People in white coats crowded the area. A mass of science and grotesque corruption created a sterile and medicinal stench in the room.
It bothered Reno.
He tilted his head up, his head reflecting off the side of the pale blue tank. He hated being here. His wounded coworker was the only reason he would even dream coming to such a superficial hell hole. His connections here allowed him to gain entry into an area he was supposed to be restricted in. In fact he was not supposed to know of its existence. But the President could only hide things from the Turks for so long.
Blue eyes avoided looking at too many things. Being surrounded by things that can chill normal people to the bone, he wanted to be ignorant to.
Silver smoke rose from his lips as he held the cigarette gingerly in one hand. The tube he stood before held the form he had saved. His eyes did not hold lust but almost a near awe at how fragile his coworker appeared.
White skin seemed to glow in the eerie tank light, while her red hair gave a ghostly contrast to the color. Her hair floated about her head wreathing it. Her thin, well-toned body appeared corpse like as she floated in the tube with arms out in a seemingly embrace.
The more Reno looked on at Cissnei in the tube, the more unnatural it seemed to him. She seemed but a lifeless doll with a mechanical mask trying to pump the magic of life into her. Bubbles rose and popped around her.
He inhaled on his coffin nail.
"Sir you cannot not smoke that in here!" A female scientist glared at him, and was even more irked when he stubbed it out on her clipboard. It left a bit of ash and burn mark on the delicate wood.
"How long will she take to heal?" His voice was not soft but more of a business tone. "We want her back to work as soon as possible."
"Well, I am not sure. The papers say she will be here for a while." She was rifling through the papers on the clip board. She seemed to be hiding things from him in her tone. "Her mako poisoning is pretty bad; we have been trying different treatments on her." Reno did not like the sound of the word treatments.
Hojo came by taking the papers from the female, without even sparing her a glance. His eyes trained on Cissnei and seemed to grin to himself about an old personal joke. This was the twisted god of this hell hole. "Shouldn't you be elsewhere? We are very busy and I don't need you snooping around here hindering progress."
"Yeeeah. Suuuure." Reno always hated him especially after the Nibelheim incident. Hojo just gave him the creeps. Reno spared a last glance at Cissnei. He wondered if she was getting an ounce of peace in her induced slumber.
"Must I repeat myself?" Hojo was getting impatient.
Reno found his feet and started walking toward the exit. He tried to quell the angry fire raising in him. Something about this place told him not to trust it, and he was not going to.
Hojo had been sharing a private joke to himself. It was here they started experimenting with the first test subject, Genesis.
Decked in his usual white jacket and circular glasses, he set down the papers on Cissnei.
He took a DNA sample from this Cissnei girl. If his suspicions were correct he wanted to test an interesting hypothesis. Of course the fact of using human life in his experiments never bothered him. Anything to progress scientific advancement.
He stared at the new fresh specimen. She was still healing, but the one scar on her side did not seem to want to disappear. It seemed to reopen for no reason once in a while. Hojo wanted to speculate on how she got it. When the medics explained it to him, they said she was caught on a jagged rock in the process of resurfacing. Hojo strongly doubted a jagged rock injury would reopen like this.
He readjusted the glasses on his face as he leaned in closer to the tank to take a closer look at the wound. He wondered if Jenova cells would speed or hinder the process. It definitely made stronger and faster soldiers, but he did little research in the healing process.
He checked the monitor on the tank. Her brainwaves were sky rocketing but her body status read normal. It was as if she was having a nightmare in her coma. This was definitely different in most patients with her condition. He wrote down the readings, and increased her oxygen levels to see if that would help her mental state. Soon enough the DNA results would come in and her body should be prepared for the experiments.
"Professor Hojo, Experiment one-nine-three is acting up. We may need to sedate him if his activities continue to rise."
"Very well, do it. But make sure the other medications he is on does counter attack the sedative. If that happens we could have a wasteful bloody mess on our hands."
The assistant bowed out and quickly went on her way to do the task at hand.
Hojo looked up at the time. Deepground was clearing out fast. His assistants were going home for the night and all the experiments were quieting down and sleeping. 'Lazy…' was the one word that went through his head. There was so much to do that it irked him that they needed to 'rest' right at this moment. There had been rumors that some of the experiments were plotting to defy the Restrictors. It was rubbish to his ears. They would never be able to figure it out. The scientist had to figure out ways to restrict Weiss and Nero, and came up with chaining Weiss to the reactor and Nero wore a mako suit that bound his hands. But they were able to retrieve the barely living Genesis and it was here they revived him again. Hojo began to walk down the aisle of enlarged test tubes toward where Genesis was.
Genesis too would make a full recovery, no longer undergoing the degradation process. He seemed more youthful here in his sleep. Hojo had to be careful with this one. The experiments could start a revolt over their 'brother'.