"I don't want to try."
Bepo yelped when there came another crash and a low growl. "D-doctor…"
Law continued to ignore him, raising his voice as the commotion outside got louder and closer. "C'mon, I've seen the way you've checked out the feline Companions before. You definitely don't hate them."
Sanji's mind kept switching between the noises he could hear outside, and his conversation with Law. "No, thank you. Just, no."
"Doctor Law!" Bepo's voice escalated into a feral growl, gaining the attention of both men.
"What?" Law yelled in return.
The bear looked dejected and cast his eyes down on the floor. Before he could mutter an apology, the doors burst open and a thunderous roar shattered the atmosphere of the room.
Sanji slipped from the stool and fell to the floor in an attempt to get up. Four burly men, all yelling to each other in the Eastern tongue, barged into the room, struggling under the weight of a large, metal cage they held up between them.
The cage held a Companion, a feline type as far as Sanji could tell, but bigger. The cat thrashed in the cage, growling and hissing, ears pressed flat against the side of his head, and tail whipping about in fury. He threw his weight at the iron bars and lashed out between them, trying to swipe at his captors. The cage rattled at every movement, and as the men took it further into the room, Sanji saw that several of the metal bars dented outwards.
Bepo fled from the entrance and dove behind the safety of his master, as Law stood up from his stool too, staring wide-eyed and looking more awake than any amount of coffee could make him.
"Where do you want him?" one of the men blurted out.
"Put him here," said Law, hurrying to clear the metal table. Sanji pulled his eyes away from the creature and leapt to his feet, helping Law move sheets of paper and small utensils.
The men managed to bring the cage over just as the creature caught one of the carriers with a claw. The man let go of his end of the cage, sending it crashing onto the table. He backed up against the wall, clutching a heavily bleeding arm.
With the impact of the crash, one of the bars snapped loose, and the large cat flung himself at the gap, squeezing through. The men backed away from the cage, all yelling and waving their arms in panic. Sanji, took a step towards the door, but no further. Fear bubbled up inside him, driving him to flee. But awe kept him rooted to the spot.
"We'll need to sedate him," Law had to yell to get his voice over the roars and growls. "Bepo, get the tranquilizers."
Law reached for the gun. A metallic snap and clang pierced the air. The cat broke free. He bounded with frightening speed up to Law and swiped the gun from his hands. Pushing the lanky doctor to the ground and roared at his captors, before making for the door.
"Don't let him out!" Law yelled.
Sanji leapt between the lab doors and the raging cat. He halted, and Sanji held his breath. He was tall, and broad. Big. Verdant green fur bristled from ear-tip to tail. Green striped with jet black. Bared fangs, ears slanted downwards, the cat scowled at Sanji. Amber eyes locked on to him, narrowing to dangerous slits.
"Move," he uttered in a deadly baritone, tail twitching.
Sanji's skin prickled. He could feel a shake reverberating from his gut, to his back and crawling all the way up his neck and across his arms. He swallowed, shook his head. The cat's eyes widened, and the fury turned the burning amber into raging red. His claws extended. The low rumble of a roar started to vibrate in his chest. And all Sanji could think about, as he stood on the sharp edge of this creature's rage, was the tiger staring at him in his dreams.