imagined that it had something to do with the win and win situation the interviews provided. If the applying
person received the job he or she was looking for then good for that person, they would be able to pay their
bills from now on. If they didn’t, then the nervous and uncomfortable people still waiting in the lobby in
rented suits would all have a shot at it. It was sort of like watching evolution in real time, as the best and
brightest would get to eat that week, and the bottom of the ladder would not.
“Have a seat, have a seat,” Martha’s boss started as usual, his form entrance into meetings, even though his
was definitely not interviewing the standard issue sort of guy. Though she couldn’t quite place it, Marsha
had known as soon as she saw the hard cut looking man sitting in the lobby that he would end up with the
job. There was just something in his eyes that told you that this entire process would just be a formality.
“It’s good to meet you. Parts of this session will be recorded for our files, is that OK with you?”
The young man who she had just left into the office must have nodded or answered in some other non verbal
way, as Martha heard nothing in the form of a response, but the boss continued just the same. “So, for the
records, this is a job interview for a night maintenance position. My name is Lionel Brooks. And the hopeful
future employee’s name is...”
There was a pause, the young man apparently not instantly catching the cue for him to speak up. When he
cleared his throat and did so, however, it wasn’t in the rushed and almost embarrassed tone that one would
expect from an unemployed kid who had just screwed up- instead it sounded almost calculated. “Drake
Garrison.” That was it. No nervous titter at the end, no personal message, no weak attempt at a joke.
Professional. For some reason, when Marsha imagined the hand shake she knew would be coming, she
imagined the self proclaimed Drake to be on the firmer side of it.
***
Reno wasn’t really feeling that professional, at the moment, despite the secretaries impressions of him. With
his earrings removed, and his usual unkempt hair combed straight back in an almost anal retentive part, he
felt about as in his element as he would at the bottom of the ocean. Luckily he hadn’t needed to find any new
clothes for the event, but he had need to pick up a belt, and actually tuck in the undershirt he wore under his
typical blue jacket. His new look paired with the purposely lowered chair he was sitting in and the lazer like
gaze of Mr. Brooks was enough to make any less prepared man break out in a twitching sweat.
“I think I’m going to cut right to the chase here,” Lionel said, “you look like a very able bodied man and
intelligent man. Even if higher intellectualism isn’t your thing, you could make more money in our shipping
division handling crates than you will mopping our floors, and the hours are better. Why apply to be a
janitor?”
As he spoke, Reno noticed the mans hide slide over to the tape recorded and snap it off, securing only the
introduction on the device. Granted, that probably made for a lot more free conversation, but sooner or later
someone was actually going to need one of those tapes and Mr. Brook’s penchant for cutting corners was
going to have him lined up to catch some serious hell. Inwardly, he shrugged, the imminent firing of the man
interviewing him wasn’t Reno’s concern. In fact, this could actually work out to be pretty beneficial, as any
slip ups he made would have no chance at being caught at a later date.
“Because when you’re shipping and handling crates, you still take orders.” Reno explained simply. “You still
have some hardass breathing down your neck and telling you what to do. Cleaning up is simple, as long as
you know how to handle the spills. You take the same path through the same building at the same times,
every day. Its quiet, it needs to be done, and it gives me time to think.” His prepared speech was delivered
perfectly, with the speed and succinctness of a quick thinker but not the rush of a rehearsed Hollywood
hack.
He watched Mr. Brooks reaction closely, well aware that he’d just given the type of answer that could
completely offend a man, or that would convince him you were perfect for the job. The slight upward curl at
the edges of Lionel’s mustache laden lips told Reno that this case would turn out to be one of the latter
occasions.
“I see,” Mr. Brooks said nodding, “very nice, I can respect a man who knows what he wants in his job. I
guess we should move on to some of the routine questions. Marital status?”
“Single,” Reno said simply, moving nothing on his face except his lips.
“Children?”
“None.”
“What days would be best for you to work on?”
“Any days that end in ‘y’, sir.”
That last answer gave need for an obligatory pause in the place of a laugh, as Lionel had heard the joke so
many times before that it had really ceased to mean anything at all. “I see,” he responded, after the pause had
ended. “Is there anything else about yourself you think I should know?”
Yeah. I managed to slip two hand guns past your metal detectors at the doors, and I fully intend to use them
both if you try to pretend I’m not getting this job, Reno’s inside snarled. Besides, these walls are too dull,
they would look a lot better painted red. His outside smiled. “I won’t let you down, sir,” he ended up
replying.
“You speak as if you’ve gotten the job,” Lionel said, feigning irritance but clearly impressed with Reno’s
confidence.
“Have I?” Reno asked, answering with a question.
“Yes, I believe so.” Lionel shot him a big smile filled with capped teeth, that he reserved for just such an
occasion as this. It was a look that said he wouldn’t remember your name five minutes from now, but for
now he was your best friend, and thus had done you a very big favor. Reno returned it, tooth for tooth.
“As long as you have no problems with starting as soon as next week.”
“Next week?” Reno asked. “Sir, I have no problem with starting right now.”
Lionel nodded. “I think you’re going to fit in very well here in Helixon.”
Reno’s smile tightened painfully. “Me too sir,” he answered, “me too.”
***
Sometimes he considered running head first into the bars, just to see what would happen.
Don’t get the kid wrong, of course, he’d been fighting those sort of urges his entire life, but that didn’t mean
they never happened. Even his medication, which they were practically ODing him on lately, couldn’t get rid
of that little voice in the back of his head that told him it didn’t matter what he did, he could always start
over, he could always just reset and try again. There’s always a continue, right?
But instead of running, he would do what he seemed to do best- draw. It was a skill he never knew he’d
even controlled until he’d suddenly had a lot more time on his hands and a lot less to do with it, so one day
he’d just scooped up a pen and pencil and went to work. Shading, tints, highlights, he didn’t know what a
single one of those words meant in an artistic sense, but he knew how to do it without a moments pause.
Depth, horizon lines, it was all a second nature.
They’d been nice enough to give him some paper, but of course they wouldn’t allow him anything that
slightly remembered a pencil, or God forbid a pen. Apparently they were worried the teenager was going to
someone escape his cell and go on a stabbing spree with his writing utensil, as if that wouldn’t horribly
smudge the graphite tip. So he’d taken up charcoal drawing, as of roughly one week ago. It wasn’t as
creatively allowing, but it did make for some interesting scenes with the warden when he’d decided to take
his skills onto the stone wall of his cell.
There was always some yelling, a big production, and then the warden would give him some water and a
sponge to wash it off with, which Tyler always did without a backwards glance. They never took his
charcoal though, for whatever reason, so the second he was in the open again he would go to work on a
new masterpiece. This vicious cycle kept him entertained to the point he wasn’t found lying face up on the
floor, with the indention of a steel bar in his skull, anyway.
So it was that he was drawing when his father’s friends came to visit him, looking very properly sympathetic
and concerned. The blonde with the spiky hair was particularly somber looking, but Tyler could tell with a
single glance that his pain was coming from somewhere else in his life, and he was just trying to apply it to
the situation. The red dog looking creature was probably the only of the four that hadn’t actually patronized
him, even though the big black guy had at least been more subtle about it than the brunette with the big tits
was when she’d let a single tear slide down her cheek.
“I can’t believe they aren’t letting you out on bail!” she kept repeating, her chest bouncing with the
exclamation in a way that made Tyler wonder how in the hell she was even standing upright. Nature really
liked to throw people curve balls, he guessed, with mako, the duck-billed platypus, and racks that defied
imagination.
“Because they’re pretty sure this is the only jail time I’m going to be able to get,” he’d answered. “I’m being
tried as a minor, which means the sentence will only last until I come of age... unfortunately my cell mates
who will miss my bright face every day, that happens very soon. I guess they harped this to the judge, who
decided that a few weeks of claustrophobic hell was better than none at all.”
“You aren’t used to it?” Barret had asked bluntly, almost catching a thrown elbow from the crying girl.
Personally, Tyler had no idea what she was pretending to be so upset about, its not like he didn’t know that
they knew he’d spent the majority of his life in an asylum. Hell, they’d been there when he had gotten out.
“Not really,” he answered with a shrug. “I had all the space I needed in here,” he pointed a hand shaped into
a pistol at his head, and pulled the thumb trigger, “but now they’ve walled that in too. You’d be amazed
how chemical dependent we really are, my imagination pretty much gets its head blown off when I’m taking
these pills.”
“That’s horrible!” Tifa had exclaimed.
“That really depends the sort of things you’re likely to imagine,” he’d replied, stony faced, and they changed
the subject.
“What I don’t understand is how they don’t have any suspects or leads,” spiky hair said, speaking up from
the back of the group, his brilliant blue eyes clouded. “Someone should have witnessed something
somewhere, even if it was only a group of people following him around or shooting him dirty looks!”
“Who’s to say they didn’t?” Tyler asked with legitimate confusion.
“No one’s come forward,” Cloud answered, as if that meant anything.
“Well, yeah, I know that,” Tyler said shortly, “but that’s pretty irrelevant. You really think people are going
to report in on an off sight or a hunch when the risk of getting butchered is at the level it is right now? You
over estimate people.”
Cloud had blinked in surprised at that one, apparently taken aback. “Do I over estimate the Gonganan legal
system?” he asked, “Since I always thought they were pretty top notch, and to the book. Reporting little
things like murders of government officials is pretty much on the first page of that book, isn’t it?”
“Government pull,” Red said from the floor, and inwardly Tyler sighed with relieve. His teeth tended to
grate together a lot less when the quadruped talked and the other three listened. “The same in Costa Del Sol.
This almost guarantees a connection... two attacks on a group of men and women hated by every single
underground criminal on the Planet isn’t impossible, but the extent to which both of these efforts have been
covered up is mind boggling. It has to have been the same person.”
Cloud seemed to crunch that in his head for a moment, and then turned to Tyler. “What did you see that
night, or hear? Anything that would help in securing the identity of the people responsible for this?”
“That depends,” Tyler said, “do you know any guys who use swords longer than they are tall?”
The four froze, and Tyler suddenly realized they might actually have an answer to his rhetorical question.
“Do you?” he repeated, raising his eyebrows.
“...maybe.” Cloud said, and swallowed. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”
“There isn’t much of a beginning to start from,” Tyler replied, “I was home at the time, but I didn’t hear a
thing besides something very heavy hitting the ground- that something turned out to be my father, which I
learned when I ran into the room. He never screamed or anything loud enough for me to hear, which means
the cut across his throat had probably been the first one. Someone really, really fast, I guess.”
“Sephiroth.” Tifa whispered, her voice pained, in Cloud’s ear. Tyler heard her.
“The silver haired guy?” he asked in surprise, “I don’t think so.”
“Why- wait.” Cloud paused, backtracking in his mind. “How do you know what color his hair is? You two
never met, did you?”
“Actually, we did,” Tyler said. “The day I got out of the padded palace... you know, the second time. He
was just sort of standing on the road that lead away from the place, and dad looked really shaken up about
it... he went out to talk to him, and then came back, seemingly over his issues. He brought me out and over
to the guy, who did a lot of talking about a favor to the Planet and everything. It was sort of boring, but I
remember his name- I mean, its not exactly ‘John’, or anything easy to forget like that.”
Tyler finished, then halted for a moment, licking his lips. “But he certainly didn’t seem like he had any active
drive to hack my father into pieces. Besides,” he added suddenly, cutting off Cloud as he opened his mouth
to reply. “When the guy walked, I could hear it, he doesn’t exactly tread lightly. I would have known if he
was in the house.”
“Well I want you to know we’re doing everything we can to find who did it,” Tifa said, putting her hand
through the bars and over his in what she no doubt though was a reassuring way.
Sorry, Tyler thought, I’ve already got some guys hired to take care of that. They wear blue suits and kill
people for a living, but somehow I think they’re better men for the job than you boy scouts. However
managed to do what they did to my dad would probably be a little much for you to handle.
“Thank you,” he said outwardly, and a smile that was almost genuine crossed his lips.
They stayed for a little while longer, but when it became apparent that he wasn’t exactly plagued by
loneliness before they’d arrived and that he had no new information to give him, they’d left. Spiky hair and
the black guy with a hand shake, the dog with a nod of its head, and the girl with even more plastic tears.
When they’d gone, he started doing push ups, just to see how many he could get through before his arms
gave out.
Idly, he wondered what would happen if he somersaulted off the top bunk in his cell without using his hands
to catch himself on the way down.